What is Knowledge : Ch-6-3.

Chapter- 6:- Being in Balance with the World-3.

One of the medical systems in India, known as Ayurveda – very ably propounded by a master physician called Charaka – begins with this interesting doctrine and principle of the organic connection of physical nature with the physical system of the human being.

The illnesses of the body are attributed to maladjustment of the body with the world of nature.

This maladjustment takes place on account of a physical affirmation of the individual as an independent something, unconnected with nature.


Earth, water, fire, air and ether may be said to be the basic building blocks of what we call the world of nature.

Do you believe that you have nothing to do with them, that the five elements are left to their own fate, and we are lords of our own kingdom here?

This is not so.

This physical body of ours is nothing but a form assumed by certain parts proportionately taken from the five elements.

We have in our physical body nothing but what these five elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether are made of.

These are in our body, and these are the substances of our physical body.

So Charaka, the great physician par excellence, makes out that health – at least in the purely physical and physiological sense – is a harmony of the physical constituents of the personality with the physical constituents of the world outside.

We sneeze, we have an ache, we have temperature, we feel excessive heat or excessive cold.

All these difficulties are attributable to the difficulty of our physical and physiological system in feeling any sense of kinship with the world of nature outside.

This is to say a few words about the medical or the health aspect of the relationship between the physical body and the physical universe.

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  .....