Abhaya: Christian Science practitioners try to make the sick person conscious that no sickness exists, that sickness is not true. I don't know how they do it, but I have seen people being cured by this method. I would like to know how they do it.

Sri Chinmoy: I do not know what they actually do, but from hearing your question, I wish to say that in India, also, there are people who advocate dwelling on the perfect aspect of God. God the Brahman is perfect. They say that if God is perfect, then His children are also perfect. Each individual has come from a perfect God, so we must also be divine and perfect. It is the positive way of thinking.

The other way is Neti, neti — "Not this, not that." This approach is used quite often in India. "This" is not the imperfect world we see, but the perfect world that we are in. We are not imperfect, we are not undivine, we are not ill. We are something else. We are perfect and whole. So, in India also, they are dealing with the perfect aspect of the Creation, of the Universe, of the Cosmos.

If one uses a mantra or the repetition of a sacred syllable, if one constantly says that he is not the body; he is the soul ("I am the soul, I am the soul, I am the soul"), then definitely the qualities of the soul will come to the fore. The individual is constantly saying, "I am not the body," so his own consciousness will be in his soul. His soul's qualities will come forward.

Similarly, if someone says he is not a sinner, he will stop being one. But if he says, "I am a sinner, I am a sinner," he will be a sinner all his life. Again, if someone says he is not sick, then he may stop being sick. How? What is the opposite of sickness? He is invoking the perfection of the body. He says, I am not sick, I am all right." So the more he can convince his conscious mind that he is not sick, the more he gets sound health and a sound body.

This is the result of a positive action. If he can dwell on the positive aspect, then the negative aspect which has created the problem will disappear. Even an ordinary person, when he is suffering from a headache, can say, "I don't have a headache, I don't have a headache." He may stop suffering from a headache or he may reduce the pain.

Now, unfortunately an ordinary person may not be successful in doing this. Even though he says, "I don't have a headache," the headache may not leave him. Who can actually do this successfully? A real spiritual person who has been meditating for many years and knows what will-power is. I am not speaking about ordinary will-power. We use that term very often, but we do not actually know what true will-power is. A person who can utilise spiritual will-power, one who can exercise will-power can consciously convince the mind that he is not sick. But an ordinary person cannot do that. An ordinary person can repeat, "I am not sick, I am not sick," but who is it that is saying this? It is the body. Therefore he may not get the satisfactory result.

A real aspirant who has been meditating for many years knows that he is not the body, so when he says, "I am not sick," he also says, "I am not the body." He knows that he is not the body, but the soul. If he has been in the spiritual life for many years, and he knows what deeper meditation is, and if he has developed spiritual will-power, which, like a muscle, is developed by continuous exercise, he can get results from the constant utterance, "No, I am not the body. I am not sick."

To come back to your question, Abhaya, about a month ago, on our return to New York from Puerto Rico, one of our psychotherapist-disciples brought to us two of his patients. He had given them this kind of positive thinking: "You are not sick; you have no anxiety, etc." For a month or so, he had given them all kinds of positive suggestions to follow. He thought that by applying his own will-power, he could make them feel that they did not have any inner problems, any inner anxieties. Unfortunately, it did not work, for the reasons which I have just given to you. One has to be very experienced in meditation and one has to have considerable spiritual growth to do this type of thing.