The two patients

One day a patient came to a very good, well-qualified doctor. The patient was full of anxieties and worries and said, “I am physically and mentally sick. I can’t eat anything, I can’t do anything. I am all the time sick, sick, sick.” The doctor examined him and gave him some medicine.

A few days later, the patient returned and said, “Doctor, your medicine didn’t help me at all. All my ailments have only increased.”

The doctor said, “What kind of ailments have increased? My medicine has no power?”

The man said, “I don’t know. All I know is that your medicine didn’t cure me.”

Finally the doctor said, “Can you tell me what is actually wrong with you?”

The man said, “You are the doctor. You don’t know?”

The doctor said, “I have examined you thoroughly, but it doesn’t seem that anything is wrong in your body.”

“Oh,” said the man, “that means there is something wrong in my mind.”

“Exactly,” said the doctor. “It is in your mind. What is wrong?”

The man confessed, “ In my mind I am full of worries because I owe my lawyer three hundred dollars. My lawyer is now going to sue me. As soon as I think of him, I get nervous. And when I see him, I get frightened. Now that he has threatened to sue me, I will have to give him three hundred dollars.”

The doctor said, “Forget about it. Think that you didn’t have a lawyer and you didn’t take any help from a lawyer. From now on be very happy that you didn’t need a lawyer and you didn’t use a lawyer for anything. As soon as the thought comes that you owe your lawyer money, simply think that it is all imagination. You didn’t have a lawyer, and you didn’t take any help from a lawyer.”

The man went home and convinced his mind that he hadn’t taken any help from a lawyer. Now he was absolutely in peace. He had no worries, no anxieties, no mental headaches. He was absolutely in perfect peace.

Two months later another patient came to the doctor. He was having all kinds of sicknesses. For two months he had had no sleep. He had had only worries and anxieties — physical, vital and mental. The doctor said, “Oh, I had a patient just like you. I gave him lots of medicine, but it didn’t work. So I told him how to give up all his worries and anxieties, and it worked. It will work in your case too.”

The patient said, “Tell me what happened, so that I can also give up my worries and anxieties.”

The doctor said, “I tell you, my advice works quite well. Not long ago a man came in with all kinds of worries and anxieties. I gave him medicine and nothing worked. Finally I said, ‘Tell me what is actually wrong with you. I don’t see anything wrong in your body.’

“He said, ‘I owe my lawyer three hundred dollars, and now he is bothering me all the time.’ So I told him to convince his mind that he didn’t owe his lawyer anything. Look, he listened to me. Now he is not at all worried. He does not think of his lawyer. He is at perfect peace.”

The second patient said, “Oh, he is at perfect peace. That’s why I am full of perfect worries. I am his lawyer. He won’t admit that he owes me the money. When he sees me, he has no fear. He feels that nothing is wrong. He discards my letters. He challenges me and tells me that he does not owe me anything. Then he bravely goes away. True, his worries have gone. They have all entered into me!”