The rich ambitious type A executive had just received a heart transplant. The cardiothoracic surgeon complemented himself for his success and newspapers ran stories about the difficult surgery. The scientific journals lauded his efforts and hailed him as a prospective Nobel laureate. The top executive and his family profusely thanked the naturally proud surgeon as he discharged the patient with these words: “You have a brand new heart now and a fresh lease of life. Go and enjoy life once again as a youth.”
Yet something within the heart of the doctor felt hollow, and as he turned away Nature wept at what she saw. It could foresee the executive’s fresh lease of life. It heard the cry of men working with him and under him leading to more heartaches & nervous breakdowns in others. And the man himself would suffer for though his anatomical heart had changed, his psychological heart was yet the same, – bitter, critical, ready to find fault, full of a competitive hurry and ambition. The new physical heart wouldn’t rescue him from the prison of his feelings and emotions. The fresh lease of life was also a fresh lease to his private hell and the suffering of others. Nature in her wisdom and compassion had decided to release him from the prison and give him not only a new body but also a new consciousness. But man’s proud and ignorant science stood a barrier upon the way.
As Nature lamented, God above and within all things smiled as He saw the future mornings and reassured Nature:
‘One said to man, “know thyself infinite,
Who shalt do mightier miracles than these,
Infinite, moving mid infinities.”
… “For thou, O Splendour, art myself concealed,
And the grey cell contains me not, the star
I outmeasure and am older than the elements are
Whether on earth or far beyond the sun,
I, stumbling, clouded, am the eternal one”.
(Sri Aurobindo: A vision of science)
Admire no doubt the achievements of our material science, if thou must. But appreciate also the greater wonder and miracle of our spiritual science that changes our thoughts and feelings without changing the brain and the heart, changes our consciousness without changing the body, heals us from within as also without, turns disease too into a means for our growth and progress and, makes of death a passage to our immortality.
