As I take the Siddhas hand and they lead me through life, it suddenly dawns on me what a beautiful paradise that we are dwelling in. The divine has made it so perfect that no man can replicate it. Every inch of space has been accounted for and every living thing has a role and responsibility to play. He has drawn the curtain aside and made me stop in my tracks and take in the beauty of his creation.
I used to join others in advising the sick at their hospital bed while visiting them back in those days. Having read much about alternative systems of healing, I would jump at the opportunity and at the very instance someone has taken ill, I vomit all that I learnt to them, subtly blowing my ego too. Then I heard someone talk over the radio, telling the public that when they are visiting a patient at the hospital, go visit them. Do not become a doctor yourself. This came as a blow to me too. For that was what I was practically doing too.
Since that day I got the blow, I go over, say something positive, pray for them and come back. I do not ask how the tragedy happened or how he took ill. Imagine if everyone were to ask him these questions and he were to recollect the tragedy, that would be traumatizing. In the first place he is supposed to forget the incident and work on getting better. I realized that when a patient is under the care of the doctors, we should let them handle the situation. I learnt to stop advising the patient to try other methods of treatment, or advising them on food intake, what they should take and what they are to avoid. In event some treatment or food supplement that we have asked to take goes wrong or aggravates their situation, are we going to take responsibility for it? We would most likely admit that we read it somewhere and move on. The doctors are trained in their respective fields and understand their responsibilities very well. They would have to answer to their superiors if in event something goes wrong. They are held by their medical ethics and shoulder a big responsibility for the patient under their care. It is dangerous practice for us to give bits and pieces of advice without knowing the history or smuggle in and administer alternative medicines while in their care and not opening up to the doctors. These food intake and supplements will show in the blood tests and might alter certain traits in the patient and lead to confusion and wrong diagnostics and treatment on the part of the doctors.
If modern medicine needs feedback from the patient and looks at symptoms and depends on machines to guide them on the patients condition, the Siddhas go even further to the root cause of the ailment that could surprisingly have its beginning in one minute action of ours to another way back some centuries ago in a past life. The Siddha scans through the life of the soul and identifies the wrong doing that had triggered a series of ailments in the patient in current times. They then recommend that we carry out remedies and seek the appropriate medical attention or treatment. The Siddhas have advised us accordingly showing us the appropriate treatment required for our ailment, at times requesting us to get all the medical attention from the hospitals while at other times forbid us to do so but instead seek alternative means for certain reasons. The Siddhas at times have worked hand in hand with doctors using the modern day facilities and know how in new breakthroughs in the field of medicine, administering them to combat the illness.
On another note we are often told what food to take and what to avoid, blaming the food for all our troubles. The phrase "We are what we eat" is common usage now, used to instill fear in people and getting them careful on what they consume. I personally realize that as I age I tend to have certain discomforts that I understand comes with age. But I am told that it is due to certain food that we take and am asked to avoid.
Then Ram Dass writes about his encounters with his Guru Neem Karoli Baba. Among them, he mentions the following episode at https://www.ramdass.org/ram-dass-gives-maharaji-the-yogi-medicine/
In 1967 when I first came to India, I brought with me a supply of LSD, hoping to find someone who might understand more about these substances than we did in the West.
When I had met Maharajji (Neem Karoli Baba), after some days the thought had crossed my mind that he would be a perfect person to ask. The next day after having that thought, I was called to him and he asked me immediately, “Do you have a question?”
Of course, being before him was such a powerful experience that I had completely forgotten the question I had had in my mind the night before. So I looked stupid and said, “No, Maharajji, I have no question.”
He appeared irritated and said, “Where is the medicine?”
I was confused but Bhagavan Dass suggested, "Maybe he means the LSD.”
I asked and Maharajji nodded. The bottle of LSD was in the car and I was sent to fetch it. When I returned I emptied the vial of pills into my hand. In addition to the LSD there were a number of other pills for this and that –diarrhea, fever, a sleeping pill, and so forth. He asked about each of these. He asked if they gave powers. I didn’t understand at the time and thought that by “powers” perhaps he meant physical strength. I said, “No.” Later, of course, I came to understand that the word he had used, “siddhis,” means psychic powers.
Then he held out his hand for the LSD. I put one pill on his palm. Each of these pills was about three hundred micrograms of very pure LSD – a solid dose for an adult. He beckoned for more, so I put a second pill in his hand–six hundred micrograms. Again he beckoned and I added yet another, making the total dosage nine hundred micrograms – certainly not a dose for beginners. Then he threw all the pills into his mouth. My reaction was one of shock mixed with fascination of a social scientist eager to see what would happen.
He allowed me to stay for an hour – and nothing happened. Nothing whatsoever. He just laughed at me. The whole thing had happened very fast and unexpectedly.
When I returned to the United States in 1968 I told many people about this acid feat. But there had remained in me a gnawing doubt that perhaps he had been putting me on and had thrown the pills over his shoulder or palmed them, because I hadn’t actually seen them go into his mouth.
Three years later, when I was back in India, he asked me one day, “Did you give me medicine when you were in India last time?”
“Yes.”
“Did I take it?” he asked. (Ah, there was my doubt made manifest!)
“I think you did.”
“What happened?
“Nothing.”
“Oh! Jao!” and he sent me off for the evening.
The next morning I was called over to the porch in front of his room, where he sat in the mornings on a tucket. He asked, “Have you got any more of that medicine?”
It just so happened that I was carrying a small supply of LSD for “just in case,” and this was obviously it. “Yes.”
“Get it,” he said.
So I did. In the bottle were five pills of three hundred micrograms each. One of the pills was broken. I placed them on my palm and held them out to him. He took the four unbroken pills. Then, one by one, very obviously and very deliberately, he placed each one in his mouth and swallowed it – another unspoken thought of mine now answered.
As soon as he had swallowed the last one, he asked, “Can I take water?”
“Yes.”
“Hot or cold?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He started yelling for water and drank a cup when it was brought.
Then he asked, “How long will it take to act?”
“Anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour.”
He called for an older man, a long - time devotee who had a watch, and Maharajji held the man’s wrist, often pulling it up to him to peer at the watch.
Then he asked, "Will it make me crazy?”
That seemed so bizarre to me that I could only go along with what seemed to be a gag. So I said, “Probably.”
And then we waited. After some time he pulled the blanket over his face, and when he came out after a moment his eyes were rolling and his mouth was ajar and he looked totally mad. I got upset. What was happening? Had I misjudged his powers? After all, he was an old man (though how old I had no idea), and I had let him take twelve hundred micrograms. Maybe last time he had thrown them away and then he read my mind and was trying to prove to me he could do it, not realizing how strong the “medicine” really was. Guilt and anxiety poured through me. But when I looked at him again he was perfectly normal and looking at the watch.
At the end of an hour it was obvious nothing had happened. His reactions had been a total put-on. And then he asked, “Have you got anything stronger?” I didn’t.
Then he said, “These medicines were used in Kullu Valley long ago. But yogis have lost that knowledge. They were used with fasting. Nobody knows now. To take them with no effect, your mind must be firmly fixed on God. Others would be afraid to take. Many saints would not take this.” And he left it at that.
– Ram Dass
"To take them with no effect, your mind must be firmly fixed on God." I got the message that be it the intake of food or any action if it is done with surrender to the divine then nothing unwarranted happens to you. It is all a matter of understanding and bringing us to a state where we are in charge rather then have the elements control over us. The Siddhas have achieved this state, and they have drawn the curtain aside so that we could understand the workings of the mind and body better.
As it is I have survived the past 19 years on a vegetable diet, finding at times extreme difficulty in getting it when out in certain towns. In desperate moments I have had a decent meal cooked by others in their kitchen with utensils that had been used to cook meat too. I do not look into the fine prints of the packaging if it had any animal base additives in it. In event I am dumped in the Arctic or Antarctic I would be force to change my eating habits and adopt a fish or meat based menu, although I am told that supply of fresh fruit and vegetables is made available now through ships that dock or when an aircraft lands. Or if I am evacuated with my family to safer and higher grounds in the wake of flood waters rising as is happening in many parts of Malaysia, I would need to survive on canned foods supplied by authorities and charitable organisations, which most likely would be canned sardines and chicken.
Rather than debate on the virtues of vegetarian food or otherwise, we should build compassion in people. Bringing good norms and thoughts of kindness, sharing and giving will inculcate and build compassion in one. By becoming compassionate to another, the thought and feeling extends to all of divine's creation, hence he would abstain from hurting or killing another. The urge to kill and consume meat of another of divine's creation will drop on its own over time.
We have to have our priorities clear in life. What is it we want in life? If it is to earn an honest living, have a comfortable home, family and children then take all that life has to offer. But if you want a life akin to leaving in the monastery or ashram then live according to its rules and regulations.
For every ounce of meat consumed, you will have to go through a grilling process of expelling it from the body. Imagine then if you had taken meat throughout your life the amount of grueling moments you have to go through in purging and getting rid of it from this body. You would have to go through this and many other cleansing processes to transform this body into that of light. So if your intention is to gain this state go for it and adopt all the regimes and disciplines needed for it.