Questioner: Pranam Acharya Ji. Somewhere I read in Osho’ s book that the body is sick, it will not help you to progress more in the spiritual path, because most of your attention will be on the body then you will not progress like that, is it so? So then if I am sick then I cannot achieve a freedom or…?
Acharya Prashant: It is not absolutely true. There is nobody who is absolutely sick in the body and there is nobody who is absolutely physically healthy.
People are healthy in degrees, similarly, people are sick to various extents. Now it depends on the extent of your inner resolve, how much weightage you want to give to your sickness. There might be somebody who would be perturbed by the common headache. Oh! I have a headache I cannot live truthfully... Why did you miss your daily reading? Because I had a headache…
And there might be someone who is very, very sick physically and yet decides to not to deviate from the path of Dharma. It depends on the depth of your love. In fact, physical sickness is a good way to test your resolve. Episodes of physical sickness are occasions when you can truly test how much spiritual mettle you have. When all is hunky-dory then one can develop the illusion that he is the most determined spiritual seeker. But one fractured bone and all determination vanishes.
So, that is the reason why Dharmik literature is full of unbelievable stories where people have fought holy wars carrying their severed heads in their hands, somebody has fought for many days without a drop of water. Somebody has stood on one leg for an entire year or many years, fasting and praying.
