The body itself is very complex: millions of cells in a great harmony, functioning in a miraculous way. When you were born in your mother’s womb, you were just a small cell. Out of that one cell, another cell arises. The cell grows and divides in two, then the two cells grow and divide into four. Out of one division – and division goes on – you have millions of cells. And they all function in a deep cooperation, as if somebody is holding them. It is not a chaos; you are a cosmos.

And then, some cells become your eyes, some cells become your ears, some cells become your genital organs, some cells become your skin, some cells your bones, some cells your brain, some cells your nails and your hair; and they all are coming out of one cell. They are all alike. They have no qualitative difference, but they function so differently. The eye can see; the ear cannot see. The ear can hear, but cannot smell. So those cells not only function in harmony, but they become experts.

They gain to a certain specialization. A few cells turn into the eyes. What has happened? What type of training is going on? Why do certain cells become eyes, and certain other cells become ears, and still certain others become your nose, and they are all alike? There must be a great training inside – some unknown power training them for a specific purpose.

And remember, when those cells are getting ready to see, they have not yet seen anything. When the child is in the womb, he remains completely blind. He has not seen any light; the eyes are closed.  A miracle: no training to see and the eyes are ready, no possibility to see and the eyes are ready.

The child does not breathe with his own lungs, he has not known what breathing is, but the lungs are ready. They are ready before the child is going to enter into the world and breathe. The eyes are ready before the child is going to enter into the world and see. Everything is ready. When the child is born he is a perfect human being of tremendous complexity, specialization, subtlety. And there has been no training, no rehearsal. The child has never taken a single breath, but immediately out of the mother’s womb, he cries and takes his first breath. The mechanism is ready before any training has been given: some tremendous power, some power which comprehends all the possibilities of the future, some power which is preparing the child to be able to face all possibilities of life for the future, is working deep within.

Even the body is not completely understood, not yet. Our whole understanding is fragmentary. The science of man does not exist yet. There are five layers of the body i.e., five bodies. You don’t have one body, you have five bodies; and behind the five bodies, your being. The same as has happened in psychology has happened in medicine.

Allopathy believes only in the physical body, the gross body. It is parallel to behaviorism. Allopathy is the grossest medicine. That’s why it has become scientific, because scientific instrumentation is only capable yet of very gross things.

Go deeper. Acupuncture, the Chinese medicine, enters one layer more. It works on the vital body, the pranamaya kosh. If something goes wrong in the physical body, acupuncture does not touch the physical body at all. It tries to work on the vital body. It tries to work on the bioenergy, the bioplasma. It settles something there, and immediately the gross body starts functioning well. If something goes wrong in the vital body, allopathy functions on the body, the gross body. Of course, for allopathy, it is an uphill task. For acupuncture, it is a downhill task. It is easier because the vital body is a little higher than the physical body. If the vital body is set right, the physical body simply follows it because the blueprint exists in the vital body. The physical body is just an implementation of the vital. Now acupuncture is gaining respect, by and by, because a certain very sensitive photography, Kirlian photography, in Soviet Russia, has come across the seven hundred vital points in the human body as they have always been predicted by acupuncturists for at least five thousand years. They had no instruments to know where the vital points in the body were. But by and by, just through trial and error, through centuries, they discovered seven hundred points. Now Kirlian has also discovered the same seven hundred points with scientific instrumentation. And Kirlian photography has proved one thing: that to try to change the vital through the physical is absurd. It is trying to change the master by changing the servant. It is almost impossible because the master won’t listen to the servant. If you want to change the servant, change the master. Immediately, the servant follows. Rather than going and changing each soldier, it is better to change the general.

The body has millions of soldiers, cells, simply working under some order, under some commandment. Change the commander, and the whole body pattern changes.

Homeopathy goes still a little deeper. It works on the manomaya kosh, the mental body. The founder of homeopathy, Hahnemann, discovered one of the greatest things ever discovered, and that was: the smaller the quantity of the medicine, the deeper it goes. He called the method of making homeopathic medicine ’potentizing’. They go on reducing the quantity of the medicine. He would work in this way: he would take a certain amount of medicine and would mix it with ten times the amount of milk sugar or with water. One quantity of medicine, nine quantities of water; he would mix them. Then he would again take one quantity of this new solution, and would again mix it with nine times more water, or milk sugar. In this way he would go on: again from the new solution he would take one quantity and would mix it with nine times more water. This he would do, and the potency would increase. By and by, the medicine reaches to the atomic level. It becomes so subtle that you cannot believe that it can work; it has almost disappeared. That is what is written on homeopathic medicines, the potency: ten potency, twenty potency, one hundred potency, one thousand potency.

The bigger the potency, the smaller is the amount. With ten thousand potency, a millionth of the original medicine has remained, almost none. It has almost disappeared, but then it enters the most deep core of manomaya. It enters into your mind body. It goes deeper than acupuncture. It is almost as if you have reached the atomic, or even the sub-atomic level. Then it does not touch your body. Then it does not touch your vital body; it simply enters. It is so subtle and so small that it comes across no barriers. It can simply slip into the manomaya kosh, into the mental body, and from there it starts working.

You have found an even bigger authority than the pranamaya. Ayurveda, the Indian medicine, is a synthesis of all three. It is one of the most synthetic of medicines.

Hypnotherapy goes still deeper. It touches the vigyanmayakos: the fourth body, the body of consciousness. It does not use medicine. It does not use anything. It simply uses suggestion, that’s all. It simply puts a suggestion in your mind call it animal magnetism, mesmerism, hypnosis or whatsoever you like – but it works through the power of thought, not the power of matter. Even homeopathy is still the power of matter in a very subtle quantity. Hypnotherapy gets rid of matter altogether, because howsoever subtle, it is matter. Ten thousand potency, but still, it is a potency of matter. It simply jumps to the thought energy, vigyanmayakos: the consciousness body. If your consciousness just accepts a certain idea, it starts functioning.

Hypnotherapy has a great future. It is going to become the future medicine, because if by just changing your thought pattern your mind can be changed, through the mind your vital body and through the vital body your gross body, then why bother with poisons, why bother with gross medicines? Why not work it through thought power? Have you watched any hypnotist working on a medium? If you have not watched, it is worth watching. It will give you a certain insight.

Trust is hypnotherapy. Without trust, you cannot enter into the subtle parts of your being, because a small doubt, and you are thrown back to the gross. Science works with doubt. Doubt is a method in science because science works with the gross. Whether you doubt or not, an allopath is not worried.  He does not ask you to trust in his medicine; he simply gives you medicine.  But a homeopath will ask whether you believe, because without your belief it will be more difficult for a homeopath to work upon you. And a hypnotherapist will ask for total surrender. Otherwise, nothing can be done.

Religion is surrender. Religion is a hypnotherapy. But, there is still one more body. That is the anandmayakos: the bliss body. Hypnotherapy goes up to the fourth. Meditation goes up to the fifth.  ’Meditation’ – the very word is beautiful because the root is the same as ’medicine’. Both come from the same root. Medicine and meditation are off-shoots of one word: that which heals, that which makes you healthy and whole is medicine; and on the deepest level, that is meditation.

Meditation does not even give you suggestions because suggestions are to be given from the outside. Somebody else has to give you suggestions. Suggestion means that you are dependent upon somebody. They cannot make you perfectly conscious because the other will be needed, and a shadow will be cast on your being. Meditation makes you perfectly conscious, without any shadow – absolute light with no darkness. Now even suggestion is thought to be a gross thing. Somebody suggests – that means something comes from the outside, and in the ultimate analysis that which comes from the outside is material. Not only matter, but that which comes from the outside is material. Even a thought is a subtle form of matter. Even hypnotherapy is materialistic.

Meditation drops all props, all supports. That’s why to understand meditation is the most difficult thing in the world, because nothing is left – just a pure understanding, a witnessing.  Yoga is balance. Yoga has to be a balance because it is going to be the path to the ultimate unity, the ultimate harmony of all that is.