Medicine
Shared by Marge DeVivo - written October 13, 1998
My first trip to India (1982) was quite a shock to the system. I was so happy to be there and so miserably sick most of the time. We had been told before we went NEVER to drink any kind of water in India (this was also before they sold the bottled water on the street like they do now). We were told to drink only the soft drinks or hot tea that was boiled. The soft drinks are more like syrup they are so full of sugar. The hot tea has lots of milk and sugar in it; I was not successful in getting the chai shops to leave out the sugar, as they thought sugar was the best part of the drink.
Anyway, not having consciously or purposely eaten sugar for several years, all this sugar, the heat of the day, the lack of liquids I was suffering, or when I did drink a Limca or a Campa cola, I'd go into a sugar thing and my skin would be all sticky, I'd feel dizzy, etc. The dysentery started for me on Air India, leaving New York, after the very first meal was served. It was probably more like "fear" but it had the same devastating effect on my digestive system. This meant I was even more dehydrated.
Each day in Haidakhan, I'd do my best to follow the schedule of ceremony, work, washing my clothes in the river, getting to the one meal a day at lunch time, and the rest of it. Others made it look pretty relaxed and easy; I felt I was lucky to be walking around. To remember the towel, the lota, the sari, the petticoat, the blah-blah-blah of just getting to the river for a bath was overwhelming at times. Then taking the bath in the river without taking your clothes off (that's another whole story separate from this). Anyway, to say I felt "dazed and confused" is an understatement. Yet moving around the ashram, doing what you had to do, was so energizing! It was obvious where Babaji was at any given moment, as you would see faces lighting up and smiles and a little flurry of energy and activity somewhere-- you knew that's where He was at that moment.
One day I got up at 4 and worked until about 9, I then got so sick I had to lie down and I fell into a deep sleep. When I woke, it was past 1:30 p.m. Lunch was at 1, and across the river, so if I didn't RUN, I'd probably miss the whole thing. There were no alternative meals in the chai shops in those days; you got to lunch, or the best you could get other than that was a canned cheese (as I recall, it was pretty bad and tasted more like a can than cheese) available in the store.
I was feeling very weak and exhausted and not at all well, but the thought of waiting until the next day for sustenance forced me to move. I threw on a sari, grabbed a plastic sandwich bag full of vitamins for the day, which I couldn't take on an empty stomach, and headed for the gufa side. This is quite a long haul down the 108 steps, all the way across the river over homemade bridges spanning the many tributaries of the Gautami Ganga. I had to watch the ground beneath me so carefully, just so I wouldn't trip or fall down those steps, that I was at the bottom of the steps when I saw that Babaji was approaching me accompanied by a young German girl in overalls, carrying an umbrella. They were talking and laughing, having a really good time.
When I reached Babaji, we were standing in water, so I couldn't kneel down to touch His feet. Instead, I put my hands together in "Namaste" and put them up to my forehead and said "Om Namah Shivaya" and "Bhole Baba ki Jai!" When I did this, the little vitamin bag was hanging from my hands.
Babaji touched the vitamin bag, and said questioningly, "Medicine?" I said, "No, Baba, vitamins." He again said, louder, "Medicine?" still a question, and I said, louder, "No, Baba, vitamins." He then said much louder, and no question, "MEDICINE!" and He walked away. I was left standing there, thinking "Hmmmmmmm ... I think I'd better take these as soon as possible." I ran and got some lunch, took the vitamins/medicine and I stayed well for the next 4 or 5 days, the longest I was feeling well during the entire 3-week trip.
In a similar story I heard from a friend and teacher, there was a man who was so sick in bed for days that he just could barely drag himself to Babaji to ask Him for medicine. When he got to Babaji and asked, Baba turned to the man next to him (my friend and teacher) and said, "Give him the medicine you have in your shirt pocket." This was puzzling since all he had in his shirt pocket was chewing gum, so he gave the man a stick of chewing gum. The man ate it and was instantly well.
Om Namah Shivaya
Love
Marge DeVivo
