Do we have a social responsibility towards people who have dedicated their lives towards alleviating the suffering of the whole human mankind, whereby leaving their own kins and family vulnerable to the uncertainty of life ?

Questioner : Pranams to Sadhguru. I am Dr.Mahadevan and I work at Coimbatore Medical College. I have treated more than 5,000 HIV patients so far. My problem is, whenever my patient dies it takes 2-3

days for me to recover from that shock. I am burdened by these deaths.How to come out of it this burden? My second question is: Can we do anything for them to have a spiritually glorified death?

Sadhguru:  Just now somebody was talking about hospitals and doctors refusing to treat HIV patients even at the time of delivery and situations like that. So, we certainly need Mahadevas like you.  It is extremely important that doctors, social workers or an HIV patient who has taken the responsibility of leading the associations or people who are doing good work in the society are taken care of well. This is something that as a nation we have neglected.  A few years ago someone came up to me and asked: “You have taken up all this work. You are making young people stand up and do the same. What is the use? Do you know what happened to Mahatma Gandhi? Even his own children could not go to school.

 

                                              If Mahatma Gandhi’s children did not go to school, it is not a shame for Mahatma Gandhi. It is a shame for all of us as a nation that we did not take care of the children of a man who gave his life for the nation. We did not even take care of his children, by sending them to school and nourishing them as necessary.  It is extremely important that you remain in good condition so that you could work much more efficiently. However deep your involvement may be, still you have to go to the next person lying there.  So it is extremely important that you remain in good condition. For this I would like to invite you to take a program at the Yoga Center which will definitely empower you to go through these situations without being either burdened or callous. Please come and go through the program.To be involved and not entangled is something that is essential for people to be effective in life. Because people are afraid of entanglement, they talk about detachment. If you are detached you will not know life. Only in involvement you know life. People are afraid of involvement because they do not know how to be involved but not entangled. So bringing a huge sense of involvement within everybody without entanglement is something that needs to happen. This involvement without entanglement needs to happen not just to a doctor, a socialworker or to an infected person. It has to happen to everybody in the world. That is the basic essence of my work.

                                        When there is no fear of entanglement you will throw yourself into anything without hesitation. This hesitation is the cruelest thing on the planet. We definitely don’t want you to suffer from that.  Now, about bringing a spiritual dimension to somebody who is in the process of dying, as a doctor you have seen people dying various ways, of various diseases, old age or whatever. Almost 90% of the people in this world die with some disturbance, suffering and struggle. Very few people die peacefully and even fewer people die joyfully and extremely few people die blissfully.Even if we cannot create blissfulness, creating peacefulness is definitely possible. But it may not be possible to create that at the last moment. When the person is a little more conscious and capable, we can bring a simple yogic process into his life,we could teach him something and that would be best.

               

Is the Society, which is the embodiment of the individuals like us, hostile to people affected by HIV Aids ?

Photo Image : Sadhguru serving a meal to those affected by HIV-AIDS after the Sathsang. 

Questioner: My name is Vadivu. I have been living with HIV-AIDS for the past seven years. There are hundreds of thousands of people who are infected with HIV-AIDS in Tamil Nadu. Many people do not seek medical help eventhough they are aware that they have this disease.They also hesitate to tell others if they have been found HIV positive.  If people come forward for testing, even if they have the disease, they could be treated and made to live longer. Instead, they just suffer and die.What can you say about it?

Sadhguru:  No matter what kind of a person someone is, his life is very valuable to him. Why would he not go for medical treatment to save his own valuable life? This only speaks of the extent of hostility that exists in society. That is why he is prepared to die rather than letting anyone know of his disease.Because there is so much hostility in society towards HIV, people are afraid to even speak about it to others. In addition to suffering from the disease, they are also in fear of being confronted by the question as to how they got the disease.  If one denies one’s illness and keeps saying “I don’t have any disease. I am well,” then it is possible that he or she will spread the disease to many others. If their own lives and the lives of others have to be protected, we have to create an environment that is supportive to them.

People who have this kind of disease become some what weak in every way. If we do not create an environment free of hostility, their state of mind and emotions will be terribly affected. This hostility from the society will be a source of much greater suffering than this disease itself.  In other parts of the world, people with HIV/AIDS have even lived for 15 years or so after their diagnosis. Everybody has to die one day.  Are the other people going to live for 300 years? They too live only for a limited time - maybe a few years more or few years less. If one takes care about how one lives, there is a possibility of going beyond this disease.Much research is being done about HIV/AIDS. Efforts are being made to even create a vaccine for the disease. This is ofcourse important. But in India, the most important challenge is to remove the hostility against the disease. This hostility, thisdisease that the society is afflicted by is much more dangerous than HIV/AIDS

itself. Removing this hostility alone is proving to be a very big task. It is not something which can be removed in a day.

For detailed view on Sadhguru's take on HIV AIDS, visit http://www.scribd.com/doc/44465800/Compassion-Cannot-Choose-Sadhguru