Why Does Someone Get Cancer?
Learn from the cancer death of the Indian saint Ramana Maharshi
Many consider Ramana Maharshi to be one of the holiest men of the 20th century. Why did he fall ill with cancer when he was 68 years old and die of it at 70? Why did other spiritual teachers such as Jiddu Krishnamurti and Nisargadatta Maharaj also die of this disease?
In the following, I analyze Ramana’s life and death and find a perspective that sheds new light on cancer and its mental cause.
Ramana was born in South India in 1879. When he was 16 years old, he experienced enlightenment. He went to the holy mountain Arunachala to meditate there for months. He was so deeply immersed in meditation that he did not notice how he was being eaten by vermin and festering ulcers were forming. A local saint kept his body alive until Ramana awoke from meditation.
Ramana spent the rest of his life on Arunachala. In 1948, they found cancer on his arm. Four operations were unsuccessful. The doctors recommended an amputation, but Ramana refused. He died on April 14, 1950 at the age of 70. Why did he fall ill with cancer? He was enlightened, lived in the middle of nature, and led a life without stress. Yet he died relatively young and agonizingly from this disease.
As a scientist, I am looking for a perspective that provides an answer. To do this, I look at the painter Pablo Picasso, who lived at the same time and led an almost opposite life.
Pablo was born in southern Spain in 1881. He began drawing as a child. At 16, he was sent to Spain’s leading art school in Madrid. But Pablo did not like the education. He left Spain and moved to Paris, a center of art back then.
Cubism, which he founded, was just one of his many stages as an artist. Over the course of his life, he created around 50,000 works of art in ever-changing styles. He lived a very unhealthy life: he smoked like a chimney, drank like a hole, spent a lot of time in restaurants and bars, and worked on his paintings at night. He died at 91 from pulmonary edema and a heart attack.
Two people live at the same time; one under biologically favorable circumstances until he dies prematurely and agonizingly at 70; the other under biologically unfavorable circumstances until his sudden death at 91. Coincidence? No. In the universe, everything has a cause. To find it, we must first understand cancer. Its essence is cell growth; but growth is the essence of life.
Everything in the universe decays over time. A leaf withers. A piece of flesh rots. Stones turn to sand after a long time. Even stars collapse when they have reached a certain complexity. But there is also something that resists decay: life.
Life begins with birth and ends with death. The time in between has three phases. A tree, for example, produces leaves in spring; in summer it remains stable; in fall it loses its leaves. We humans go through the same three phases. As a child, we grow physically and mentally; as an adult we are more or less stable; in old age we wither.
How do these phases come about? Decay is a permanent force that destroys complexity. There must be a counterforce in living beings that is stronger than decay in spring, so we see growth; in summer, it balances decay, and we see stability; in fall, the counterforce is weaker than decay, and we see slow decay.
This counterforce creates complexity – and is called growth. Growth is the essence of life. Life begins with vigorous growth. Over time, this force becomes weaker. When it is exhausted, life ends. Even if growth is not always visible, it is in everything that lives. A life form must grow to be alive.
Since the essence of cancer is growth, it is an expression of life. Cancer is so powerfully alive that it can hardly be stopped. Could it be that cancer expresses our own growth force? After all, it is our cells that grow excessively.
Imagine a water hose. The hose is bursting with water, so to speak. If you open the nozzle, the water shoots out. If you close the nozzle, the water remains in the hose and is compressed by the water that follows. If the hose has a hole, the water squirts out.
Just as a water hose is bursting with water, a life form is bursting with growth force. A life form is, metaphorically speaking, a growth hose. Could it be that cancer develops when the pressurized growth force finds a hole, ie a weak point?
Our body comprises 35 trillion cells. Every behavior results from these cells working together. The cells function like a company, whereby they make three organizational units: employees, departments, and the company. Each cell is an employee. As an employee, it behaves in such a way that it survives. Cells form tissues and organs – the departments. As part of a department, a cell behaves in such a way that the tissue or organ to which it belongs survives. Tissues and organs form the body – the company. At this level, each cell behaves in such a way that the company, ie the body, survives; this includes, for example, the search for food. Each cell, therefore, performs three levels of behavior. Accordingly, we have three levels of physical life within us:
Cell life,
Tissue/organ life (= plant life), and
Animal life.
Since we humans also have a mind, we also have a mental life. This is our fourth level of life.
A human cell performs three types of physical behavior plus the mental behavior. The latter arises from the person’s mindset. I explain this fourth level of behavior in my articles “Why and How You Have Much More Influence on Your Body Than You Think” and “How Your Thoughts Affect Matter.”
Every life form is bursting with the growth force. The purpose of a life form is to express this force so that it fulfills its tasks as part of the whole. In the water hose metaphor, this happens through the uppermost nozzle.
A cell has one level of life. Its only nozzle is cell division. It constantly produces more and more cells.
A plant has two levels of life and thus two nozzles: the cell nozzle and the plant nozzle. The cell nozzle is reduced and only performs repairs. The plant nozzle is open and generates tissue growth, making the plant bigger and bigger. However, there are physical limits. An oak tree, for example, only grows to a height of about 120 feet (35 meters). Any further growth in size only compensates for the losses because of natural decay and is, therefore, not visible.
An animal has three levels of life and thus three nozzles: the cell nozzle, the plant nozzle (which is the tissue/organ nozzle), and the animal nozzle. The cell nozzle is reduced and only performs repairs. During childhood, the plant nozzle is open so that the animal body grows to the right size. After that, it is reduced and only performs repairs. The animal nozzle is open and produces sensorimotor growth; the animal becomes better and better in its sensorimotor abilities, such as flying, swimming, or running. However, there are also physical limits to this. A cheetah, for example, can run at a maximum speed of 75 mph (120 kmh). Any further sensorimotor growth only compensates for the losses because of natural decay. Every athlete knows what we are talking about: you train just to maintain what you have already achieved.
The uppermost nozzle of a human is the mental one. Therefore, our general purpose in life is to grow mentally. If we do not grow mentally, the growth force within us is under pressure and seeks an alternative path. It has three options:
It can break out through our animal nozzle. This would be excessive sensorimotor activity, such as excessive sport or excessive sexuality; or hyperactivity.
It can erupt through our plant nozzle, ie at the level of tissues and organs. That would be excessive tissue growth, such as obesity.
It can break out through our cellular nozzle. That would be excessive cell growth, ie cancer.
Which path the growth force takes depends on our lifestyle and the condition of our body. If it takes the cellular level, cancer will develop in weakened tissues or organs ... ie where the holes are in the hose – metaphorically speaking.
This perspective fits perfectly with Ramana Maharshi and Pablo Picasso. Picasso’s human nozzle was wide open throughout his life. He enjoyed life and never stopped growing mentally. His motto was:
“I always do what I cannot do so that I may learn to do it.”
(Picasso)
Ramana’s human nozzle was closed. He was enlightened; he was no longer growing, and he didn’t care about life. Shortly before his death, he said to devotees who asked him to heal himself, “Why are you so attached to this body? Let it go!”
This fits in with the spiritual tradition in which he grew up. This tradition focuses on the mind and neglects the body. Examples are Indian yogis. There is one who has been holding his right arm up since 1973. The arm has long died. The yogi believes that this exercise brings him closer to God and so he forgoes a physically productive life. However, focusing on the mind and neglecting the body is just as one-sided as focusing on the body and neglecting the mind, which is typical of modern Western cultures.
One might think that Ramana did not care about physical life, but that he cared about mental/spiritual life. But there is no spiritual life without physical life. Spirit expresses itself as matter. I explain the connection between mind and body in my articles “Why and How the Universe Is an Illusion” and “How Your Thoughts Affect Matter” as well as in my book “Consciousness – Its Nature, Purpose, and How to Use It.”
Because of Ramana’s mindset and ascetic lifestyle, his growth force had no substitute channel other than the cellular level. Therefore, he developed cancer. Many gurus and spiritual teachers have a similar mindset, which explains the cases of cancer among them.
Perspectives and theories are neither right nor wrong; they are only more or less useful. If my perspective has any value, it also applies to non-human life forms. And cancer does indeed develop in plants and animals. It can develop in plants that cannot grow to their full size, eg because their location does not provide enough nutrients or light or is otherwise unfavorable. Cancer can also develop in animals that cannot fully develop their sensorimotor abilities, eg pets and zoo animals.
I looked at the lifestyles and life stories of people with cancer, including cases in my family. And I spoke to doctors about my theory. So far, I found my perspective useful and supported.
Make your own observations. Look for examples. Note that people need to grow mentally/spiritually so that they fulfill their purpose as part of the whole. This is often different from the sort of growth the ego has chosen. See my articles “How to Find Your Purpose in Life”, “Intuition is Much More Than Just a Sixth Sense” and “What Do You Need?”.
Finally, three exercises:
Exercise 1: Look at the lifestyles of people who have or had cancer. Compare their physical and mental lifestyles. How much and what kind of growth is or was in their lives?
Exercise 2: Look at people who are growing mentally/spiritually. How does their health match their lifestyle?
Exercise 3: Find trees with cancer. Examine the places where they grow.
Further reading:
Article “Why and How You Have Much More Influence on Your Body Than You Think”
Article “How Your Thoughts Affect Matter”
Article “Why and How the Universe Is an Illusion”
Book “Consciousness – Its Nature, Purpose, and How to Use It”
Article “How to Find Your Purpose in Life”
Article “Intuition is Much More Than Just a Sixth Sense”
Article “What Do You Need?”
See also:
Article “Why Is There So Much Aggression?”
Interesting, and it parallels the experience of my sister in law, who died of cancer. My wife, her sister, has often said that nothing could have saved her because of her mental state from not being able to deal with her anger and despair over things that happened in her family. All that negativity had to go somewhere.
That's fantastic writing. My parents named me "Ramanan" after his name.