There was a physician in Delhi who used the healing power of sacred words with his patients. One day a skeptical friend came to consult with him. The physician whispered a few sacred words before the patient and said, 'Now you may go.'

This skeptical man said he could not understand how such a method could have any effect on his health. The physician then did something unusual for him: he offended the man, by speaking very harshly to him. The man became very angry and said to him, 'How can you, a physician, say such words to me?'

The physician said, 'I hardly ever do such a thing, and I only did it to prove something to you. If my words can make you angry and ill, they can also cure you. If words can make one ill and upset, they also have the power to harmonize a patient and to put him into a good condition.' What is music? According to the ancient Indian thinkers, there are three aspects of music: singing, playing and dancing.

All three represent rhythm, and all three represent tone in some form or other. And what is the effect of music? The effect of music is to regulate the rhythm of another person, and to tune a person to the music that is being performed.

What secret is there in music which attracts all those who listen to it? It is the rhythm which is being created. It is the tone of that music which tunes a soul and raises it above depression and despair of everyday life in this world.

And if one knew what rhythm was needed for a particular individual in his trouble and despair, what tone was needed, and to what pitch that person's soul should be raised, one would then be able to heal him with music.

One might ask why it is, if music is rhythm, that so often musicians are temperamental and easily disturbed. But is it not beautiful to have a little temperament? Life is unmusical when there is no temperament. A person who does not get angry once in a while does not live. It is human to have all kinds of minor faults, the joy is in overcoming these faults.

There was a time in India when music was much used for healing. It was used as healing for the mind, for the character and for the soul, because it is health of the soul that brings health to the physical body. But healing of the physical body does not always help the soul. That is why the material medical science, though it can do good for some time, does not entirely suffice the need of the patient. I do not mean by this that outward treatment is useless.

There is nothing in this world which is useless, if we only knew how to make use of it. All things in this world are needed, all things have their benefit and use, if we only know how to use them properly. But if a cure is brought about outwardly, while inwardly the illness remains, sooner or later the illness which is buried in the body will come out and show itself.

Once I met a lady who said she had been to many physicians for the complaint of neuritis. She was temporarily cured but it always came back, and she asked me for something that would help her. I said to her, 'Is there anyone in the world whom you dislike, whom you hate, or whose action is troubling your mind?' She said, 'Yes, there are many people whom I dislike, and especially there is one person whom I cannot forgive.'

'Well,' I said, 'that is the root of the disease. Outwardly it is a pain of the body. Inwardly it is rooted in the heart.' Often the cause of illness is within. Although, no doubt, many things are caused outwardly. No single rule will cover everything.

Undoubtedly, as things have changed in the world and materialism has spread throughout the world, this has influenced things, not only in the West but in the East also. The use of music for spiritual attainment and healing of the soul, which was prevalent in ancient times, is not found to the same extent now.

Music has been made a pastime, the means of forgetting God instead of realizing God. And it is the use one makes of things which constitutes their fault or virtue. Still, the remembrance of the ancient use of music remains among the poor in India.

There are healers there, who have a particular instrument of healing on which they play. And there are people who go to them for healing. And by playing that instrument they arouse some special feeling which had become cold and that deep feeling which was buried begins to come out.

It is really the old way of psychoanalysis. . Music helps that patient to express in full the hidden influence which was there. In this way many people are helped without going to a physician. But it is no doubt a crude way of healing.