Roberto Assagioli is arguing that true health encompasses physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being.
By Roberto Assagioli, From ULTRA, The Journal of Spiritual Studies and Research, July-August 1930[1] Original Title: Salute. Translated and Edited With Notes by Jan Kuniholm[2]
Abstract: This essay by Roberto Assagioli emphasizes the idea that God’s will for humanity is health, not illness. It critiques traditional views that glorify suffering and illness as divine visitations, arguing instead that true health encompasses physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Assagioli advocates for a new mysticism that recognizes pain as temporary and encourages individuals to seek harmony and perfection as part of their spiritual journey. He stresses the importance of removing obstacles to divine action within us, suggesting practices such as silence, recollection, and the use of affirmations to align with God’s will. Ultimately, he asserts that true health is already present in our spiritual selves and can manifest in our lives through conscious effort and divine cooperation.
God’s Will In Me Is Health (not illness).
God’s Will Is Done — I Am Full Of Health.
This “affirmation of power,” or mantram, identical in form to others printed in our magazine,[3] is very effective in arousing the highest and most powerful healing energies in us. But in order for it to be fully effective, it must be understood and felt vitally. It may therefore be useful to examine and comment on it in order to try to bring to light all that is implied in these short phrases.
The Will of God in me is HEALTH (not sickness).
This first part of the “affirmation” clearly shows the fundamental difference between the new and the old mysticism; or more precisely, between the new conception of spiritual life and certain traditional religious attitudes.
The latter were based on a correct principle, that of the purifying function of suffering, but they exaggerated it and took it to extreme consequences. In them we find the error into which we often fall, that of confusing the means with the end. Thus, people came to passively accept every limitation and every illness, and even to desire and seek them. This path of pain, which culminates in the admirable generosity of “mystical substitution” (practiced in certain religious orders, one of the best-known examples being Saint Lidwina of Schiedam),[4] may be a heroic vocation for certain exceptional souls, but it is not necessarily an ideal suitable for everyone, nor is it the only good path to spiritual fulfillment.
The new mysticism, on the other hand, while not denying the function of suffering, places it within its proper limits; that is, it considers pain as something temporary, as a concomitant of the process of physical and moral regeneration, and insists instead on the glorious goal, on Perfection, on the Beatitude that is man’s heritage, which already exists in him as a potentiality that urges to be realized.
These different conceptions give rise to opposite practical attitudes. In the past illness was considered a “visitation of the Lord,” and it was considered a duty to endure it patiently until God saw fit to remove it, and those who invoked pain and evil in order to participate in the sufferings of Jesus and his Passion were praised. The new spiritual movements consider illness to be the effect of some violation of the law of harmony, balance, and perfection; as a weakness and an inadequacy; as an invitation, a call from God to shake us out of our passivity, to develop our latent powers, to reaffirm above all material and psychological conditions our supremacy, our dominion as children of God.
According to the new mysticism, God wants us to be perfect, therefore healthy, strong, harmonious, and happy. Therefore, desiring and seeking these qualities is not only not considered selfish; it is considered not only permissible, but truly a duty. If this is God’s Will for us, if He wants us to be healthy, strong, harmonious, and happy, it is our duty to do everything in our power to carry out His Will.
From this point of view, each of us can therefore affirm without reservation, with all our heart, joyfully: “God’s Will in me is HEALTH (not sickness).”
But in order to fully realize this truth, to ensure that HEALTH truly manifests itself in us, we need to understand well what is the Health that God wants for us, we need to know how God wants us to be healthy.
It is easy to assume that God’s concept of Health is very different from that of ordinary man.
In fact, simple physical well-being, the absence of ailments, cannot constitute the ideal of health that God has for us. That well-being is a state we share with animals; indeed, in this respect, animals are superior to us. It is a state over which we have no control, on which we cannot rely, which we do not truly “possess:” it is an unstable balance of vital forces, which the slightest external circumstance or psychological disturbance can alter. This is certainly not a “health” worthy of the children of God.
In reality, true health cannot be merely physical, but must also be emotional, mental, and spiritual. Passions, crises, emotional storms, and moral breakdowns are real psychic illnesses. Likewise, errors, preconceptions, misunderstandings, mental barriers, and the uncontrolled flow of ideas are defects, disorders, and diseases of the mind.
It is obvious that the elimination of all these disharmonies, as well as the full possession and control of ourselves, is part of Health understood in its broadest and truest sense. And yet a human personality that has a well-controlled body, emotions, and mind — but that closes itself off and rebels against God’s will; that from pride in its powers, closes itself off in rigid individualism, that denies all communion of love, all solidarity with universal life, and attempts in a vain dream of personal omnipotence to impose its will on everything and everyone — [that personality] cannot be considered healthy. And in fact, the terrible reactions provoked by such a separatist attitude sooner or later demonstrate with tragic evidence how insane that attempt is.
Therefore, the ideal of Health that God has for us, and that we must have for ourselves, is that of Integral Health, which encompasses all aspects and all levels of our being: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. And note that this includes not only the conscious area of our personality, but also all the unconscious elements that form the overwhelmingly predominant part of it.[5]
So much for the extent of health. As for its quality, we must realize that, as we have mentioned, it cannot consist in a mere balance of existing forces; indeed, it can be said that this is practically unattainable because, as we all know from painful experience, there are many forces within us which we cannot reconcile and harmonize as they are. And we cannot do so because they do not want to — because by their very nature they are drawn to continually try to assert themselves and overwhelm each other. Therefore, if we want to achieve true Health, those forces cannot remain as they are; they must be transformed, elevated, sublimated, so as to become capable of coordinating and uniting in a harmonious synthesis.
This implies a true regeneration.
The substance, the very matter of the physical body changes and is transmuted: the gross elements are eliminated and replaced by more subtle and refined elements. The same happens, in parallel, with the emotions and the mind. Thus begins and unfolds the process that ultimately leads to the creation of the “spiritual body,” the “body of glory” spoken of by St. Paul and the Gnostics.
This is therefore an integral, dynamic, and spiritual conception of Health. Health is the realization of the Spirit, the affirmation of the divine within us. In this sense, we can and must make our own the beautiful and profound words of the Psalmist: “God is my Health.”[6]
* * *
But how can all this be achieved? The very magnitude of the task could give rise to a sense of discouragement. This might be justified if we had to accomplish this work with our limited personal strength. But this is not the case, and it would be a serious mistake to believe so. It is not we personally who must and can achieve this Health, as with every other spiritual quality and attribute.
It is God in us who does it. We must not “do” but “let do.” Our task is to remove the obstacles that prevent divine action — first and foremost our separative, selfish, disharmonious, rebellious will.
This is the great teaching given to us by the true sages of all times, and with particular emphasis by Lao-Tse. He taught Wu-Wei, which is not “inaction,” as some Westerners have misunderstood, but rather surrender and obedience to the inspiration and action of the Spirit within us.
The Light on the Path[7] repeats this in clearer and more explicit terms:
“Stand aside in the coming battle, and though you fight, do not be the warrior.”
“Seek the warrior and let him fight in you.”
“Take his orders for battle and obey him.”
“Obey him, not as if he were a general, but as if he were yourself, and his words were the expression of your secret desires; for he is yourself, yet infinitely wiser and stronger than you . . . ”
” . . . you are finite and subject to error; he is eternal and secure: he is the eternal truth. Once he has entered you and become your champion, he will never leave you completely, and on the day of great peace he will become one with you.”
Now we can and must ask ourselves:
“How do we actually seek the warrior?” How do we achieve Wu-Wei?
We must create the necessary conditions; that is, we must use the methods that are well known in theory but generally neglected in practice: recollection, silence, and listening.
For if we continue our usual life of extroversion and the dispersion, and consumption of our best energies to achieve external goals, if our attention is always turned outward, how can the inner warrior take hold of us and work within us? If we do not silence the tumultuous and discordant voices of the personality, the subtle voice of the Spirit is stifled; if we do not question Him and listen to Him, He does not speak to us and we do not understand Him.
It is therefore necessary to practice regular, patient, persevering exercises of recollection and silence. This is not active mental meditation — although that is useful for other purposes — but rather establishing contact with the Spirit in silence and allowing it to work within us.
Another very effective practical method is that of negations and affirmations. We need to train ourselves and watch our states of mind — every thought, feeling, emotion, impulse, sensation; and be ready to negate all those that are not spiritual in nature: critical, divisive, pessimistic, depressive, disharmonious, painful.
But denial should be immediately followed by a corresponding affirmation: that is, counter a pessimistic thought with an optimistic one; a hostile feeling with a movement of sympathy, etc. This is a real reversal, a change of sign and direction, a reversal of polarity. It is not an easy task at first, but with practice it gradually becomes easier and gives surprising results.
It is also good to use positive affirmations independently of negations, by pronouncing dynamic phrases, “Words of Power,” or mantras. These must be repeated many, many times. The immediate practical, the truly magical value, of repetition is not yet sufficiently recognized. It is necessary to permeate the unconscious and transform it.
Therefore, it is advisable to repeat tirelessly, with constancy and faith. The result will amply compensate for the good will and considerable effort.
Finally, let us see in what sense the last part of the statement is true:
“God’s Will is done. I am full of Health.” We can affirm this with sincerity and faith, even while we still feel disturbances in our bodies, even while disharmony remains in our souls, if we realize that God’s Will is done and that health is already ours in the spiritual levels of our being — which are the only permanent ones — in our true Self. It only needs to descend and express itself, to be implemented in all levels of the personality, down to the body. This can be accomplished more or less easily, requiring more or less time (sometimes, following an energetic and effective “realization,” it happens instantly). But the fact remains that health is not to be sought outside, or laboriously with our personal strength. We already possess it “in Spirit and Truth,” and recognizing this helps us powerfully to become healthy in every aspect of our being.
With this preparation, we can resolutely set about using the methods indicated, opening ourselves to blessings, and receiving the gifts that God has ready for us when we have become worthy and capable of receiving them and making good use of them. In this way, we can cooperate powerfully in the great work of freeing humanity from the enormous sum of suffering, limitations, errors, and the weight of discouragement and despair that oppress and torment it.
Let us therefore attain, for ourselves and for others, TRUE HEALTH; dispelling all darkness of error and doubt with the radiant Light of Truth, composing all disharmony, overcoming every obstacle with the irresistible Power of the Spirit.
[1] Facsimile reproductions of issues of Ultra are available online from the Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Roma. —Ed.
[2] Editor’s interpolations are shown in [brackets]. Ellipses . . . are found in the original document. —Ed.
[3] See Ultra, June 1926, p. 64. —Original Publisher’s Note.
[4] See J.K. Huysmans: Sainte Lydwine de Schiedam, Paris, 1901. —Author’s Note. Lidwina (1380-1433) was a Dutch mystic who is thought to be one of the first documented cases of multiple sclerosis. She suffered a serious injury at the age of 15 and became progressively disabled. She fasted frequently and acquired a reputation as a healer and holy woman. Town officials attested that she lived with complete lack of food and sleep. —Ed.
[5] These ideas of the new spiritual currents are developed extensively and effectively by Adela Curtis in her books: The New Mysticism (1906-1918); Of Meditation and Health (1910) and The Way of Silence (series of 3 booklets, published in London – Kensington, School of Silence). —Author’s Note. Adela Curtis (1867-1960) was a mystic, teacher, healer, and prolific author and founder of religious communities in Britain. —Ed.
[6] As far as this editor knows, no verse in the Bible says exactly, “God is my health,” but some verses convey this meaning: Psalm 73:26 “God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever;” Psalm 147:3 “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds;” Psalm 103:2-3 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits —who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases.” —Ed.
[7] Light on the Path: A treatise written for the personal use of those who are ignorant of the eastern wisdom, and who desire to enter within its influence, was written by M. C. (supposedly Mabel Collins, a.k.a. Mrs. Keningale Cook [1851-1927]) and published in 1885. It is still in print. —Ed.
