(SPEECH IN  ‘INTERNATIONAL COETHEN EXCHANGE OF EXPERIENCES 2009’)

 

Namaste to everyone.  I am thankful to the DZVhA for giving me this opportunity to be with you today.  To me who has been with Homœopathy for over 50 years and experiencing its unique healing qualities every day, my visit to Germany in these programmes is a way of expressing my gratitude to Father HAHNEMANN for bequeathing such a great principle.   HAHNEMANN said that Practice of Homœopathy as taught by him is a ‘salutary and blessed business’ –‘ein heilbringendes und beseeligendes Geschäft’ (Preface to the Organon VI).  Daily experience for decades and daily reading of the Organon and other works of HAHNEMANN including several personal letters (given in Part II of Richard HAEHL’s work, as also in the separate volume STAHL’s Briefwechsel zwischen HAHNEMANN und BOENNINGHAUSEN, etc.) has convinced me that Homœopathy is not just a therapeutic methodology but it is a way of life.  The principle that ‘little’ will do for even the great, a serious killer disease does not need an expensive remedy, the small will do, meant that  to live healthily is inexpensive indeed; the millions and billions that are spent in concocting medicines for diseases mostly created by man himself, could be well spent to feed the millions going hungry.  Homœopathy has proved, to me at least, that one can live happily (and happiness indicates good health) with less and less, that qualities like Anger, Fear, Selfishness, Hatred, Jealousy, etc. etc. are all – indeed they are serious pathologies at the root of many serious diseases – and therefore need to be cured.  In the Chapter regarding Protection against Infection, in Friend of Health (1792),  HAHNEMANN said “. . . excess in venery, anger, grief and care, as also over-exertion of the mind of  all sorts, are great promoters of infection.” How far are we successful in taking all these criteriae and how much we follow these has to be assessed by honest self-assessment only.  First these must begin with the Homœopathy doctor himself/herself in day-to-day life and see the big difference in his/her prescriptions.   We need not quarrel or compete with any and every other system of medicine.  Let each go its own way.  No need to criticise or fight.  Let us remember that Homœopathy is the opposite of everything ‘general’ in Medicine – I would like to draw your kind attention to HAHNEMANN’s Preface to the Organon I edition.  He took a different road and went farther and farther away from the conventional Medicine – “In this investigation I found the way to the truth, but I had to tread it alone, very far from the common highway of medical routine.. . . .  The farther I advanced . . . . led me away from the old edifice . . . . .”    and that has made the difference (please recall American Poet Robert FROST’s  “The Road less Travelled”).  May I also draw your kind attention to HAHNEMANN’s ‘Socrates and Physon’ wherein he mentions of EUMENES the Physician whose ‘happiness is in doing good’ and who “seeks out the miserable” persons needing his attention.  Our duty is to help persons w h o  n e e d  s u c h   h e l p   m o s t.  And they are not the rich and obese.  The Taoist Philosopher of the 12/13 Century, Chang San Feng said “Medical Science can make a Nation lively, and it can also make a Nation ill.  Medicine can give people life, and it can kill people.“  (Homœopathy is an exception; it gives life and does not kill = KSS)  “It is necessary to be careful about its application.  . . . . . .  The finer the  learning of sages becomes, the humbler they are, the loftier their virtue becomes, the more modest they are.  This is the way physicians should be too. . . .  They should not slight themselves, mislead themselves, or deceive themselves. . .  . Therefore, in this field it is easy to establish good works, yet it is also easy to err; it is hard to accumulate blessings, but it is not hard to invite disaster.  Those who wish for accomplishment without error, fortune without calamity, must diligently discipline themselves. . . . . Also physicians should take care of emergencies without concern for elevating their reputations, and should help the wretched without  calculating how much they will get paid.  If they can clearly perceive the symptoms, then they can proceed with treatment; if not, they should wait for the more expert.  Then they will build up the virtues of calmness and truthfulness. . . . . “  A still earlier Taoist  HUAI-NAN-TZU says that “calmness, profound serenity, open selflessness” must be cultivated; then “there will be no thrombosis or stagnation in your blood vessels . . . “   (Vitality, Energy, Spirit, A Taoist Sourcebook, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala, 1991)  [Perhaps HAHNEMANN had studied Taoist masters too!]     The Practitioner must discipline himself/herself to fit into the picture drawn by the Taoist masters and HAHNEMANN’s EUMENES.  All these qualities must, I feel, be the distinguishing marks of genuine Homœopath.   I feel that Homœopathy must be taken to the ‘people’, it should not be confined to large and ‘star’ hospitals, and restricted to Universities.   It is Practical Therapeutics, Heilkunde der Erfahrung and must therefore we must do more to apply it to the suffering humanity.  

            Now when we look about the Scenario, how is it?  Let me say what I find: Whereas in the early part of last century there were several journals and  there were great contributions, slowly after the War this went down and of late have become worse.  The journals we had even twenty years ago have emaciated and some dead!  Why this?  On one side in countries like India there are homœopathic colleges increasing every year, on the other side, the journals and the contributions to the existing ones are very very poor, worth practically nothing.  Why so?  Even here the ZKH which was appearing bi-monthly has become quarterly!  Are these marks of good health for Homœopathy?  The cause for this must be found out and set right.    The Materia Medica we use, the clinical information we use, etc. are all those left to us 100 years ago, if not more.  In my view not even 10%  has been added to it by our contemporaries, if so, what have we been doing?  Indeed.  Let everyone come forward and contribute freely. 

Only if Homœopathy maintains its unique qualities it will remain healthy.   I earnestly request you all to think these over, and it is your privilege to agree or disagree.  Thank you.                             

 

                                               K.S. SRINIVASAN,

                                                           Köthen,    9 Oct. 2009.