Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume 3
I am doubtful what to say about your proposal. Ramchandra has secured a remarkable series of successes, but he has not an accommodating character and there might be friction. His cures also depend upon a military obedience and docility in the patient which is not common in the Ashram; it is not that he has not been successful in most cases but in some he has failed and in several cases the treatment has been cut short half-way by a quarrel. Now according to his own statement to begin his treatment and to drop it half-way is worse than not to have the treatment at all. Moreover, it is hernia and I am not aware whether he has ever successfully tackled such a case. There are several causes for hesitation in saying Yes.
The case of cancer (David’s mother) is still in its first stages. Ramchandra himself wrote to me that he would have been more confident if they had called him in five months earlier and he told David that in case of cure it could be said only after three months’ treatment. I have not heard that the cancer is cured; but there has been a remarkable improvement in a very short time of the worst attendant symptoms and in the general health. R-s own opinion was some time ago that the [?] above the navel (which is the cause) had gone or were going but he was afraid of an evolution downward towards her anus rete of which they were signs; these signs have also now diminished. That is where matters stand and it does not amount yet to a cure.
For the goitre, that appertains or rather appertained to Raju (the garagist’s) mother, but it was only one item of a general breakdown of the organism which made R. himself unwilling to take the case. It was only a sceptical sarcasm of Dr. Andre1 about his “high power” homeopathic medicines (high power means an almost minus quantity of medicine in a flood of dilution) that stung him to the quick and made him blurt out that he engaged to cure her in a month. He prayed to us for an extra amount of force so that his bluff might not land him in an ignominious defeat, and strangely enough his boast seems to have been fulfilled to the letter. This disorganised old creature has been put together, can eat heartily, digest, function and walk without the tendency to sudden collapse with which she was troubled, is free of [? ] and headache; her senile dementia has gone and she is chatting coherently and paying visits. R., the family and herself are all agreed that she is cured in every respect and she is off the sicklist. The goitre was in a few days reduced so that it was only somewhat visible in a particular position (this was the family report as I saw it); afterwards it disappeared from the report column; I took it that it was cured and R. spoke of it as cured; I don’t know if it was an absolute disappearance.
On the face of it Ramachandra is remarkable. As far as I can see he has succeeded in the most extraordinary way in cases outside, Godard, Mme Montbrun’s mother, Raju’s mother, David’s mother, where his dominating mental personality could dominate, suggest, instil faith, convey the force; in the Ashram he has met more mental, and vital resistance and been therefore less startlingly successful, though he has produced a rapid effect in several cases. I have seen myself with these outside patients that whenever he indicated the symptoms he wanted cured and I put the force, the success was precise and immediate and the general action also rapid and decisive. In the Ashram I have been able to get equal or sometimes superior results (e.g. instantaneous cure without medicines) only in cases where the faith and 
reliance were complete. That is how things stand. I am still watching – seeing for instance how far he succeeds in cases like Rajangam’s2. I do not know yet whether he would be able to cure in the same way as in those cases a purely physical lesion like hernia.