Sadhguru discusses how chronic ailments represent internal problems created by our own bodies. Chronic illnesses like diabetes or hypertension indicate a fundamental level of misalignment or a severe imbalance within the system.

Sadhguru: There are two types of ailments. One is infectious, another is chronic. Infectious diseases are those, which happen because of an external invasion. An external organism invades the system and causes certain trouble which has to be dealt with medication. But chronic ailment, what it means is, our own body is creating the problem. The disease is being manufactured in the system. This is common knowledge that every cell in the body is programmed for health. But why would it cause an ailment? Something very fundamental has gone off balance or there is a certain level of misunderstanding within the system itself, that instead of creating health, it’s creating ill-health. And we may be incubating this misunderstanding in so many different ways. When I say misunderstanding, not misunderstanding or understanding of your mind – on the cellular level, on the elemental level, there is a misunderstanding.

So these things can be altered just by bringing about a certain balance in the system, activating a certain level of inner energy and accessing the innermost dimension of who you are, which is the very maker of this body. The very maker of this body is within you. When this is so, if there is a repair job to be done on this body, should you go to the manufacturer or to the local mechanic? Because the problem is being generated from within, it is very important than an inner solution is found for this. The Inner Engineering process is just about this, that you find access to this deepest dimension of intelligence and competence within ourselves, which is capable of generating this body, creating this body – from what kind of material? If you eat a piece of bread, it turns into human system in a few hours’ time. So there is that dimension of intelligence and competence within this, if only you found access to that, health is not even something that you have to struggle with.

So finding access to this has many steps to be taken. The simplest step that one needs to take is that one becomes open to the possibility, first of all. Thinking and understanding that, “For all the problems that I have, there is an external cause and there is an external solution” is a very foolish way to approach the whole process. For ailments, chronic ailments like diabetes, hypertension, cardiac ailments, asthma, allergies, obesity, eating disorders and many of these kinds, which are all essentially generated from within – all these things can be quelled from within if only we are willing to pay a certain level of attention to the innermost dimension of who we are. Inner Engineering is a powerful process of approaching the inner core of who you are in a scientific manner and this is definitely a way to create a healthful life.