Wisdom: Disease is the fruit of arrogance, karma and maya

Disease is like the flourishing fruit on the tree which grows from
the seed of arrogance, karma, and the illusion called maya. The
shoot germinates from the shell of love for land, women, and gold.
The tree is the passionate frenzy of arrogance, and its branches
are the six evils: lust, anger, miserliness, obsession, bigotry, and
envy. The four hundred trillion, ten thousand flowers and fruits
which grow on these branches are the worries, desires, cravings,
thoughts, and intentions of man’s agitated mind.

Day after day, these are the illnesses which make him suffer
the pain of a living death. In his agony, man groans and wails,
clinging to that very tree in hope of relief. Time after time, he
eats of its fruits, expecting them to comfort him. This is the tree
that cuts away a man’s life.

If he digs it up, roots and all, and throws it away, then every-
thing connected to it will leave him. On that day, illness and aging
will leave him, and he will acquire the light of wisdom. When
wisdom dawns, he will become a youth of sixteen: He will receive
the qualities and beauty of God, and thus acquire eternal youth.

Muhaiyaddeen, M.R. Bawa. The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh. Philadelphia:Fellowship Press, 1981, 2006