Coming now to the question how to treat the wounded. In the West the medical treatment, the surgical inventions, the appliances have advanced so much that in this there is no more to be done. There remains to train the women how to receive, how to treat the wounded. What is learnt is the medical, the surgical work. Besides this we should know how to treat the wounded not physically only but spiritually.

For this the first thing needed is sympathy. The consolation that the woman gives should be so great as to make up, to compensate the wounded for all he has lost, for all he has suffered.
Then hope. However bad the condition of the patient may be, she should give him hope. Even if there is no hope of improvement, for the time, at least, it should seem that he is better.
Then it should be remembered that he has come from the noise, the stress and strain of the battlefield, that he has seen his friend to whom he was speaking, killed a moment later, he has seen those who were all around him, all killed in a moment. He must not be considered as another. His annoyance, his pain must be tolerated and consoled. If we go to Fleet Street only, how tired we are by the noise and busy life. When we come home afterwards, it is difficult to be calm. He has had great, very great shocks. He must be considered as a child under the care of his mother. What he says must not be taken seriously. It will be a very, very long time before he has recovered himself.

Sometimes sympathy is shown in such a way that the patient is made more ill. I have always seen that the children of grand people are more subject to illness than others, because for the slightest indisposition there is the doctor, and the treatment, and the remedies and the bed prepared and also the nice dishes. If we say to a wounded or sick person, "How ill you are. How very bad your condition is," his thought is drawn to his bad state, and he becomes worse. Whatever his condition is, we should say, "It is nothing very bad. It will be better." This is psychologically.

Mystically, when we go into the presence of a wounded or sick person, we should think that by our presence alone he will be healed much more than by all the medicines, for they are drugs and we are the living soul, the higher beings. For this healing-power three things are necessary.

This healing is usually done by the (1) eyes or by the (2) fingertips. There is a better way than this of healing, that is, to heal by your (3) kindness. But this cannot be learned. If a person is not kind, he cannot learn to be so. The only thing is to practice kindness, to do kind actions, and so to develop the quality.

Looking at the world we shall see that, besides these wounded, there are many other wounded. We shall see that the world is full of wounded and among thousands we shall find scarcely one healthy person.

There are the wounded by life and the wounded of the self. We should know how to treat these wounded also.

There is a verse by a Hindustani poet: "First help into port the small boat, and then your own ship will come safely to harbor."

This means: Stop in order to help another in his difficulty, and there will be every promise of your own undertaking being successful. But we can heal another only if we forget our own wounds. If these are always before our view, we cannot help others and we shall never be healed ourselves.

The wounded by life are those who have suffered hard knocks and blows in the struggle for life. Everyone has some purpose to accomplish in life, some object for which he strives. And in this pursuit he experiences the opposition of others, the hardness of the struggle of life.
The wounded of the self are those who are wounded in the struggle with the self, those who have given way to the habit of some drug or of alcohol, or the habit of bitterness of the mind. They may not wish to have this habit, but their weakness keeps them bound to it.
There are also those who are wounded by the disappointments, the discouragements that they have experienced in life, those who have lost hope. To heal this third sort of wounded, what is needed is knowledge. And the knowledge that is needed is God-consciousness. The mind must be focused together. It is the mind that we wish to heal. If I have a wound on my hand, and I am always conscious that I have this wound it will never heal.