And then later on I started thinking about it, what it is which has come to me. ‘Why did it happen to me? What have I done?’ And this is a discovery as such. I went right through, I mean you can always say, ‘Well, you did something in your last incarnation, karmic and all that. Which no one knows. ‘Where did it start? What did I do? What was the deficiency in my food?’ I couldn’t say anything, nothing. And did – now, then another thought came that, ‘This thing has arrived in my body, something from outside. I took it in a sense that, we always say something which arrives at home, I take it – the body is a home. Just like this home where I live. I came from outside. This house has given me an abode, in a sense. The same way that disease comes in my body, which is entering in the house of my own. Now we always say, ‘Whatever enters is a guest, and I am the host. Now, there’s a relationship between the host and the guest. When a host arrives, we have to accept and welcome. Now it’s up to the guest to see the same thing. If the guest wants to be accepted happily, then he has to behave well as well. So I thought in that sense I can’t do anything with that, what has entered to me. As a guest, I take it. But if we both have to live together happily, we have to behave happily both together.

I feel if I panic about it I’m actually stopping, I’m creating a aggravation between that, and it can happen it may harm me. I don’t want to make the guest angry about the thing, that it could do drastic, you know, sort of things. So we want to live together in peace really. That’s my philosophy.

Where does that philosophy come from? Is it you personally? Is it a religious position, or?

Well, I have, I mean – well, of course I have, I have heard from Buddhism also. You see in the end the balance, the peacefulness is more important, that – the middle way, it’s the middle way. And that middle way is that we both are together happy. There is a, a story behind this, a Chinese story about the bull and the little boy. How you tame, this little boy had to tame the bull. The bull is the more stronger. The disease is more stronger, which I know nothing about. And how to live with a stronger person, which is just one of those things. And it’s like, there’s so many steps about this, how to deal with a stronger personality, rather than going and bashing also. That doesn’t help. So there are ways of tackling it. And the story – I’m not, it’s vaguely I know about this story, the tackling the bull, and the, both of them live happily. The boy sits on the, on this ox and he’s playing the flute, and the ox is going away. It’s so beautiful this story. And I believe in that, that – I mean this disease, I know nothing about. The, how strong, how bad it is doesn’t matter to me. Whatever the nature of the disease is, is the nature of the disease. That disease also cannot do anything. That’s the nature of it. A snake, we always are afraid of the thing, of the snake. It’s our own fear. But the snake will only do what that nature of the snake is. So why should we worry about? This is the way I look at the disease.

I went to the physiotherapy. They’re such nice people. Did a bit of exercise. But you only go for six, six weeks or something like that, and then end. And moreover when you come home, you forget to do those things also. But when you are with the people, when you are regulated, you do those things and feel a bit better. I’m going to the hydrotherapy now. There I do the exercise. And I found when I’m dipped in the water it’s like a wall all around you. So it’s very easy to do, bouncing around there. And it’s so nice. But how long is it going to go? You don’t go long. It don’t last.

How often do you go?

Once a week, once, on Thursday I go.

I live with the day, every day the same way. I’m not worried about it. That has to look after me. I have to look after it. It’s there anyhow. So this is the way I spend my time. I’m not worried about what will happen next, how far it will go, how far it will not go. It can get out as well, by itself. Who knows? And this is the way I live every day.

Was there ever a time, perhaps straight after diagnosis, when you felt more depressed about it’

Not at all.

‘or shocked?

Not at all. The only depression for me is I’m dependent on other people. Now, my wife is next to me. I have to ask her because I’m helpless. I have to ask her for every little thing. And that depresses, that gives me a pain, in the sense that I’m taking her time, which she could be spending her time with some, something else, in her own pursuit. And same thing when other people have to ask, they do something for me, being because they find that they should help me, they feel. And so, but I’m the one culprit in the sense that I’m taking their time. That’s the only thing which hurts me. Otherwise, fine, because whatever will be, will be. But involving other people as carers, as that’s the great word ‘carers’, I’m afraid they are carers. My wife is a carer. She has no idea at all how to, how to deal with my problems. Now with the frustration, it does happen. With the frustration sometimes I get angry. I mean, it’s not a question of being angry, it’s just sometimes you roll, sometimes life gets heightened up and you speak a bit loudly. And people think that I am angry about things, which is not really. Why should I be angry? But it’s the frustration as such that the pain is here that I cannot do by my own spirit. And that is the worst thing which she, she has to tackle with. She has, the carer has to think, ‘Oh, my God, he’s angry’, that she has done something wrong or something – how she should behave, how she should tackle the problem? And so I thought I’d better send my wife, because there are so many people in my condition. The carers and the people who are caring about, they must be feeling the same thing, they must be going through. How do they tackle this problem, behaviour of tackling, looking after the condition of the patient? So I was thinking that she should meet another carer who is in the same situation, how that person is tackling the problem, the behaviour of the patient as such. I haven’t yet found to send her, and I would very much would like her to go and meet people.