An illness indicates an imbalance of some sort that has an inner cause. To discover what that is would certainly be helpful -- both for our consciousness and our well-being.
One man I know of keeps breaking down in the form of fatigue, exhaustion, headaches, etc. It is primarily due to too much thinking. Given his natural propensities, he has overworked himself at the level of mind, and therefore needs to balance it with some other type of work, initiative, activity, exercise, etc. that will restore the balance. At the point he does, health will improve, and, ironically, life will provide him with the profound life lessons he seeks mainly through thought.
It turned out that Karmayogi helped this individual understand his personal imbalance, even though he sometimes fell back and repeated the same thing. As a result, his body broke down again in creative, new ways. When it became severe, he sought the advice of doctors. But when they examined him, they were baffled and found nothing. That's because the cause was inner. Naturally, they could find no inner cause, nor, as it turned out, any outer symptom!
Karmayogi tends to know the causes of our illness if we present him (or his agents) with the facts. (So does Mother, if we sincerely offer it up to her to let us know the truth.)
Steve Jobs had the unbalance of being too absorbed in technology and gadgets, missing the higher life and consciousness that he was (ironically) familiar with. His disposition was also argumentative and possessive (he was an orphan), amidst his multi-dimensional technological genius. A slow, fatal illness was the result.
People suddenly pass away or spontaneously incur some dreaded disease, even when there is no propensity to do so in one's family. It turns out that Jobs' biological parents are still living into their 80s.
When higher consciousness opportunities avail themselves, and we don't take it, then our inner being is not pleased. It wants improvement, lest the subconscious will evoke illness to demand it.
People around us will know the inner cause of our outer difficulties from different angles. We too will know several of them; though we will tend to suppress their veracity. The spiritual teacher can perceive the inner cause very quickly. Whether we want to follow their advice, or even ask for it is up to us.
One woman I know with diabetes has all the knowledge of the conditions and causes, yet is reluctant to change her habits. It is there in several generations -- both the disease and the dispensation towards unchangeability.
We are fixed beings. But Life is change; progressively so. The difference between the two is disequilibrium. It manifests through our troubles -- as accidents, illnesses, failures, etc.
Human choice is ours. When the WILL TO CHANGE can match our understanding of the outer conditions and the inner causes, there will be real progress.
Our fixidity, the chains of the physical consciousness, the downpull of the subconscious, our limiting attitudes, etc. keep solutions at bay; keep the disequilibrium intact. The choice is ours to bring it back into Harmony.