Either death transforms us .. or it kills us!
Death is both ending and beginning...
I was born with a good mind! No matter what hardships befell me .. even as a young kid .. I always retained a gentle view of the world. A good mind was my blessing in life.
Outer events brought from me a gentle compassion. I rarely reacted to outer events, other than with understanding, a good mind and a gentle compassion. With these abilities .. of which I did not think .. I could affect those around me .. bring calm to people's hearts, end panic and initiate healing.
Most of all I was hardest on myself!
Perhaps because of the spirit of my good mind .. I always had a healthy body. A body I listened to and took care of. Even as a young child, when my body communicated to me that it did not agree with meat or medication .. I listened.
By the time I got sick, much later in life, I knew nothing really about "sickness". The body was always respected... no substances, no bad food, no medications and I maintained clean energy and a healthy clean mind. I took care of the body and the body took care of me.
Until I got sick, I took all of this for granted!
I focused on helping people around me. I used my good health to help others. I often helped others to the detriment of my own well being. In my early life people often used me to dump all the problems and negativity they collected .. and the sadness, their sorrows and fears.
There seemed to be no end to peoples problems and fears...
Most of all I wanted to help. I wanted to "serve". To make the world a better place to live in. To support my fellow man. Create peace and to heal humanity.
Then .. one day .. I got really sick!
Compassion for Your Own Self
My body was my friend and I never really knew it! I never really paid attention to the physical body. Most of my energy was in my mind and was focused on the higher states of the world around us.
I was always healthy and fit .. without having to do anything physical to make the body fit and healthy. But! Over time .. the body can only do so much .. before it needs our love and attention...
The first time I got very sick, I thought I was going to die. That was partly due to the fact that I almost never got sick .. and to the fact that I would recover from any flu virus in next to no time, super fast, with little suffering. I was a healer who never needed to be healed.
Therefore, getting sick and feeling bad was like death to me.
If I was feeling weak and sick then I knew I had to be "dying".
The flu virus .. on that occasion .. was so bad that even my bones hurt. That was all I was: A sack of bones tied together with loose tendons and painfully aching muscles. It never occurred to me at the time that this was a sign that something was wrong with the colon (the bodies major immune and detox organ). I had a flu virus! Right!
On the worse night of the flu, I woke up in the early hours of the morning and the tendons and joints were so painful that I physically could not move. I just lay there thinking: This is the end!
Out of the blue, there came an unexpected inner change in my own attitude to myself. You know! When we get sick the first thing we do is think how bad it is. Our thoughts complain and think: This is so painful, this is so bad, why am I suffering .. and that is where our focus is drawn .. to the "pain".
Maybe, because this kind of physical suffering was new to me? Something totally new took place! An inner transformation that came out of nowhere and surprised even myself. Out of the blue, I suddenly respected and trusted my body. For the first time in my life I said: "Thank You!!"
Thank you so much! Thank you for protecting me!
That was when the body looked back at me .. very difficult to describe. In that moment I saw that the physical body is no different than a loyal cat or dog .. an animal who loves us .. we the spirit .. and who is loyal to the spirit to the last moment of breath.
Thank You: "My Body"
In the very early hours of the morning, often worse for any flu symptoms, I suddenly felt compassion for my body. It is not like the inner compassion went step 1 - step 2 - step 3 in linear time. Everything happened at once! In an instant! Although, it took physical time to express the deep inner realisation. I was awake many hours .. and that is the time it took to correct a lifetime of taking my body for granted.
For the first time in my life I experienced genuine love, compassion and gratitude for my own physical body. I could see that the body's immune system was doing everything it could do to keep me alive. The body was a living animal with its own unique intelligence. A living divine temple for the inhabiting spirit.
I thanked the body .. and I expressed deep felt gratitude. I told the body that no matter what .. even if we died .. that I was deeply grateful for the journey we had shared together. For the first time, I expressed compassion for my own self that otherwise was only part of my outer world experience. For the first time in my life, I was truly taking care of "myself".
How can we love others, if we do not love ourselves?
The Body Loves You
The most amazing thing, to me, was the sudden opening of a window into my own inner being and its relationship with the physical body. The animal body...
Humans think animal is like "beast" and trees, plants, fish and birds are lower life forms. Only man, is superior. So! Why are we here? Why are we so destructive? Equally destructive to ourselves? If we are so superior...
The human body has its own unique intelligence and the body really loves us in the same way cats or dogs love humans. One could say that the human body is in love with the spirit. We are born together into this world .. we are one.
After that there was no turning back or falling into forgetfulness. Feeling the presence of death had woken me up inside myself .. not outside .. but inside!
Then came true respect and love.
I learned to listen and to pay attention to the bodies intelligence, the communications and the exchange of love, gratitude and compassion. Treat your body with respect and the body will respond in ways it was designed to do.
You could call it Initiation and Transformation? As we travel physically through life, we travel inwardly in relationship to the body-temple-spirit awareness.
People love their houses, apartments and cars more than they love their own bodies. People feel more appreciation for their cats and dogs than they feel for their own bodies. We are not taught to love our own physical body or to consider the body as "a friend".
A lifetime friend! Right!
It is not enough to "know it" .. you have to feel it and express it... Thank you so much. I thank you from my heart. Thank you for protecting me.
The negativity comes to an end when the mind is used to express deep felt gratitude and love (and friendship) for the physical body .. the human animal. Spirit is not an animal .. spirit is something else. But! Do not be afraid of animals!
You love the little birds, the beauty of a Summers day. You love the mountains and the rivers and the sea. You love the people around you and the beauty of life. Everything outside of you .. you love.
Now it is time to learn to love yourself!
