Monday, August 31, 2009

The Illegitimacy of Disease

What if disease is illegitimate?

What if it's our focus on it, our sheer fascination with it, our obsession with it, that gives it its very power to even exist...?

(radical thought, no? what if it's true?)

Once again, I see how our fear, individually and collectively, has created something -- which is really a nothing, a no-thing. Unless, of course, we believe it is a thing, unless we give it legitimacy, by the power of our own thoughts.

Let me share a story about a man ... a man who had AIDS. He'd been told he was dying, and he believed it. All the evidence was there to back up that thought. And so, he prepared to die ... and he visited a spiritual practitioner whose focus was to increase the awareness of his own spirituality and his connection with God. This man did not focus on healing .. he wanted only one thing -- to know God -- not the images of God he'd formed through his former religion, not the pat answers that he'd already received (and which had failed him in his need), but he just really wanted to know God - as God IS.

The practitioner was astonished -- most folks came to him wanting symptom relief, healing. Something from God. This man wanted God Himself, and nothing less, nothing more. Over the course of a couple of years, they discovered that God was willing and eager to reveal Himself -- He fully responded to the prayer to know His true nature, to bring understanding of Himself. The two men experienced much joy and excitement in this compelling journey -- each discovery of God's nature was a delight ... old and tired concepts of God (lies of human constructs) were replaced, one after another, with God's revelation of Himself, and of man's relationship to God. Because they desired nothing less than God's truth, the mind and heart of God were accessible to them, and transformation became a way of life.

While they were focused and consumed with pursuing the Kingdom of God (God's reign in our minds and hearts - for the Kingdom is within), an amazing thing began to happen ... the man's HIV symptoms began to cease, and even to reverse. Upon checking with his doctor, he discovered that he had become HIV negative. He had not pursued this, hadn't even considered that it was remotely possible! He had done nothing to earn it, hadn't qualified for it, hadn't thought himself "worthy" of it ... but in coming face to face with God's true nature, his wholeness and health was the only possible result ...!

So, what happened here? What can we learn from this? Can we discern a principle, a truth, that we can understand and apply, so that we, so that others, can also experience such a healing?

The only requirement seems to be that we approach God with a desire to want truth far more than we want to be "right". We need to let go of our own preconceived notions, opinions, beliefs and thoughts (and our "right" to have them!), to let go of all we think we already know, all that we insist that we're correct about, and to let God, and God alone, teach us about who He is, what His nature is like. We need to wipe the slate clean, and have a do-over, from God.

Here's the reality: we experience life according to our own perception of God.

When our perception of God is corrected by God, when we are aligned with His thoughts, when our minds have been renewed, when lies have been replaced with truth, when our perception is God's perception -- our experience is also corrected.

With no striving, with no human effort, with no intervention of any sort.

Want some scriptural backing for that...?

Matthew 5:8 ~
Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God.


Titus 1:15
To the pure all things are pure, but to those who are defiled and unbelieving nothing is pure; but even their mind and conscience are defiled.


2 Samuel 22:26-27 ~
With the good man thou wilt show thyself good. With the upright man though wilt show thyself upright. With the pure thou wilt show thyself pure; and with the perverse thou wilt show thyself perverse.


However our minds perceive of God -- that is how God appears to us.

God created us in His own image, and we've been "returning the favor" ever since.

Is it time to fire the god in your own carnal/egoic mind, and let the real God, who is in you and fills you, emerge from behind the shadow of that which is false...?

As Jesus asked -- do you want to be whole..?

(& do you want to know that you already are...?)

Shalom, Dena

7 comments:

Paige Marshall said...

Wonderful post, Dena. Have you read anything from Emmet Fox? The issues you are bringing forth in this series are very much in line with what I'm currently looking into...

Paige

Dena said...

Thanks, Paige! I'm loving this exploration! Mark and I are both dealing with physical issues that are challenging us in this way -- applying what we're learning, to see what happens.

I've not read any of Emmett Fox's writings, though I'm familiar with him as a co-founder of AA. What I know of him (also a mentor of Joel Goldsmith, who I am reading) resonates with what I'm hearing within.

Harry Riley said...

This is very likely another aspect of that sublime drama we see played out by Jesus in his earthly life and on the cross, I'm thinking.

It seems that He was allways trying to show us what the true state of things is, rather than actually changing anything.

Apart from our perceptions, of course;)

More for the soul to savour here, Dena. Thanks again.

Harry

Sue said...

I suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome for over 6 years. It was an interesting sort of a paradox for me that while I recognised my condition as a no-thing in terms of it being no-health rather than it being a "thing" (in the way that so many people approach cancer, as if it's something they have caught, rather than a misfiring of their body, although I know some cancers are contracted virally. But it's not so much the physical that I am referring to as the spiritual and emotional way people view disease.)

And yet, for all of that, it wasn't until I really and truly embraced things as they were that I had any peace. It's like we need the no-things, we need the dark, the samsara, the suffering, to understand that we don't need them.

I have so gained an appreciation for my body since I have been well (even though I am still too overweight, grrr). Being ill, and then realising how much I sort of existed outside of my own body, kind of abdicated from it in a way, I guess - I think this is what contrbuted to my having a chronic illness in the end. I think so many of us live abdicated outside of our own bodies. It makes it easier that we live so abdicated from the earth, but the shit we feed ourselves and call it food ... it's crazy when you consider that we are such rich countries, and yet so many people are in a sort of malnutrition because of the overabundance of stuff that ain't real food. It's bizarre ... and sort of related to what you are saying here. It's all mixed in together.

Apologise for this ridiculously long, unedited, rambling comment, hehe :)

Dena said...

Apology *NOT* accepted, since what you wrote was powerful and amazing!

What an incredible demonstration of what we're talking about here! WE turn no-things (nothings) into some-things by the attention we give it ... just as Paul says we were enemies of God *in our own MINDS* (but not ever in God's mind). We see what we believe, which reinforces what we believe we are seeing...! Insane circle of perspective!

So, despite what medical "authorities" say, that we never overcome chronic conditions -- here you are no longer with CFS, and here I am, no longer bulimic.

Why? Because we changed how we SEE ourselves ... and our bodies follow what the mind sees...!

POWERful truth -- it's in operation anyway, why not tune in and learn how to use it? Were we not given dominion over all creation here on this planet? Is it not time to awaken from our collective hypnosis, and leave the Matrix..?

I say so.

To continue, after having glimpsed the "much more" is impossible. Unthinkable.

I will trust that God IS working out the details in the exteriors of my life, as I focus on the Kingdom of God (His reign of Truth, in my midst - within me).

Shalom, Dena

Sue said...

You're right. The shift is quite subtle in some ways, but amazingly powerful. The media and the health authorities in the West contribute to us NOT being in control, in some ways (especially with their stupid diet pyramid which is just patently DUMB for some people. Everybody is not the same in their food requirements, and not all fats are bad. Seeds and nuts are some of the best things you can eat but lots of people don't because they contain *fats*. Sigh.

To overcome chronic illness requires that you tune in directly to your body to learn what it is telling you, that it is uneased in some way.

It amazes me how the body is tuned to health. Start feeding it what it wants and it just takes the ball and runs with it :)

Sue said...

PS: Well done in overcoming bulimia :) Awesome :)