Consciousness and health
Love your body — healing will follow
Abstract
Healing cannot be understood just with the intellect, it has to be experienced. And once you have experienced the healing power of Love, your relationship with your body will totally change. Your approach to health, disease, healing will change completely, and you will begin to approach your body with a new-found love, reverence and awe.
This article is an attempt to help you experience the healing power of Love. This is neither philosophy nor mere idea, but a practical therapeutic approach. Just allow your self to move into the zone of experience, and allow the experience to unfurl naturally. Use the words to help you connect to your own inner space, and then allow the experience to unfurl.
“Awakened to the meaning of my heart,
That to feel love and oneness is to live
And this the magic of our golden change
Is all the truth I know or seek, O Sage.’(1).”
The mind does not understand everything
We must understand that the intellectual mind cannot understand or know everything, though it always pretends to do so. The field of consciousness surpasses that of the intellectual mind, therefore try not to understand with the modalities of the mind. However we all have the capacity to experience at a deeper level, and understand at levels beyond that of the outer mind. I suggest that before you start reading further, you get yourself into a deeper state of consciousness, away from the chaos of the outer mind, away from the scattered threads of outer life and away from the identification with your outer ego personality…
Silence, silence, silence.
Allow yourself to connect to the deeper parts of your self, allow the words to reveal the experience behind.
Intelligence of the body
Dwell on these thoughts:
Why do we believe that the body is not intelligent? Why the deep-seated belief that the body is not receptive?
We come from a single cell. This cell has all the intelligence, to divide and form multiple cells, tissues, organ systems and the connection between them. All the trillion cells in the body have the same origin, and are connected to each other. These cells knows exactly what to do, and the body manages its entire metabolism perfectly without the help of our mind. All the systems of the body, when not disturbed by the vagaries of the mind, work perfectly well in harmony. The system of haemostasis ensures that the internal environment remains constant in spite of the variations in external milieu.
So when the body becomes unwell, why don’t we trust the cells and our body and allow them the time and space to heal? Why do we believe that our mind, with its rudimentary secondary knowledge knows better that the infinite primary intelligence of the cells?
Tune in to your body — an inner exercise
Withdraw your consciousness away from the thoughts, the emotions, the feelings, the outer ego personality, and just try and become aware of your physical body. Just feel the body, and the sensations coming from there. Allow the awareness of the body to deepen and the sensations to become more clear. Listen to the feelings of the body. Slowly, you will begin to develop a greater awareness of what’s happening inside, and also a new relationship shall begin to form between you and your body.
Do you love your body or just make use of it?
Think of it deeply — do you love your body or just make use of it?
Is it not true that we just use our body, and take it for granted? The only time we become aware of it is when something goes wrong. And when the body becomes ill, we want it to heal fast, because the illness is making us feel ill, not because we have a special affinity to that part of the body or that we wish that part to become free of suffering.
You can understand this better with an analogy to your child and servant. When your servant becomes ill and does not come to work, it is a big inconvenience and you have to take extra efforts to take care of the servant’s work. You are ready to help your servant receive medical treatment and want her to heal fast, primarily because you want the servant to come back to work fast. However when your child falls sick, is not your attitude and approach different? Are you bothered more about the small little work that your child may be doing for you, or are you genuinely concerned about your child’s health?
For example, if our knees are injured, we feel the pain and find it difficult to walk. We want the knees to heal fast because it causes us pain. The pain does not allow us to move fast and interferes with our daily work. But do we really bother about the poor knee, the cells in the knee which are injured and suffering? Do we really care for the cells in the knee or are we more bothered about our own pain and inconvenience? We want the knee to heal because we wish to overcome our own suffering, not because we wish to overcome the suffering of the cells of the knee. There is a big difference between these two attitudes, the same difference as the way you treat your servant and your own child.
The body demands attention, love and care.
In my healing experience, I have come to realise that the different parts of the body are like small children. Just as a child needs attention, love and care, so the different parts of the body demand attention, love and care. If you give love and care, they are all yours, they listen to you, respond to you. But if you misuse them and don’t love them, do you really believe that they will love you and willingly work for you?
Love your body, healing will happen naturally
This is the most important discovery of my healing journey. The body is not just a machine. It is not an inconscient being that merely follows a pre-programmed genetic code. Each part of the body is conscious, has its own consciousness, an intelligence, a feeling, and responds to you all the time. Of all the powers, the one vibration that the body responds most to is Love. Not the love you desire from others, but love from your own heart. Love is not just a vague concept, but a real vibration, a powerful energy that has the power to heal and transform the body. Love is the first step towards healing the body, and often the only thing that the body needs and demands from you. The moment the body receives the vibrations of love, it opens up in mysterious ways and an inner alchemy happens. Love allows the body to let go of the old hurtful vibrations, a new dynamism takes over, and the healing process begins.
Love as a therapy — an inner exercise
Here is a small inner exercise to connect to your body with love, and feel the response of your body. Close your eyes, relax your body, breathe slowly and become deeply aware of your body.
Gently hold your right knee with both your hands, and touch it with lots of love. Slowly you will feel the vibration of love flowing from deep inside your heart to the knee. Allow the vibrations of love to flow effortlessly, and just flood the entire right knee. Feel the heart expanding as you do this.
Do not allow doubts to interfere — is it really true?
Do not be bothered about your performance — am I really doing it right?
Just focus on Love — do not bother about the technique of loving. Just love, and soon you will feel Love flowing from your heart to the knee. Become aware of the response from the knee, and help the knee to accept your love.
After a few minutes, observe the status of both your knees. You will surely observe a remarkable difference between the two knees. You may notice several movements inside the knee; you may become aware of certain emotions or past memories or thought-patterns associated with it. All this is perfectly normal. More important, appreciate that you were able to connect with love to your knees, and that your knee responded to you.
You can use this technique of love with virtually any part of the body. When any part of the body is in pain or suffering, just connect to it with genuine love – you will experience a remarkable change within a few minutes.
Stay with Love for a few more minutes.
As you do the inner exercise of healing with love, you naturally move into a deeper state of consciousness. You get into touch with the deeper parts of your being, with love, with your body consciousness — and all this creates a deep inner state of peace and joy. For many of us, this will be a novel experience, but there is a tendency of the outer ego-personality to immediately pull you out of the inner state under the pretext of outer important jobs to be done.
Try and ignore the so-called important jobs, make an effort to stay within. Just learn to feel the inner state of peace as a normal state of being, rather than an abnormal one. This will allow the experience to sink in, the feeling of inner peace to settle in and help make a connection between your inner state and outer life.
Allow yourself to experience, but don’t try to understand with your mind during the experience. Understanding will come naturally on its own.
Reference
1. Sri Aurobindo. Birth Centenary Library, Volume 29. Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, 1970, p. 724.
Dr. Yogesh Mohan is CEO at Saveetha Medical College & Hospital, Chennai.
Share with us (Comments,contributions,opinions)
When reproducing this feature, please credit NAMAH,and give the byline. Please send us cuttings.
