The ascetic was sitting in a cave and meditating. Suddenly a mouse scurried into the cave and clung to his sandals. The ascetic got angry and opened his eyes: “Why are you stopping me from thinking? “” I’m hungry, ” the mouse squeaked.
“Go away, you stupid mouse,” the ascetic said. “I am looking for unity with God, how dare you stop me!” “How do you want to become one with God, if you are not able to become one even with me?”
All the previous arguments were aimed at realizing that a person can be sick, but can not get sick. This is the main difference between our and the medical approach to the problem of illness. Medicine considers the disease as “an obstacle to the normal healthy state of a person” and, therefore, tries not only to remove this obstacle, but also to prevent the disease as such by erasing it from the face of the earth. We would like to emphasize once again that the disease is something much more than a functional imperfection of nature. It is part of a regulatory system that serves evolution. A person cannot get rid of the disease, since it is necessary for health as the opposite pole.
Illness is an expression of a person’s sinfulness, guilt and lack of purpose, it is a microcosmic consequence of the fall. This interpretation has nothing to do with the idea of punishment, it only emphasizes that a person, as long as he belongs to the world of opposites, bears part of the guilt, illness and death.
A person is sick because he lacks unity. A healthy person who does not have any pain can be found only in the medical reference book on anatomy. In real life, such an instance is not known. Of course, there are people who have not developed any serious and unpleasant symptoms for several decades , but this does not change the fact that they are sick and mortal.
Being sick means being in a state of imperfection, vulnerability, vulnerability, mortality. If you take a closer look, it becomes amazing what only those who are considered healthy do not have. In the” Textbook on Psychosomatic Medicine”, the research doctor Broytigam writes that he “conducted a survey of workers and employees who were considered healthy. During a more detailed conversation, it turned out that they have physical and mental problems no less often than those who are in the hospital.” In the same book, Broytigam published statistical data collected during the research of E. Winter (1959).
Complaints of 200 healthy employees expressed during the conversation (as a percentage):
- Bad mood – 43.5
- Stomach problems – 37.5
- Feeling of fear – 26.5
- Frequent inflammation of the throat – 22
- Dizziness, fainting – 17.5
- Insomnia – 17.5
- Violation of the menstrual cycle – 15
- Constipation – 14.5
- Severe sweating -14
- Heart pain, rapid heartbeat -13
- Headaches – 13
- Eczema – 9
- Rheumatic phenomena – 5.5
The author of the book “Illness as a crisis and a chance” Edgar Heim writes the following: “An adult for 25 years of his life, on average, suffers from one life-threatening disease, 20 serious and about 200 moderate diseases.”
Isn’t it time for us to get rid of the illusion that the disease can be avoided by eliminating it completely? A person is a conflicted being and therefore sick. Nature makes sure that during his life he sinks deeper and deeper into the disease that will lead him to death. The goal of our physical component is organic existence. Nature takes care that a person approaches this goal with every step. Illness and death destroy a person’s fantasies about his greatness and correct any one-sidedness.
A person lives on the basis of his own “I”, which constantly strives for power. Any of our “I want to!” is an expression of this desire. The” I ” of a person is constantly developing, puts on new, more and more noble clothes and gradually turns a person into his servant. The ” I ” exists at the expense of differentiation, therefore it is afraid of any self-giving, love and the desire for unity. The ” I “makes a decision and activates one of the poles, pushing the shadow that arises in this case into the outside world, into the “not I”. The disease compensates for this by pushing the person with the help of symptoms to the opposite side, always to the extent that he moves away from the middle. Every step that a person takes to please the arrogance of his “I”, the disease balances with a step towards humiliation and helplessness. In the same way, any ability and any virtue of a person is available to disease.
Trying to lead a healthy lifestyle causes illness. We know that such a statement does not correspond to the spirit of the times: medicine is working diligently, developing new preventive measures, we are experiencing a boom in a “natural and healthy lifestyle”. This boom should be considered as a response to the zealous use of by no means harmless “chemical” medicines; it certainly has the right to exist and deserves every respect, but from the point of view of the disease it is as useless as the corresponding measures of official medicine are useless.
Both trends are based on the concept of protection from disease and are associated with the belief in a certain healthy person who can be protected from disease in a certain way. It is clear that any encouraging news from this area is perceived with more faith than our disillusioning statement that a person is always ill.
Illness correlates with health in the same way that death correlates with life. These words are unpleasant, but they have the advantage that anyone can be convinced of their correctness if they make their own observations.
There are a lot of disappointments in life – a person is deprived of one or another illusion. This happens until he is able to bear the truth. Thus, anyone who dares to treat illness, weakness and death as an inevitability of our existence will soon understand that this knowledge does not lead to hopelessness. A person will learn to experience joy, which will help him find his true path.
In real life, we rarely have a friend who is able to constantly debunk the games of our ” I ” and pay attention to the shadow, without fear of becoming an enemy. It is difficult to love such a friend. The same can be said about the disease. She is too honest for us to love her.
Arrogance makes us blind and turn into a naked king who wore a dress woven from his own illusions. But the symptoms always remain incorruptible. By the very fact of their existence, they make us understand what is in the shadow, but wants to be realized, what exactly is our one-sidedness. The constantly recurring symptoms make it clear to us that the problem cannot be solved at once and quickly, as it usually seems.
The disease shows the insignificance and lack of will of a person who believes that with his perfect authority he is able to change the world. Pulpitis, lumbago, flu or diarrhea are enough to turn from a shining winner into an insignificant worm. This is what we hate most about the disease.
The whole world is ready to make great efforts to eradicate the disease. Our Ego constantly whispers to us that the disease is an annoying trifle. This attitude leads to blindness: we do not notice that our efforts end very badly. We have already said that neither the prevention of the disease, nor a healthy lifestyle does not solve the problem at the root.
Only a return to the ancient wisdom can help, which should be taken literally: “It is easier to prevent than to cure”. At the same time, “prevent” implies “being independent”. Prevention is possible only before the disease forces you to deal with the problem.
Illness is a turning point at which ill health is transformed into health. The patient should enter into a conversation with the symptoms, only in this case he will be able to understand the message sent to him. He should be ready to question his views and ideas and try to make sense of what the symptom is trying to tell on the physical level. He must let into his consciousness what he lacks. Recovery is always associated with the expansion of consciousness. If the symptom has arisen due to the fact that a part of the shadow has descended into the body and manifested there, then awareness of it leads to the destruction of the cause of the material existence of the symptom, that is, to recovery.