ILLNESS IS BETTER THAN CURE ???…

submitted by: GANESH TIWARI

MEP, Union Bank School of Management, Bangalore

For the course requirement of ’MANAGING PEOPLE’

taught by

Prof. K.B. AKHILESH , I.I.Sc., Bangalore

Illness is better than cure ? ….

Am I reading above proverbial sentence correctly or someone has written it wrong ? It should be “Prevention is better than Cure” . At 1st glance many of us may think like this only, but my dear readers, it is for sure that it is the other way only, i.e. ILLNESS IS BETTER THAN CURE. Can I draw your kind attention towards a different approach, a fully different nod than what usually you have or encounter in your day to-day

life ? At this juncture of starting my write – up , may I request you to read down lines only if you have ‘conscious time’ at your disposal, and if not right now , please stop reading ; 1st finish your more important assignments, & when get TIME to look for Explorative Thoughts, then only continue your onward journey into this write-up, as this is not meant only for the sake of reading , but meant for ‘ASSIMILATION & AWAKENING’ in its true spirits.

Before we start further, let me clarify at the outset itself that this is not a spiritual travel, instead it is very Basic Instincts of human life, which can be visualized by management perspective of MAN’S JOURNEY TOWARDS EXCELLENCE. Have you ever tried to answer following questions….

What Illness is & how one can define it?

Is it the same quintessential what I perceive out of my experience; or my perception about it is in some different direction?

Is it always a curse or also it can be a boon in disguise?

Does it come out of my misfortune or as a Punishment of God thrown upon me or it is ‘My Own Creation’?

Is it for my demolition or it is for my awakening, re-creation and development?

Answering these questions seem to be simple but these are arguably intriguing questions which may lead to give us an impression that Illness is diseases, which we encounter day- to-day & definitely its worse thing that happens to mankind for his retardants and destruction. But can you think in a different line? If yes, then how & if not, why not ?...

To define illness & to explore its great positive values, we first need to understand true health in its purity & perfection. Health is a feeling & relative term & may vary in its definition and purview from person to person. When we are talking about illness & health , how can we escape the aura of Doctors, Scientists & Psychiatrists the world over, since what we perceive about illness and health are, all creations and beliefs entrusted upon us by them only.

Do you know that no medical college teaches the definition of ‘Illness and Healing’ to its medical students nor preaches the very spirits & truth of health. What they are being taught there is ‘Symptoms and Diseases’ & their removal from body by any means, either surgically, chemotherapeutically or through wellness programmes. So it is not hard to imagine that many of the doctors who are treating their patients, treat them like ‘machines’ which have to be fixed for

some problems ( though they never call their patients by this name). And the seldom few who dare to treat their patients with true spirits, do on their own which definitely evolved in due course of years of practice with their own awaken conscience. There are many such true events happening regularly in the world and we will go through true and thought provoking insight of one of such AWAKENED TOP SURGEON OF US, Judith J. Petry, MD, FACS who has presented her awakening process in the International Network for Attitudinal Healing: Northeast Regional Conference, Hartford, CT on April 17, 1999.

To understand the complete essence of life, one must understand the Connectivity of Body, Mind & Soul. Dr. Deepak Chopra (MD) , the well known top US doctor of Indian origin narrates 10 assumptions in his books, ‘The Ageless Body, Timeless Mind’ & ‘Life After Death’ …..

1. The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world.

2. In their essential state, our bodies are composed of energy & information (outcropping of infinite fields of energy and information spanning the universe), not solid matter.

3. The mind & body are inseparably one. The unity that is “me” separates into two streams of experience. I experience the subjective stream as thoughts, feelings, & desires. I experience the objective stream as my body. At a deeper level, however, the two streams meet at a single creative source. It is from this source that we are not only meant to live but also meant to excel.

4. The biochemistry of the body is a product of awareness. Beliefs, thoughts, and emotions create the chemical reactions (almost 3 trillion per second) that uphold life in every cell of the human body. An ageing cell (Illness of body & mind) is the end product of awareness that has forgotten how to remain new in my body as well as in my mind.

5. Perception appears to be automatic, but in fact it’s a learned phenomenon and dictates your perception the way how you have learned to perceive it. If you change your perception , you change the experience of your body and your world.

6. Impulses of your intelligence create your body in new forms every second. What you are, is the sum total of these impulses, and by changing their patterns, you will change your course of life style.

7. Although each person seems to be separate and independent, all of us are connected to patterns of intelligence that govern the whole cosmos. Our bodies are part of a universal body, and our minds an aspect of a universal mind.

8. Time doesn’t exist as an absolute, but only eternity. Time is quantified eternity, timelessness chopped up into fractions of bits and pieces (seconds, hours, days, years) by us. What we call linear time is a reflection of how we perceive the change process. If we could perceive the changeless, time would cease to exist the way as we know it. We can learn to start metabolizing non-change, eternity, & the absolute. By doing that, we will be ready to create the physiology of immortality. Do you know that a new born baby has ageless type of metabolism and if that continues, there can’t exist heart disease and at least that lives for 200 years.

9. Each of us inhabits a reality lying beyond all change. Deep inside us, unknown to the 5 senses, is an inner-most core of being, a field of non-change that creates personality, ego, and body. This being is our essential state- it is who we really are.

10. We are not victims of ageing, Illness and death. These are part of the scenery, not the seer, who is immune to any form of change. This seer is the spirit, the expression of eternal being.

Regarding health Dr. John Hagelin, a quantum physicist says that our body is really the product of our thoughts. Disease can’t live in a body that is in a healthy emotional state. Do you know that our body is casting off millions of cells every second and also creating millions of new cells at the same second. In fact, parts of our body replaced everyday, other parts take a few months, some other parts a year & within a few years, literally we have a brand new physical body.

We can change our life, we can heal ourselves. Dr. John Demartini says that Incurable means “curable from within”. Do you know the healing art of Placebo Effect. A placebo in itself has no effect of its own just like sugar pill, but if you give to the patient saying that it is the right and effective medicine, it works

almost same as the actual medicine, that is , human mind is the biggest healer (‘self-healer’) , definitely stronger than medication. Its almost a proven fact that when you give attention to disease , you are going to create more diseased cells.

With this back drop, let us try to define what Illness is? Certainly it is not disease. Can you think on the line that the rest you take for illness is the rewarded leisure time to you to have introspection, to think where have you gone wrong ? Since you have come with a body to live for 200-300 years, then why & how are you Ill ? Is it created by you, your thoughts, your mind, your approach,? Here, Pause for a moment..

Yes, ofcourse! So, unless you know the actual meaning & definition as well as cause of Illness, you can’t conquer illness and that is greatest offering made by illness to the human being.

Illness is something which come from within, it is more of an emotion, a message and a whisper from core of a person; a telling, which comes out of the mind that there is going to be some imbalance in the integration and co-ordination of your body, mind & soul, while disease is more a subtle manifestation of this imbalance, but not the cause in itself. Disease and symptoms are nothing to do with this imbalance; you can’t cure a person based only on disease and its physical symptoms unless you explore the root, which is not there in body, but instead originates from the inner self, which starts messaging/giving signals long before it affects the body, but seldom anyone hear those messages. If one can tone his/her “Body and Mind” in such a way that both behave and act together in complete synchronization, then there is no question of disease at all. It can’t arise in the body.

Due to our bread and butter business, we quite often ignore the ‘whispers of self’ and don’t concentrate on positive power of mind which operates on “The Law of Attraction” , meaning thereby that if you think I am developing disease, your cells start developing the same; dyeing more in the process every seconds and if you have strong belief that I can never fall into diseased conditions, your body cells tend to behave like that and regenerate & renew themselves much more every second with full of Vigor, Vibrancy, Vitality. Everlasting cosmic strength and energy which are synergized through connectivity of Body, Mind & Soul keep on showering you, and you would be ever youthful, ever energetic.So, Illness is those inner moments of your true self, which try to signal you about your forthcoming disease. The need is that you should have sufficient mind-body power integrated with right frequency signal receptors to catch it in right spirit, right direction and at right time.

How it works, can be well visualized by the life history of Dr. Judith J. Petry. She says…>>>>

We talked about symptoms and about diseases. I never had to find a definition for illness until now. After reading and thinking about this a lot, I have come to believe that illness is very different from disease and represents the lived experience of the disease or injury for the individual. As with my trauma patients, a devastating injury has very different meaning from one person to the next.One of the effects of illness that we frequently fail to appreciate is the altered states of consciousness that it can induce. The descriptions of the change in daily reality and our relationship with life, suggest an altered state. This can occur in the person who is ill, and in loved ones of the person with an illness or injury, especially if the sick one is a child. My niece (brother’s son) was undergoing heart surgery and due to great grief, my brother did fall asleep near operation theatre. Suddenly, he woke up in a terrific note & told that he had twice the dream of his son’s death. When I enquired with doctors , they told that his son is ok, but exactly at the same time when my brother was dreaming, doctors had to stop my niece heart beat twice for medico reasons, that is, technically, he was dead two times for those moments.

Even on a physiological basis, the emotions that caregivers experience result in physical changes, especially to the immune system. Statistics on deaths of remaining spouses in the 2 years after their loved one has died are well known. This is certainly a form of illness.

Our initial responses to the changes that illness or injury require of us are as varied as we are. They seem to be automatic, unconscious and the range includes anger, blame, denial, grief, fear, panic, disorientation, withdrawal, and all combinations of these emotions. Some of us remain in these initial responses throughout our illnesses, or waver back and forth from one to another. Others seem to evolve from the initial helplessness of the automatic response, to a variety of chosen responses; acceptance, defeat, challenge, opportunity, battle. The impetus for the evolution of our individual response to illness seems to me to be dependent on several factors. One of these is our belief system: who we believe we are in relation to the Universe. If our response to any adversity has always been to fight it tooth and nail, that is most likely how we will respond to illness. If our habitual learned response to challenge has been to see ourselves as helpless victims, this is how we will behave towards our illness.

Another factor in the evolution of our response to illness is the relational and societal influences that tend to push us towards one response or another. As I read the obituaries, I am always saddened by the phrase, "so-and-so died after a courageous battle with cancer, or AIDS, or whatever other disease caused their death.' What an exhausting and futile way to live the last days of ones life. This

war response to illness is one that is fostered by mainstream medicine and the media. It seems to be a societal decision. How often do we hear about the war on cancer, the battle against AIDS, even fighting off a cold. Our medical language is filled with military phrases with fight songs. Even imagery uses the visualization of killing the invading tumor cells. MDs encourage patients to fight the good fight, to beat the disease. It is an attitude that is doomed to failure. We all die. Our belief that death is a failure, a military defeat, is encouraged by this war-like response to illness. Family members, friends and loved ones also shape our response to illness. They encourage us to fight to stay alive as they cannot live without us. We must get well to take care of our families. We are indispensable at work. It is rare that we get a message from anyone, individuals or society or ourselves, to step back, to take our illness with us on a retreat and find the meaning in it for us as individuals and be with it in whatever way is right for our own transformation, for our own healing, whatever that may look like.

If we were encouraged, or even allowed to respond to illness in this way, we might be able to look at illness as an opportunity to learn. If we imagine that our bodies are trying, in their own language, to teach us something, or to point out some area of imbalance on which we need to work, then illness becomes a guide for healing some aspect of ourselves. It may be a physical healing, or an emotional, spiritual, or relationship healing. But, this concept of healing requires that we think of illness as something that arises from within ourselves, not a punishment imposed from some outer force. This does not for a moment imply blame. I am appalled by the message that some people get from their illness that it is something they caused themselves as a punishment, or a failure. If one chooses this message, the opportunity for healing is lost.. And it is a choice It is possible to communicate with our bodies and learn from their wisdom.

I'm going to write about my uterus here. I can't believe it, but I am. When I was a medical student and in surgical training, it would have been extremely disruptive for me to be sick, or to have cramps and heavy bleeding in the middle of a surgical case, or an exam, or some other equally important event in my training. Over the years, it became apparent to me that I had somehow, unconsciously made a deal with my body. It would only get sick, or have a period when it was convenient - like on a weekend off, or vacation, or on a day when no OR cases were scheduled. I didn't realize this on a conscious level until the deal had been in effect for 10 or more years. As I looked back on the pattern of my hormonal cycles, it was very clear that they were not regulated on a temporal basis (the moon had nothing to do with it), but on a convenience basis. I thought that was a pretty neat trick.

How stupid of me. Those painful excess periods had been whispers which I chose to ignore and, even worse, to control. Later, when I was in private practice and a bit more in control of my life, I began having increasing problems

with my uterus. It started to shout at me. I was bleeding so much that I couldn't get my blood count back to normal before I was bleeding again. The cramps got so bad it felt like I was in labor. And there was bleeding between periods. So, I went to a gynecologist knowing she would tell me I needed a D&C. I just wanted to get rid of the bleeding and cramps, and be sure I didn't have uterine cancer. So, I had the D&C, thinking it would fix me. It didn't. The bleeding got worse, as did the cramps. Two years later I went to another gyn who had come highly recommended as a holistic physician. I was at that time in my life thinking there might be something other than surgery or pharmaceuticals that could help me. I had been exploring alternative therapies.

I wanted to find out what my uterus was trying to say to me. It was so persistent, and I hadn't taken the time, or learned how to hear what it was saying. I certainly didn't want someone to cut it out before I had heard what it had to say to me!

I found a therapist who acted as my guide on this journey of exploration. She helped me to talk to my body, to my uterus. I found the anger and control I had directed at my uterus during my years of training. I saw the profound disconnection with nature and with my femaleness that I had imposed on myself during my training. I saw the grief that went with my conscious decision not to have children, not to use my uterus for it's intended purpose. I saw the dying of my old identity and a new me that was trying to be born from my uterus. And I saw the tight angry fist of the fibroid that had resulted from the years of denying my Self, and I saw that I needed help in ridding myself of the physical density I had created. I used the healing tool of surgery (with a more open and less fearful surgeon) to have a symbolic C-section, the removal of only the fibroid, not the uterus, in what I made into a sacred rebirth of the new me. It was an extraordinarily powerful and spiritual experience. My uterus and I are on new and friendlier terms now and I have learned a great deal about who I am from that experience.

Most people have had experiences of finding meaning in illness. From needing to slow down and requiring a cold to make us do it, to unrelenting stress that we are aware of, but can do nothing about until our back gives out and puts us out of commission.

It appears to me, as I try to define illness, that it is any imbalance in our consciousness that disrupts our lives enough to get our attention. It can be a disease, an injury, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, a divorce: anything that gets our attention.What we do with the disruption, is up to us. It can offer us a path to healing, or not. It is my definite impression, that if we choose not to use it as a catalyst for healing, we will be presented with another opportunity sooner or later. Illness in the form of disease or injury is an easy language for

consciousness to use to communicate with us. We have bodies, all manner of things can go wrong with them, and sooner or later, illness gets our attention. It becomes a crisis.

In Dethlefsen's words: "Illness is always a crisis, and the purpose of every crisis is development...any attempt to regain the state of affairs that existed before the illness struck us is either naive or stupid. The aim of illness is to lead us to new, unknown and untrodden pastures. Only if we follow this summons consciously and of our own free will do we lend true meaning to the crisis."

In Richard Moss's words ".... it is moments of crisis, health crisis in particular, that the door of transformation may be opened to us." But, even though health crises may open the door to transformation, we have to make the conscious choice to walk through it.

We can choose to battle our illnesses, or learn from them. It is our choice. As I think back on all the patients I have had the opportunity to know in my life, one patient stands out as different from all the others. She brings truth to Dethlefsen's statement that "Illness is a Path to Perfection."

I still haven't defined healing. I am not sure I can. It seems to change for me from week to week. And it seems to be different for each of us depending on where we are in our lives. Healing is very different for me now than it was when I was an intern in surgery.

I can say that to me, at least today, healing means coming closer and closer to oneness, to remembering Who I am. It means including more and more opposites into my consciousness with the intention of becoming whole. To me the word 'whole' means containing all opposites. To me, that is Unity. Richard Moss says it this way: "True healing means drawing the circle of our being larger and becoming more inclusive, more capable of loving."

I discovered another surprise in my search for a personal definition of healing over the past couple of months. I had put A Course in Miracles (ACIM) away about 10 years ago because it seemed unbalanced in the direction of goodness, excluding the negative opposites. Yet, as I searched for the meaning of healing that felt right to me, I found myself using words that sounded suspiciously like ACIM. In fact, the best definition of healing I came across was from ACIM:

We attend in silence and in joy. This is the day when healing comes to us. This is the day when separation ends, and we remember Who we really are. -A Course in Miracles A message to all the respected readers, sorry, not the readers, but

Assimilators of these moments of truths in the Journey towards Excellence, towards Perfection in mastering the ART OF NATURE, FOR KNOWING THE VERY SELF BEING.

I am ending the write up here , but if you feel that it is not yet complete, and GANESH is missing some thing, then you have really assimilated this thought process and now I leave the baton to you and its up to you to explore & search the TRUE YOURSELF… Your time towards the “Journey to Excellence” START NOW>>>>>>