Personal Growth - The heart of health
by Suma Varughese
The heart controls the brain, and the the brain controls immune system. So if you can learn to love, you can heal
Suma Varughese is Editor-in-Chief of Life Positive.
Write to her at suma@lifepositive.net
A long time ago I had participated in
a workshop called Breakthru conducted
by Oneness Univercity. One of
the facilitators shared a wonderful story.
Apparently, an elderly gentleman shared
with Bhagavan, the founder of Oneness,
his distress at losing his hearing. “Can
you do anything to help me regain it?” he
pleaded. “Sure,” Bhagavan answered and
told him to buy two ice-cream cones, one
for him and one for his young grandson
and to duck under a bed together and to
eat them every day. The gentleman was
stupefied but decided to follow instructions.
Soon, the daily practice became
a deeply cherished hour for both grandparent
and grandchild and after a few
months, his hearing improved markedly.
How? Sharing the ice-cream cone
with his grandson introduced a note of
play and affection into his life. As the
facilitator put it, “The heart governs the
brain and the brain governs the immune
system, so when his heart opened, his
brain commanded the immune system
to step up.”
Love is the greatest healer, after all. If
we can love sufficiently, we will need no
other medicine.
I myself had a wonderful experience
testifying to this when my mother
fell badly ill with cerebral malaria last
August. She lay in intensive care for
about 16 days and I spent every night
by her bedside, taking just a break in the
morning to go home and change. Oddly
enough, although I was barely clocking
more than four hours of sleep a day, I
was fresh and alert. My asthma problems
melted away and I found myself having fried food and baked stuff after years
without incurring colds. Constipation
and indigestion which had been my
constant companions disappeared and I
discovered a hearty appetite. My weight
which had skydived, suddenly regained
balance. While the rest of the family lost
weight with the ordeal, I bloomed!
On the third occasion that we hospitalised
her, it was for a massive stroke.
The doctors were helpless and finally
we brought her home. In time life went
back to a routine. I had time to think
and worry about my health and lo, I
started getting cold after cold, which
culminated in wheezing, and breathlessness.
My old friend was back.
At that time I had thought that my
self-indulgence had brought on the
malaise and I was most upset with
myself. Now I recognise that the
problem was that my mind was no
longer on my mother, it was on myself.
At the hospital, I remember each time
an anxious thought intruded into my
mind, I would tell my body, “Body,
I can’t worry about you now. You
will just have to handle it.” Obviously,
the body is equipped to do just that
if we stop interfering, and since
my heart was focused on my mother
I grew well.
Of course, one could ask, how does
one learn to love? Not easy as I am discovering.
Thoughts of the self interfere,
but if we can learn to keep our minds
unwaveringly on others, guess what our
brain is whispering to our immune system?
“Step up”!
See more articles on Personal growth at: http://www.lifepositive.com/articles/Personalgrowth
