May 2011
If the mind can change its patterns the body can heal completely no matter what the ailment or its duration
The human body has an infinite capacity to heal and repair itself. It has an unfathomable and mysterious way of changing seamlessly. It can move from a terminally ill state to complete normalcy in a matter of a few seconds. It would almost appear that we carry parallel bodies within us that resonate to different frequencies of our mind. The mind can shift and change the body through its thought patterns in much the same way as we change our apparel. This may sound strange and magical; even impossible to our deeply conditioned mind which only knows of and understands the permanence of damage or disease.
Many years ago I read about a woman who was dying of cancer. The doctors gave up on her. She was not expected to last for more than 24 hours. They took off all the drips and stopped the treatment. She lay helplessly in bed waiting for her death. It is said in her memoirs that in that moment she closed her eyes and said to God: “If this is your will then I am ready to die.” She says she experienced a profound peace in that moment. She drifted off into a deep sleep which lasted for 12 hours. The next morning when she woke up, she simply got up from her bed and walked away from the hospital. She lived on for another 20 years. Without cancer. This is a true story, which has always stayed with me. It has given me hope and helped me believe in infinite possibilities. This beautiful inspiring story tells us instant healing is possible. No matter how terminal the case, how hopeless a life situation, healing is possible. And there is a Power beyond us who listens to us. And that all-pervading Power also resides within us. We can command that Power.
Mind-body connect
The mind-body connection is far more powerful than we think. One of the biggest proofs of the mind-body connection is the research done on multiple personality disorder by Dr. Candace Pert, PhD, a renowned neuroscientist who discovered the opiate receptor in 1970. We all remember R.L. Stevenson’s gripping novel, Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this novel the protagonist has two different personalities, each of which is completely unaware of the other. During the day he is a doctor, gentle and kind, and at night, he gets transformed into a monster. In her book, Your Body is Your Subconscious Mind, Dr. Candace Pert says that people suffering from this disorder can have completely different molecular make-ups in their body, based on which particular personality is manifesting. A fact which has been verified by antibodies in blood drawn just five minutes apart.
She says that one personality will be severely allergic to something which the next will not be. One personality will be far-sighted, and the next may be near-sighted. Even the colour of the eyes is known to change with the shift in personality. Within a matter of a few minutes these shifts take place. In other words, the thoughts we think literally change our body chemistry.
She describes us, not as solid, but as flame-like, flickering back and forth, based on our thoughts and our bodies reaction to our emotions.
Our minds change our bodies. However, she is not someone who advocates only happy thoughts. She simply advocates feeling all our emotions and not letting them get trapped in our body where they can fester and stagnate.
Multiple personality disorder gives the most valuable and irrefutable testing ground for mind-body medicine. Their study opens up a fascinating, rivetting, almost magical world and new insights into the mysteries of the human body. About how much it can change even in structure and form in a matter of a few minutes. How can we believe in incurable diseases and the permanence of pathological damage of any kind? In the face of the information, it seems a debatable assumption.
Nothing is incurable
There is never a point of no-return in any disease. No matter how grave or how daunting the ailment, unless you make it your belief system, unless you cling to that personality and the belief systems that have caused it, unless you are trapped by years of conditioning that say certain limiting things about disease, you will be able to overthrow it. Whether it is a common cold or cancer – the body is capable of instant and complete healing; of infinite health and harmony. At any age. In any condition. All it takes is the willingness to change. To honestly look into beliefs and responses to life that caused it. To be ready to become a new person. To stop clinging to any reality that is static and permanent.
It is time to rediscover the impermanence of diseases. And the fact that things come up only because they have to go. All we need to do is to stop clinging, drop our resistance to change. Be fluid and flexible in our beliefs.
We have been told that diabetes, cancer, asthma, and polycystic ovaries are incurable. Even auto-immune diseases. Diabetes, we are told, is caused by permanent damage to the islet cells of the pancreas, and lifelong medication is the only answer. We respect medication. It is life-saving. But to only live by medication and ever increasing doses of it, is so crippling. Why should that be necessary when right here in our own body, exists the most beautiful, fluid, ever-changing mechanism? If the body can do it with effortless ease in people with multiple personalities, it tells us that the body is constantly listening to the mind, and that the spaces around our DNA are alive and responding to our personalities. And that it is a constant instant phenomenon. It does not even involve time.
When we work with change in healing, we do not judge. It’s not about being good or bad. It’s not about positive or negative. It’s not about vices or virtues. It’s simply about doing things that you have never done before. It’s about doing those very things that the diseased personality finds difficult to do. Simply because of fears or doubts of conditioning. If you have been a gentle, forgiving person all your life and yet you are suffering from a tumour in the brain, then healing is about expressing the anger that never found a vent. It’s not about happy thoughts or sad thoughts, but about having the courage to become the power in your own life. To let go of victim programmes even if it means picking up a sword to fight. It’s like starting life all over again. letting go of everything you ever learnt and opening yourself to learning new things.
It’s about knowing that you too are a part of God. And that everything is possible within God. It’s about knowing that you have the biggest, most beautiful pharmaceutical factory within you, that produces chemicals and substances that are genetically engineered for you, just the way you need it.
The deepest healing is always about change. Working with people suffering from all sort of problems, teaches you that the human race has a deep resistance to change. We are scared of change. It is almost as scary as dying. Change is a kind of death. You actually die to a situation as you know it, and come alive to something unknown. That is exactly what happens in a multiple personality individual. Dr. Jekyll completely dies to Mr. Hyde and vice-versa. That is when the body makes the shift. The molecular make-up of the body makes a shift and rearranges itself instantly to create a new set of personality traits, a different body, within seconds.
However, the resistance to change is so deep that one often feels in a therapy session that one is in a wrestling arena. The therapist and the client pitted against each other. The client defending his or her disease or unhappy situation or the personality that is causing it. And the therapist seeking to help them change. But change is more powerful a truth than permanence. So they ultimately yield to it. The moment in which change sinks in, is always a satori. A beautiful experience for any healer to watch and experience. To see the disease-reality melt. To see health and harmony flower once again in the organism that battled for life.