Many human beings have experienced enlightenment or revelations of the Divine. However, the wisest ones will tell you that it’s a life’s work (or more likely many lives!) to explore and learn how to manifest the wisdom thus received, and allow it to express itself throughout one’s whole being and life.
One of the big questions that often comes up on such a spiritual journey is: now that I know myself to be so utterly embraced by divine love, ought I still to use material means to achieve the things I desire, or should I seek to rely entirely on the power of thoughts and beliefs, since these are what determine my experiences? In some situations that question is easier to answer than in others. None of us would think twice, for instance, about using a car or bike to go to work – nobody’s expecting us at our current stage of evolution to teleport there, even if we could! Nor would we hesitate to eat a meal when our body needs nourishment – there are people who have learned to nourish themselves without food*, but for most of us it’s easier just to eat, isn’t it?
CODE: 220318 RRP: £8.99 Cygnus Price: £5.99 You save: £3.00 (33%)
Conventional or alternative?
When it comes to our health, however, we can sometimes be a bit more undecided. Do we use conventional medicines which may be very far from natural and wholesome for our bodies? Do we stick to alternative remedies which are at least easier biologically for our bodies to identify and use? Or do we, as some people do, work purely on our beliefs and psychology, in the hope that, if we align ourselves more perfectly with the divine, our physical symptoms will disappear?
On my own healing journey, I’ve tried all three approaches both singly and in combination, and have found that a combination of all three works best for me. So whereas I started out with all kinds of prejudices and reservations against conventional medicines, nowadays I do not discriminate at all between conventional and alternative. My only questions are 1) Is this remedy likely to work in my body, and 2) is it likely to damage my immune system or vital organs? I did try using mental/spiritual methods alone, particularly during the second year of my journey when for all kinds of reasons I found it strangely impossible to get the physical treatments I would have liked, but this brought me up against a crucial realisation: that whatever problems I had lurking in my subconscious ‘cellar’, that may have been contributing to the cancer, they were probably going to be too big for me to deal with on my own, and also would require more consciousness to be brought to their resolution than was possible for me with quick methods like Psych-K and EFT. And in addition they would require time for their healing, time which, given the extent of my cancer, I was not at all convinced I would have unless I ‘bought it’ with physical remedies.
I think this is quite likely to be the case with a lot of cancer patients, cancer being something of a ‘final warning message’ from our bodies. But just because you have a final warning, that doesn’t mean you are supposed to get sent off the playing field altogether. Far better that we do our best to turn the illness into an evolutionary force, by learning whatever we can from the situation, facing our fears, letting go of our attachments, past conditionings, beliefs and dogmas – whatever they are – and doing whatever it takes to serve the life-force in our bodies. Because even if we don’t ultimately succeed in getting well from our disease, we can be certain that we are part of a beautiful story that the whole of humanity is composing together – the story in which disease and suffering are overcome, and humanity moves towards less painful ways of learning its lessons – and I for one find that a very comforting thought. Nothing is ever wasted.
A continuum of varying levels
So, although many people – myself included – sometimes find that psycho-spiritual approaches on their own are not sufficient to banish diseases, I believe that we will always notice, if we look closely enough, that physical remedies and improvements come to us in a way that keeps pace with the changes we are making inwardly. In this way, matter and spirit work hand in hand. And actually, why shouldn’t they? Matter is, after all, spirit as well. It’s just that it exists at a lower density. Only in our minds is it separate. By seeing ourselves not as living in a ‘material’ world that is somehow different and separate from spirit, but as part of a continuum of varying levels of density, all of which – however unlikely it may seem – are expressions of God’s love, we are released from the matter-spirit dilemma and placed right in the current of divine compassion, where all remedies, be they material or spiritual, psychological or physical, allopathic or homeopathic, can come to us at the right time, as the divine gifts they truly are.
© 2012 by Ann Napier
*See Life from Light by Michael Werner & Thomas Stockli, 170707, £6.99
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I would agree with Ann that as Humanity has progressed we are now at a point in our development where we have a greater understanding of disease process and a timely knowledge of other interventions which can treat all of the subtle bodies. We are privileged to have a greater choice in our own health management with the empowerment that such a choice brings. I feel that by utilising all that is available to us within a health setting we embrace the full meaning of “wholistic”.
I made the following notes whilst listening to an interview with the late John O’Donohue who spoke about illness.
He said, ‘Ask it why it came. Why it chose your friendship. Where it wants to take you. What it wants you to know. What quality of space it wants to create in you.What you need to learn to become more fully yourself that your presence may shine in the world.’
He followed that by saying, ‘May you keep faith with your body, learning to see it as a holy sanctuary which can bring this night wound gradually towards the healing and freedom of dawn.’
He declared that the inner music never abandons you and that there always remains a minute part of you that remains untouched by trauma.
He wrote this blessing for the back cover of his book ‘Benedictus’
‘There is a quiet light that shines in every heart.
Though it is always secretly there, it draws no attention to itself.
It is what illunites our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility and our hearts to love life.
This shy inner light is what enables us to recognise and receive our very presence here as blessing.’
Revelations of Divine Love is an inspired choice.
Thank you so much, Ann and Dorothy!
Thank you ,too, Jackie.
Maybe the reason why so mayn people still run to allopathic methods with their often disastrous side effects is simply fear, lack of knowledge and lack of money to pay for holistic treatment? I have been watching some films which help “educate” and which I can recommend: “Thrive”, “Vegucation” and “Forks over Knives”.
spiritual net@work
What I enjoy so much about cygnus magazine is that in every issue I find articles that mirror my own experiences over the past weeks. Parallel journeying — we are really in it together, all members of the same family of humans, just as ‘our’ planets are all members of the Solar System family, each following its own law but essentially doing the same journey (I’m an astrologer).
And thank you, Ann — I so much agree about using all kinds of remedies, in accordance with my needs of the moment. Because the remedies just as myself are all equally part of the manifestation at this moment, therefore they all may potentially help me. And will, if it is God’s will …
Thank you for this and for the wise comments.
I myself live with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) which is incurable and progressive. It has changed me and my life and I see it as an essential part of my sojourn here.
My husband is a scientist and engineer. He is suffering from stage 4 Melanoma which is, of course, progressive and incurable. We know he won’t have long and that it will be a hard road. We are deeply grateful for the support of Macmillan and for the prospect that good palliative care might be able to keep pain levels at a tolerable level for some time.
He sees cancer as being part and parcel of being a multicellular organism. Cells must divide for us to be who and what we are. He likes being a multicellular organism (especially one with conciousness and the capacity to love) and accepts the risks that go with this way of being.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is that, for us, Acceptance is fundamental in this situation.
Acceptance of the situation, of any help that’s available, of the possibility of living with it and growing from it.
I think along spirtual lines. I am housebound and it is difficult to maintain social contact when it is hard to walk and hard to talk. I have had to learn how to transform loneliness into a creative solitude and how grateful I am for that. I have discovered so much and am more than content.
My husband finds great comfort in his research of the history of Steam Railways ( and no, it’s not train spotting. It’s fascinating and important social and engineering history!) and the warm relationships that are part of this interest. He gives a great deal of joy in sharing the result of his research with others. He seems to have no need of, or interest, in the “spiritual”. He simply gets on – a good man quietly getting on with a good life hoping, at best, for a “good death”.
Of course, I am in my mid-sixties and he is almost seventy. For younger people, it must be so much more of a challenge to find one’s way through. Ann, I’ve been reading your sharings from the beginning. I really appreciate and respect your honesty. The knowledge of the development of your understanding in the light of your experience is a great gift to the world.
I find this particular post very wise and hope that it might encourage others to seek and find help from every source as soon as possible. If my husband’s original melanoma had been found, and removed, earlier it would have saved him so much suffering.
Of course, s0metimes the best decision is to “let nature take it’s course” the cure being worse than the condition. But I too believe that modern medicine is “natural” too as is the intelligence that constructs it from god-given material.
With apologies for this long comment
Jan