Digging Deeper for Health

I think many people might take the title of this piece in a medical sense- looking within the body, scouring for hints of decayed or diseased tissues and trying to make them work better or remove them.  But that’s not the sense I am looking at.

I look at the radiant smiles that people infect others with- the effect of a different perspective that transcends material living. I look at how a child’s smile can make the cares of the day vanish. Or how an energetic helpful clerk in a store can make us relax and feel better.

Those moments may seem like passing things; random pleasant things, or exceptions to the rule, but I’m coming to see them as glimpses of the way things really are. When people have “near death” experiences, the one thing that they all have in common is that when that person “comes back” from the edge of death, they have lost all fear of it and have realized that the only appropriate response to life is love. Do we all have to go to the brink of mortal existence before we get this universal understanding? I don’t think so.

The essence of that experience is spiritual, mental. It happens in our thought. But it’s not “just a thought”. It’s real substance and power and it changes lives. Why not be more aware on a regular basis of  the role of mental causation. This isn’t a matter of psyching ourselves into a good mindset, it is actively recognizing that there is real, always present good that we can respond to. If nothing else, those “near death” stories show that there are no conditions unfavorable to having this realization.

The best way to take care of ourselves, to be pro-active about health and well-being is actually not to micro-manage what is going on physically in our bodies, but to begin to understand ourselves as part of that bigger picture and to act in accord with the spiritual good that really is around and within us.

When people respond positively to drug placebos, what they are really responding to is their own hopeful expectancy of good. Hope connects us to that bigger picture and spiritual goodness. It’s a powerful thing and one small step away from faith (the realization that we have solid cause for hope).

You can’t fake hope or faith (and you wouldn’t want to try). But I’ve found that when I let myself recognize the good that’s here, I’ve felt as if I were tapping into a well-spring of a pervasive, powerful, ever-present goodness. It’s never a disappointment and it never fails to start a ripple effect of more good that I’m grateful to be part of.