I Dream of a Different World

A famous quote from prosperity expert Napoleon Hill says, “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve.” The point is that all changes begin with a thought or a dream. In that sense, no dreams are too lofty!

As I come close to finishing this book, I realize it’s more than a book. There is a dream stirring in my heart. I dream of a different world; a world that allows healing because it understands that to be the purpose of our human life. Pure Consciousness, the stuff of our making, seeks to express itself in every aspect of our living. And it sees you and me through our pain and suffering. It is beckoning us to grow, to prosper and to shine. Pain is beyond our control, but suffering is something we choose. We can choose Consciousness instead; we can choose to shine like the sun. We can choose to dwell in our own infinite potential regardless of our small-minded agendas and goals. When we can allow Consciousness to simply have us, it will work its magic through us. What if we all understood this? What if we knew that we were more than just our physical body?

Real medicine is that which heals. To divide or to separate medicine into conventional or alternative is to see human beings in a divided, fragmented way. When we do that, it becomes a matter of belief, hence the common resistance to alternative medicine, which gets expressed as “I don’t believe in it.” I have also come across clients who don’t “believe” in prescription medications even when they may need one temporarily.

We can choose to overlook the real root causes of our illnesses, but they remain, whether we believe in them or not. If we believe we are separate from our spirit or our soul, then we do feel separate and fragmented, and are forever missing the deep connection with ourselves, seeking it everywhere, in fact, but in ourselves. When we are fixated on our symptoms, we are viewing ourselves in a rather superficial way, bypassing and missing the opportunities to really become whole. This is what I dream: that we understand who we are, regardless of color, age, sex or creed. Healing happens when we look at the bigger, whole picture, it rarely happens when we think we are just a physical body.

Stand up for Your Health!

When we become the authority on our own health and healing, we can use the resources available to us in the most efficient and appropriate way. Many times, we must address our physical symptoms to get relief from them, so we can think straight and function, but our focus on health can’t end there. When we can step up to what we expect of ourselves, we can use the medical system, both conventional and alternative, in the most informed and effective way. When we stand up for our own health, we won’t buy into a predetermined medical system that is laid out before us to blindly follow. We will no longer be lulled into the concepts of health-related comforts and conveniences, but rather rise up to the challenge of facing our fears and becoming whole.

Steve, a 40-year-old man, came to see me. He had had learning disabilities all his life due to an injury during his birth. He managed his daily functions very carefully and methodically. It worked for him.. He lived with his mother but had a job, and he was doing his best. Although he did not completely understand healing, he was drawn to it and that is one of the reasons he came to see me. He also wanted to learn about how to live a healthy lifestyle. Upon meeting with him, I realized that he was actually more functional than he thought. He had a job, he cleaned his home, he did the best he could do every day.

What was getting him down was that he would never be like other 40-year-old men who were married with their own homes and children. In comparison, he felt small and highly inadequate, but otherwise okay with his life. I asked him what it would be like if he lived somewhere where all the 40-year-olds were exactly like him. His eyes lit up and he smiled. By himself and with himself, he was actually quite content. The thought that he was actually okay, or good enough, lit him up. His struggle was not his disability; his struggle was the meaning he gave his disability by comparing himself with others. The revelation that he actually was okay struck him deeply and he looked like a different person. His body perked up, his eyes shone and there was a smile on his face. At the end of his appointment, as he was leaving, he nodded his head and kept repeating to himself, “I am okay! I can do this! This is good!”

Isn’t that what we all want? To know, that we are going to be okay regardless of our challenges and our struggles? The struggles don’t need to go away for us to be okay, we have to tap into something bigger in us that is far more powerful and potent than our struggles. When we limit a person to their diagnosis, we limit their view of themselves. They become the illness and can’t get beyond it. The thinking that we are just our body is limiting and gets in the way of our healing. When we look at illness from the viewpoint of what caused it, rather than how it has shown up, we are creating space to work at its root cause, instead of masking it.

 To know that we have created something gives us the power to un-create it.

This motivates us to look deeper, to heal, rather than to give in and succumb to our misfortune. Connecting to our own power is the most healing thing we can do for ourselves.

No one is broken, nobody! None of us are victims! Life is nothing but a series of opportunities for Self-realization. It is up to us to choose to view our challenges as opportunities. How long can we keep running and repeating the same old patterns? Sooner or later, we must step up! I recommend sooner!

The Universe will always support our higher intentions and aspirations, our higher purpose of serving others and spreading goodness in the world. You have the ultimate responsibility for your health. Don’t reduce your life to a script and a pill. Your struggles won’t lessen with that. Sedating or numbing our minds to the pain will only prolong the suffering. Awakening to our struggles not only lessens them, but will also awaken us to our Truth.

Allow yourself to come alive and to feel deeply, instead or rushing to block your path with a pill. Feeling deeply is your ultimate strength; it is what you can afford to do. Let fear be a catalyst instead of an obstacle. Don’t normalize pain and suffering, it isn’t why you are here, you are here to heal. There is a yearning in all of us, a fire to awaken to that part of ourselves which is much larger than we can imagine. Connect with that yearning. Nothing creates a bigger burden for our souls than not showing up for ourselves.

Expect more! If you expect to walk away with a script, then that’s what you will get. Don’t be taken in by dumb and embarrassing marketing. “We call our patients by their first name,” the hospital ad says. Seriously? We should drool over that? I like to know what they were calling their patients before. By their disease? The standards have become so low that we actually are impressed if we are called by own first names. The same goes for the standards for early detection, so-called “prevention.” If it is detected, it isn’t prevented. We must raise the bar as to what prevention is. Prevention is in your kitchen, in how you live. It isn’t in a blood test. A blood test is a warning. Why must you need a warning? It is your health, your life, isn’t it?

Bigger and filled-to-capacity hospitals are signs of a sick nation and it isn’t anything to boast about or to be proud of. I dream of a world where the hospitals become the healing and health education centers. State-of-the art medical equipment, a new wing, and expensive artwork in the lobby isn’t my vision. I will applaud when the medical world is concerned more with creating goodwill than collecting patients; where instead of boosting their egos, they are boosting our confidence in creating our own health; where they view the opportunities to make a lasting difference in the lives of those who cross their path, instead of maintaining a limited fixation on their bottom line. The Universe never supports greed or personal narrow-minded agendas; it will always support our big visions and higher purpose. We can, at our individual levels, have a big vision for our health and our life.

I dream of a world where old age is not equated with disease. Disease is not a function of age. We can’t have a mindset of being disease-ridden at a certain age. We can’t hold on to the cause of  death of our parents and their parents. Keep your mind young and keep your beliefs young. Age matters but how you age matters more. Your mindset, and your beliefs, are everything when it comes to your health. Aging is not a disease. If you believe that you are doomed because you are old, then you ARE doomed.

We can run, but we can’t hide from our higher calling. When we don’t do all that we can do, our soul will seek us out and confront us and we’d better have an answer for it. Live today according to your bigger purpose and calling, and your last day will be a quiet celebration of knowing that you have done all that you could do. You can be the source of guidance and healing. Ultimately, we have to answer to our soul alone, and not to our boss, our CFO or our insurance companies.

I want a world where the healing heart of the physician is more valued than the medical equipment he or she uses. A world where compassion, time, connection and Consciousness are a norm, and not an uphill battle for those desiring to heal. We don’t need state-of-the art equipment, we need more healing hearts and hands, a reassurance that we are going to be okay, a reminder that we are more than our symptoms and diagnosis. If the medical world practiced some common sense and wisdom, we might require less testing. The medical processes are more fear-driven than what we truly need. There is more documenting but less listening. Machines can only test what’s going on physically, when the true healing is something that happens at a much deeper level. The tests and the x-rays, leave out what’s most important: our story, our aspirations, our fears and our challenges, our hopes and our dreams for our life.

The more we accept the system as it is, the more we normalize it. In that sense, we normalize pain and suffering. We have created the medical system that we have today by being complacent and following its development blindly and faithfully. Don’t learn how to live with your illness without giving it your all to heal it. You deserve better. It is never too late. We are alive until we take our last breath! Let’s not die before our death! We were born to heal, not to suffer.

Imagine the energy and the time we will spare if we are not so vested in our illnesses. We could be immersed in creating something beautiful, learning and contributing to the world. When we connect with our true Essence, we heal. This deep connection nourishes us, and our soul, and we fill up emotionally. Then our life and our eating simply become a reflection of that experience inside.

Can you think beyond your illness? What may your life look like without it?

This blog is a chapter taken directly from my book, “Healing Your Relationship With Food: The Ayurveda Answer” Learn where to get your copy.