Focus your life on THIS moment

As I have written about on one or two occasions, I was 12 years old when I was diagnosed with an incurable disease. Spiritual practice and being present has given me the strength to have a positive outlook on my health. With practice and realization, I no longer look to use modalities as a mean to an end.

When following teachings of spiritual gurus, I very often look to the spiritual gurus who do not give answers to questions. Sounds odd I know. Let me explain. Those who are looking to ask a spiritual question often don't like asking their spiritual question unless given an answer. However, some of the wisest will simply take the question given and not answer. It's like the question fell into a void. You know why I'm drawn to this? NOT ALL QUESTIONS REQUIRE ANSWERS WE ALREADY HAVE WITHIN US.

Sometimes, the ego of the questioner didn't like that. It felt offended. "Is my question not important enough to carry an answer?" However at other times it happened that spaciousness arose in the questioner-sitting in that spaciousness that came through him/her and the question dissapeared in it and an answer arose out of the questioner out of space. Usually those who come to understand it say, "I didn't know it was that simple."

This may be an important topic for quite a few of you. Diseases- fatal or non fatal are just perhaps concepts or beliefs attatched to conditions. It is very easy for what we call a disease to immediately become another concept in the mind. This is especially true with a more serious disease. It becomes incorporated with a sense of who you are and it happens very easily. You may also have observed that some humans who have had a disease for a long time. That disease becomes almost apart of their central selves.

With an egoic sense of self that is always looking to enhance itself, it can easily happen that the ego will use a condition or illness in order to gain more of your attention and a deeper sense of self (trying to define who you think you are) because this sense of self is always deficient. It turns into I am a sufferer of this illness. When I speak of surrendering which means acceptance of what is, I am not speaking of acceptance of an illness or acceptance of yourself as someone who has the illness. That would be strengthening the mind made sense of self and strengthen the concept of the illness.

Acceptance applies only to this moment, not to some situation in your life. Only this. Whatever may manifest in this moment as an illness like a disability, pain, discomfort, or weakness-the condition of this moment is as it is. That is what you bring acceptance to- that space that arises. Acute pain is not easy. Acute pain seems to fill up the entire state of your being, but what else can you do except allow it to be there because it is there.

It has happened in quite a few cases where pain has burned up the conceptual structures of your mind. Pain burned up the ego - became a fire in which the egoic sense of self became consumed. This does happen for some people.
There may be a disability in movement. You may have an illness where you know you're ill, but there may be no particularly serious symptoms. You just know that it's there.

Whatever the illness, it is very important you do not make it a means to an end which is the practice of accepting the "is-ness" of now in whatever form. Not in order to achieve something in order to get better or it's NOT complete acceptance. Surrender to this. Let the illness help push you into the present moment. That is a beautiful thing! However, the illness becomes the teacher. It forces you particularly if it is a serious illness. We all know the fact of mortality could serve the same purpose if you could remember it everyday.

In some Buddhist countries, they regularly visit the morgue. They are let in and sit with the deceased for a few hours. That forces you into the now. That's an amazing thing. So whatever the condition is, allow it to force you into the now. If not, the illness becomes unhappiness. The illness becomes the unhappy self when you leave the now. That turns into, "me that is ill, me who has an illness who is an ill person."

I have known many people who have been told they have six months to live. This is the worst thing in the regular state of conciousness. You go to the doctor and they give you an amount of time to live. They are basically telling you there is no future for you. However, these people have been pushed into the present and it seems as if an enormous, accelerated transformation has been happening inside of them. They are on an accelerated course of realization.

This is why in the beginning of this post, I mentioned the spiritual guru and questions. If you're hoping for healing, you're not totally here because in a deeper sense when there is complete alignment with the suchness of this moment, you are healed already in the deepest sense!