Pain Is The Feeling Of Healing

The body is quite remarkable and intuitive, particularly when it is working in conjunction with the mind. The very moment that the body becomes injured it begins implementing the process of healing instinctively, but when this process is supported by the mind as well it can be an unstoppable force. It's true that when we sustain an injury our nerves are affected and we feel heightened sensations from what we call "pain receptors" in the body, but perhaps these sensual encounters are more than meets the eye.

Obviously, no one likes to get hurt and without injury, the body seems to have a natural balance. What if, however, we're not fully taking perception into account? What if pain only feels adverse to us because "painful" is all we've ever really known "pain" to be? What if we have only programmed ourselves to see it that way, rather than to view it as a beautiful new opportunity to learn and to heal? We tend to look at the negatives in our society. It's bred into us and those feelings most certainly affect how we heal.

We all know that through experiments using the placebo effect, science has proven time and time again that positive thoughts and beliefs about the body can actually speed up the healing process. We also know through quantum physics that sub-atomic particles, the very foundation of matter, can be affected simply through conscious focus and thought. So, why wouldn't this work for our bodies as well? If the very stuff that everything is made up of can be affected by thought, then it only makes sense that thought would have a direct affect on the body. There have been countless studies showing how negative thoughts and stress actually degrade the health of the body, so why wouldn't the reverse be true? Why wouldn't positive thoughts promote the health of the body?

We live in a culture that tends to focus on what's wrong as a means to putting things right. It doesn't even seem to occur to us that focusing our thoughts on the negative, even with a positive end goal in mind, might actually be counter intuitive to bringing more positive into our lives. So, it seems to me that if our bodies are so receptive to the way we feel about them, then maybe pain as we know it is not really what we think it is. What if pain is actually the feeling of healing and the negative sensations that we experience are only the result of a lifetime of self conditioning and negative thoughts that we have sent to the body, which has only served the purpose of slowing down its natural healing rate? We already know that pain is entirely perceptual as we've all heard of the term "pain threshold", which, of course, is a term used to define the exact level of intensity that an individual begins to feel pain. Each individual's threshold is different according to their perception of what "pain" truly is. We know it's perceptual by the fact that a person can condition themselves mentally to not feel pain and, in fact, can even alter their perception of pain to the point where pain seems to be a pleasurable thing.

Healing seems to be a natural process. It's hard wired into our bodies, but perhaps pain is not, as what we feel, and how much of it we feel, seems to be left entirely up to our own perceptions. So, if we begin to shift those perceptions we have of our bodies and our lives into a more positive place and meditate daily on those positive things, it seems likely that our own capacity for healing and personal well being will rise to the occasion as well. Then, we human beings can truly begin to explore our own unlimited potential.

Would You Kill Hitler?

If you had a time machine, would you go back in time to kill Hitler? I've been thinking about this age old question recently and have come to some interesting conclusions.

At first glance the answer seems perhaps quite obvious to many of us. After all, killing Hitler would perhaps have prevented the 11-14 million some people from being murdered in the holocaust & would have perhaps prevented a good majority of the 70 million some deaths of World War II. So, it would seem that to trade one life for the lives of millions is easy enough math for any of us to do. The fact that it's still murder by the mind(s) that pass the judgement, the mouth(s) that agree to give the order, the hand(s) that deal the punishment and the heart(s) of those who raise their fists to the sky to rejoice that justice has been done, shouldn't deter us right?

In Western culture it seems that many of us would most likely concur that the act be done. After all, we've been breast fed by Western religion and Judeo-Christian values for hundreds, if not more than two thousand, years; ethics which have brought us such visionary concepts as: "an eye for an eye" must be taken, capital punishment must be upheld, penance must be made to atone for one's sins. Toss him to the lions that he might be judged by God for all eternity! (Our brand of)"Justice" MUST be done.

Conversely, many Eastern philosophies and religions, however, might venture to say quite the opposite. That life is a personal journey of one's own consciousness. That one faces the ultimate judgement for their transgressions in life and beyond from one's own self. That the karmic consequences for our actions and our own revelatory realizations of which...and of our connection to all things in the universe...and of the degree to which we loved those things, might be more severe for the soul of the individual than any punishment that could ever be delivered by man.

Western thinking, on the other hand, seems to teach us to strive for one's own, to right the wrongs of others, to intervene in the destinies of those around us in accordance with our own notions of what should be and how this life should be lived. What if it's not our place however, to make such decisions? Did not even Jesus say, "Let him who has not sin cast the first stone"? Was he not saying that no one among us has the right to pass judgement on another? That it is neither our responsibility or our right to punish the wrongful acts of our fellow men and women? If God created man in his own image and we are all children of God, isn't ending the life of another not much different than ending our own?

It is not my intent to discuss religion here exactly, rather more to present the idea that religion has shaped the beliefs and ideals of the entire world since the dawn of time. It's true that there have been many great teachers and enlightened individuals in the past who have taught us a message love, of peace and unity with all mankind, but religion itself has caused great destruction in the world despite those teachings. It has created a great chasm between the hearts of men that has led us into thousands of wars and to millions upon millions of deaths throughout history. It has brought division to a world that has not yet the eyes to see that the Earth and everything on it is in fact one and the same thing. The earth is a celestial body and every organism on it is a part of that body. We and the Earth are one. 

So perhaps, personally, if I were to travel in time, I think I would not use that opportunity to exact vengeance on those who have wronged us in the past, but rather, I would head to the future with a sense of wonder and curiosity and I would seek out true wisdom from the universe with a heart filled with love.