Plane-to-Plane Memorandum | |
| To: | My Beloved Students |
|---|---|
| From: | Master Djwhal Khul |
Subject: | April 2007 Lesson |
| Date: | April 1, 2007 |
Beloved Students:
As we enter another new month, I celebrate with you the healing we are already jointly envisioning for Earth. Know that this year of service to Earth is not only a gift you are making to Earth, it is surely a gift to yourself, as well. Every time you engage in a benevolent thought, word or activity on behalf of Earth, you actually deepen your own healing and becoming process, as well. You and Earth are not separate entities trying to know and understand each other. While I realize it may appear that way, the truth of the matter is that you are just different aspects of the same divine Source.
As we continue on this in-depth voyage into the heart of the Spirit of Reconciliation, know that much healing is possible for you. In fact, it is actually ruptures in the flow of reconciliation that become disease and infirmity. While I realize that this is not the general way in which disease and infirmity is approached, if you can see it in this light, you will have a deeper understanding of how both occur. Now you know, of course, that both physical and mental states of disease or infirmity are basically states wherein there is some kind of disharmony. Often their arising can be attributed to some kind of violence. While it is easy to recognize that a violent episode could occur in a traumatic experience, such as a car accident, or a literal physical attack on a physical body, other conditions are less obvious. However, if we look deeply enough, it will become evident that violence is at the root of many physical conditions of ailment.
Should someone suffer a stroke, a heart attack, the onset of appendicitis, or even a migraine headache, these are all signs of disharmony within the body. And if you have ever suffered one of these conditions, you will realize that they can all feel quite violent during the episode. It would be simplistic to infer that there is a certain, specific cause that sets any one of these (or other) conditions off in the body. In truth, the only commonality may be the presence of the karma to experience a certain condition. Of course, you have all heard it said, I am sure, that people can suffer heart attacks because their heart is closed. While this can be true in some cases, be careful about becoming dogmatic here. The truth is that one person may suffer a heart attack from a closed or cold heart, but another individual with a similarly closed or cold heart may suffer from migraines.
While one person projecting negatively toward her own body might create intense episodes of acne, another person with nearly identical projections might trigger a myocardial infarction. Still another who holds very similar beliefs about her own body might manifest IBS, or irritable bowel syndrome. The point to pay attention to here is less about drawing conclusions with regard to specific causes and their effects, and more about realizing that causes produce effects – even if not identically person to person.
In our recorded lecture for this month, you will note that we again explore some of the depths of bodhichitta. Of course, compassion and bodhichitta are the two forces that can dissolve violence. While this may seem obvious at the outer level, I would like each of you to honestly consider the application of both to your body and your mind. For example, many of you have had the experience of “fighting” some condition of physical illness. If you paid close attention, you might recall that the more you struggled against the condition, perhaps the flu or a cold virus, the more worn our, and likely sicker you became. Perhaps you felt attacked by the virus, and you decided to wage full-out war on it. Of course, it was the ego mind that wanted to fight, or thought there was some need to fight, and you may have even found yourself thinking violent thoughts at a virus, for goodness sake!
Clearly, applications of violence do not “cut the mustard,” as the saying goes, when it comes to healing the body. Why? Because healing requires reconciliation with the body, not more violence! In nearly every case of illness or disease you experience, you are actually buying your freedom from some karmic condition of which you may be com- politely ignorant. The ripening of karma is seldom linear, particularly with heavier versions. This fact makes it nearly impossible to trace the suffering in a given life back to a single point when something occurred that you are now working to dissolve. Now often, patterns of suffering are put in place, and in learning of the events of a given past life, one may have enough special insight into the cur-rent situation to experience extrication from the pattern – even healing from the physical condition through which the pattern manifest.
My teachers always instructed me that there are many ways to purify negative karma. The obvious way (the way most people think it happens) is to have it fully manifest in a life that requires not only much suffering, but also presents you with the opportunity to react against the ripening of that karma, and possibly create more negative karma. In such cases, most of the life energy of that life-time would be spent in working out this piece of karma (or strengthening it by fighting against it and creating more negative karma).
In other cases, however, it might look quite different. For example, imagine for a moment that you took the life of another person in one life. In some succeeding life, wherein you decided to work on purifying this particular piece of karma, imagine that you did so in a spiritual setting. Perhaps you were a Catholic monk, and spent much of your time in prayer and meditation. Because of your spiritual grounding, instead of having to be killed yourself, perhaps you only suffered some accident and lost an arm. This would be cause for rejoicing under my teachers, for it would mean that you had purified enough of the karma by your spiritual practice that you did not have to lose your life in the final purification process. This would mean that your opportunities to continue spiritual practice would not be interrupted, and you would still have useful time wherein you could work on more bakchaks, and still have more opportunities to help and heal other sentient beings.
Thus, we were always taught to give thanks when our karma ripened – even in such cases as having cancer, or paralysis. While we all knew that these physical conditions only come about as a result of our karma, the wonderful part is that with this sophistication of understanding we could see that we were not going to have to enter into one of those heavier lifetimes wherein the entirety of our energy would go into dealing with a heavy piece of karma. We could still continue our spiritual practice, we could continue to sit at the feet of master teachers, we could deepen our bodhichitta, and we were still able to train our minds to see emptiness. All this – AND the privilege to purify negative karma, too!
While I recognize this is not generally how people think about physical illness in the West, you must admit it is a remarkably non-violent approach to accepting illness and disease. Of course, even with something like cancer, one would still attempt to get well. This kind of acceptance is not just a matter of “throwing in the towel” because it’s can-car; if anything, the person works diligently to rid him/herself of the disease, for so doing is purifying the body. But seen in this light, one has cause for celebration – even when receiving a diagnosis that most would dread. The beautiful thing here is that this way of seeing allows one to fully participate in generating bodhichitta for one’s own body, and then having the opportunity to dedicate the results of bodhichitta to virtually every sentient being who suffers in the same way.
Of course, if you are able to live your entire life without having any violent thoughts (even mild ones) toward your body or your mind, you might be surprised at how wise and strong that body/mind you walk around in really is! It is never too late to begin practicing bodhichitta toward you body, nor toward your mind. To sit with gratitude for a sound body (yes, even if you have cancer) is a wonderful acknowledgment of what the Source of All Being has created through you.
Please join me this month in listening to The Bhodisattva’s Credo, a lecture I created for you last month. I hope you will open yourself to the fullest measure of this teaching, for Earth, Her-self will benefit if you do. Take the examples to heart, and open yourself to the possibility of deep healing for yourself, the planet, and all sentient beings!
Djwhal Khul
Copyright 2007, Vajra Flame Foundation, Ltd.
Reprint prohibited without permission.
