by Charley Cropley
(editorials@boulderweekly.com)

Few people are aware of how profoundly their unexamined belief in the "superstition" called "disease" influences their efforts to become healthier. When I say that most diseases are a superstition, I am not denying that people have very real symptoms such as runny noses, tumors and painful joints. I am saying that the interpretation that these symptoms are due to something called "diseases" is false and every bit as much a superstition as believing that our symptoms are caused by evil spirits or any other clearly false interpretation.

If you allow any false interpretation of cause and effect to guide your actions, you are not going to get the results you expect out of your actions. An interpretation or belief can be likened to a map. It tells us where to go to get to our destination. Everybody's desired destination is health and happiness, yet very, very few people arrive at health. Most end up lost in illness. If the disease interpretation is inaccurate and incomplete, what then might be a more accurate mental map or interpretation of our pains and dysfunctions? Briefly, it is this: Your every action produces a specific consequence or result; your symptoms are the natural consequences of your actions (willful and otherwise); and your most ordinary actions such as eating, breathing, moving, thinking, speaking, relating are what, above all else, determine your level of health and happiness. In short, we determine our illnesses and health by our actions, with very few exceptions.

Notice how this interpretation of our symptoms brings us from the realm of imagination and speculation into the real world of physical and mental actions. Rather than speculating and theorizing as to what the mysterious causes of our health problems might be, we now look squarely into the real world of what we actually do and can seek our answers there. Our body's aches and pains are wise and kind messages directly from nature—God intended to alert us, i.e. our minds, of the need to stop doing what hurts us and start doing what restores and protects us. They are 100-percent purposeful. Illness is primarily a call for attention. Wise and compassionate action is the only remedy.

As long as we cling to our dominant cultural map-interpretation that tells us that our suffering is due to mysterious forces beyond our control, our body is held prisoner by these interpretations. Our deluded and ignorant mind then makes insane choices to poison, burn and cut the body. It hurts me to again and again watch my brothers and sisters offer their bodies up to the worst tortures ignorant minds can invent, not realizing they are being used by larger cultural beliefs every bit as false as believing the earth to be flat.

To successfully navigate the journey to radiant health we must first obtain an accurate map to guide our actions. It requires some serious thinking about our own thinking. It doesn't just happen. For a reality check on how imprisoned you are by conventional superstition, recall a time you were sick or a recurrent pattern of illness that you have and then ask yourself the following questions: Did you interpret your health challenges as something caused by a virus or bacteria, or as the manifestation of a "disease" or an "illness"? The most important point here is not your exact interpretation. Did you generally interpret your symptoms as "something wrong" and "non-purposeful"? Were your choices of who to consult and what to do consistent with the interpretations you made? i.e., did you try to make the symptoms simply disappear without giving much thought to the underlying causes? What difference might it have made if you had interpreted your illness as an attempt on the part of your body to communicate with your mind, the attempted communication being intended to re-direct your daily actions toward those which would support your health. Your body-mind was telling you of the need for a change that, if you had made it, would have brought you greater health and happiness, or less suffering.

In rethinking this incident see if you can figure out what your body might have been trying to tell you. Often, people are able to look back and see that their body had been faithfully trying to warn them of the dangerous consequences of one or more activities they were or were not doing (worrying; eating poorly; lacking fun, sex, rest, etc.) If you had received your body's messages, how might this have changed your lifestyle and thereby changed your health? Can you see how your body was held prisoner and prevented from guiding you to better health through better action by your mind's false beliefs and interpretations about illness?

Reflect on the time, effort, study, money, expert consultations you have invested in the diagnosis and treatment of real or feared health concerns (include health insurance costs). Suppose you had invested the same time, effort, study, money, etc., in learning such skills as nutrition, fasting, exercise, meditation and communication skills. How might your health and happiness be different today?

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com