continued from my examiner post . . .http://www.examiner.com/interfaith-spirituality-in-columbus/spirituality-miracles-deliverance-and-enlightenment
Bernie Siegel, M.D., the author of Peace, Love and Healing refers to Jungian therapist Tom Laughlin’s insight that ‘Jung’s concept of the unconscious emphasized its wisdom, and not its irrationality.’ He explains: ‘The unconscious, far from being merely an empty slate, a cesspool of blind primordial energies, or of repressed contents of the ego, actually has hidden within it an instinctual intelligence that contains in its blueprint a whole series of built-in behavior patterns that when activated will result in our entire future psychological development in the same manner that DNA contains a blueprint of our entire biological development.’ (p 44 Peace, Love and Healing) He goes on to unpack this wisdom and explain that each personality has a unique blueprint as well, or personal myth. Our role in life is to discover what that is, and what the Self would have us learn, including patterns of illness/healing, enlightenment, deliverance etc.
I believe it is the Kabbalah which says we each have several potential exit points in our lives and it is our higher Self or ‘over-soul’ which along with the Source-of-all-that-is choose what will actually be our departure point from this life at the 'right' stage of our development. Siegel asks four questions of his patients: ‘1. Do you want to live to be a hundred?; 2. What happened in the year or two before your illness?; 3. Why do you need your illness and what benefits do you derive from it?; 4. What does the illness mean to you?’ (from Peace, Love and Healing pp 46-49) He sees the illness as a symbol. I had explored these themes with the woman from our story of deliverance from the flight which crashed. In the year or two before the event, she had recently lost her last family member, and overcome breast cancer. The illness made her fiercely affirm a positive attitude, and life. She abhorred visits from a particular chaplain during this time who brought the spectre of death/fear/illness/sin/evil/dread every time, imbued as he was with a heavy legacy of religious dogma.
By Siegel's line of thinking (and many authors in psycho-neuro-immunology), deliverance is no random event in an intelligent, living, breathing cosmos brimming with consciousness. Enlightenment isn’t random either. And we should open the eyes of our souls to be conscious of the miracle of presence. Take time to reflect. May you experience a personal awakening this enlightening season.
I believe it is the Kabbalah which says we each have several potential exit points in our lives and it is our higher Self or ‘over-soul’ which along with the Source-of-all-that-is choose what will actually be our departure point from this life at the 'right' stage of our development. Siegel asks four questions of his patients: ‘1. Do you want to live to be a hundred?; 2. What happened in the year or two before your illness?; 3. Why do you need your illness and what benefits do you derive from it?; 4. What does the illness mean to you?’ (from Peace, Love and Healing pp 46-49) He sees the illness as a symbol. I had explored these themes with the woman from our story of deliverance from the flight which crashed. In the year or two before the event, she had recently lost her last family member, and overcome breast cancer. The illness made her fiercely affirm a positive attitude, and life. She abhorred visits from a particular chaplain during this time who brought the spectre of death/fear/illness/sin/evil/dread every time, imbued as he was with a heavy legacy of religious dogma.
By Siegel's line of thinking (and many authors in psycho-neuro-immunology), deliverance is no random event in an intelligent, living, breathing cosmos brimming with consciousness. Enlightenment isn’t random either. And we should open the eyes of our souls to be conscious of the miracle of presence. Take time to reflect. May you experience a personal awakening this enlightening season.
[Photo Note: Bodhi tree from foster botanical gardens. Genetically identical to the Bodhi tree at Sri Mahabodhi temple. First uploaded on English Wikipedia, February 19, 2005 by Avriette, Wikimedia Commons]
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