Embracing Illness and Disease
A message from Swami Shankarananda
Founder of Awake Yoga Meditation
July 7, 2013
My beloved fellow devotees, I am with you now more powerfully than ever because my spirit has no boundaries. My love for you is boundless.
These are extraordinary times of change for every one of us. Perhaps you are dealing with a particular illness or disease or impending surgery. Whatever thoughts trouble you concerning your condition, whatever fears you may harbor, whatever worries cause you lack of sleep and loss of peace of mind, know that in the midst of these changes you are supported by the invisible presence of healing energy and the activity of divine love. Will you consider that everything you experience can contribute to your greater understanding, self-unfoldment, and enlightenment? To achieve this, you need to learn now to accept the experience and love it, however difficult it may be. You either believe that everything is orchestrated for your highest good and is the grace of God, or if you do not believe this, your pain will be all the greater, thus disallowing the healing power to flow through you. By the grace of God, I am sustained at all times, even though the body-temple may not readily demonstrate this. Do reflect on this truth.
What does your illness or disease force you to see? Whatever you have to release, and you can, through the power of love. The release is a form of forgiveness, and it can relate to any old fears, habits, memories, and judgments. The body is a great teacher. It reminds us of what is important to remember: not to blame yourself or your past for whatever is happening to you, or for having failed to love yourself by embracing all your experiences. Acknowledge that you are always a spiritual being and lack for nothing that you need for growing in strength and understanding.
Ramakrishna, who knew great physical agony, demonstrated in the midst of it his loving absorption in the presence of the Divine Mother and his unfailing compassionate care for others. When you embrace your illness and disease, you are acknowledging, I am the power of love that can impart healing energy to wherever it is needed and remain spiritually attuned to the presence of divine activity. How uplifting to remember the sweet refrain, “O love that seekest me through pain….” Love is in fact seeking us through all experiences. When this becomes real to you, you experience profound gratitude in the midst of your illness and you will bear witness to the indwelling Self that is ever free and saturated with peace.
When you embrace illness and disease, you are in fact admitting that you recognize the value of every condition as a catalyst to draw forth from within you whatever is needed to experience a deeper connection with the love and wisdom of the universe. What a blessing to discover that you can experience the power of divine grace under all circumstances. The loving attitude toward all challenges evokes within you an even greater loving response of support and compassionate understanding from your inner Self.
Will you be so bold and brave as to offer to the Beloved every thought and feeling that causes you grief and would distract you from loving yourself and knowing your true self-worth by ever turning back to the light of healing within you? It is only through the expanded power of love and spiritual understanding that you can embrace illness and disease and suffering. For with this comes the realization that what is always needed in those situations is the offering of love to every part of you that is suffering. Love provides nourishment that nothing else can provide and allows you, in the words of Sri Krishna, to rise above not only pain but also all relative conditions and to be enfolded by the power of divine love in the embrace of universality. Love is greater than any condition, so surrender to love and let love do what it would do. Be sure to remember that since it is your nature to think and believe, you always have the choice to energize that which you want to experience: total self-acceptance, forgiveness, and self-love. Or, you can energize that which will cause you to keep resisting your healing and realization of peace of mind and spiritual freedom. Thus you become master of your body-temple, of your emotions, of your thoughts, of your perceptions.
Look to the words of Isaiah, “Trust in the Lord, and He will renew your strength. You shall mount up with wings of eagles.” Take refuge in the truth, and the truth will renew you, strengthen you, and sustain you as you move through all changes into the greater light of peace and knowingness. Regardless of the appearances, that which I am is whole and perfect, free from disease and illness, the source and sustenance of everything that contributes to my self-image of wholeness and outpouring of love in thought, word, and action, expressed also through gratitude by extending love to all who are struggling to find freedom and peace, wholeness and self-renewal.
By the time you receive this message, I will have had my surgery and am embracing the successful outcome of all that is divinely orchestrated for my total recovery. And now I embrace you in your allness and love you as you are and pray that you too love yourself as you are loved by the One whose outpouring of love you are. Peace be with you.
Swami Shankarananda