“The Way Toward Health Is Simplicity Itself”
Excerpts from “The Way Toward Health” by Jane Roberts
“The Way toward health is simplicity itself. It is the natural, easiest way to behave, yet this natural mental behavior is often quite difficult for the intellect to understand, since the intellect is apt to enjoy playing with complications and solving problems. Therefore, to the intellect it often seems ludicrous to imagine that the answer to a question lies within the question itself.”
“All of nature demonstrates this almost miraculous seeming simplicity. Plants and animals and all of life’s aspects take it quite for granted that the sun will shine and the rains will fall in the way best conducive to all creatures. Animals certainly do not worry about tomorrow’s weather conditions. It may be true that animals do not need to know tomorrow’s weather, since they do not plant seeds or collect harvest. It is perfectly fine to make plans for the future, yet each individual should live day by day, without worrying about the outcome of those plans.”
“The physical body can only react in the present moment. Worrying about future events, or dwelling upon past unfavorable situations, only confuses the body’s mechanisms, and undermines their precise activity in the present moment.”
“I am not saying that anyone should pretend that unfavorable circumstances do not sometimes exist, or that they may not be encountered in the past, present, or future. It is also true, however, that advantageous events occur with a far greater frequency than do negative ones–otherwise the world that you know simply would not exist. It would have disappeared in the throes of destruction or calamity.”
“In a basic way, it is against nature’s purpose to contemplate a dire future, for all of nature operates on the premise that the future is assured. Nature is everywhere filled with promise–not only the promise of mere survival but the promise of beauty and fulfillment. Once again, the keen sense of promise is innate within each portion of the body. It triggers the genes and chromosomes into their proper activity, and it promotes feelings of optimism, exuberance, and strength.”
“…live each day as fully and joyfully as possible. Imagine the best possible results of any plans or projects. Above all, do not concentrate upon past unfavorable events, or imagined future ones.”
Cheryl said:
In reading more of “The Way Toward Health” I came across a comparison that I use in explaining energy healing. I have compared the energy we use to heal, to the wind. We cannot see wind but we can see the effects of wind. We can see the effects of wind when it moves plants, flags and sometimes even large objects during violent storms. We can feel the effects of wind as it comes in contact with the dense matter of our bodies. We can hear the sound wind makes in both nature and in musical instruments. “The Way Toward Health” uses the analogy of wind to help us understand the power of our thoughts. Like the wind, our thoughts are extremely powerful even though we cannot see them. Although we cannot see thoughts, we can see the effects of our thoughts. Everything we see around us is an effect of our thoughts. The universe does not favor one thought over another. It has complete trust in us, even when our thoughts may not be so trustworthy and even when we think carelessly, or unconsciously. Therefore it is imperative that we become consciously aware of our thoughts and practice affirmative thinking.
Another point that really struck me is that we need to trust our bodies. We tend to think of our bodies as physical and our thoughts as mental. “The Way Toward Health” reminds us that our thoughts and our bodies are both mental and physical. That is, our thoughts are just as physical as our bodies and our bodies are just as mental as our thoughts. If we think of our bodies “unconscious” activity, like how our heart beats, our lungs breathe, how our organs and immune system work without us consciously thinking to make them work, it can help us understand how are bodies think on their own. This book encourages us to trust our body’s natural intelligence. We all know that our bodies use fever to kill or burn away unwanted bacteria and toxins, however, most of us, at the first sign of fever, reach for a fever-reducing drug. When we do this we counteract our bodies natural intelligence. In the last few years, I have spoken to numerous people who have decided to quit or cut down on all or some of the prescription drugs their doctors prescribed and found that they felt much better when they were off the medicines. This is because the medicines were interfering with and counteracting the body’s natural intelligence.
It may be a little harder to visualize how are thoughts are physical, but thoughts are physical and affect our physical bodies and our physical world just as surely as visually physical things can affect us. In the Bible, the Book of Hebrews Chapter 4: Verse 12 states (New International Version):
“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow: it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
The living Word of God is the Energy of which all thought and creation consist. It is the original thought of the world we are experiencing. The Energy is “living and active”. This verse touches on how God has overcome our thought to separate from God (“dividing soul and spirit”) and to separate from one another through the use of physical bodies (“joints and marrow”). It tells us that the Energy of God is more powerful than our paradigm of duality and opposites (“sharper than any double-edged sword”). The word “judge” in the New Testament is grossly misunderstood by most. Judging in the spiritual context is very different than in the human paradigm as most understand it today. In this case “it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” was written to remind us how powerful our thoughts are. When the Word or Energy of God judges our thoughts, it manifests and experiences our thoughts. In expressing our thoughts as manifestations on the physical plain, it brings them out for all to experience. Our thoughts are not our own, rather they effect everyone and everything. The author (unknown) wants us to realize that our thoughts and attitudes are important, not because we are going to be judged and punished by human standards, but because the author understands that our thoughts and attitudes express themselves by manifesting the happenings in our individual lives, in the collective life of humanity, and in the natural world we live in. The physical world is nothing but an expression of our thoughts. It is the canvas on which our thoughts paint.
I recently attended a James Van Praagh meeting in Denver and what made an impression on me was his explanation of auras. Some people can physically see others’ auras which is simply the energy field in and around each of us. What stuck with me is the difference between healthy auras and damaged auras. James has seen auras so damaged by thoughts that they actually have holes in them, along with having muted colors. Most of us tend to think that as long as a person doesn’t know that we think a negative thought about him, it will not affect him. However, negative thoughts express themselves and by their negative nature attack the energy fields of those to whom they are directed and the energy fields of those who originated or focused on the negative thought . For those who have many negative thoughts themselves or have many negative thoughts directed at them, their auras become quite sickly, causing physical or mental illness, poor circumstances, “bad luck” and depression.
The energy in which we live is like water to fish.. Until a fish is taken out of water, it likely never even thought about the idea of water. When water becomes polluted, and fish get sick and die, we don’t know if the fish understand why they are getting sick and dying, because we don’t know if they understand that their environment has become polluted. Most of us are like unknowing fish and don’t realize that we live in a field of energy. We don’t understand that our thoughts are real and that they affect our energy environment. Our thoughts can improve and sustain or they can pollute our minds, bodies and environment. The effects of our thoughts include, health or illness, nature or pollution, peace or violence, climate stability or climate change, etc. As humans, we are only beginning to recognize the causes of these effects, which are our thoughts and attitudes.
Book of Mark 4:21-25
He (Jesus) said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.
“Consider carefully what you hear,” he continued. “With the measure you use, it will be measured to you—and even more. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.”
This passage mirrors the idea of the previously noted passage in Hebrews “it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” It tells us that even though we think we are hiding our thoughts, they are brought out into the open (in our energy environment). And our energy environment will manifest them, matching, the intensity of our thought (and as a physical manifestation, may seem more intense). This can be good news or bad news, depending on our focus and the intensity with which we focus. Those whose focus is on what they have will manifest more of what they have and those whose focus is on what they don’t have, will lose what they have. Or, whoever thinks in positive terms, receives positive outcomes and whoever thinks in negative terms, receives negative outcomes. We can choose to focus our thoughts on happiness and abundance or on misery and lack. The book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne encourages us to use positive thoughts and language to manifest happiness and abundance. It tells us that the universe doesn’t see the word or thought “don’t”, as in I don’t like being poor or I don’t like being treated unfairly. It only sees the thought object of our focus. In the previous two examples the universe would read the thought as I like being poor and I like being treated unfairly. Affirmative thinking would express I am grateful for what I have, or I would like to have… and I like being treated fairly or I appreciate being respected. I was surprised at how much better I felt when I started choosing my words (whether aloud or in thought) more carefully and affirmatively.
I encourage everyone to sail on the wind of affirmative thinking. I am positive you will be delighted!
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:01 pm