Body as the Means to Heal the Mind

“It’s like if everything is backwards and upside down, reverse the feed. Flip the feed on the ego, say, ‘That’s enough of that. I just, I’m not fulfilled, following your plan of trying to make it in the world, and then grow old and get sick and die.’ When I was in university, I had all these people around me all the time. There were graduate assistants, friends of mine and everything. And they were starting to get concerned about me because my ambitions were leaving; I started to have not any ambitions, and in graduate school, that’s not a good thing. There was a lot of people around me, professors, friends, and then they started to ask me about my life. And I seemed to be questioning, questioning, questioning. ‘What’s it all about? Why put an effort in anything in the world? Where is it all heading? What’s to become of all this?’ I was asking all those questions, and they said, ‘That’s annoying. That’s very annoying. You should just get back and study your books, textbooks, and take your exams and do your papers, do your projects, get your grades, get your degree, and get on with it.’ And finally, the more they questioned me and were around me, they said, ‘Listen, we have to tell you this. David, you need to get a life. You need to get a life.’ And I said, ‘Okay.’ I said, ‘What does that mean? Get a life.’ And they said, ‘Get a life! You need to start earning money, spending money, go into debt like most everybody, and get a mortgage, and invest in the world and all these different things, and go deeply into debt and then spend the rest of your life trying to get out of debt, and achieve something, accomplish something, do something with your life, so on and so forth.’ And I said, ‘And then what?’ And then they said, ‘Then, you will, like the other trillions before you, will grow old, get sick, and die.’ I said, ‘That’s not good enough. That’s the package? Get a life, grow old, get sick and die, and that’s the package?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not! If that’s what you’re offering me, and you’re telling me to get a life, and that’s a life, absolutely not.’ I said, ‘I will never be content for that. I do believe there’s something more than that. If that’s a life, then I’m not in for that. I don’t know. I’m just gonna hold out and wait until something comes really clear for me.’ And for me, it came clear a couple years later when A Course in Miracles came into my life on the west coast of United States, in California. When I read the introduction, ‘Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God,’ (In-2:2-4) I thought, That sounds pretty good, actually. I don’t know fully what that means, ‘Nothing unreal exists.’ But I was already into eastern philosophy and maya and lot of the teachings of the Vedanta, so it did have a ground to land on. And I thought, Okay, then I’m going for joy. I’m going for happiness. I’m going for peace of mind, not the kind that’s dependent on the world working out a certain way.”