No Longer Chasing Good Health or Nirvana

In 2008 I was officially diagnosed to have Multiple Sclerosis.
In 2017 I have now officially accepted the diagnosis, made it my own.

Yes the mind body connection is so deep and intrinsic that maybe two different words ‘mind’ and ‘body’ is a gross misconception. Yes thoughts do impact the body absolutely directly. Ever since I learned about the mind body connection, and learned to watch my thoughts and emotions, with almost every cough and sniffle I know which thought caused its onset.

Louise Hay cured her cancer totally by cleaning up the muck in her mind. The same thing happened with Anita Moorjani in a more miraculous, dramatic manner. Terry Wahls “fixed herself” by fixing her food. As I read these and countless other stories after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, I aimed for the holy grail too. Not only did I aim for it, I had touched it once. In communion with God when I was in Charlotte, I had experienced such good health, energy, vigor, joy that I had never experienced even in childhood.

However, Vani Murarka, in general is a person of low immunity. Not only does she get the cough and sniffles easily, there are various other things that are challenging for her, physically and mentally. Stuff that is not as challenging for other “normal” people such as others in her family and countless others on the planet. As I was focusing on “fixing myself” by cleaning my thoughts, I did not explicitly speak about these challenges to my family.

“I am going to free myself of them all”, I had implicitly told myself. The challenges and limitations. I really had freed myself of the invisible MS label I had begun wearing pasted on my forehead. I no longer had imaginary conversations with people in the queue such as, “Please let me go ahead. I have Multiple Sclerosis.” As if that explained everything. I got rid of that label and that pining, whining.

Now I hereby reclaim the MS label. I realize that by not talking frankly about my challenges, I have been doing disservice to myself, my family members and to every one really. When the need arises, I no longer have any qualms in saying, “I have Multiple Sclerosis. Hence for my rightful place in this event (whether that event is life or whatever) matters need to be adjusted thus.” When I state my needs, I help not just myself but others who also have that need but are not voicing it.

I hereby reclaim the MS label also because I realize I am not broken. So I don’t need to be fixed. The body’s health does not indicate the health of a person, surely not the spiritual health of a person. We all have our role to play. Threads in a grand tapestry.

On one end of the spectrum is Louise Hay, Anita Moorjani, Terry Wahls and others of their ilk who cured themselves of their respective ailments.

On the other end there are the likes of Ramana Maharshi who first got enlightened, then got cancer – and actively demonstrated to throngs who were there in his physical presence, how one can be in pain and be totally ok with it. He demonstrated this simply by being.

In between, there are all other kinds too, at every point of the spectrum.

There is one who met kidney failure and cancer and hip replacement with such grace and fortitude, that his mere presence must have been a blessing to the doctors, nurses, friends, family, as they went about doing what they were supposed to do, as they went about helping him. I know it is that way when I meet him even now, hail and hearty, and sweetness and light.

There is one who underwent an eye operation without anesthesia (because her body was too battered by other ailments to be administered anesthesia), all on the basis of mindfulness. Who knows whether it was the nurses and doctors attending to her during that operation or vice versa. She clearly did impact me – from a fat book, her anecdote is the only thing I remember.

There are all kinds. We all have our role to play. In every way that MS has weakened me, that weakness itself has become my strength. Each of those strengths are not for me alone. They are for everyone.

Till I was concerned only with myself, I wanted to touch the holy grail that Louise Hay and Anita Moorjani touched. I wanted to become so immune and fortified by my devotion to the one I love, that gluten be damned, I may consume even poison and still live and thrive as Meera Bai did. These were my aspirations.

If Vani Murarka tries to do what Louise Hay or Anita Moorjani or Meera Bai did, it is rather silly of her. So Vani Murarka shall be what Vani Murarka is. A cell in a vast, wondrous, single, whole organism.

What about Nirvana?
What about it? Like I said, no longer chasing it. Too much to be done. No time.

Image: “We Are Like That Only” digital art by yours truly.