The Body Knows What It Needs

There is still more to come.

I find this is true everyday. Everything being new, it takes time to catch up to older experiences that have not surfaced in some time. It is interesting to see these things come up into awareness.

I can remember life from before, and how I would respond with violence; jealousy, greed, grief, guilt, and all of that. But now, when the same events reappear, the reaction of the self is absent. Even with a physical experience.

In the past, I would say things like, “I don’t get sick,” and for the most part, that was true. I had no illness at all for over 10 years. But there was still that connection to sickness. My mind was still occupied with it. And even though I thought there was no sickness, I still had symptoms.

Somewhere in my mind, I knew that in order to be sick, I had to display a certain kind of symptom. It was easy to say I was not sick, because I could shrug off the feelings of illness. But the symptoms would persist. If someone asked if I were sick, I would say, “No way! I don’t get sick!” all the while sneezing. It was so childish.

Earlier this week, there was a feeling within. Something not usually there. (Not that there is a condition other than what is.) I have lived my life in this way for nine months now, and this was a new experience. Something I did not remember from before.

I woke at 5:00 AM, as I normally do, but I could not stay awake. I had a hard time even walking down the stairs. I felt nothing other than an overwhelming sense of tiredness. I just wanted to sleep. I didn’t feel like eating; I just felt that I should rest. A few minutes later, Akiko and I went out to a track where we normally jog. We arrived, did a little warm-up, and just before we started, I suddenly said, “I can’t do this today.” I didn’t know why. I had no feelings of sickness, and no discomfort at all. Just a strange sort of exhaustion. I went home and slept for another 4 hours. When I awoke, it was as if nothing had happened. I felt perfectly fine.

When this occurred, there was no sense of comparison; I wasn’t aware of feeling better because I felt strange before. The body was simply in the state that it was in. I didn’t actually notice a difference. But the sensation of needing sleep was odd. It seems I have never experienced it to such a degree before.

This is what happened:

My body was resisting some ailment; a cold, the flu, whatever it might have been. And it told me precisely what I needed to do: sleep more. The self was not there to interpret, so the message got through loud and clear. It wasn’t even a message. The body just shut down in order to repair its functioning. I have no idea what it means to be “sick,” so the body does whatever it does in order to insure its survival.

Without the self to interpret, the body can function in whatever way is necessary. If thought comes charging in, telling itself what it means to be sick – what will happen, what it will feel like – then that is surely going to be realised. The desperate need for the mind to be right, slows down the natural processes within the body. If the self can be quiet in order to receive the messages of the body, we can live much healthier and happier lives. A life of no interference and no resistance. (Not non-resistance; that is simply resisting resistance.)

U.G. Krishnamurti used to say, “This body is unparalleled in its functioning.” We never see it, though. We always put on top of the body, what we think it needs. But the body will function the way it does, from moment to moment, no matter what we think or do. It is the self that ruins the natural expression of the human body.

There is no other state, other than the state the body is in. That is all. Others might call it sickly, but that is not for us to decide. The body continues to function in its own way, until it doesn’t.