The ‘shape of things to come’ – how to
nip the formation of disease ‘in the bud’ on the
‘astral plane’ before it manifests in reality
– and how to create an ongoing cycle of wellbeing in
your life.
Hurt feelings vs. aluminium
My great aunt Hilda was a delightful old lady. I loved her
so much. Tall and skinny with enormous bony ‘Picknell’
hands (my mother’s side of the family). White hair in
a bun, slightly baggy white stockings. Always there with a
cup of tea. Spoke with a lovely soft country burr. She was
so warm, so full of light and life. Sadly, her country idyll
(she used to share a tied cottage on an English hop farm with
my uncle Ted, her cousin) came to an end when the farmer remarried
and reclaimed his cottage. She went to an old people’s
home and was not happy sharing a room with another lady.
Very sadly, it wasn’t long before Auntie Hilda went
a bit ‘doolally’ – she lost touch with reality.
Tragically, this is what happens when people just don’t
want to be in their reality any more, when it is too difficult
or unattractive. This is why people get senile dementia –
it’s a means of escape when growing old and being in
an old people’s home may just be too much to handle.
She broke her hip, too, poor thing – so often happens
to old ladies at this stage. The hips represent ‘fear
of going forward. Nothing to move forward to’.
I notice the contrast to this in Bali, where old people are
valued and active members of society. They still pound the
banana tree trunk in giant stone pestles to make the pig food,
carry out important praying and ceremonial tasks, and have
a lot of time to play with their grandchildren. I haven’t
seen a single demented old person here, yet. (Do aluminium
pans cause dementia? Maybe. If you are predisposed to it.
But everyone here seems to cook in them!) Why is it, that
in the same room, or in the same conditions, one person will
get sick and the other one won’t? I believe it is because
sickness is a response to our emotions and thoughts, our situations.
External factors are just a kind of a ‘physical excuse’!
In the previous article, I explained the way disease arises
in detail, and gave an example about how I once sprained my
ankle just as I was about to start a big new project at work
that I was quite confused about. The sprain gave me an excuse
for the week at home to get clear on my project that I so
badly needed! All disease is like this – we get it as
a result of situations in our lives. Everything is first created
on the ‘astral plane’ - the imagination or ‘dream
world’ and then manifests in the physical world.
How useful understanding this is! And can you see, how in
a way it is already a bit too late to try to change disease
once it has already manifested in the real world? Much easier
and more effective to alter the thought forms in the ‘dream
world’ earlier, so that the disease doesn’t manifest
in the first place! (Or, so that the tendency for the disease
will abate).
The unseen world is so much easier and lighter to work with
than the physical world. (In case I’ve lost you here,
let’s go back to the ‘blue door’ example
I gave in the last issue: you have a small project to do –
you want to paint your front door blue).
Imagine trying to ‘unmake’ your ‘blue door’
once it has already been created in the physical world. Quite
difficult! You’d have to get busy with a blowtorch,
scrape off all the icky paint, sand it all down again, repaint
it the original colour – what a lot of work!
Whereas, if your ‘blue door’ is still at the
concept stage – it exists only as an image in your imagination
and in the ‘astral plane’ or ‘dream world’
- it’s so easy to change the concept of what you want
to create into a ‘yellow door’ and then allow
it to manifest easily in the real world (ie, you buy yellow
paint)! It may sound stupid, but this is how everything works.
Most people do not understand this and expend huge amounts
of energy struggling to ‘fix’ things in the physical
plane. Physical things are already ‘heavy’. Much
better to focus on the metaphysical – the dreamworld
– change the ‘shape of things to come’ there,
and then allow them to manifest easily in the physical world
in the form that you really desire.
If you get good at making your desired image of what you
want to create and your intention crystal clear, then you
can drastically shorten the time it takes to get what you
want. Techniques for ‘getting the image clear’
are the root of all shamanism. Try this: Go for a walk and
‘sing a song’ of what you want to create (such
as ‘a healthy strong back’ or whatever. Just sing
what comes to you. Keep walking. Sounds crazy but it works.
Keep singing. Notice what comes out. Keep walking. It’s
powerful. Or paint a picture of what you want to create –
just like me ‘making my project on a board, cutting
it out of paper, making it in clay’ – you can
‘play’ with the image of what you are trying to
create in the ‘real’ world to send energy into
the ‘dream world’ to get it going in the way you
want.
In making a picture of your life, your illness (or any problem
or situation), you may notice something new ‘what is
that red cloud hanging over my head in this painting of myself
and my friend Ted? Hmmm, maybe I’m feeling angry with
him… I wonder why that is…’ Which might
give you a clue on how to change the nature of how you relate
in that relationship in the physical world. Which will then
change the image of your relationship with Ted in the ‘dream
world’. Which will then allow things to manifest differently
next time you see him…”Ted! I need to say something
to you… I realise I feel angry about…’
Fixing an ‘everyday’ situation like this is,
in a way, preventing disease from occurring. If you leave
anger bubbling away for a long time, it will eventually come
out as say, heart problems, maybe a skin rash, or even, boils!
Are artists shamen?
Amusing to me, how many people look at us artists and think
we are just playing at making pretty pictures! Oh noooo!!
The end result is often just a ‘by-product’. Most
artists are ‘playing’ with the interrelationship
of ‘what is going on inside us’ (the dreamworld)
versus ‘what is going on outside us’ (the physical).
It is the glimpse of this intriguing process that is shimmering
behind all of existence that perhaps makes good art so tantalisingly
interesting. (And conversely, the art that is boring and uninteresting
by the way, IS the stuff where people were trying to make
‘a pretty picture’!)
You do NOT, by the way, have to give any thought at ALL to
‘creating Art’ (with a capital ‘A’)
when you are making a picture of your illness, life, or problem.
Thoughts like this will most likely put you off and stop you
from even starting! No, better think of it as ‘I am
going to muck about and play with paint and I can throw it
away after if I want’. Otherwise you might get yourself
stuck. (The ‘Vein of Gold’ book by Julia Cameron
is a superb and fun resource on creativity techniques like
this. And a masterful guide on how NOT to get stuck.)
Other techniques include creative visualisation – a
kind of ‘guided waking dreaming’ (for more info,
please see article published on 26 June 2002) in which you
‘visit’ the dream world and can set up symbols
or images of what you want to create. For example, if you
have thyroid problems (root cause: ‘chronic case of
not expressing yourself’) you could create an imaginary
place in your visualisation where you can express yourself
exactly as you wish. And see yourself doing that. Talking,
singing, painting, acting, playing piano, whatever it is.
You can make it up for yourself – in the meditation,
create images of what you would really like. Make your vision
of your desired result clearer, tastier, more real, and this
will enable it to quickly come into reality in the desired
form.
Are you getting the message?
It’s worth knowing that if you don’t ‘get’
the message that your body and your soul is trying to convey
to you, if you are simply not understanding the cause of what
is happening, you may receive ever bigger and more dramatic
messages until you do ‘wake up’ to the truth of
the situation! This may mean you get more and more sick, or
heal and then the disease recurs, or that another catastrophic
event happens in your life to try to get you to wake up to
what is really important.
For example, perhaps you need to stand up to your boss (and
you will then stop getting headaches – which represent
‘invalidating the self, self-criticism, fear’)
or, you need to learn to speak your truth and express yourself
(and your thyroid problem will then heal) and so on.
The better you get at listening to the subtle messages from
your soul and body; the quicker you can pick up the messages
and respond to them; the less frequently you will need to
get sick. You can also ‘nip disease in the bud’
by receiving the message quickly.
Once you get this relationship and communication with your
inner self really going, you may never need to get sick at
all. I have had one cold in the past three and a half years,
and that’s it, touch wood. Colds, if you look them up
in Louise Hays’ book, represent a feeling of ‘having
too much to do’. This was certainly true at the time
– I had set myself the absurd target of making an incredibly
complex sugar confection birthday cake for our daughter Cahya.
Challenging making something like that in London but even
more so here in Bali with instant ant attention, incredible
heat, and limited refrigeration! So, I reluctantly gave up
(one!) of my ideals of ‘perfect motherhood’, cut
down on the grandiosity of the cake plan and the cold quickly
receded!
Don’t misunderstand me, if you are already sick, please
don’t hesitate, you need to go to the doctor. Go, get
the medicine and treatment, take it, and get well. And at
the same time, take the trouble to find out what your disease
means, have a look at the situation in your life that has
caused it, and start working on addressing the root issue.
That way, you won’t need to get sick again with the
same thing.
By the way, you can’t neglect the physical and hope
that the metaphysical will take care of things for you (like,
smoke heavily and then do ‘lung clearing’ meditations)
- sorry, it just doesn’t work like that!
Blame versus responsibility
I am not ‘blaming’ sick people. I am not trying
to make anyone wrong for being sick. It’s just that
Spirit knows exactly what we need, and gives it to us! (However
annoying that might sometimes be!) Sometimes (just like me
needing a week in bed with a sprained ankle to allow me to
get clear on my project) we NEED to be sick. It’s a
process we need to go through that will take us through important
situations that we require for our growth and healing. We
really do get given just what we need and really - we get
just what we ask for! (Spirit does have a sense of humour!)
I hope if you are sick, you will take time to ponder on the
situation that might have caused it. I highly recommend Louise
Hays book – it has a great appendix (sic!) of diseases,
related root causes, and affirmations for helping to clear
the problem (I’m not a massive ‘affirmation’
fan but in this case, they are so good that it seems to work).
Just getting this book and checking your symptoms could be
a valuable ‘way in’ to finding the origin of the
problem. You can browse my copy of this book in our shop,
Ashram, in Ubud (address below) if you are in the area. Or
order it from website: www.amazon.com.
Sickness is not something to be afraid of that comes from
‘outside’– it is a message from your deepest
self. It comes from within, and means you only good, if you
can but listen.
I wish you a happy, insightful, and healthy journey!
NEXT ISSUE: Tarot Cards. How to choose them, how to use them,
and how to interpret their meaning.
Jeli Lala created the ‘Ashram of Spiritual Jewellery
and Art’ at no. 1, Sukma St., Tebesaya, Ubud, with her
husband, Putu S. She has studied yoga and many other spiritual
practices for more than ten years. She writes “As a
life-long artist, I’ve been exploring my inner world
since I was a child. In this column, I will share some of
my personal experiences and spiritual methods – hopefully,
you’ll find this interesting, and maybe it will give
some ideas for your own journey”.
Jeli welcomes comments and may be contacted on:
Email: jelila@jelila.com
Website: www.jelila.com or www.imagine-retreats.com
