Don't Make Them Sick So You Can Make Them Well

That may sound like an obvious suggestion, yet you'd be surprised how common it is for people to essentially do this very thing.

People get an idea in their heads of themselves as good, or helping, or a healer, or whatever, and then they need someone who needs help or healing. They are much more comfortable with you when you need them. They need you to shore up their identity that is based on their relationship to others.

I just got my dog back and I should have known better than to leave her with someone who 1) has had chronic health concerns her entire life; 2) used to run a chronic care home and has a dream to do so again; 3) has a dog herself who is always needing vet care; and 4) had other dogs staying at the home times I was there who also all seemed to have some malady.

Of course, hindsight is always 20-20. I don't actually know what happened to my sweet little, spritely dog, who everyone always thinks is a puppy because she bounds around so enthusiastically. But when I came to get her she was locked inside by herself and looked depressed. When I finally got her released, she came with a $220 vet bill and the inability to jump, barely even walking.

I'll skip further details to emphasize the primary point: Some people make everyone around them unwell. They aren't doing it on purpose. They are good people. Yet somehow they make choice after choice that somehow brings out the injury/unwellness in those around them. They then become the big-hearted, long-suffering caretaker. This is their core identity.

(My dog is now getting better by the day now that she's back with someone who actually expects her to be well. I'm still having to carry her up stairs though.)

The Dead Don't Need You

Another example of this I was reminded of just yesterday came from a friend who is another one of those big-hearted people who has a strong identity as good and as a healer. She really is the kindest person, and also stunningly needy. She constantly needs her identity shored up by validation from others. At an event yesterday she made mention of a mutual friend's death a year ago and how that person still needs us to say prayers for her to have a successful transition into the afterlife.

Now a year ago when the person actually died we discussed this fully, and I made it clear then that I simply don't believe that the happiness of the dead depends on the actions or failure to act of the living. I'm pretty sure they've got destinies of their own that are not contingent on our self-importance.

I said it to her then and I say it to you now: Don't make them sick just so that you can be the one to make them well.

It's not an easy thing to hear, but oh so very necessary if that's what's going on. The world has enough problems being created by those who actually mean harm. We can't afford to also have the well-meaning menacing us all.

Now to be fair, there are some religious traditions in which there are ceremonies to support the recently dead into a more favorable life. I personally classify it as superstition, but many superstitions have some practical benefit. In this case, it can serve an important purpose for those left alive.

Dealing with Death

When someone dies there can be a resistance in those left alive to coming into relationship with the person as they are now, instead of clinging to them as they once were. There is a tendency to look for them where they were, and finding them gone, miss them. It is a major mark of spiritual maturity to be able to look for the beloved departed where they actually are now and begin relating to them in their new state. For most people, they have neither the thought nor ability to do that. So they hold onto a vision of the person with all their faults, fears and personality defects. They seem them with all their human foibles and imagine that harming them, or them being a threat to others even after death.

The thing is, we really are quite powerful in how we create. While our relating to a deceased person this way doesn't limit them to such small limits of their destiny after death, it does only allow us to relate to them as the thoughtform that matches that limited set of beliefs. We can have all kinds of extraordinary, otherworldly experiences with such thought forms. We don't take responsibility for having created them in the first place, so don't experience having any control over such creations. They can really terrorize people, especially if enough people are feeding into that same belief about the deceased.

So those cultures that have these traditions of doing a ritual to guide the person into the light, I think is so that those left behind are able to transition into a new enlightened story about the person, instead of generating a thoughtform based on fear and sorrow. That's a good thing.

I don't personally need that though and am not one to play along when someone is acting like they personally are going to do this for someone when they don't even come from one of those traditions and have not acheived the status of such a teacher. I appeal to you not to need it either.

Leave the dead alone. They are doing quite fine right now without you. Leave the well alone. Let them stay well.

True Compassion

We all have egos, and egos will always seek out some identity for us. That's not something to fight or fret. It's okay. But don't make your identity around saving the desperate, helping the needy, or healing the unwell, or you'll find yourself constantly bringing out the worst in life.

You can still move through this world helping people in all sorts of ways. I am confident that I do. I've helped a lot of people, and sometimes in some really profound ways. There was even once a period of about 3 weeks in which I could heal people just by looking at them.

The first time I realized it was happening I was sitting in a cafe watching people walk by on the street. Each time someone would walk by I could see two auras around them. One was whatever thoughtform of dis-ease they were carrying, and the other was of their innate perfection. I recognized the false as false and the true as true without question, and in that instant the untrue simply vanished, leaving behind only there perfection. They were "healed." That's compassion.

Compassion sees the person in their well-being even when the person can't see it or outwardly be it themselves.

Compassion is the dedication to the truth of perfection so steadfast that it cannot be undermined by a little thing like present moment "reality."

Such healing doesn't come from some need to fulfill some helper story about you. It isn't so fragile and dependent. It can instead be a natural response to a moment and each opportunity to be of help. Water flowing into the cracks.

It can affirm the inherent well-being and competency of those you are helping and acknowledge the mutuality of the relationship. When you endeavor to help others, get clear on what the payoff for you is. Bring it to consciousness and don't act if you can't see clearly why you're doing what you're doing.

Don't lie to yourself and others. Don't make them less, just so that you can appear as more. Don't make them sick so that you can make them well.

Love strengthens the well, uplifts the blessed, and flows abundantly to all willing to receive it.

Pour yourself into this world as the Divine perfection giving itself to the Divine perfection. There is much such work to be done in this world.

(Here's a photo of my perfectly well little doggy.)