The purpose of life

Again I am commenting on a response from Chuck. His response is under the blog entry called Beloved Chuck. His comment is well worth reading for many reasons. One is so that we can know there are good doctors today who care so much about their patients.

Am I really responding to what Chuck says or to my own agenda? I think it’s my own agenda.

God says in a Heavenletter — which, try as I may, I cannot find — “The purpose of life is not to live as long as possible.” That is one thing that God has said that I never forgot.

It seems to me that the world has got this backwards. It’s like we are to hang on to life no matter what. A friend of mine once said something like: “Would there be all the people in nursing homes, perhaps unconscious, if the style of today weren’t to hang on for all you’re worth?” What happened to letting someone die in peace?

As God says again and again, the body dies, but we don’t. He says that death of the body is okay and inevitable. The concept of death may be so unbelievable to us for the very fact that there truly is no death.

I remember reading somewhere once something like this, and, obviously, I never forgot it: “When there is illness, everyone prays for healing. And then the person dies, and we think God didn’t answer our prayers. Well, He didn’t answer our prayers the way we wanted. How do we know that death wasn’t the healing? Is getting well always the healing? What happened to Thy Will be done?”

I’ve heard or read that we create our own illness, as though when we become ill, we’re not quite as worthy as someone who has not yet become ill. And this was, as I understood it, the same case for accidents. If you were on a train and there was a random shooting, and all the people around you got shot and you didn’t, you had higher thoughts or higher vibration than those around you who were killed. I just can’t believe that.

I can believe that the accidents I’ve had, I caused. I induced them through my own carelessness. I wasn’t an innocent victim. Of course, there may be more to it than that.

About thoughts creating illness, I have heard people say things or act in certain ways that make me think that they are creating their own illness, certainly supporting it with what they say. On the other hand, I have seen the most loving wise kind people have the same illness, and I can’t imagine why.

Must a good doctor always save a life? I mean, is he to be judged or judge himself on how many lives he saves?

I know that when it has been my loved one, I certainly have held on to the idea that the life must be saved. When my father died, he had had a wonderful doctor, a good man, good heart. My father loved him, and the doctor had done all he could to save my father’s life. I am forever grateful to that doctor. Of course, he was not responsible for my father’s death anymore than he was for his life.

Apparently, I am one way in theory, and another in actuality.

Posted by Gloria on February 20th, 2010 under these topics
Personal Development, Godwriting Journal

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6 Replies

Reply from Jochen on February 20, 2010

Agree, agree, agree.
Reminds me of the cosmically generated Heavenletter I got an hour ago.

The Weaving and Interweaving of the Universe
Heavenletter #2794 Published on: July 19, 2008

God said:
Everything in life is for a reason, yet there is no reason, there is no cause, and there is no cause to seek. From the vantage of Earth, there isn’t a way to understand all the weaving and interweaving of the Universe and life and your life. Your life can only be a puzzle, not to unwind, but to enter into.
…
In a way it is like when Superman was spotted, and it was asked: “What is that? Is it a plane?” Life is like that. It is fleeting. It passes by so quickly, you can only gasp: “What was it? What happened? What didn’t happen?”
…
What is the most you can know? You can know you are a Human Being on Earth, on a seeming Earth, and you are a certain Child of God. Is there more to say? The rest can only be details. Born here, went to school there, married this woman, not that, had this many children or none, worked hard, bought a house, went on vacations, lived to a ripe old age or died young. And what does all that amount to? Only details. When all is said and done, insignificant details, beloveds.
…
What matters in your life is that you live it and that you give love along the way.

Reply from Normand Bourque on February 20, 2010

«Purpose» seems the magic word to express our perception of life on this earth. Our sense of purpose seems so different from God’s conception of purpose.
Our perception of life is so dominated by the will of the ego to endure, to last forever. Ego wants to coincide totally with life while it is only a vanishing wave in the ocean of life. We have to let go of purpose. Like the worm in the chrysalis, we just have to wait and let the metamorphosis operates by itself. There is no other way to become a butterfly!

Reply from Chuck Gebhardt on February 20, 2010

Gloria, when you ask: “Must a good doctor always save a life?” You ask a very, very important question. It is a question I am faced with frequently, sometimes on a daily basis. The answer can range from absolutely yes to absolutely no, depending on the circumstances.

The most important concern is about the person whose life is in question. It should be all about him or her. We highly value life and this is a good thing, but this very high valuation itself can cause us great problems. We are very attached to our loved ones and this is also very natural and a good thing, but can likewise cause trouble. These very positive tendencies can cause us to make very poor decisions about the lives of the critically ill, especially when the question of life support is involved.

Your situation with your father, Gloria, clearly sounds like it was not like this at all. Thankfully, most life prolonging situations are like your father’s; everyone is in agreement, patient, family and physicians.

Our society does tend to see death as something to avoid at all costs and most people in the medical professions are brought up this way, also, and tend to greatly fear death. When you add in the attachment we have to the life of our loved ones, this can easily lead to prolonging the life of the hopelessly ill with aggressive life support equipment where the only outcome to be expected is to greatly prolong a painful dying process. I have seen this go on for weeks to months, on occasion. Pure logic alone gives us the correct answer, here, if we can achieve even a modicum of emotional distance. This kind of situation teaches us that it is all about quality in life, not about quantity.

Experienced physicians almost always know very clearly that it is not always the good doctor’s role to “save” or prolong a life. Far too often, though, they are put in a position of opposing an emotionally involved family when they know in their heart that the family’s wishes are not in the gravely ill patient’s best interest. This is a very tough spot to be in as a physician and I think we all handle it a bit differently.

Heavenletters have perspectives that provide enormous help if the messages are heard and absorbed into our approach to life. The realization that no one ever dies when they are not ready can take a lot of pressure off those making these kinds of decisions. Likewise, the understanding that the transition out of physical life is not a disaster, and conscious life always goes on is also tremendously reassuring and calming. Life is a precious gift and it should not be given up lightly, but the loss of the physical body does not need to be all the drama it typically is, either. When the body is worn out and day to day life is just more pain and frustration, death is healing. We shed an old worn out body and move on to what is next in our spiritual evolution.

Reply from Lynda on February 21, 2010

That is the key isn’t it, Chuck?

…if the messages are heard and absorbed into our approach to life.
We do need to be able to “absorb” the messages, and really feel them and become them.

Two years ago, my mother was diagnosed with acute myleogenous leukemia. My mother’s personality was always to control everything in her life, or at least attempt to. I knew the minute she was given the diagnosis, she made the decision that she wanted to die This was not something she could control (or so she believed).
She was put on a regime of treatment, that only caused other health issues. She refused the second round of treatment.
Less than two months from the day she received the diagnosis, she passed away. She was only 73, and in otherwise good health. No one could understand how such a strong willed, healthy person, could just suddenly be gone. The doctor’s from what I understand, were fabulous, and had done everything they could from a medical perspective.
My mother would tell someone on a daily basis that she was not afraid to die, and “go be with God.” as she understood God.

Within a year of my mother’s death, a co-worker came to me and asked me about this type of leukemia, as her husband’s grandmother was just given the news that she had this aggressive illness. This woman was a minister, and she had all of her congregation, and family members praying for her not to die.
Mind you, several of the family members had self serving reasons, along with loving this woman so much, they could not bear to lose her. Her husband has never accepted that she was meant to die before him. She is the rock of the entire family.
She refused chemotherapy, and asked to go home with pain management in place. This was in October 2009.
My co-worker tells me that they all “got their suits drycleaned for the funeral” and are now hanging in the closets. Then she was still here on earth for Christmas. They thought, well, she just wants to enjoy one more joyful season. She is still hangs on. She has nursing care in her home and is on morphine for the pain. She is not in any pain. She is the same age as my mother was, in the same city (that is a whole other story).

So, I ask the question - is it her family and their resistance to letting her go, the reason she lingers here? Her family’s love for her is so strong, that the bond of love keeps her here? Or is this her soul’s experience?

Why would two women, have completely different experiences with the same illness?

Reply from Chuck Gebhardt on February 21, 2010

Lynda, you provide superb examples that help us to deeply delve into some of the issues that surround life and death. I have seen many examples of the situations that you describe. People sometimes die of diseases that medical science would say “shouldn’t.” People sometimes miraculously survive and blossom forth after all life support was turned off because the situation was felt to be “futile.”

In modern medicine, we tend to think in very mechanical terms, as if it is all about effective drugs, invading pathogenic organisms and physical damage to organ systems. I have learned that his is not all there is to it, yet this is a very important level to deal with, and if we ignore it there are consequences. I have also learned that there are deeper levels to consider, and the deeper levels seem to be more important in determining ultimate outcomes.

One deeper level is what I described in a previous comment about Gloria’s stories about Francis. We frequently bury negative emotions within our psyche and they can cause disease. These emotional blocks can cause us to embrace a life style that leads to the deterioration of our body and can even become physical illnesses and chronic symptoms. I have seen many clear examples of this, and I know it to be true, but, unfortunately, it is still a kind of heresy to speak of these ideas with most of my medical colleagues. This is not the last word by any means, though, for there are even deeper and more important levels.

For want of a better description, I will call one deeper level that I have in mind the soul level. I think that here is where most of the explanations lie for cases where people die when we do not think they should and for how hopeless situations turn around, like the second woman you described. At this level we see that the “soul” is truly in charge. We have purposes to accomplish in our lives that I believe we decided before our birth. Few of us are aware of these issues, they are usually unseen and most of us do not even imagine that they exist (on a conscious level).

I am coming to the conclusion that there is even more to all this, beyond what I have said so far. We are coming to realize that Oneness and our inter-connection with everything that exists plays the most essential role and this is why we can never be absolutely sure about how any medical condition will evolve. This is a level we cannot know and experience on an overtly conscious level. We can be absolutely certain about one thing, though: everything works out for the best. I see this as at least part of the purpose of Oneness, to take into account everything that exists and everything that is possible and to provide us with the best possible outcome. To me, this is the basis for complete optimism and peace of mind.

Yes, Lynda, I do think Heavenletters contain the key.

Wishing peace and good health to all……Chuck

Reply from One on February 28, 2010

It would help if we did not make such a big deal of death. It is transition of awareness into another realm, just as birth into the gross physical is transition of awareness to this realm. The mind reflects different bodies.

Our will influences the shape of things. A powerful will can heal the incurable. The collective attention of many can bring about healing.

All secondary details to the I that is before any body, that delights in every body.

Chuck, I would like to see more doctors with a vast perspective on life like yours