I have been thinking about all the great teachers through time:  Jesus, Buddha, Rumi, Confucius, Mohammad, Meniscus, Merton…the list goes on. Some like Jesus almost seem superhuman – a superhero if you will from stories and writings. But yet Catholicism teaches that he was a man. In reading Morton Kelsey’s Healing and Christianity, the author makes several great references to Jesus working with Qi (not stated that way in the book – my inference), but nonetheless Jesus was, along with many Christian mystics, a great energy worker. Father Kelsey, an Episcopal priest, and professor emeritus of Notre Dame University, makes a strong connection to Jesus and his healings to shamanism – Which are the roots of QiGong.

Myth and legends surround all of our great teachers and we elevate them with great reverence, stories and characteristics - sometimes so much so that we cannot truly identify with them in our normal daily life.

Recently, I attended a talk by a well known martial artist and Taoist. He was speaking about how to find a good teacher, the characteristics to look for, the personality etc. Then, this gentleman said something that shocked me when speaking of QiGong. He stated that a true QiGong master never gets sick! On the same line of thinking, many believe that Jesus never got sick because he never sinned. I am not comparing QiGong masters to Jesus, but the notion that one gets sick because one is impure is a common one.

Moreover, in the new age community, if someone does get cancer or gets a terminal illness, then they are a false-prophet because they “attracted“ that into their life. Whose mortal body does not eventually die?

I am going to out on a limb here and just say that sometimes it is what you learn from being sick (lessons) that is the important thing  - not whether you get sick or not (outcomes). I speak more of this in my latest book, Armageddon of the Mind www.armageddonofthemind.com

One can learn many things from being ill – from the spectrum of emotions that coincide with illness to the actual physical pain, to the many methods where illness can strengthen your spirit and your mind.

How does anyone know what suffering is if they themselves never suffered? How do you truly understand loss  –if you never have had loss? How can you know what trials and tribulations really are if you have none? How can you relate to being human – if you are above being human?           More importantly …how can you teach others?

Jesus aside, any person that claims that they never get ill due to their practice, belief or supplement that they take…is living a life of delusion. This life of delusion has developed into a pathology of its own – which further leads a person off their center or balance in life. This delusional practice engorges the ego and consumes the grace that one has attained in his/her practice.

Most of the honest healers and teachers that I know, admit their being human, getting ill and using their specialty of practice, to assist them in healing faster and with less suffering.  The aspiring student often becomes so fixated on outcomes, rather than the process or journey itself. The veteran teachers stay in their center, and many times continue to work assisting others to heal while they process what they need to in order to come back to health. In this truth, is part of what allows them to stay in center…being mindful and present of what their physical body has encountered and needs, in order to balance itself out. Perhaps that is something as simple as sleep or more complicated such as working through their own loss of a loved one, either way the truly enlightened person understands that there is time and a season for everything – even illness and dying.

Perhaps the transition from illness to health or from health to illness is the true blessing. Thoreau writes, “All change is a miracle to contemplate.” It is through the gift of suffering that we can appreciate the lack thereof. Jesus and Buddha both speak of their suffering and through their generous example – we can transcend ours.

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