by Charley Cropley, N.D.
I believe that the primary cause of human Health problems is not at all the things that we commonly believe, i.e. diseases, genetics and microbial infection. We become ill primarily because we abuse and injure our own selves. It is as if we carry a dagger and repeatedly slice our own veins, bleeding precious healing power from our bodies. In reality the dagger is our own actions. By our own actions we either destroy our bodies or heal our bodies. This is intended to be good news. We are vastly more powerful than we realize. We have been grievously deceived.
Imagine that you could purchase an herb that empowered you to eat impeccably in accord with your understanding of what is best for you. This alone would do more for your Health than any medicine. Now imagine if you could purchase a second herb that gave you the benefits of a daily 90 minute balanced workout in strength, flexibility and endurance? You would look and feel incredibly better within the first week, if not the first hour. Your third herb would bring you the benefits of a well fed, well exercised mind. You would feel calm, optimistic, self-confident and free of anxiety, fear and want. Your fourth herb would strengthen your power to understand, love and forgive others. These four herbs would dispel illness, unhappiness and conflict leaving you vital, beautiful, wise and happy.
In reality no such herbs exist. What does exist is our actions of eating, moving, thinking and relating. The healing power of our actions is beyond question and directly provable to anyone through their own experience. Our suffering and our Health are the results of our actions. For better or worse these results are absolutely impossible to escape. The untrained, unskillful performance of these actions bleeds our power and produces endless and inescapable misery. Nothing influences our physiology and psychology, our Health and happiness as directly, as constantly or as powerfully.
We are already performing these activities in every moment of living. There is no option to not perform them. The question is how skillful are we in our performance? Everything depends on our skill. It may have never occurred to you that eating, thinking, posture or listening are skills, living arts. How could you know this? Almost no one knows this. Yet it is true. Think of what this means. This is greatest possible news. There is nothing we desire more than Health and happiness. Nothing. And we have unlimited capacity to control our Health and Happiness by controlling our actions. The million dollar question is how do we control our thoughts, words and deeds? From whence comes the power of Self-control?