"And if the disease manifests? We will have to accept it, because we are human. Krishnamurti became ill with pancreatic cancer and he never lived a dissolute life. Many people, considered valuable in the spiritual point of view, have become ill. We need to make this clear to those who believe that becoming ill means personal failure. Failure and success are two "teachers" and no more than that. Therefore, when you are an apprentice you have to accept and adapt this lesson to your life." - Jorge Carvajal, Medical University of Andalusia, Spain, and pioneer of Bioenergetics Medicine in Latin America.

We admit we would love to be able to pass on to you a clear view of what it means to fall ill (cancer) and disclose the fundamentally correct truths, even if relative. We cannot detach ourselves from the analogy Earth as a School, and because of this, we are all passersby and apprentices, especially in the art of loving, and of detachments. In short, be brave! ^(*)

We start from the idea that the origin of the disease cannot be found on the manifested place in which it appears, or that the causes of the disease are not material in their origin, or that there is nothing by chance in the disease. A sarcoma, a malignant neoplasm developed from a connective tissue, may represent an unconscious attempt of the individual to deny the acceptance of something that has been repressed in his body, although very much "alive," or even the aggressive expression of heartbreak repeatedly suffocated over the years, years of silence.

Root causes of the disease - The explanations given by Andre Luiz relate to the interesting question from the book Evolution in Two Worlds:

- Is it correct to say that the root causes of enduring diseases are found in the spiritual body?

Yes, generally, the etiology of enduring diseases, that affect the body and lacerate it, can be found in the spiritual body. The memory of this or that serious misconduct, mainly those that lie repressed in the Spirit, without the relief of unburden and correction of the mentioned faults, leads the mind to an abnormal state that we call the "remorse zone." Around this zone, the continuous and live wave of thought starts to work on a closed circuit, withdrawing from everything around it, permanently reflected on the physiopsychosomatic area linked to the memory of the people and circumstances associated to the fault we practiced. When this fixed idea, regarding this nodule of unbalanced mental forces, is established, then it is essential that healing mechanisms counteract this illness state of mind. (2005, pages 213 and 214) (Bold is mine).

Considering this point of view, cancer (uncontrolled) polarizes with sclerosis (rigid emotional behavior) where illness is rooted in something that starts to fight back the will to live. Nor can we ignore the fact that in situations of illness a part of the biological Self stops operating. Thus, in the case of tumor growth, for example, the biological Self, due to various reasons and according to each soul's narrative, does not have enough strength to stop the take over of the illness. In turn, this represents a pull the rug from under the feet of physical existence.

Many authors relate cancer suffering with psychosis and conclude that it is a bodily psychosis, i.e., an experience of so much pain for the conscience that the personality (ego) cannot face it and, consequently, it guises it, and it appears later, causing the rupture of the body's biologic mesh.

The mysterious etiology of cancer - In other words, a set of subversive cells isolate and break the pattern of their usual functioning, pathologically multiplying and destroying the tissue in which they are located (this is the precise momentum when things get out of control - for example, the liver, and so on). Eventually the body will tend to give in to this devouring "cell insanity."

Still others relate the mysterious etiology of cancer to lack of love, emotional hurts, losses, and/or morning not properly worked and accepted. For many it is an open and accepted holding on to Thanatos, according to a refusal of life - live and socialize to improve. However, in spite of [our] waiver of a materialistic view of this disease (and therefore a resistance to consider it only in the context of toxins or as something from "outside," jeopardizing the body, for example), cancer is never an isolated event, nor does it form from a single event.

Rather, according to a therapy that does not deny the bias necessarily coming from the inner/spiritual realm, cancer focuses on not spoken feelings and secrets. It is true that we are frequently forced to live without a full knowledge of our life, and we have to survive with the overloaded past (many memories full of rejected emotions and behaviors). This past invades and influences our present intentions and disrupts them, stressing us and making us ignore our weaknesses and honest purposes regarding our "spiritual nature," and, therefore, our real needs.

Unfortunately, in general, we resist the guidance of our Soul and we always put in practice the same sticky and futile solutions. Thus, our selfishness and aggressive competition, the multifaceted command of the golden rule (1) imitates the cancer, and says that the human being only exists to settle on Earth in an indiscriminate and indefinite manner. This behavior is what causes our usual attitudes, which lack of compassion and respect for workers (exploited), animals, and plants (raw materials), according to the principle of parasitism.  This causes disappointments and endless discontentment...

Cancer must be understood, not only fought - And all this can undoubtedly, connected to the past circumstances [karmic] and to idiosyncrasies [here a desire of the soul to progress], originate cancer. However, the disease itself can represent a great opportunity to discover our wrong way of thinking and feeling, especially if we consider that the cancer cell seeks for an eternal life when it multiplies and expands. The cell does not understand that the "I or others?" is wrong in its genesis, because as a part we belong at the same time to the whole (pars pro toto).

It is not by chance that so many suffer from cancer in our days. Although many times we fight it without success, it is true too that we have today many successful cases of cure (2), since this disease reflects like a mirror our collective behaviors and habits, our absent mindedness regarding our civilization, which insists on the false belief between the "I" and the "you"...

Therefore, cancer also asks to be understood, and not only fought. The patient can then be clarified, comforted and guided to strengthen himself with the purpose of achieving the cure (using the right word: self-healing) (3). Moreover, for the time being, becoming ill can be seen as a part of the ontological structure of a human being - hence cancer can be seen as an opportunity of the Being to unveil its dark memories, repressed/non accepted, and which come to surface expressed by this route - an allusion to the disease as a path (4).

Finally, if the purpose of every treatment is to relief pain, the one who suffers may find, along with repressed emotions, guilt and unpleasant unresolved conflicts, the genes that contribute for this (as well as the intra-uterine life, the family constellations, personal biography), i.e., the vertical identity as a mark chosen by the Soul to experience a certain itinerary. During this itinerary, it has the possibility to correct itself and to continue to learn about love, unity, and wisdom, which constitute additional aspects to "learn to be free," the ultimate goal of the evolution process to which we are all subject. However, if in its subjective dimension, the disease is a condition that indicates disharmony, cancer and all diseases personify too a collective dimension, which requests from all of us the challenge of living a supportive and perhaps one day harmonious life.

Love does not separate: it transforms and heals - Global change meaning a world with less disease depends on small local changes and in a healthier context of each individual...

In the existing conditions, we have seen that many illusions of our world are relatively harmless compared to those we inflict on ourselves during our entire life, considering that we love each other very little, we hardly know, we go astray a lot, and we feel inebriated with this, and, therefore, we become ill.

On the other hand, love does not separate, it transforms and heals, and this is the reason why God, the Oneness, does not differentiate between the good and bad, simply because He is love. Still, we should not forget that pain and death are inseparably linked to the way we exist here-for-now, although, and above all, we know that death is not an "end point" but a "change of state" bound to the becoming - and, therefore, a future re-birth for another day of school...

Thus, the enigmatic cancer can be a great opportunity for a thorough development and transformation.

I clearly remember a loved one, whom I visited at the hospital just before she died. With a skeletal body and sunken eyes, she told me that morning about the dreadful discomfort she was feeling; in her words, it was very "impertinent." Then, all of a sudden, she told me that her illness had helped her to understand how all cancer patients redeem themselves through chemotherapy, because "these weekly sessions cause a painfully and deep cleaning"...

Going through this path, in the darkest night of the soul and despair of the flesh, they assimilate, in a clear but fleeting way, a liberating experience. Then they become aware of a radical conscience, obtained walking through the cancer-labyrinth, undoubtedly conquering a new evolutionary direction so that one day (according to the cosmic record) they become perfect - the only determinism...

(*) Metanoia (from the Greek metanoein) means the fundamental transformation of thought or character; penance. By extension: Spiritual conversion.

Notes and references: 

(1) We live the challenge to take in to our actions the blessings of the golden rule to block the harm caused by the indifference towards the same golden rule.

(2) According to INCA (National Cancer Institute), cancer treatment can be done through surgery, radiation therapy - treatment in which radiation is used to destroy the tumor cells or prevent their growth; chemotherapy - a treatment that uses drugs to fight cancer. They are applied mostly in the vein, but it can also be given by oral, intramuscular, subcutaneous, intrathecal and topical, or bone marrow transplantation. In many cases, it is necessary to combine more than one method.

(3) Cancer patients can use complementary therapies to mitigate the side effects of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy sessions, also caring for the soul's wounds. Moreover, since life is vibration, psyche is vibration, emotions, thoughts are vibrations, and in general the sick person "is out of tune," which blocks the field of harmonious action of the biological Self. Acting as "good internal speakers," homeopathic remedies and flower essences can stimulate/help the patient to participate actively and consciously in the healing process.

(4) See: Dethelefsen, T.; Dahlke, R.; Illness as a path: a new vision of healing as a mutation point in which an ill transforms itself in well. Translator Zilda H. Schild. SP: Cultrix, 1999.

Xavier, Francisco Candido. Evolution in two worlds. By the Spirit Andre Luiz. 23. ed. RJ: FEB, 2005.

Dalhke, Rüdiger. The disease as language of the soul. Trad. Dante Pignatari. SP: Cultrix, 2007.

Soesman, A. Our twelve senses: wellsprings of the soul. Stroud, England: Hawthorn Press, 1990. 

Eugenia Pickina is a floral therapist, educator, and lecturer, and a consultant for social projects dedicated to the care of the Being, especially in the age group from zero to 7 years old.