The Obedient Servant
He listens to you and doesn’t argue. He carries out your instructions to the letter. Unfortunately he is also like a small child, to whom you have to repeat an instruction many times before he responds. He is the obedient servant.
I am talking about your body. It carries out instructions, whether positive or negative, if these are repeated often enough.
This is a feature of human behaviour, which has been recognised by every culture. Consider the different ways we greet each other in the morning and the responses: ‘Good Morning. How are you?’ ‘Fine’; ‘Howzit?’ ‘Sharp’; ‘Le kae? ‘Re teng’. ‘Hoe gaan dit?’ ‘Goed’. These are all positive responses which you repeat to everyone you meet that particular morning. Your body hears you saying over and over again that everything is fine and it responds accordingly. Even if you had woken up not feeling well, by noon you would feel fine as the body responded to the instruction you issued out repeatedly.
The opposite also is true. Take for instance your granny: “How are you Granny?” You ask. “I am fine my child.” She says “Except for my knees and waist and...” A whole litany of aches and pains follow. By midday she is in real, severe pain because the body has responded to the negative messages it has received from her.
You can take advantage of this feature of human behaviour, to programme your body to do whatever you want it to do, to achieve any goal. This should be the aim of a pledge or an oath made every morning, whether it is for the aims of an educational institute, corporate body, government or personal development. It is the essence of being in charge of your life. You are the boss, the master of your destiny. You give an instruction to your body to tell it what to do that day, that week, month, year and the rest of your lifetime.
Here is a pledge for everyone to recite each morning:
Every night and day
In whatever I do or say
I will remember I am not a pig that wallows in the mud
Or a worm that aspires only to a hole in the ground
I am the highest of all Creation
Therefore deserving the best in life
Towards which I will strife with every fibre of my being,
To realise my full potential
For the greater Honour and Glory of my Creator.
I will do nothing to defile
This exalted status bestowed on me
And my fellow Human beings,
Or allow anybody to do so.
Bra Pat
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Comments
Pat Mokhuane
This is uplifting (seriously). There is certainly something to be said for self induced illness. I think I'll drink to that.
Cheers!
Bra Pat
This is the most incredibly beautiful blog. Moreso because I come from a long line of alcoholics and others who have sought to habitually abuse their bodies.
I am (and will be for a while) reading the Bhagavad Gita. What I love about it is how it sketches the scenario of the battle field between the higher and lower selves.
I think the same could be said for the body and mind.
Or perhaps even, the body, soul and mind.
That there is a war there. At least with many people. Too many people.
Or perhaps only those people who were told, and believed, that there were not good enough. (Which is many if not all of us.)
Imagine if we believed we were gods (what a blasphemy) instead of worms.
Interesting too that the brain is not the only intelligence in the body. That each organ or each part of the body has it's own memory and intelligence. And how often we forget this, thinking that intellect is everything. That the brain is everything. When in fact the intellect and the ego is that which can bedevil us.
Geez. Just when I was thinking. Where's Bra Pat. There you are.
Awesome.
Just awesome.
Bout time Pat
Where you been, no one sees you anymore. Are you in management now Bra?
Ja great post makes one think.
FranklyWankles & amoeba
Man prides himself as the highest of all creation with a brain more developed than that of other creatures and therefore a superior ego and superego to curb base insticts. That may be so, but on many occasions our actions are pure stimulus and response behaviours devoid of thinking, like the unicellular amoeba moving away from a noxious stimulus, or a plant growing towards water and light . On those occasions we are no better than those lowly forms of life. Bhagavad Gida? sounds interesting. Must read the book sometime.Thanks Bru for the pointer.