by Jonathan Damonte RSHom (NA), CCH, CBT
In this beautiful world we live in, a cow is a cow, by example of a talk given by Prem Rawat. Think about it a moment and understand the point of reference to the question that Prem Rawat talk is about, what is a human? A human being is very different than a cow isn’t it? Whatever the way you think about these two earthly beings the reality of being a cow is somehow quite different than the reality of a human.
The funny thing about being a cow might be that it is not searching for much more than it’s food, it’s herd, and it’s safety, it’s needs are simple and it doesn’t have to do much more than be a cow. A person on the other hand is different! Of course it is different and not necessarily because of any great intelligence, higher consciousness or any of the great achievements of humanity. A human is different, from my own understanding, because their primary purpose of being is to find a purpose for its existence… it is this endless search for meaning, understanding and possibly an explanation of how to achieve fulfillment that sets a human apart from a cow, or any other earthly being in all of creation. It’s obvious that everyday I set about seeking fulfillment with every action and every thought and every impulse…I follow my thoughts, my ideas and my customs but do I ever answer the questions: What am I? And. Who am I?
If these questions are ever answered then what would I be, if the question were truly answered then what do I do now that the question has been answered? If a cow is a cow because it neither questions nor seeks it’s purpose, then what does a person do when they no longer question or seek to understand their existence?
I know I’ve raised a lot of philosophical questions of the spirit and even of the creator and I apologize as that is not my purpose for comparing cow’s to human’s. Please blame my understanding about purpose on my teacher, Prem Rawat, who has certainly shaped my thinking in this manner. My main purpose is to introduce a basic idea for understanding that being a human is not a defined activity or behavior, we essentially do whatever we want whenever we want with whatever supposed rationalizations we care to create or believe in. What’s wrong with being a human? You might well ask. I would say nothing except that the state of being a human is not always a good, healthy, or a happy experience, is it?
What I am pointing to now is not one’s happiness, or lack thereof, no that is best discussed on another forum but my point is to question the reality of why are we so commonly in pain, in sickness and unable to get better from simple injuries. Yes, I know that cows need a caring herdsman or a veterinarian but a human ought to be able to get better from pain should they not. The question we are ultimately going to try to answer with this lesson and discussion is not what is wrong with us when we are sick or in pain but the important follow up question of why don’t I get better?
Why Don’t We Get Better?
Simply, we get physically stuck in a state of one or two nervous systems function, we are built to go from one to the other with ease. The first is known as a sympathetic state. Which is where we function to do, survive, take action and react to the world we live in. Secondly, we can be in a parasympathetic state of nervous system function. Which is the state of autonomic, automatic system functions like digesting, breathing, sleeping, resting and recovering.
We get stuck in our physiological reactions. Take an example of a minor motor vehicle accident where your sitting at a stoplight and someone bumps into your car from behind. The blow might have been minor, even at slow speed. Or, it might be a violent blow from a speeding car. The outcome can be the same. The physical injury can be to many physical structures, such as, muscle, tendon, ligament, brain cells, fascia and nerves. There might even be broken bones or open wounds. Or, there may be no outward sign of injury at all. Much of what can repair will repair, a bone will mend, a cut will heal and a bruise will disappear. Why then is it that sometimes people suffer the most horrific pain from seemingly minor injuries without even a scratch showing from the incident or even a diagnosed reason for the level of pain the person might experience. Sometimes these pains develop over time following the original incident and this is why you should always report an accident to your auto insurer and never close a claim you have with them without being in absolute certainty of your soundness of health.
And so, look at a client with chronic pain, perhaps they had been in an accident years earlier or even very recently and they report that the pains they experience are constant, therapies that should help aren’t or any relief is fleeting. They are not sleeping well, the pains migrate, the symptoms are changing day to day and that no one can offer an explanation or even provide an answer. They are truly stuck!
This is a simple answer to the problem of chronic pain from injury but it is a true one because I have proven it time and time again by using a therapy that actually does work for chronic pain.
What I tell the clients in this condition is that their body has remained in a sate of emergency and that this emergency reaction was a normal and healthy response to the original cause be it disease or injury. In this example a motor vehicle accident where their body had done the right thing by first being in a state of shock and being inflamed as in a state of guarded reactivity to protect the injured area. A state of guarded activity is a survival mechanism and is a means of protecting against further harm just as when we sprain an ankle and it inflames or when we strain our lower back and it spasms around the area.
The only problem with the reaction is that it stayed on.
I think that the example of a MVA is a good one as the shock or trauma occurred in the nervous system and if that remains in reaction then so do all the structures that the nerves govern. These include, muscle, tendon, joint alignment and it is the nervous system that also communicates the messaging of pain sensations to the brain so we end up in a loop of communications where the heightened nervous system response after an accident sends a pain message to out cerebrum, the body’s central processor or computer, which then sends the body’s reactive mechanisms into action. The principal reactive mechanism is inflammation.
Hence the chronic pain, hence the continued inflammation and hence the body’s nervous system being unable to simply switch off the emergency!
