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THE QUESTION COMES up to each of us time and again: Can we have perfect health? Can we live in a perfect body? Can we enjoy a body free of illness and pain?
The answer is what tickles us. If we want it!
Are we ready for it?
Perfect health, a perfect body and a body free of illness and pain
depend upon how good a fisherman I am.
Consider the fisherman.
I often think of my father who loved to fish. We had a summer cottage at a lake 30 miles from our city
home--and the 30 miles was a long way back in the 1930s and 40s. My dad was a construction man. He and his brother Walter created a company called Beierle Brothers Masonry Concrete Contractors in Milwaukee Wisconsin. The company grew quickly because of both the need for the work to be done and the competence of my father and his brother in creating a reliable company.
During the summer Herb and Ella would
"park" their family at our summer home and he would come out every weekend to join us. For us five children this was paradise. For mom it was nice too, but she had all of the usual household things to take care of so the vacation was really for us kids.
When my dad came to the cottage at Eagle Springs Lake we were all eager to be with him. After a few moments of sharing he would head out for the middle of the lake in his self-built tin boat made big enough for the entire family.
In the beginning dad would take some of us kids fishing with him. He was always telling us to be quiet. We did not find that any kind of fun so soon pop was fishing alone in the solitude he originally sought. As youngsters we were sure he was glad to get rid of us for a few moments of quiet and real fishing. It was only in later years that we realized pop was doing his
"meditations" and that the excuse of fishing was really the farthest thing from his mind.
Pop would sit for hours on a cushion on the board seat in his tin boat away from telephone, interruptions of any kind and business concern. Surely his work would leap out at him from time to time, but he trained himself to set it aside until he decided he wanted to work on it. His business was exceedingly successful as he practiced his time for himself bit. His mind, body and spirit too were harmonious and healthy.
As long as my dad had the chance regularly to spend time fishing he was in the best of health. For hours he would sit quietly in his boat thinking the positive thoughts mother had shared with all of us from her studies in studies in psychology and religion.
The ready business of the war years now passed and getting new business was uppermost on dad’s mind. He stopped taking time for
"fishing" because he just had too many other things on his mind.
Without his fishing time wherein he rejuvenated his body and mind pop developed ulcers. All known remedies were to no avail. Mom was learning spiritual healing and this worked at first, but pop continued in his frenetic business quest. Finally pop realized that the hectic life of owning and operating a successful business from the high standards he required of himself were taking its toll on his wellbeing.
With a body racked with pain and unhappiness he retired to our new 300 acres rural retreat surrounding Rice Lake near Mercer Wisconsin. Things were looking up but his body had suffered grievously under the mental anguish and pop died.
Raising his family with the high values he required out of himself and his children was happily done when he took the time to go fishing and meditate, keeping his body, mind and spirit in balance.
We all may not have an opportunity or a place or a desire to go fishing, but we can find time for inner peace and meditation. How well do we take the time to be a
--good fisherman-- and listen to our inner being as it reveals the magic which is our reality? In any event, all too little time is spent that way.
When we are REALLY SICK we are able to
"find" the time to do "nothing" and perhaps in the process get well. How valuable it is in our busyness to
"go fishing" and sit back and do nothing for awhile, just to meditate and enter into our peace of mind. My dad was a good lesson to each of his children. Some of us learned the lesson while others are still working on it.
Illness is available to those who think about it. Those who say they do not think about illness and are ill think about illness. If it is so that as a man thinks in his heart so is he, then this is a truth. Now our intention is to place our attention on health all of the time and illness dissipates and atrophies.
-Dr Herbert L Beierle |
