Eric Butterworth Speaks: Essays on Abundant Living #118
Delivered by Eric Butterworth on December 29, 1975
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If you have been giving thought to this new insight into truth that we call Unity, you have met the proposition that health is the normal state of man. You probably have heard that the human body is biased on the side of being in good physical condition, that God wills good health, and that we can sustain it by getting into that consciousness expressed in the scriptures, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.”
It is a great freeing thing, once we come to understand it, when we come to know that it is not necessary at all to be sickly and that a health-consciousness can be built. Today you may be looking back at the bondage you once had to ill health and doctors and presciptions and treatments, wondering how you ever could have held such a limited viewpoint of the wholeness of life. If we are candid, we will admit that there is something of the hypochondriac in all of us. The healing consciousness is an ideal toward which we are working, but who does not have fleeting fears about his health? Who has not on occasion been scared by the publicity given to the symptoms of ills sponsored by organizations to prevent them?
It is interesting that in the United States where we have superior medical care and a very low incidence of chronic disease, the overall total of persons preoccupied or even obsessed with concern about poor health is just as great as anywhere else in the world. We learn that a new miracle drug has been developed, a new surgical technique put into general use; yet, for all the progress in medical science, we never seem to catch up in the race against illness. As bacteria are overcome, viruses rise; as tuberculosis and pneumonia become less of a threat, cancer and heart disease assume their place as leading killers.
We are an altruistic people, ever looking for causes to commit ourselves to, and many of these organizationa are fine to give to. But, when the fund-raising campaigns are given over to professional promoters, the result is anything but positive. Attempting to promote fear and sympathy, they bombard us with suggestions and subliminal influences that may well do more than simply motivate the individual to give. We are all aware of the very wide campaign in recent years to motivate people to stop smoking. I myself do not smoke and would be very glad if everyone threw his cigarettes away, but the advertising in this connection is little short of vicious, and certainly an imposition on one’s rights to self-determination. What is more, the smoker has insulated himself against such attacks, so the commercial is left to be viewed by the many non-smokers who are suggestible to the malevolent suggestions to fear of cancer and other such diseases. Psychomatic research has revealed that one of the prime emotional inducements to cancer is excessive fear.
It is my conviction that all across our land in the subtle recesses of the mind more cancer is created than by any other cause. This is particularly tragic, coming about as it does as a result of ignorance. No one can watch a television program without being very aware of all the drug store remedies that are sold by the power of suggestion of many minor ills and distresses. All this is destructive, because through the creative power of imagination, symptoms are called into being that thus cry out for remedies. Through mass communication we have been victimized by our own progress. I would not really advocate government control over this, but by all means we are going to have to employ self-control. One must assert control over his own mind, developing a technique to turn off negatives that may be in the air one way or another.
“The body is the temple of the living God.” Forgetting this valuable quotation from the scriptures, we become too body-conscious, too aware of organs and their functions and aches and pains, too full of pride of self-diagnoses. We need to begin to think in terms of wholeness, of the true temple of the living God, instead of pondering stress to the heart or the impurities that may be entering our lungs. There is a wisdom within us that will keep us balanced in wise action if we believe it. The diet faddist and health fool enthusiasts can become genuine hypochondriacs in their dwelling on the care and function of all the organs of the human system and the food elements said to be necessary therefore. To be overly concerned in this way tends to disrupt the function of the body as a whole unit. The diet faddist, sometimes, tends to create the symptoms and conditions that justify his diet. In the end he is led to feel satisfied that it was important that he follow that course. Do not misunderstand me, sensible eating has a very important place in anyone’s life. I myself follow a rather strict dietary regime. Just do not overlook the fact that the only really infallible dietician is the intelligence within. This inner guide will always lead us to eat that which is needed to keep the body, the temple of the living God, in perfect condition for the “spirit of God dwells within it.”
When we become involved in treating and caring for the separate needs of the body in the end we pit one against the other almost without realizing it. One doctor admitted that he had to work such long hours that he had to take medication to stay awake, and that when finally he had a chance to sleep, he had to take sleeping pills in order to get to sleep. Do not consider this a caricature—this mode of life is widespread today. We have to keep in mind that the body has its own built in wisdom and regulators, and we need to place ourselves in the hands of the almighty activity of God, and believe that the process achieves its own miracle of perfect life if we do not stand in its way.
We need to devise a way to take our mind off our body, to eliminate morbidity and hypochondria. Ask yourself, “What do you give your mind for breakfast? What do you give to your own army of intelligent worker-cells each day? What kind of example do you hold up the the workers of your body to be their goal?” What would you think of a commanding general who sent his troops into battle downcast and discouraged? Yet, this is the manner in which some of us handle the army of workers that constitute our body, by the very attitudes we hold and the things we say, by the state of our consciousness. Absorbed by fear and worry and anxiety and dread, this we broadcast out through the network of the nerves to all the cells of the body. We are informing them that they cannot be depended upon to perform properly, so outside help in the form of drugs and medicines are used, and when the cells of the body accept these suggestions of imcompetency and helplessness, then we tend to render them even more helpless and hopeless-feeling by telling them that they are sick, ageing, and that perhaps soon they must die.
We need then to start a new regimen of joy, of optimism, of cheer, to build a happy heart, put on a smiling face, because these are concomitants of good health. It has been discovered that people who suffer from arthrities, hardening of the arteries, stomach trouble and various nervous ills are people who do not laugh enough, who urgently need the liberating current of love and joy, which by all means should be awakened within them.
So, start each day with a happy, positive outlook; to set a joy pitch in consciousness and to let disappear the tendency to be preoccupied with the functions of the body. Know that the body is the temple of the living God, and give thanks with joy that this activity of God guides and directs all that we do, what we eat, how we take exercise, and in the complete and whole expression of life. There is a loving and beautiful thought from the Psalms, “God has put a new song in my heart, and I sing with joy.” Far better and wiser and more beneficial than starting the day harping on the same old tune of complaining. Keep your mind stayed on this joy pitch, so that you will be impervious to all sorts or worry and anxiety and fear and the hypochondria that in actuallity leads to real physical problems and organic ills.
© 1975, by Eric Butterworth
