Timeless Healing: The Power and Biology of Belief
Herbert Benson with Marg Stark

Heal Your Body A-Z: The Mental Causes for Physical Illness and the Way to Overcome Them
Hay, Louise L.

The Science of the Spoken Word
Elizabeth Clare Prophet

The image of perfection

I believe that the body is a temple for the Spirit. It is a vehicle for our evolution in the journey of life. We cannot become overly attached to it or become slaves to its needs. One day we will no longer need the body and will lay it aside, as an outworn garment. In the meantime, we need to take care of the body, because it is a faithful servant that serves us well.

Our body will outpicture that which we instruct it to do, assisted by the body elemental, our guardian angel, and our Higher Self. Healthy thoughts and feelings are food for the soul. If we love our body, it will respond to that love.

Our Higher Self sees us as perfect and whole. Wholeness is a healthy way for us to see ourselves and is a part of the practice of good mind-body-spirit medicine. Our Higher Self can bestow the gift of clearer vision—physical, mental, and spiritual vision.

There is an original, divine pattern, a perfect design for each of us and our life. Mothers in this world often see their children in this light. They see the perfect, the beautiful, the lovable, even when their children are misbehaving or manifesting anything but these things. In the same way, it is the Divine Mother who holds this vision for each of our souls.

A friend gave me a wall plaque of the Blessed Virgin that she brought back from a trip to Colombia. I placed it near my bathroom mirror so that I could see it each day, even as I used a simple exercise to help me see myself as she sees me—in the image of the divine perfection of my Higher Self.

Each day as I stood before my mirror, I prayed and asked Mother Mary to purify all my past perceptions of my own imperfections. Then, after my prayer, I would look into my eyes in the mirror, and I would practice seeing my eyes as Mary does. Our eyes have been described as “blessed orbs of luminous beauty, veritable windows of the soul through which God can gaze joyfully upon all his creation…. [They] tell the story of your … many past experiences…. Everything you have ever beheld tells its story as it was recorded in your eyes.” Daily I practiced seeing myself and others as my Higher Self would see me. For what we see in others appears more readily in ourselves.[1]

The images that we hold in our mind’s eye can work for or against us in healing. This is one reason why it is important to hold an image of perfection for ourselves. This does not mean that we should ignore what is happening to the physical body. We may know that we are fighting cancer, but we do not think of ourselves as ill. Rather, we must hold an image of good health in our mind’s eye; this gives our subconscious a good diet of positive thoughts on which to build a framework for healing. Many mind-body techniques, such as the positive affirmations that Louise Hay teaches for healing, are tools to help us hold that image of perfection and make it more real to the conscious mind.

 


1. This exercise is adapted from Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Pearls of Wisdom vol. 30, no. 7 (1987).

 

Excerpted from A Journey through Cancer, by Neroli Duffy