Happy Healings --Mazie

[Guest guest]

Namaste Mazie et al, Great news for you!

 

Hello and Namaste to you, Dear Tony!

 

Tony: How long did you have stenosis? I have been diagnosed with

stenosis

at the back of my neck, perhaps due to a past auto accident. I have

some numbing of arms etc after sleeping etc. I don't seem that

worried about it as I cancelled a visit to the neurosurgeon as it

was early days yet.

 

((( By the diagnosis with that name, stenosis, I don't know how long

I've had it, but by probability and guesswork, I'd say that I've had

it for decades, and this because of the severe rheumatoid arthritis

at work on the body (forty-two years). As with yourself, Tony, Bob

too had an automobile accident, one that has afforded him a late-in-

life mild case of arthritis in the foot and ankle bones which were

damaged in the crash. Interesting thing to note, but it seems that

when we damage bones, especially in later life, they manifest in

response, various forms of arthritis or inflammatory conditions. My

sister Densise, she broke her ankle rather badly a few years back,

and immediately after that she developed a terrific case of

rheumatoid arthritis. For a year she suffered terribly, huge

sweelings, red, painful-to-the-touch joints, and the life-

challenging fatigue that accompanies this disease. She's hardly

ever, and never so severely as the first time, got any symptoms of

the disease now, but for awhile she actively experienced what

rheumatoid arthritis can do to the body.

 

The numbing sensation, the prickly-painy experience that comes just

as you've described it after a night of sleep, I too experience

that. There's really nothing to do but try and adjust the body's

position, but given the fact that we're asleep when it happens,

that's not advice that helps either one of us much either, is it? I

find that I sleep less, but I sleep deeply, completely at rest, and

it is with great peace that I awaken each day. I seriously do not

know anyone as happy as I am. Whatever changes appear to have come

my way, by way of great ernestness of inquiry, great determination

to know who am I, and great good fortunate blessing of sheer Grace,

those changes changed absolutely everything in my life. It is as if

I were gifted with another person's much lighter, brighter body, but

I know that it is my own, the body-light that has always been the

hidden thing in this dream world wandering that I'm embody-soul

powered from within, in. In sleeping less, I find that the

pricklyness and pin-yike strikes are less agressive in their

announcements.

 

Tony: With regard to fear of death, my fear has all but disappeared.

I had

to put my dog down recently Jai-Jai, a Shih-Tzu, was two weeks short

of 16 years and had slept on our bed all that time. I had seen him

overcome various problems, operations etc stoically during his life.

I was quite surprised at the grief that I felt as I had been through

this in my younger days with a wife dying and a child also. I was

not prepared for the emotional overwhelming of my intellect so

easily. I suppose the samskaras and vasanas had become deeply

ingrained over a period of time.

((( Oh, Tonyji, my heart goes out to you, for like yourself, I too

know the bittersweet kiss of a beloved pet's death upon my heart. I

had a best dog-friend whom had lived with me and been with me ever

since she was born. I helped to deliver her from her mother's womb.

She chose me, for I had waited to watch all the puppies, (there were

ten!) to see what their personalities were like, how they acted and

interacted with one another, and with me. Tilla chose me, for of all

the puppies, she was the only one who kept trying, even at that

tender 8-weeks of age, to climb up the couch to be with me. She was

so determined and so darling, that there was no question that she

was the dog for me. I had wanted a male dog, but Tilla solved that

dilemma by presenting such a personality that she was really all I

could see among the ten, cuddly, cute-beyond-belief babies romping

and grrring all around me. As with you own relationship with Jai-

Jai, Tilla and I were together for a long time, living together

intimately, affectionately, inseparably for almost fifteen years. I

had to have her euthanized like you did, and when she died in my

arms, looking into my eyes, I thought that I would die with her, and

even now as I speak of her, tears of such incredible memories begin

to spring forth. She adored me and I her. We went everywhere

together. She's the dog I once told the story about who saved my

daughter, eight-year old Evelyn, from drowning in the American

River. Tilla saw that Evelyn was panicked and being taken rapidly

and dangerously downstream by the swift current, and she swam out to

her as fast as her tortoise-shell colored paws could paddle her.

Tilla hauled Evelyn to the shore by her swimming suit until she was

safe on firm ground and could stand up. She would not let go of

Evelyn's clothing, even when I had reached them both and was hauling

Evelyn in too. She had to make certain for herself that she was safe

from harm. She was a magnificent dog, a friend so splendid that it

takes my breath away to remember her now.

 

Tony: I'm just about through it now, however after witnessing his

death in

the vets, and how easily the jiva left his body after the injection

it had an effect on me. As when my little daughter died so many

years ago, my reaction was 'I can do that', die that is. All fear

of death seems to have completely disappeared. It seems Jai-Jai was

my Brahmin's Cow as in the Krishna story where he killed the

Brahmin's cow as it was preventing his Moksha. I'm not saying I'm

ready for Moksha today, but I have a deeper understanding of

Sankara's statement that death is just separation from our

attachments. Love and attachment being different altogether. So now

I have a deeper acceptance of what surrender means, and also how

unreal the whole situation really is. However as long as there is an

ego there will always be a build up of vasanas and samskaras. One

has to be vigilant and in the end Who am I is the only solution, for

me or anyone.........Om Namah Sivaya..........Tony.

((( Indeed, my Dear friend, indeed! Vigilence and determination,

ernestness and sincerity, integrity and bravery in the face of

whatever comes or does not come to us as experience. There is

nothing to do, as you've pointed out above, but to give up all

clinging to the past and what happened/did not happen (imaginatively

and time-inexorably) in it, in regards to myself and all the beings

who are manifestations of this marvelous existence we call life and

death and everything dream-sandwiched in-between them. Aaaahhh,

vasanas! May they meet there maker, namely moi, and make haste to

erase themselves from the dream of being even a memory!

 

Thank you, Dear friend, for this wonderful sharing. May your pain be

but a cutting blade tool, that cuts away the very root of pain

itself .

 

I'm off to get back to digging the pond that I've been working on

with Bob, and doing a lion's share, a giddy-happy lion's share in

fact, of the hard labor. I'm almost ready to lay down the liner ...

and then, wooyay! My fishy-friends get to play in a way that tank-

bred fish may only dream of. Here's a picture of the work I'm doing:

 

 

 

As I Am, (crazy about physical labor, and crazy-passionate about

gardening)

 

Mazie