A serious illness can be a great blessing.
Dear ——:
I am so sorry. At the same time, you will find this, too, a great blessing, if you take it in the right way. Master does want you to resist this disease with faith and with will. At the same time, he wants you to offer the fruits of even this battle to God.
Don’t think of your body as your own. It is God’s body, from which at least the consciousness of illness must be banished. Through this sincere, courageous effort, think always of becoming a jivan mukta in this life: freed from all identity with body, personality, and ego: with anything, in other words, that defines you as a separate, human entity rather than solely as a manifestation of God.
I have felt more spiritual maturity growing in you, dearest ——. Be strong in Him. Remember, giving your ego to God doesn’t mean becoming a non-entity! What happens is that, the more you not only step out of the way mentally but offer your every thought, feeling, and action to God, the more you feel increasingly blessed by an ever-stronger flow of His love, joy, and inspiration pouring through you.
As Jesus said, you must lose your life in God to find true life; lose yourself to find your true Self. The supreme incentive for doing so is that, in clinging to the little self, one clings to limitation, suffering, and misery.
In Master’s love,
Swami Kriyananda
