Post by flyer on Nov 10, 2004 9:59:53 GMT -5
Everything changed one day twenty years ago when one of my friends gave me the book "Nothing by chance" by the great author Dick Bach. This book changed my outlook on things and my way of facing up to difficulties.
The theory that nothing happens by chance literally fascinated me, obviously if everything that happens to me is not by chance, then it means that there is a precise motive, both for the negative events and for the positive ones and from both of these I can draw something useful for my development. In effect there have been many occasions when I have had reason to reflect on this aspect.
The secretary of my sports club is an exceptional woman, who doesn't know the meaning of the word "give up" and faces everything with an incredible fighting spirit, she is a positive thinker who never considers that things may get worse. Some time ago she was diagnosed as having a malignant breast tumour, to be truthful for the second time, having had a previous one nine years ago. As we know the mortality rates are about 30% and this knowledge made me sad, irritable and worried. One morning I called in to see her at the stationer's where she works and found her as jaunty as ever, decisive and battling on just like any other day. I tried to talk to her but she is rather loath to talk about ailments, all she said was that this was her race and she would run it to win. That evening I couldn't resist the temptation of sending her an e-mail, saying that even if I had to travel the whole world with dust pan and brush to pick up crumbs of energy I would do, so (obviously she must take it metaphorically) I wrote that I didn't wish to lose her in any way and to consider this message as an order from the club president. She simply replied "I will obey my president".
I am not a doctor, and the only thing I learned to do many years ago was to practise deep relaxation and concentrate on certain projects. This I did and still do, unbeknown to her, because I don't consider it necessary for her to know. I don't ask myself how she can benefit from this, I only know that I don't have any other possibility than to believe that one's deepest wishes can be realised, so I continue to send her waves of imaginary energy.
The rational part of me, the one I call the "accountant" and according to which two plus two can never make five, is bursting its sides laughing, but who do you think you are? You! Waves of energy? That's rich! Have you really got to 50 without killing yourself? Ha, Ha.
I have locked this part away and continued with my ridiculous waves of energy. This week my job has been really hard, never ending kilometres on the road, containers, firms, loads to control, all done quickly because this week we have to export the goods. This morning I was in a factory loading bay already an hour and a half behind schedule, the inspection had become more complicated than usual and there I was, intent on checking the packing list and relative goods, ticking and controlling numbers, when the telephone I had left on top of a big box a few feet away, began to ring. If I am too busy I don't always reply, letting it ring with the idea of calling back later, but this time I decide to reply, taking a few steps to reach the phone when boom! Suddenly a pile of pallets and packing cartons became unbalanced and crashed down to the spot when I had been standing a few seconds before.
Amazed and still shocked I answered, who was it, but my secretary, who wanted to know if I had an hour to spare that evening. Laughingly I replied, "all the time in the world". If I hadn't answered the phone this story would have been written by a hamburger. "nothing by chance?" the person whose life I am trying to save in such a ridiculous way, saves my life instead, by phoning me at the very moment when a catastrophe is about to happen. A coincidence? A fatality?
Perhaps we are something more than a mass of flesh and bones, perhaps that 92% of grey matter which seems unused and nobody has yet understood what purpose it serves, goes far beyond our banal reasoning and perhaps it is indeed this unknown part of us, which give us the answers through our dreams, which makes telephones ring and keep us continuously in contact by means of a super speedy network, with the people who are nearest and dearest to us.
Nothing by chance, yet again nothing by chance.
The theory that nothing happens by chance literally fascinated me, obviously if everything that happens to me is not by chance, then it means that there is a precise motive, both for the negative events and for the positive ones and from both of these I can draw something useful for my development. In effect there have been many occasions when I have had reason to reflect on this aspect.
The secretary of my sports club is an exceptional woman, who doesn't know the meaning of the word "give up" and faces everything with an incredible fighting spirit, she is a positive thinker who never considers that things may get worse. Some time ago she was diagnosed as having a malignant breast tumour, to be truthful for the second time, having had a previous one nine years ago. As we know the mortality rates are about 30% and this knowledge made me sad, irritable and worried. One morning I called in to see her at the stationer's where she works and found her as jaunty as ever, decisive and battling on just like any other day. I tried to talk to her but she is rather loath to talk about ailments, all she said was that this was her race and she would run it to win. That evening I couldn't resist the temptation of sending her an e-mail, saying that even if I had to travel the whole world with dust pan and brush to pick up crumbs of energy I would do, so (obviously she must take it metaphorically) I wrote that I didn't wish to lose her in any way and to consider this message as an order from the club president. She simply replied "I will obey my president".
I am not a doctor, and the only thing I learned to do many years ago was to practise deep relaxation and concentrate on certain projects. This I did and still do, unbeknown to her, because I don't consider it necessary for her to know. I don't ask myself how she can benefit from this, I only know that I don't have any other possibility than to believe that one's deepest wishes can be realised, so I continue to send her waves of imaginary energy.
The rational part of me, the one I call the "accountant" and according to which two plus two can never make five, is bursting its sides laughing, but who do you think you are? You! Waves of energy? That's rich! Have you really got to 50 without killing yourself? Ha, Ha.
I have locked this part away and continued with my ridiculous waves of energy. This week my job has been really hard, never ending kilometres on the road, containers, firms, loads to control, all done quickly because this week we have to export the goods. This morning I was in a factory loading bay already an hour and a half behind schedule, the inspection had become more complicated than usual and there I was, intent on checking the packing list and relative goods, ticking and controlling numbers, when the telephone I had left on top of a big box a few feet away, began to ring. If I am too busy I don't always reply, letting it ring with the idea of calling back later, but this time I decide to reply, taking a few steps to reach the phone when boom! Suddenly a pile of pallets and packing cartons became unbalanced and crashed down to the spot when I had been standing a few seconds before.
Amazed and still shocked I answered, who was it, but my secretary, who wanted to know if I had an hour to spare that evening. Laughingly I replied, "all the time in the world". If I hadn't answered the phone this story would have been written by a hamburger. "nothing by chance?" the person whose life I am trying to save in such a ridiculous way, saves my life instead, by phoning me at the very moment when a catastrophe is about to happen. A coincidence? A fatality?
Perhaps we are something more than a mass of flesh and bones, perhaps that 92% of grey matter which seems unused and nobody has yet understood what purpose it serves, goes far beyond our banal reasoning and perhaps it is indeed this unknown part of us, which give us the answers through our dreams, which makes telephones ring and keep us continuously in contact by means of a super speedy network, with the people who are nearest and dearest to us.
Nothing by chance, yet again nothing by chance.
