The mystics of all religions and spiritual traditions tell us again and again that death is only for the physical body, not for the Soul.

“Truly, it is only this (the body) that dies when the Soul departs from it. The Soul never dies.”
(Upanishad)


The saints speak of death as a wonderful transition from this limited and finite existence to an eternal and infinite immortality.

“So beautiful appeared my death knowing whom I would kiss, I died a thousand times before I died.”
(Rabi’ah)


Death is something perfectly normal, something that we all see every day and something that will inevitably happen to every living being at some time or another. The scriptures tell us it is something very simple and natural.

“Just as a man discards worn out clothes and takes other new clothes so does the embodied Soul discard worn out bodies and takes other new bodies.”
(Srimad Bhagavad Gita)


Death pertains only to the body, which like a machine, is subject to wear and tear, dysfunction and eventually complete breakdown. The Soul, however, is unborn and undying, eternal and immortal. For those people who learn to identify themselves with the Soul instead of the body or for those who have taken refuge in a Higher Power death does not hold so much fear.

“Where, O Death, is your victory? Where is your sting?”
(Bible)

Meditation and Cancer

By Jim Malloy Jim Malloy is a meditation instructor currently living in Gainesville, Florida. Trained in 1973 by the International Meditation Society, Jim has been teaching meditation for 35 years. He has taught meditation classes throughout the western and south-western U.S., and now teaches locally in north-central Florida and globally.

What Role Can Meditation Play in Dealing with Cancer?

The practice of meditation can provide valuable assistance to cancer patients at various stages. For persons in the terminal stages, meditation can help them gain greater peace and acceptance of their situation. For persons involved in the process of healing cancer, meditation will help facilitate this process. For individuals who are proactively taking steps to prevent cancer, meditation can serve as a valuable ally. Let's have a brief look at each of these roles.

Meditation and Terminal Cancer

For an individual who is terminally ill, with cancer or any other disease, meditation opens their awareness to that part of their being which is eternal. In most cases this will not be a sudden realization, or even a crystal clear awareness, although it can be. More typically however, a person will simply begin to "sense" or "know" - beyond a mere intellectual idea - that they are more than just the physical body... that there is a part of them which lives on after the impermanent physical garment has been shed. With this awareness comes a profoundly peaceful feeling that it is all right... that there is truly nothing to fear.

However, even when a person has this deep sense that they are eternal, the body's ingrained survival instinct - known in some esoteric teachings as the "body elemental" - can at times, still exert a strong influence as death approaches. For such times, when instinctual fear and anxiety begin to overwhelm one, meditation can serve as a valuable tool for helping a person relax, let go, and shift their attention back to the calm harbour of their innermost self.

Meditation and Healing Cancer

There are various ways in which meditation can further the healing process. Although it would be unrealistic and irresponsible to suggest that simply meditating daily will rid one of cancer, meditation can serve as an effective adjunct to any healing regimen. Here are three simple dynamics of how daily meditation can facilitate one's healing process.

1. The most evident way in which meditation contributes to the healing process is through stress reduction. It has been well proven that stress is among the major contributors to diseases of all sorts, including cancer. It has also been demonstrated in numerous studies that meditation reduces stress and the production of stress hormones, cortisol, GH and norepinephrine.

2. Another facet of meditation in the healing process involves the clearing away of physical/emotional toxins that have been accumulating over years. It has been found that any painful or traumatic experience which has not been resolved becomes stored in our body as a form of negative - or "toxic" - energy. Over the years, the accumulation of this negative energy creates a toxic environment in our bodies, which begins to undermine our natural sense of well-being. If this toxic build-up continues unchecked, disease is the inevitable outcome.

A tangible manifestation of these toxic energies is what medical science has termed "free radicals." These miniscule molecular structures have been shown to play a significant role in causing cancer.

The powerful positive energies tapped in meditation, literally act as a solvent, dissolving the various forms of these harmful toxins and clearing away the residue.

3. Meditation facilitates the flow of life force energy through our system. This powerful energy, also known as the vital force, prana, or chi, not only gives us life, but is responsible for maintaining health and optimal functioning of all parts of the body. As a result of stress, and the knots of tension which it produces in the body, the life force gradually becomes obstructed from flowing freely throughout our physiological system. When any organ, muscle, bone, or tissue is not being sufficiently nourished with the healing vital force, it becomes prone to dysfunction or vulnerable to injury, which ultimately leads to some form of malady. Through reducing one's stress level and providing one with regular periods of relaxation, meditation allows and encourages the knots of tension to unwind, clearing the way for the healing, nourishing life force to flow freely again, thus restoring health and well-being.

Meditation and Cancer Prevention

If meditation can assist people in the process of healing cancer, can it also contribute to the prevention of cancer? Yes... the value of meditation in the prevention of cancer - as well as most types of illness - cannot be overlooked or understated.

Here - from a 1987 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine - are some very convincing statistics, regarding the preventative capabilities of daily meditation.

A study of health insurance statistics on over 2,000 meditators over a 5-year period found that meditators consistently had less than half the hospitalization than did other groups with comparable age, gender, profession, and insurance terms. The difference between the meditator and non-meditator groups increased in older-age brackets. In addition, meditators had fewer incidents of illness in 17 medical treatment categories, including 87% less hospitalization for heart disease and 55% less for cancer.

How does meditation prevent illness? Many of the dynamics put forth in regard to the healing process also apply to the prevention of disease. Certainly the capacity of meditation to reduce stress is tremendous, given what we now know about the major role stress plays in causing illness.

Regarding the flow of vital force, the same simple principle applies to prevention as to healing -- when this nourishing energy is flowing freely throughout the body, health and well-being prevail. When its flow is obstructed and it cannot reach all parts of the body, well-being is gradually diminished and ultimately illness ensues. It logically follows then, that if meditation clears away that which obstructs the free flow of vital force, a major link in the causal chain of illness is eliminated.

Another important aspect of meditation and prevention is that people who meditate tend to gravitate toward healthy lifestyles. Rather than this being a forced discipline, meditators generally discover that unhealthy habits tend to fall away on their own, and that they are simply drawn to healthier ways of living. That includes eating more natural foods, exercising, practicing yoga, enjoying healthier forms of recreation, choosing to live in healthy environments, etc.

So we find that meditation can indeed play a role -- in fact, several positive and significant roles in the lives of cancer patients, and in the lives of those choosing to avoid this painful disease.

Seeing Them Off

By Dr Ramesh Bijlani Dr Ramesh Bijlani retired as a Professor from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences where he established a patient care facility for conducting yoga-based lifestyle modification courses for prevention and management of chronic disease. He uses yoga as a tool in mind-body medicine.

Dr Bijlani at the GPH World Hospice Conference 2008

"The most surprising thing in the world is that everybody knows that death is inevitable and yet behaves as if he were immortal", says Yudhishter in the Mahabharata.

To this one might add that we also behave, and misbehave, with our near and dear ones as if they were immortal. The result is that if they leave us suddenly without warning, leaving no possibility of even saying "sorry", we are left with life-long regret. The situation is not much better if they give us a few months or years of notice by developing an incurable disease such as cancer. The caregivers of such patients face several difficult questions:

Whether to tell the patient the truth?
How much of the truth to tell and how to tell it?
To do all that is possible for prolonging the life of the patient or to withhold those heroic measures which are likely to only prolong misery?
How much of a choice to give the patient in choosing the treatment?
What the approach should be to alternative systems of medicine?
Whether to add modalities such as distance healing, faith healing and distance healing?...

The list is endless and the answers debatable.

There is not much debate anymore on whether to tell the patient the truth. Even if efforts are made to hide the truth from the patient, the patient knows it anyway. In any case, the truth must be told; the only question is how. A few important principles are that the news should be broken only when there is ample time available to talk to the patient. All hope should not be taken away from the patient, and the patient should feel fully supported. It is cruel to break bad news to the patient in a hurry and leave the patient all alone to digest its implications. Regarding not taking away hope, it might be asked how hope can be given when there is no hope while still sticking to the truth. The fact is that there is no situation in which there is no hope. Remissions may be rare in some cancers, but are known in virtually all cancers. Furthermore, the remissions are not arbitrary: they are more likely among those who expect them and psychoneuroimmunology offers a plausible explanation for the phenomenon. That is why Bernie Siegel, the famous cancer surgeon, says that one should beware of giving false 'no hope'.

Cancer also presents difficult dilemmas regarding the extent to which every new advance in treatment should be used, and the types of treatment that may be combined. Broadly speaking, there are three modalities of treatment: surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Surgery, whenever possible, is a good option because it reduces the tumour load and gives the body’s immune mechanisms a chance to overpower the cancer cells that may still be lurking here and there in the body.

Radiotherapy and chemotherapy, however, are double-edged weapons. They destroy tumour cells, but they also damage the rapidly dividing normal cells; hence their side effects. Among the rapidly dividing cells are also the cells of the immune system. It is not always easy to determine whether the benefit expected from radiotherapy or chemotherapy exceeds the harm they might do by weakening the immune system. Further, a social and moral dimension is added to the issue because chemotherapy is often very expensive. If the family refuses chemotherapy, they may feel guilty that they are not doing everything possible to prolong the life of the patient. On the other hand, if they somehow manage the chemotherapy, they might face bankruptcy for the sake of giving the patient doubtful prolongation of poor quality life. If these decisions are taken without any discussion with the patient, an important aspect of the truth regarding his illness is being hidden from him. On the other hand, if the patient is consulted on these points, it may be difficult to avoid in the patient the perception that the family is not doing enough for him in order to economize on the expenses.

In chronic disease, relatives, friends and other well wishers have a tendency to suggest unconventional remedies such as alternative systems of medicine, diet therapies, touch therapy, spiritual healing and so on. Sometimes they even suggest specific practitioners or spiritual masters and support their advice with anecdotal evidence. This happens all the more in diseases such as cancer. It is difficult for any family to act on all such advice. Which path to follow would, and should, depend on what they, particularly the patient, have faith in. Even if the treatment has no specific beneficial biological effect attributable to its chemistry, it would at least act as a placebo if the patient has faith in it. Placebos are currently looked upon with a great deal of respect because first, they can work wonders; and secondly, if the placebo is an inert substance, it will have no side effects. However, it is not prudent to depend only on an alternative therapy unless practitioners of scientific medicine have washed their hands of the patient, or at least the patient and the relatives have taken a conscious decision not to avail of scientific medicine anymore.

While all the above questions and several other mundane considerations inevitably enter the picture in a disease such as cancer, the most comforting and creative approach comes from the spiritual worldview.

The spiritual worldview not only helps us accept the disease as an expression of the Divine Will, but also enables us to look at the disease positively. The usual way to look at the disease is as a problem to be solved, a battle to be fought, and an enemy to be conquered. From the spiritual point of view, however, the disease is a powerful teacher. It is an opportunity with an extremely high potential to stimulate the spiritual growth of the patient and his caregivers. Since spiritual growth is the true purpose of life, the disease helps them fulfill the purpose of life. All events and circumstances can serve as opportunities for spiritual growth. While ordinary everyday life gives opportunities for taking only one small step at a time towards the fulfillment of the purpose of life, traumatic events such as cancer are opportunities for taking several big and rapid strides. A person going through the experience of cancer for a couple of years, and his caregivers, can grow spiritually more in those few years than in several decades of ordinary life. The transforming effect of this growth outweighs the physical and emotional hardship faced by the family. The effect of the transformation is to bring the family closer, and to make them much more capable of loving, caring and sharing. The transformation also equips them to face any future vicissitudes of life with equanimity. They discover peace and joy within themselves, and learn how to access these inner resources. They get liberated from their dependence on external circumstances for their happiness. Hence their happiness becomes event-proof and shock-proof. Their overwhelming concern for recovery from the disease is replaced by the need to redirect life in order to make life more meaningful and fulfilling. Thus, the disease that seems to be a curse becomes a blessing in disguise. Interestingly, with this attitude, not only does the remainder of life become more meaningful, the remainder also seems to get longer. There can be no better way of seeing off our loved ones than to thank them for the opportunity they bring us even while preparing to leave, and to make good use of the opportunity.