A few thoughts about neurological diseases

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been connecting the recently assigned TSK material (about how our sensations involve both inner and outer light) with the situation of people with whom I work and who have the neuromuscular diseases, ALS (lou Gehrig’s disease) and MS.  In particular I have a good friend with ALS–who has full use of his senses and mental processes, but can do almost nothing intentionally with his body–and I started wondering whether he has full access to the experiences described in the readings about the light of mind reaching out to the light of our revealed world.  I decided that he does–although he cannot enjoy the benefit of a Kum Nye exercise stimulating inner warmth and the sense of inner light that can come with that experience.  When I asked my friend with ALS (who now lives at a VA hospital on a respirator) what he thought of this idea that there is light in our consiousness that engages the light in our world, he used his computer to play a guided meditation for breathing in light brightness and breathing out grey obscurity. I thought that was a good response to the discussion I had initiated.  As for my own practice, I’ve had a few good days in which I was able to carry a sense of lightness into my daily activities, but day by day this affect lessens.  Why is that so often the case?  It’s as if a burst of light energy comes in through some insight or feeling, and then the attempt to continue this feeling by employing the same thoughts and gestures as initially set in motion the new and refreshed response to life, become gradually more dim and wooden.  Then it’s time to look afresh again.  I’ve found that when I make time to practice a little longer and more regularily, these insights are more likely to visit.  –Michael