A few weeks ago I was giving a Meditation and Mind-Power workshop in the countryside outside of Dubbo. For some time now I had been having stomach troubles and I was not feeling well, nevertheless I was able to draw on deep, inner reserves and I managed to give one of the best Sunday workshops I had ever given. After it was over I almost collapsed and if it were not for the loving nursing that I received from the organiser of the workshop, it would have been hard to keep on my feet. After a night of high fever I was driven to the airport to catch my plane back home.

I began to feel a bit shivery, and soon the shivering turned into the most incredible shaking. It was as if I had Parkinson's disease, rock and roll fever, delirium tremens and malaria all rolled into one. I went to the small cafe in the terminal and asked for a hot tea. My shaking by this time was so bad that I ended up splashing the tea all over the floor.

There was nothing for it but to cancel my flight and get a taxi to the hospital. The shaking lasted about one hour and the medical staff thought I had some sort of mystery disease. I told then that my problem was in the stomach and possibly in the liver.

Eventually they took x-rays of my stomach which prompted them to suggest that I should have a rectal biopsy. "I won't allow you to cut my body open" I said in my ignorance. "We don't have to," replied the bum specialist, "Nature has already provided an opening." Of course, I turned white.

Well, after doing all that he had to do, the bum specialist said he could see a growth in my bowels but it was so large that he couldn't get around it to see how far it extended. Off to the cat-scannery!

When I received the results of the cat-scan, I felt a thrill of excitement. What an opportunity! I was riddled with dear old cancer. I found myself comforting the doctors and nurses with whom I had made friends. I explained that though the house may be crumbling and full of dry rot, the occupant was perfectly well. My mind was totally without fear or anxiety; and I was not going through denial. Naturally, the first thing in healing was to look for emotions from the past that I had never really expressed. There are none so blind as those who will not see and I am afraid I have been like that. Anyway, in deep meditation I found years of anger, hurt, humiliation and betrayals wherein I had tried to be Mr Cool, Mr Nice Guy instead of having the spontaneity to express my true feelings at those times. Now I have at long last released those emotions. I have attended to the cause, it is merely a matter of working on the symptoms. I have refused surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. If I cannot do this with my mind, which I can only use through the Grace of God, my mission is accomplished and it is time to go home. If such should be the case, I will use my dying as an example of how to do so without fear or anxiety. More about this next week.