Hi James,

Body is it’s own. There is no one in control.

I understand this is something you strongly believe. Which is actually pretty amazing, because we use our voluntary muscles to move around and do physical activities – we’re not puppets on a string whom someone else is moving around. Also, it has been proven and experienced by many people that stress and our mindset can actually cause disease in the body (psychosomatic diseases).

It is true that our body has the wisdom of its own, involuntary muscles that contract and relax, internal organs that work without our direct control. So that too is true. However, we do have influence over our body and our health.

Anyway, I don’t want to keep arguing and trying to convince you of that. I am glad that you’ve recovered from your heart surgery relatively quickly. I assume this would cause you to feel grateful to the body for recovering so quickly?

At the same, perhaps you were blaming yourself (your mind) for causing you health problems in the first place? For being attached to the wrong things? Because you said that after the heart surgery, you desperately wanted to find the truth (After my heart surgery (even if i recover very quickly), i just had to find what is the Truth. So, i dedicated myself to find it no matter what.) So perhaps you felt like before the surgery, you were living a lie?

And then you started your quest for truth, doing psychedelic retreats in darkness and silence:

İ did, 3 months psychedelic retreats within darkness and silence.

I think you wrote about it in your poem in September: that you were desperately trying to find enlightenment, but you were slipping ever further from the truth (Sept 9):

Poor James. He tried so hard. Tried to be good. Tried to be strong. Tried to be someone.
He read the books. Sat in meditation. Chased enlightenment like a hungry man chasing a shadow on the wall.
But the more he sought, the farther he felt.
Poor James. He thought awakening was a prize.
That God was a goal.
That peace would come if he just tried a little harder, fixed a little more, understood a little deeper.

Is this what you felt while in those retreats with psychedelics? You were chasing enlightenment, but it wouldn’t come, and you felt even further from the truth?

In fact, I can understand why you might have felt it, because psychedelics can mess up with one’s head and lead to a period of mental instability, hallucinations and even psychosis (I myself have never tried any mind-altering drugs, but I’ve heard stories about it). Anyway, I can imagine why it didn’t take you where you wanted to go – towards enlightenment.

You say you felt that the mystical experiences you had under the influence of psychedelics were of the mind (so still not the truth), and so you prolonged your retreat to last a full year:

İ did, 3 months psychedelic retreats within darkness and silence. But, somehow i knew that these amazing mystical experiences are still belongs to body and mind. Therefore, i did 1 year retreat.

In those remaining 9 months, did you still use psychedelics?

It seems you wanted to get rid of the mind’s influence, the ego, which is cool. But God and our True Self is often found through the heart, actually…

Like Anita, I too feel like you want us to accept your experience as the absolute truth. And you have a strong need to convince us, being pretty intense in your message.

I think this points to a certain attachment, even if you’re speaking of dropping all attachments.

You end your every post with “Peace”, but to be honest, it doesn’t seem you have found peace in your experience. Because you have the urge to convince us…

Perhaps there is a part of you that is still unsure about it? And so you need to convince us, to remove that doubt?

Dear James

You say no one supported you. so you gathered a years worth of food, toilet roll etc all in one go & just ate raw?
The person i knew -Lhundrop is/was a monk , he spent time renovating a small space & someone from the monastery came up with food & left it in a darkened antichamber a small number of us donated a little each month to help cover his food costs.
I did a 3 month solo retreat for 5 days a week, I could not afford or get time off, but I was doing 2 nightshifts, so I could do my practice between rounds & kept the retreatant mind whilst still performing my tasks & did mantra when walking from my hut to work & back. My son cooked & shopped for me I am still so grateful to him for the opportunity he gave me.
We were advised that although there can be some amazing experiences during meditation they are not the purpose of meditation as one can easily get sidetracked by them, & start to crave them & will not ultimately lead to enlightenment.
My experiences were not as lifechanging as yours. But I do get little glimpses of what you are alluding to ( words are a poor substitute for the real experience) & ponder on these things from time to time.
Is it true that the effect of psychedelics can stay in the brain & lead to flash backs years later?
Kind regards
Roberta

Hi James,

Psychedelic retreats was at 2018 and a year retreat was at 2020.

Thanks for clarifying. So you didn’t use psychedelics during that year…

I didn’t not actually suffer a lot. I had just a crazy life, modelling, money, woman etc… Yet at some point, there wasn’t any happiness. Heart surgery just opened the gate.

I can understand that that kind of life is not fulfilling and you wanted more purpose in life.

You are just the stressor of the body. Body can live way longer without you. Stress is the biggest enemy of the body.

So we agree. Stress, i.e. the mind, can affect the body… So you do believe we can actually affect the body (for the worse, basically), don’t you?

So when you say “Body is it’s own. There is no one in control.”- it’s not quite true, because we can affect the body. The body can get sick because of us worrying too much, stuffing down our emotions, getting too stressed about things… I think both of us are saying the same?

Saying all the things as love or i love you etc… İ am not here for over reacting or supposing. İ said just peace, because just peace.

I hope you do feel peace in your life.

Hi James,

The reason of stress is controlling, isn’t it?

yes, controlling people, outcomes, having expectations, trying to control things that are outside of our sphere of influence. Not meeting our own (or someone else’s expectations), stuffing down our emotions, being a people pleaser, not expressing how we truly feel and what we really want, etc etc…

İf you surrendered the body to Amy outcome, how can you be in stress or “you” there?

Well, stress doesn’t come from controlling the body per se. I mean, you don’t want to throw yourself down the mountain and surrender to the outcome. If I have mobility issues, I need to take care not to burden my knees too much, because it will cause worsening of my pain afterwards. So I need to control my body in some situations.

But control of the body is not the primary cause of stress, is it? It is our emotions, our anxiety, our fears, our anger if things don’t go our way… it is our reactions to life that cause us stress.

And all that stress can manifest in the body in form of a disease…

Hi James,

Controlling the body is cause of stress. Jumping purposely top of the mountain is an example of controlling the body either.

I’m curious about your opinion: are controlled and deliberate body movements in tai chi and yoga also a cause of stress?

What i am saying, how it breathes or heart beat itself, let it walk, talk and write like that.

James, I was wondering about your medical condition, and I hope I am not intruding with these questions. But you said that you had an open heart surgery and have a mechanical valve and a pacemaker. I wonder if you have any physical limitations due to your condition?

I can also imagine (but this may only be my assumption) that you might not want to cause any unnecessary stress to yourself, to make your heart condition worse? So perhaps the way you look at the body is partly influenced by the medical condition you have? Please disregard these questions if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it.

Hi James,

As i say, wanting or not wanting is already controlling. To do something try to protect to heart is more stress to heart.

Really interesting view, James. On Oct 10 you wrote something similar:

the biggest health problem is stress, including that “I am eating healthy, running and taking care of myself”. Even this, is so much stress on body.

That’s a pretty radical view: that even doing good things for your body can be a cause of stress.

But I can see how it might be true: if one is afraid that if they don’t do everything perfectly, like eat the perfectly healthy food, exercise perfectly, follow some healthy routine perfectly – they’ll mess it up. That really can be a cause of stress. Perfectionism and obsession with doing everything right is definitely a cause of stress.

Still, I would argue that eating reasonably healthy, exercising moderately, having healthy habits (but not obsessing about sticking to them perfectly) can actually help our body. Because it does matter what we eat (if we only eat junk food, our body will feel it after a while…). So I guess moderation is the key, as with everything.

The one who had surgery wasn’t me, it was the body.

James, I don’t want to ask intrusive questions, but still, I’d like to better understand, since we’re talking about the impact of stress on the body. Do you think that stress might have contributed to the onset of your heart condition, or it was caused by a different cause? I read that in young people, it’s not really caused by stress, but could be congenital or an infection. Again, please disregard if you find this intrusive.