Arriving In Tokyo And Thoughts About Sickness And Healing
Arriving In Tokyo
Our flight from Denver was uneventful.
The plane was less than half full, which actually made for a pleasant 11 hour flight.
It meant that there were less people congregating near the toilet, less waiting at meal times and over all a quieter and more enjoyable flight.
We landed at Narita airport in Tokyo in the early evening, and due to Coronavirus fears and travel restrictions, there were no big lines to clear immigration and customs.
All the airport employees wore face masks.
In the arrivals hall, we were approached by two different TV crews who asked to interview us.
We agreed and spent the next hour giving two lengthy TV interviews about why we had come to Japan, what we planned to do here and why we came at such a time, when the rest of the world is under a lockdown.
The long interviews will probably be edited and air during a segment of fifteen minutes, entitled “Why have you come to Japan?”
Outside of the airport, the city was as bustling as always, even without the millions of International tourists who normally come to Tokyo.
In fact, even though there are almost no tourists in the city, we can hardly find a seat in any of the many cafes around the city.
Tokyo is a very crowded city, and the lack of tourists just makes being here that much more pleasant.
We chose to stay in a newly opened hotel in the Roppongi Hills neighborhood.
Many years ago, this area was full of seedy bars, visited mostly by drunk foreigners.
But times have changed, and Roppongi Hills has become a very cool and upscale area.
Major museums have opened up and real estate prices in the area have soared.
A big appeal for us in choosing to stay here is the cluster of health oriented restaurants and cafes in this area.
Our hotel is nearly empty, and no doubt tourists are not traveling during these times.
But the city is all open, well, all except for the businesses that cater ONLY to tourists.
All the restaurants, cafes, bars, shops, department stores, book stores and markets are open and buzzing with activity.
The biggest difference is that many more people are wearing face masks.
Japanese people have always loved wearing face masks.
People here usually wear masks when they have hay fever or even just the sniffles, so they do not sneeze and spread germs on others.
I would say that now, many more people are wearing masks to protect themselves from the virus.
The funny thing is that when they go into cafes and restaurants, they all remove their face masks and eat, chat and share germs with everyone around, unguarded by the masks.
Buying a mask is an impossible task.
All the shops and convenience stores are sold out.
It was the same at home in Colorado.
Not that I was planning on buying any face masks.
Being an artist, I always have a variety of face masks to wear when I do sanding, so I did have in my studio exactly the kind of N-95 filter masks that are recommended to filter out the Virus.
The paper disposable masks that everyone wears here are said to not be effective against viruses at all.
Please excuse all this elaboration, because honestly, I only brought the masks with me in case of public pressure.
We did not wear the masks at the airport nor on the plane.
For protection, I listened to the Course in Miracles during the entire flight, reminding me of the eternal truth:
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
No one can heal unless he understands what is the reason and the “purpose” that sickness seems to serve.
Sickness is not an accident.
Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception.
Sickness is anger, taken our upon the body, and its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it and twist it.
Defenses are intentional, and are made with awareness.
They are secret, magic wands, that you wave when truth appears to threaten what you believe.
They seem to be unconscious, but only because of the speed and rapidity in which you choose to use them.
In a second, even less, you make the choice, and then proceed to think that it is already done.
Afterwards, you quickly forget that you have made the choice to be sick, so it seems to be external to your own intent.
Sickness is a decision.
It is not a thing that happens to you.
You are NOT a victim of the world you seem to live in.
Sickness is not something that comes from the ether to attack you, make you weak and bring you suffering.
It is a choice you make,
a plan you lay,
when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall.
How do you imagine that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth?
Because it “proves” that you are a body.
That the body is not separate from you, and so you are just a fragile body that is separated from the truth.
If your are just a body, you suffer pain because the body does, and you die, because the body does.
And by believing this, you imagine that the body is more powerful than everlasting life, Heaven is just a fantasy, and God’s design for the enlightenment of His children, is opposed by your decision which is stronger than God’s Will.
All this is an illusion, conjured up by fearful minds.
The universe remains unchanged by your imagination.
Heaven does not bow to hell, nor life to sickness and to death.
You can only choose to think that you can die, or suffer sickness or distort the truth in any way.
Defenses are plans to defeat what cannot be attacked.
What is unalterable, simply cannot change.
And what is wholly sinless, simply cannot sin.
This is the simple truth.
It does not demand your belief nor your obedience, like many religion do.
You do not have to trust it, it is simply so.
Truth merely wants to give you total happiness, for such is its purpose.
Perhaps it sighs a little when you throw away its many gifts, and yet it knows, with perfect certainty, that what God wills for you MUST be received one day.
The Loving Thoughts of God are quite apart from time.
For time is just another meaningless defense that you have made against the truth.
Yet what He wills for you is here, and you remain as He created you.
Truth will enter your mind when you will welcome it.
Remind yourself:
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
I accept the truth of what I am today, an eternal beloved child of everlasting life, a safe and beloved child of light, of love, and I let my mind be wholly healed today.
I am NOT a body, I am FREE, for I am still as God created me.
Healing will flash across your open mind, as peace and truth will arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings.
The body is healed when the source of sickness has been opened to relief.
And you will recognize that you practiced well by this:
The body should not feel at all.
If you have been successful, there will be no sense of feeling ill nor feeling well, of any pain or any pleasure.
The body is a neutral thing and it’s usefulness remains, and nothing more.
The body’s health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any “laws” you made it serve before.
You need to do nothing to make it well, for sickness has become impossible.
But be aware that this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching.
If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you will again misplace yourself, and identify with the body, which will attack the body, for the mind is sick.
Correct your thinking immediately, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer.
Do not confuse what must be healed, which is not the body, that is a wholly neutral thing, but your mind.
Remind yourself:
I have forgotten what I really am, for I mistook my body for myself.
Sickness is a defense against the truth.
But I am NOT a body.
I am free!
We had dinner at a charming ‘Farm To Table’ restaurant across from our hotel.
They serve seasonal vegetables like Gobo (burdock), Jerusalem artichokes, wild mushrooms and sweet potato fingerlings.
The atmosphere was relaxed and the food delicious.
Tomorrow we will start to walk the Tokyo 33 Kannon mini Pilgrimage.
We feel grateful that we were able to fly here and were not prevented by the coronavirus madness from coming here.
May peace, love and healing spread across the earth.
Tali
