A man puts a syringe filled with heroin in his vein and is prepared to squeeze. He has done this before, a thousand times maybe. The action is rote. It is automatic. Yet on this day, at this moment, something happens. Perhaps he read an inspiring book. Pictured a loved one in his mind. Looked out his window and saw something beautiful. It doesn't matter. Right now, he is beyond thought. He is moving on impulse. An impulse within him that has decided to serve Life itself before it serves the Little Self. Without thinking, the man removes the unsqueezed syringe from his forearm. He releases the rubber band. He is suddenly clear that he will not shoot up again. This clarity has come to him without thought. It is simply a knowing. His long struggle with heroin is over. His "Push-Pull" battle is over. Some would say that the power of his "Push-Away" conscious mind won out over the power of his "Pull-Towards" subconscious addiction....but is it that simple?
I have been giving some thought lately to the concept of instinct. Is the above scenario a smaller, less obvious example of the woman who jumps in the water to save a drowning child despite not being able to swim? Or, the man who runs into a burning house to save those trapped inside with no regards to his own life? And what causes the person to freeze and do nothing in those situations? What powerful forces overrides their instincts? Is it difficult to conceive that from another level of creation, one that is beyond the conscious or subconscious (perhaps super or supra- consciousness), preserving Life itself is the First choice before anything that you would consciously choose? In other words, built somewhere in the Totality of our being, both physical and non-physical, our first instinct is to preserve Life. Now, let's make a play on words.......That which you pre-serve, you preserve. Meaning, in order to preserve "it", you must serve it first.
I wrote earlier in the year that Life has 3 objective principles- principles which could not care less about how we feel about them. Functionality, Adaptability and Sustainability. Regardless of our agenda or our relative judgments of right or wrong, those 3 principles will assert themselves with or without Humanity. Life does not care about morality, justice and ownership......we do. You cannot destroy this system called "Life", it was here before us and will continue long after us.....if we choose. We can also choose, as humanity, to stick around and not leave the party. But in order to do that we must pre-serve it.
We, chiropractors, often scream and shout how we intend to "save the world" with our Life-giving adjustments. Truth is, the world doesn't need saving.......Life doesn't need saving. Humanity? That's another story. The sooner we realize we are a part of the system, not a product of it, the sooner we can act in ways that sees us in relationship with everything around us and not separate from it. I'd like to think we, as chiropractors, pre-serve Life by saving Humanity from itself, one human at a time. Removing obstacles to another person's built-in Instinctual (not automatic)Response to pre-serve Life is no small task, regardless of the methods you choose to do that. The important result lies in our abilities to function, adapt and sustain......yes?
We can all unite around that concept, can't we?
