IF ONLY I COULD BE LIKE MY CELLS
Deepak Chopra, MD

What does it mean to live a spiritual life? Who can teach me the
core principles of spirituality? Strangely enough my own body can
teach me everything I need to know. The cells of my body are already
doing what I want to learn. My body does everything better, with
more passion and commitment than me. The cells in my body have no
problem fully participating in life. A hundred thousand billion of
them signed on to the same silent agreement, which can be described
through qualities that the most spiritual person would envy-but the
most practical person would envy them at the same time. These shared
qualities speak eloquently for what a cell agrees not to do as much
as for what it does.

Higher Purpose: A cell agrees to work for the welfare of the whole
body first and its individual welfare second. If necessary it will
die to protect the body-the lifetime of any given cell is a fraction
of our own lifetime. Skin cells perish by the thousands every hour,
as do immune cells fighting off invading microbes. Selfishness is
not an option, even when it comes down to a cell's survival.

Communion: A cell keeps in touch with every other cell. Messenger
molecules race everywhere to notify the farthest outposts of any
desire or intention, however slight. Withdrawing or refusing to
communicate is not an option.

Awareness: Cells adapt from moment to moment. They remain flexible
in order to respond to immediate situations. Getting caught up in
rigid habits is not an option.

Acceptance: Cells recognize each other as equally important. Every
function in the body is interdependent with every other. Going it
alone is not an option.

Creativity: Although every cell has a set of unique functions (liver
cells, for example, can perform fifty separate functions), these
combine in creative ways. A person can digest food never eaten
before, think thoughts never thought before, dance in a way never
seen before. Clinging to old behavior is not an option.

Being: Cells obey the universal cycle of rest and activity. Although
this cycle expresses itself in many ways such as fluctuating hormone
levels, blood pressures, and digestive rhythms, the most obvious
expression is sleep. Why we need to sleep remains a medical mystery,
yet complete dysfunction develops if we don't. In the silence of
inactivity the future of the body is incubating. Being obsessively
active is not an option.

Efficiency: Cells function with the least expenditure of energy.
Typically a cell only stores three seconds of food and oxygen inside
the cell wall. It trusts totally on being provided for. Excessive
consumption of food, air, or water is not an option, and neither is
hoarding.

Bonding: Due to their common genetic inheritance, cells know that
they are fundamentally the same. The fact that liver cells are
different from heart cells, and muscle cells different from brain
cells does not negate their common identity, which is unchanging. In
the laboratory a muscle cell can be genetically transformed into a
heart cell by going back to their common source. Cells remain tied
to their source no matter how many times they divide. Being an
outcast is not an option.

Giving: The primary activity of cells is giving, which, maintains
the integrity of all other cells. Total commitment to giving makes
receiving automatic-it is the other half of a natural cycle.
Hoarding is not an option.

Immortality: Cells reproduce in order to pass on their knowledge,
experience, and talents, withholding nothing from their offspring.
This is a kind of practical immortality, submitting to death on the
physical plane but defeating it on the non-physical. The generation
gap is not an option.

When I look at what my cells have agreed to, isn't it a spiritual
pact in every sense of the word? Other labels work just as well for
any of these qualities. The first, higher purpose, could be changed
to surrender or selflessness. Awareness includes both alertness and
adaptability. But my body is unconcerned with labels. To it, these
qualities are woven into everyday existence. They are the result of
life's inner intelligence evolving over billions of years as
biology. If you examine the structure of a single cell, nothing like
surrender, awareness, or communion would be evident. These qualities
aren't present in single-celled organisms like bacteria, yeasts, and
amoebas. The mystery of life was patient and careful in allowing its
full potential to emerge. Single-celled creatures continue to thrive-
thousands live in your intestines, which could not digest food
without them. Evolution moves forward, but it remembers where it has
been, and nothing is lost.

Even now the silent agreement that holds my body together feels like
a secret, because to all appearances it doesn't exist. More than two
hundred and fifty types of cells go about their daily business-the
fifty functions that a liver cell performs are totally unique, not
overlapping with the tasks of muscle, kidney, heart, or brain cells-
yet it would be catastrophic if even one function were compromised.
As it divides into billions of progeny, the first fertilized cell in
my mother's womb kept its link to the source. At the level of
memory, I still am that first cell. If I possess a soul, anything I
could possibly know about it was told to my body first.

The mystery of life has found a way to express itself through me. In
fact that's my purpose for being here. Am I fulfilling that purpose?
If you read over the list again and take note of everything
marked "not an option," you confront a stark fact: The very behavior
that would kill our bodies in a day hasn't been renounced by us as
people. We are selfish and greedy. We refuse to cooperate; we behave
as though there is no higher purpose more important than the demands
of I, me, and mine. In our fragmentation and confusion, we've been
ignoring the very model of a perfect spiritual life inside
ourselves.

As they evolved, cells learned what really works for survival. Your
body can't afford to pay lip service to leading a spiritual life
unless it wants to throw away eons of wisdom. Yet the vast majority
of suffering in our personal lives comes about because we
consciously choose to behave contrary to the soul bargain that keeps
our bodies alive.

Dolores Arste
CEO - Zen Guidance, LLC
518 882 6485

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