A: Sorry, but the holistic view that I hold places a great value on life in the body. Life is a rare opportunity and a great privilege. We want to make the absolute most of it, and that includes being as healthy as we can.

I have enormous respect for the power of our minds. The mind directs everything that happens in the body, and the body affects the condition of the mind. That's the reality of the body-mind connection.

Not many people would make themselves sick or choose to be sick, but the mind has a natural curiosity about the limits of life. All life is drawn to its opposite, as a way of defining itself; life plays with death. While we are building up our lives, there is a destructive process proceeding in parallel; together they make for change. Meditation offers an effective and safe way to investigate what is life and what is death, resulting in many benefits such as taming of fears and anxieties and insight into the way life operates. Illness is another way to make this investigation, to force a period of relaxation and to become detached and indifferent toward one's affairs so as to gain insight into them.

Most disease is preventable by avoiding certain substances and stressful approaches to life. Some diseases are caused by behavior that is known to be life-threatening, such as smoking, drinking large amounts of alcohol, and taking drugs. Engaging in these behaviors is a clear example of the death-wish, which is very common. Countering the death-wish is formost in attaining good health. But a thought can't be countered by another thought; only the flow of an emotional stream is strong enough to clean the stables of the mind. Beside that, it's the desires of the heart that give us reason to live.

Cancer is a relatively new disease, probably triggered by environmental factors and stress. The introduction into our biosphere of petroleum has had a very damaging effect on life. Petroleum comprises the dead bodies of plants and animals that the earth could not compost into new soil and so stored away in deep pockets where it could not harm life at the surface. Petroleum is a poison that the earth had collected in a kind of lymph system within its body, which we have breached. Now we are ingesting petroleum (artificial colors, flavors, sweetenings, preservatives, hydroginated oils, insecticides, fertilizers, water pollution), and even breathing it (aerosals, fumes, air-pollution). Meditation, with conscious breathing, can accelerate the purification of your body by increasing the exhalation's effect of carrying toxins out of your body.

Stress is also a carcinogen. The strongest stressors are emotional, but there are also physical and mental stressors. Emotional stress is caused by some form of loss: loss of a relationship, status, position, goal, opportunity, familiar surroundings, or identity. The loss can cause one's death-wish to surface, and the body may respond very swiftly. This can happen without conscous awareness. Many cancer victims without an environmental factor are unable to identify a heart-breaking loss within the previous 12 months until they probe into their buried emotions.

Psychological therapy can be helpful in dealing with a loss, and so can meditation. Upward meditation shows us from an elevated state how life's rhythms rise and fall, and how perfect the balance is. Downward meditation brings us into our hearts so we can feel our emotions strongly, be fully present even through pain, and harness our inner power to respond creatively and courageously to our loss. When you feel actively engaged with your problems instead of passively victimized by them, then emotional stress is dissipated.