{"id":109742,"date":"2020-03-20T14:57:15","date_gmt":"2020-03-20T21:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/?p=109742"},"modified":"2020-03-26T15:29:46","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T22:29:46","slug":"whos-keeping-you-healthy-an-interview-with-john-roger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/109742-whos-keeping-you-healthy-an-interview-with-john-roger","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Keeping You Healthy? — An Interview with John-Roger"},"content":{"rendered":"

This interview with John-Roger was done by Anja-Leigh Russell and first printed in the <\/em>Movement Newspaper in June 1984. What John-Roger shares is just as relevant now.<\/em><\/p>\n

MOVEMENT NEWSPAPER:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Health seems to be very high on people’s list of concerns these days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

JOHN-ROGER:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think their concern about their health is really their concern about dying. If people could deal with their fear of dying, they would probably deal\u00a0better with their health.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I’m concerned about a cold in my<\/strong> nose does that necessarily mean I’m worried about dying?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>It’s not the same thing. I’m of the persuasion that a cold is a symptom of cleansing the body. The cure for the cold is to have a healthy body. Instead of trying to cure the cold, let the cold clean out the body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So people’s real concerns about health are related to the more serious illnesses and diseases?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>I would call them life-threatening diseases, whereas colds are transient problems. You can’t hold onto a cold for long because it finally tires of you and leaves. Or you come into balance and then it leaves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Are colds usually emotionally related?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>If we restrict emotion to a feeling in the body, the answer is “no” because you can get colds from being out in the rain and getting a chill in the body or from eating the wrong kinds of foods. If we expand our concept of emotions, we’ll discover there are feelings that go with words. If somebody yells at you and they do it with no feeling on the words, you won’t be bothered by them. However, if they put a lot of emotion on the words, you may pick up the emotional impact from them. Certain words are more emotional than others.<\/p>\n

For instance, if I say, \u201cWatch out, you stupid idiot ,” that has more charge than if I say, ‘Watch what you’re doing.” If the words have high emotional drama on them and I intensify them by yelling at you, your more subtle bodies can be shaken. Then the subtle bodies will attempt to realign with the physical body which may make the physical body go through a cleansing process to readjust to the subtle bodies again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is the person getting yelled at out of balance or trying to realign himself?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The one being yelled at is probably trying to maintain balance, and the one doing the yelling is attempting to find balance. Yelling at somebody doesn’t find the balance; it’s blaming the other person for something they have very little control over, which is the attitude of the person doing the yelling. The one who’s doing the yelling has control over that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why do people yell?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong> I think it’s a “sickness” from youth. They may have grown up in a family which yelled a lot and the child, wanting to have affection and love, learned to look at that as a form of loving. When they grow older, they yell at people to get love. Personally, I wouldn’t want to be involved with anybody who’s in a yelling consciousness.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What about bosses who yell?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>Often, in a business situation, they’re yelling about their lack of personal strength and endurance. They yell at other people to handle a situation so they don’t have to be confronted with it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is that an attempt to get things back in balance?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>It’s their way of attempting to get into balance according to their lack of ability.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How does this affect the health of the person who is being yelled at?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>When yelling is done out of negativity, it makes the etheric (the physical double) move out of alignment from the physical body. When that happens, the body is open to whatever diseases are incubating in it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That puts a lot of responsibility on the person doing the yelling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>To me, the person yelling is like Typhoid Mary. They’re walking around dispensing their type of justice, called making people sick. Now, you also have to put responsibility on the person hearing it. People can yell at me and I don’t get sick because I figure they’re <\/em>already sick and one of us better stay in balance. So I just listen to them and if they start to get to me I say, “Excuse me,” and walk out of the room. I can also just totally ignore them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Throughout history, we have conquered diseases like small pox, polio, or the bubonic plague. Yet there always seems to be something else that takes its place. Is disease a natural state or is health a natural state?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>If we look at what’s present, disease seems to the normal <\/em>state, but the natural <\/em>state is health. We’re a health seeking, Spirit-seeking organism. Anything curtailing that produces disease or ill-at-ease.<\/p>\n

Then we pull ourselves in to see what is producing the pain or the illness. We may not contract ourselves consciously, because some of these emotional responses are automatic. Those habitual emotional responses can be changed-and it’s a tremendous job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Does that information apply to more than one person at a time? For instance, can the consciousness of several people (a nation, a culture) create things like a plague, cancer, AIDS? <\/strong>.<\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>The things you\u2019ve named are processes of individual disagreement within each person. People who get AIDS have usually given themselves over to something they have made bigger than them. What they’ve given over to can’t fulfill them so they actually are in a state of giving up<\/em>-in a negative sense.\u00a0 When they give up, the immunological system gives up right along with them.<\/p>\n

Medically the cure will be found in or through a viral form.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why does AIDS mainly affect homosexuals?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It doesn’t, it affects everybody. A lot of people have died of AIDS even though it was never diagnosed as that. It’s just that now we have better diagnosing equipment. How do we know if there is more cancer now than we used to have? Maybe we’ve always had the same percentages of cancer in people but it was given another name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Is disease or illness something we set up for ourselves?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 We set up everything. There’s no way we can blame other people for our own wellbeing. You’re in your body and I’m in mine and we’re responsible for them. If you don’t exercise those responsibilities, there’s no need to blame somebody else for what’s going on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What would be an example of that<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let’s use the yelling person again. If you don’t let me yell at you, I can’t!<\/p>\n

It’s your responsibility to tell me, “Please don’t yell.\u201d Another way is to get up and walk out of the room or sit far enough away so if I do yell, you will hear it as normal talk. The other way is to get up and walk away until I decide to communicate on a more rational level with you. I have the same options for myself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It seems that the person who yells is trying to gain control.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even a person who says he doesn’t have control is seeking to get control by empathy. It becomes a habitual addiction. We want to be in control so we can have a good outcome-we don’t want a bad outcome. That reverts back to the fear of death. If I knew how I was going to die, I’d be okay because I wouldn’t have to worry about a temporary health situation. A lot of diseases serve a purpose inside of us. When that purpose has been served, the disease symptoms leave. Then we’re in a state of no disease, which doesn’t mean it’s a state of health.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do people contract certain diseases before they incarnate?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0No, we contract lessons. It’s an abstract thing to explain, but some diseases correspond with mental states and can be reflected as spiritual attributes or lack of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How can we break the cycle of illness and disease?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think the most fundamental approach to breaking any cycle is to come back to the consciousness of Self-to thine own Self be true. When we find Self we no longer have need or attachment for any other thing. That doesn’t mean we can’t respond and enjoy other things, but we’re not on a need level where we die emotionally if we don’t have it. When we die emotionally, we shut off the energy flow. When energy shuts off, disease appears and it corrupts, then it decays and death is a byproduct of that. That kind of death is really hard. Yet the death of old patterns can bring new awareness, and being born again into a new state of awareness can be a transition point to enlightenment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Can we actually awaken cells that have been dead and bring ourselves into a better state of health?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Absolutely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As we awaken more in our consciousness, can our health and energy improve?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As you come more into yourself, you find less need and greed for the world and then you’re no longer a victim of it. When you’re not a victim, you start to move into a state of health. As you do, the body will respond.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean a person won’t have a periodic ill state because there\u2019s also a need for that. It could be that a spiritual lesson of the karmic flow is being worked out. Once the person gets through it and understands that we are truly created in God’s image and there is nothing except God, the person can become enlightened and the illness drops away. It’s called “miraculous healing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It sounds like when you realize how you’ve created a condition in the body and understand it, you have the potential to be able to just step out of it. It seems so simple.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 People don ‘t understand the simplicity of it. But there’s also a depth to it. When you come to that realization, it’s a profound, radical understanding that takes place inside of you that you can’t explain to anybody. I’ve seen it happen so many times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s almost like carrying a heavy suitcase and deciding to walk away from it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 People carry excess baggage they don’t need. Instead of adding to yourself to find out what’s going on, I tell people to drop what they don’t need in order to find out who they really are. When you drop what you don’t need, you’ll find yourself free in what you have because what you don’t need is taken away and what’s left is obviously useful to you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s kind of backwards from what we’ve been taught.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 The spiritual world is backwards from the physical. When we talk about things here physically, we think it’s like that in Spirit. It’s not; it’s backwards. That’s why spiritual beings have a really hard time in the physical world because they are apparently doing things backwards according to Earth’s standards. But according to spiritual standards they’re doing it right.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then how can we get along on this planet?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0 By spiritualizing more people and learning to live with them as a community, a group, a fellowship, a brotherhood, a sisterhood-a community of devotees to God. If you have enough people doing that, you have a joyful situation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What is the prime element for good health?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/strong>There are several-good assimilation, digestion, circulation and elimination. If all of those are good, then we have a state of health by my definition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 What is your definition of health?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Those four things in balance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Would that mean more energy in the physical body?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, energy that’s useable. <\/em>A good state of health would be:\u00a0\u00a0 For every thought, a feeling to match it and then move upon it physically to completion. In other words, you don’t want to have more physical energy than you know what to do with. You don’t want to have more thoughts than you can carry out and complete. And you don’t want to be emotionally distraught, but rather use the emotions to motivate you to do what you think you can do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s almost like the four corners of a solid foundation.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It’s actually a triangle. The base is physical, <\/em>the left side is feeling <\/em>and the right side is thought. <\/em>So what you have is a feeling, a thought to match it and you move on it physically. Now, if you have a thought and a feeling and you can’t do anything with it physically, forget it because it will beat you up. If you can’t move on it physically, let it go. Or, you could write it on a piece of paper so you can get your thoughts accurate. We usually feel so much better when we take these simple steps to unburden ourselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Out of those three items on the triangle, which one is the most neglected?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The physical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does that mean regular exercise?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 That would be one of them. The other aspect is what I call “putting your body on the line.” We have faith, which is a process of mind and emotion. But faith without the physical doing is dead. The foundation for the understanding is the act of physically moving.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Where does excess body weight fit into this<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 Physical body weight is excess energy fields you don’t need to hang onto. I think weight gets too much negative focus. If we realize that the body weight we’re handling is necessary to us at this time, then we take it in our stride. But when we set up rules and regulations about what our weight should be and it’s not matching that, then we distract ourselves from handling life by using weight as the excuse. We’re actually avoiding relationship with our self and others, and we avoid that relationship by eating. When we handle that relationship, there’s no need for the excess energy caused by excess food intake Actually, we can tell by the weight distribution on the body the primary thing the person’s dealing with inside of them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is there such a thing as a perfect body?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 A person with a body that’s defined as “well-proportioned” would probably be enjoying their lives more than a person who has a body that’s out of proportion. The important thing to remember is you can’t really <\/em>enjoy your life until you have a fellowship with God because no matter how good it is, something will always be missing. When that fellowship takes place, the other levels seem to be nurtured and enriched because where God is things are balanced.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is there really a flu virus and can it be transferred from person to person?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, the body will actually create one to match the understanding that there’s a flu virus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Does that mean if a person hears there’s a flu virus they could then create it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You’ll create a flu virus and a receptacle to receive it from someone else. It’s a real thing, and it wasn’t there until people started creating it. People don’t understand that in the field of medicine. \u00a0If I’m doing an experiment and looking through a microscope at some virus or cells, I will influence them by my looking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The instantaneous thought you have when you first see it could influence its evolvement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It could influence what it’s going to do. It’s a morphogenetic approach or the Hundredth Monkey syndrome which means we are all involved in what’s going on. A scientist could also look at something, report it with all due accuracy and later be in a different state of consciousness and not be able to reproduce the experiment. Then he might be accused of fraudulently doctoring his results. All he did was produce the results from where he was at the time of the experiment.<\/p>\n

In physics there’s the classical lab approach and you do a standard experiment to get identical results. When you achieve what you’ve expected, you have become a scientific physicist in the laboratory who produces mundane, methodical results and your creative experimentation is gone.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That seems like an accurate description of the state of the world! <\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Oh absolutely. We want to reproduce the old results for stability and yet we all want newness, but we won’t go into the consciousness that produces the risk of adventure to reach out and get new things. And yet, that’s what we’re all crying out for. It’s actually so easy to make changes and solve problems just by the process of living. I can clear up a back problem or leg ache by getting up and walking around. I can clear up a neck problem by sitting differently in a chair. Do you get what I’m saying? It’s a really simple, mundane approach to creatively change the quality of our lives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is diet important to health?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, if a body is over-acid or alkaline, diet will bring it back into balance. A good acid\/alkaline balance is a good place to start for body health. It’s important to be selective with your food instead of restrictive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It’s a very individual thing, isn’t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Very individual, and it may have nothing to do with our desire patterns of eating or our appetites. It should have to do with what our body can utilize. Once we get over the addictive patterns of eating, we can start eating nutritiously. Then the problems that distract us emotionally and mentally can disappear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That’s the way I’ve worked it out with myself and hot fudge sundaes. If I eat just a few bites, I’m satisfied and I don’t have to eat the whole thing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 The neat thing about that too is when we restrict our eating, we also become obsessive towards the restriction and will try to find a way to cheat and get around it. But if we maintain a diet of selection, then we can eat a little ice cream or hot fudge and not have to overindulge ourselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You’re the founder and director of the Baraka Health Center. What makes this one different from the others?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Probably the most unique thing is the practitioners and support personnel who all have the patient’s well-being totally in mind.<\/p>\n

Their expertise is to do preventive <\/em>maintenance rather than repair <\/em>maintenance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve heard people say they received some healing at Baraka just by sitting out in the reception area and watching the practitioners greet the clients.<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now you’re talking about something that’s beyond the practitioner’s method of treatment. They have a loving, caring energy that produces healing fields. A person doesn’t even have to be open to loving and caring and they can receive a healing. We refer to that as a spiritual healing. That is a plus factor at Baraka.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Might it be scary to some people to think that a spiritual healing is taking place?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It’s only scary if it’s unknown to the person or if it’s shrouded in mysticism. When we come out and say, “Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world,” that’s spiritual and there’s nothing to be scared of because we all know we’re greater than what we do. If we give over to a higher form, not as submission but as a higher cooperative venture \u2013 \u201cGod knows how to do this better than I do so I’m going to seek that better counsel.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 How do you do that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Through prayer.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

MN:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You mean we just have to ask?<\/strong><\/p>\n

J-R:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0 Not only ask, but yell <\/em>at God until he answers. Pray fervently with emotion, depth, fire and conviction. Then sit back and meditate and allow God to reach into you, tell you, and be with you so you can sense or hear him. It’s called “waiting on the Lord.” You wait until the action is produced in you.<\/p>\n

Another way is through contemplation-being in awe at a sunset, a flower, a baby, another human being. The other way is spiritual exercises where we leave the body and meet <\/em>God in the Spirit and become one in the great Spirit with God. That produces great abundance in all our levels, but mostly spiritually.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n