Belonging

Lynne McTaggart presented an interesting medical fact in her book 'The Bond', showing the occurrence of heart attacks among Japanese men who emigrated to the US was multiple times that of the Japanese population. You can control in these studies for work conditions, nutrition, smoking, etc.; it just seems to be the very feeling of belonging that makes the difference to your health.

Belonging to what seems to be another question. Obviously, the Japanese men in the study felt more at home in Japan than in America. Still, I have heard of mystics who live in remote forests or mountain areas and who do not do anything but meditating and sending their holy vibrations into space. They know that they belong to us, yet, they keep their distance and feel content in their own way. My hunch is that it is the feeling of cosmic connectedness versus the paranoia of the ego to be left our in the cold that really makes the difference to your health. In the same book, Lynne McTaggart cited a study that showed that the suicide rate in the US critically dependent on the income level of your neighbors: the higher the spread to your income, the higher the likelihood that you would commit suicide. Sad, isn't it? This is exactly the feeling of being left out in the cold if you feel that your neighbors outshine you. We always belong, but once the ego takes over, this connectedness is almost impossible to perceive.