The human body is a work of magnificent grace. It is a self-contained universe able to effectively manage more information and activity than all the world’s computers combined. To the largest extent it is self-maintaining.

It is easy for us to recognize the miracle of birth, of a child that grows from a single cell into billions of cells that makeup the great diversity of the human body. This is a supreme example of perfect intelligence, a miraculous occurrence worthy of celebration and reverence.

What happens to this miracle of life when the moment of birth is forgotten? Life begins full of possibility and joy only to quickly begin a descent into fear and impending death.

At what age does the body become a burden? At what time does it become something repulsive, a thing to be reviled and abused? How is it possible for a happy child to grow into a miserable adult? Is it environment, parenting, schooling, or just the luck of the draw?

Perhaps we just forget. Take the most heinous of criminals and look upon the photographs of their childhood. Is their dark future evident or do they appear as any other child of similar age and circumstance?

What happens that causes one body to fail to fulfill the needs and desires of the mind contained within it? Perhaps a more interesting question is why does it continue to fail despite repeated assurances by the medical authorities that they have resolved the malady? Why does the cancer return again and again?

A child is born into the world and moves forward through time. Is time itself the real problem? Is it the cause of our descent into something less than perfect health and beauty? Old age appears to be a time of reliance on the medical establishment, when the continuance of life requires monitoring and medication. Is this natural, to be expected, something unavoidable?

In truth, it is a trick of the mind. The world outside of our body has somehow convinced our mind that the intelligence within our body is not enough. So we begin to watch for signs of failure and check with experts regularly. It is their confirmation we seek. When did we decide that something outside of ourself is greater than that which is within our Self?

Over the course of a life there will be times when perfection seems to be amiss. Is it truly gone or has some outside interference temporarily overcome it? Everything is temporary. Even this thing we call a life is not permanent. Every body is born and dies. This is life.

The medical establishment denotes the point when a body ceases breathing as the time of death. Unfortunately for too many real life ceased long before that moment. Living ends when joy is overcome by fear, when expectancy has become more of the same, and the routine has drowned out the spontaneous. The miracle of life disappears from view when the demands of the world have reduced the body to something ordinary, measurable, and manageable.

Perfection is rarely seen by the eyes of the world. They look only for that which is wrong, insufficient, out of place. The beauty apparent in the child’s eyes fades from memory. It need not disappear from our heart. We have everything we need within us. The world will have its impact upon our body, mind, and heart only to the extent we are willing to give it sway.

The miracle of birth provides us with a glimpse of the perfection that lives within each being born into the world. Perfection lives within you. Don’t look for it out there.