Jyotish and the Body: Finding Spiritual Steadiness During Illness

Yesterday I spent the day with my son, my daughter-in-law, and my grandbaby. It was one of those genuinely fun days when life feels wonderfully ordinary, filled with laughter, conversation, and the simple pleasure of being with people I love.

At one point, my daughter-in-law asked me about my spirituality and how it has been helping me through the mold detox I have been going through. I gave her an answer, but this morning I realized her question deserved a better one.

I have been studying Jyotish for eighteen years. During that time, it has become much more than something I study or practice. It has been a devotion, a guiding light, and at times a source of hope when I have moved through periods of great despair. These past five weeks, however, have shown me what that devotion looks like when it has to be lived through the body.

Mold detox has been an intensely human, physical experience. My body continually asks me to reconsider what I eat, how much I rest, what kind of exercise is helpful, and when doing less is actually the wiser choice. At the same time, I am learning to work with a mind that sometimes feels fuzzy and emotions that can become unusually strong as my physical state changes. I cannot think my way out of it or create the perfect plan and expect my body to follow it. What worked for me yesterday may not be what I need today, so I have had to become much more attentive to what is actually happening in the moment rather than what I hoped, expected, or feared would happen.

That is where I have begun to understand how deeply Jyotish has shaped my spirituality. Jyotish is a wisdom tradition concerned with light and with our capacity to see. For many years, I experienced the light of Jyotish through what it helped me understand about life—its patterns, its timing, and the deeper meaning within our experiences. Now I am discovering that this light is not only something that helps me understand my life. It is something I can rely on while I am living through it.

When fear pulls my mind toward what might happen next, I can return to what is happening now. When I cannot see where this experience is leading, I can continue without needing certainty about the outcome. Even when I am exhausted by the amount of attention my body requires, there is something within me that remains willing to keep going.

Perhaps most importantly, I am learning that the condition of my body in any particular moment is not the whole of who I am. There are days when my body feels depleted and everything feels harder than it should. Underneath those changing conditions, I have discovered something remarkably steady. I can only describe it as a sense of divinity within me, a brilliance that remains present even when I do not feel particularly strong.

Spirituality does not make the physical experience disappear. I still have to make decisions about food, rest, movement, and how much I can reasonably ask of myself, and there are stiI would make this warmer and more personal, with less explanation of spirituality and more of the realization that came from your daughter-in-law’s question.

Yesterday I spent the day with my son, my daughter-in-law, and my grandbaby. It was one of those really good days, we laughed, talked, enjoyed the baby, and simply spent time together. There was something wonderful about how ordinary it was.

At one point, my daughter-in-law asked me about my spirituality and how it has been helping me through the mold detox I have been going through. I answered her, but when I woke up this morning, I realized I had been thinking about her question ever since. I don’t think I really understood my answer until now.

I have studied Jyotish for eighteen years. Somewhere along the way, it became much more than something I studied or practiced. It became a devotion and a guiding light in my life, and there have been times when it gave me hope when I was moving through some very dark places. But these past five weeks have asked me to experience that devotion in a very different way. Instead of understanding something through study, I have had to live it through my body.

Mold detox is an intensely physical and human experience. My body is constantly asking me to pay attention to what I eat, how much I rest, what kind of movement is helpful, and when doing less is actually the better choice. My mind can become fuzzy, and emotions can become much stronger depending on what is happening physically. I have learned that I cannot think my way through this or come up with the perfect plan and expect my body to cooperate. What helps me today may not be what I need tomorrow. I have had to learn to pay attention to what is actually happening instead of continually looking ahead to what I hope will happen or worrying about what might happen.

I think this is where I have begun to understand just how deeply Jyotish has shaped my spirituality. Jyotish is concerned with light, but also with our ability to see by that light. For many years, that light helped me understand the patterns and timing of life and find meaning in experiences I might otherwise have struggled to understand. What I am discovering now is that the light is not only there to help me understand my life. It is there while I am living it.

When my mind moves into fear about what might happen next, I can come back to what is happening right now. When I don’t know where this experience is taking me, I can keep moving through it without having to know the outcome. And when I become tired of how much attention my body seems to require, I can listen again and make the next decision from where I actually am.

Maybe the most important thing I am learning is that how my body feels at any particular moment is not the whole of who I am. There are days when I feel depleted and things that would normally be easy feel much harder. Yet underneath all of those changing physical experiences, I have become aware of something that does not seem to change with them. There is something remarkably steady within me. The only way I know how to describe it is as a sense of divinity within myself, a brilliance that remains even on the days when I don’t feel particularly brilliant.

My spirituality doesn’t make the physical experience go away. I still have to decide what to eat, when to rest, how much movement is helpful, and how much I can reasonably ask of myself. I still get frustrated and discouraged. But I am beginning to understand that a difficult day doesn’t necessarily mean something has gone wrong. Sometimes it simply means I need to listen more carefully, make an adjustment, and continue from there.

Maybe this is what eighteen years of studying Jyotish has quietly been teaching me all along. Light does not always show us what is coming next. Sometimes it gives us just enough clarity to see what is here and meet it as it is.

And perhaps that is what spirituality has become for me. It isn’t a way around the difficult parts of being human. It is what helps me move through them without losing my connection to the divine presence within me.ll moments of frustration and discouragement. But I am learning that difficult moments do not mean I am moving in the wrong direction. They are part of an experience that asks me to listen more carefully, adjust when necessary, and continue without needing to control every step of the process.

Maybe that is what eighteen years of studying Jyotish has quietly been preparing me to understand. Light does not always show us what comes next; sometimes it simply allows us to see clearly enough to meet what is here.

Perhaps, for me, that is what spirituality has become: not a way around the difficult parts of being human, but a way of moving through them without losing my connection to the divine presence within me.