Growing up with Smoking
It seems on looking back over my lifetime of more than 76 orbits of the sun, and through much of my developing years, everyone ‘smoked’. When one reflects on that sentence – that everybody smoked – I could allow myself to contemplate that word. One could tend to think of a physical body actually exuding an ethereal type of vapour arising from the entirety of the body, like a mist wafting from the very cells of the flesh… a bit like one sees if visiting Iceland and watching the steam visibly drifting up from the centre of the earth, seeping through the crust around one randomly, anywhere and everywhere at any one time.
But no, that wasn’t the case, and as a child I wondered why it was that people chose to ‘draw in’ – to ‘do the drawback’ – filling the precious lungs with smoke and resulting in coughing, rasping and even possibly leading to the lung disease of emphysema.
As a 5-year-old I felt the breath of the trees, sky and the stars inside my lungs. Even though I did not grasp this from anything I knew as ‘knowledge’ back then, I just knew without question that every particle in our body is one with all that is in the universe.
Severe whooping cough was a frightening experience at that age where my little body bent over racked with the effort to breathe, all the while knowing that I had to breathe in God’s breath to live. Did any of us have any connection to our body or listen to what it was constantly communicating to us – not a ‘gut’ feeling as they say, but a whole body awareness?
Being the oldest child in charge of two little brothers, we would on rare occasion visit the Saturday matinee – ‘the flicks’ – with the only advertisements I recall showing the ‘Marlboro man’ sharing his affinity with nature by riding a great steed until he finally stopped on reaching the top of the mountain; then he would light up a cigarette and breathe something foreign deeply into his lungs, supposedly to more easily enjoy all that God in nature was offering!
I also often wondered some years later why on our black and white television, a romance movie in the mid 50’s always showed the couple ‘lighting up’ and having a cigarette after looking a bit hot and bothered in a bed – how unromantic, all that cigarette breath! A child may well wonder, but looks to the adults in their world for guidance – after all, the adults are supposed to know it all.
I tried smoking when about 17 during a pyjama party with some bank work colleagues – how risqué! My goodness we were so adventurous and bold smoking… so rebellious! I didn’t take more than one choking puff, and exclaimed I didn’t like it. So it would seem I was always the odd one out – never quite fitting in with the crowd.
How strange we human beings can be, always looking to fit in and be like everyone else, seeking outside of ourselves to be liked, acknowledged and accepted – but did I somehow know deep within that there was a different way to be?
This act of smoking surrounded me during my entire life at home in a Melbourne eastern suburb; in later years when pocket money was available I even supported my father’s only vice (that he spoke of) by buying him the cigarette papers and sometimes a packet of Havelock tobacco for a birthday present so he could ‘roll his own.’ It didn’t seem to matter at the time that I also was breathing in the vapours – it was part of life even though I didn’t like the smell on either the breath or in the air. All of this experience was post 2nd World War: there was a belief pushed on the general public at that time that smoking ‘relaxed’ one.
One has to ask, have we actually chosen to allow these beliefs to be taken unwittingly into our bodies and once there, these beliefs have been stagnating, revealing themselves physically in many and varied ways?
The Vapour that Pursued me Relentlessly
As life went on, the vapour – the smoke – pursued me relentlessly, as some following examples will testify:
After my marriage I found out that my husband was introduced to smoking at Puckapunyal Army Training Camp, where the officers handed out handfuls of cigarettes to the young and ‘wet behind the ears’ recruits that had been called up, supposedly to ‘make men out of them.’ Years later, complaints from the wives that their homes were less than fragrant next morning after gatherings… not to mention the empty beer bottles and cigarette butts over spilling the ashtrays, were rebutted with, “We demand our right to smoke!!!” from some of the men.
Our children were also surrounded by this act of smoking, but fortunately a different choice was made after a short time as they showed evidence of troubled lungs from the open-cut brown coalmine area that we lived in. By now I had become acutely allergic to cigarette smoke and found it extremely challenging even going into a restaurant, where anybody at any table could ‘light-up’ before, during or after the meal. It was very hard to breathe and my face would swell, tears well up, with sneezing etc.
When it was time to travel… to explore the world… we visited countries where the right to smoke literally anywhere was a given, and for some from any age. In the jungles of Borneo on the way to the awesome Niah Caves, suddenly one would be confronted by a large garish billboard put there by some tobacco company: or within the confines of some airlines’ planes it was deemed acceptable to smoke, where a flimsy little curtain barrier was supposed to prevent other passengers from being affected. The trams, trains and coffee shops – anywhere really – was open slather…
Our adventures took us to both ends of this earth, North and South Pole. Many of us have experienced the pristine air of these areas and we stood in awe at the sight of the majestic, gigantic icy monoliths, the icebergs of Antarctica within hand’s reach almost, glistening blue from the oxygen held within. It was such a sight – passengers rugged up looking colourful in their rainbow array of padded jackets, fluffy hoods and mittens in the bitter cold of this crisp and clean air.
Hardly a sound – just standing in awe on the open deck of the cruise ship as it glided silently through the velvety smooth deep and dark water. How humbling. How insignificant we can appear, but at the same time pondering on the possibility that we are all made of the same stuff, the elements, the particles of everything of the Universe. Then begorrah! The man in front of me lights up a cigarette, puffing his pungency into this pristine air…
Later we had to move from a two-story house to an apartment. We chose well, or rather it felt more like a gift from Heaven on the 22nd floor, with a view across the wide ocean and across to the hinterland up into the clear, clear air.
Our furniture was in place, my massage table had found its position in one spare room and then like an all-consuming wall of unseen smell, I sensed the overwhelming presence – a pungency that was familiar, but magnified. It was wafting into my open space of what was to be my office: it was the smell of Russian cigars – oh no!! How can this be – can’t I get away from it even up here??… would we have to move again…?
My understanding of why this smoke seemed to pursue me from one end of the earth to another was still ahead of me, waiting to unfold.
Meeting Serge Benhayon & Exploring the Truth of Whole Body Intelligence
It took a lifetime of looking outside of myself for the answers; not until in my sixties did I realise I had come full circle, back to the starting point from more than six decades of rotations of the earth around the sun. Then I met a very regular but extraordinary ordinary man called Serge Benhayon. My meeting this wise sage is another story in itself, but suffice to say this World Teacher of the Ageless Wisdom changed the direction of my life and where it was going – at the time further and further away from God’s love at a rate of knots – as I searched in vain for something ‘out there’ that made total sense to me.
Serge Benhayon never tells anyone to ‘do’ or ‘not to do’ anything, but simply presents the possibility of another way – The Way of The Livingness. As a result of meeting this man I have been reflecting on many things in my life thus far: the hurts, the emotions, the patterns etc. and pondering on the possibility of a deeper purpose behind all of our health issues and events.
The evidence of ill health in the population of the world displays that there is much for us to ‘un-learn’ or let go of, clear and heal by perhaps making the choice of a different way of living that could bring us back to who we truly are and how we could live in a joyful and harmonious body.
May we also ask why has it taken so long for us to realise our bodies are always trying to communicate with us? Do so many people have to die due to lung or other diseases before we realise we have a whole body intelligence that we could choose to align with? One has to wonder what have we all been afraid of that may be revealed. Are we afraid of the Truth?
As I personally grappled with the effects of passive cigarette smoke on my health in my effort to understand ‘why’, this Truth was eventually revealed to me.
As I became more familiar with listening to my body, practising the Esoteric Modalities including the Gentle Breath Meditation™ as presented by Serge Benhayon at the various Universal Medicine presentations I attended, I took the time to nurture myself a little more and be more aware of the deep intelligence that comes from the whole body.
This was a time of deep exploration for me, learning to discern where the impetus of the message was coming from: was it from the mind – that is, the computer of the body with the information gathered from a myriad of sources outside of myself – or was it from the intelligence of my whole body, from the cells of my being, that part of me that is at one with the entirety of the universe?
Over some years of this exploration and listening to my body, I naturally let go of gluten, dairy, and alcohol in my own way, and also adopted a more supportive sleep pattern… all to great effect.
The Effects of Cigarette Smoke & the Law of Karma
However, cigarette smoke from any source was no doubt still affecting my health. One has to ask why was this so? Like a Peregrine falcon smelling prey from miles away, I could smell cigarette smoke; looking around accusingly I would try and ascertain where the culprit was lurking, casting a judgment on their chosen behaviour. How arrogant! Did I then consider the possibility that there was a reflection for me to be aware of? More and more instances occurred where it seemed others would be deliberately placed in my proximity to challenge my ability to breath. What was I to learn from this – surely my irritation had to have a deeper lesson for me to contemplate?
It was during these moments of reflection that I could see the truth and the wisdom of the Laws of the Universe, including the Law of Cause and Effect, or Karma. Had I indeed participated in lives previously, in any number of incarnations, in preventing others from ‘Breathing in the Light of Christ’, the ‘Breath of God’ in a myriad of scenarios…? I can feel now the smoke from cigarettes, cigars etc. filling the lungs – limiting the possibility of one’s Divine connection with Soul, to God, to The All That Is.
Is it possible that all this imposition of others’ cigarette smoke affecting my life and my health was not in fact a punishment, but an opportunity for me to experience and appreciate what it felt like to be so imposed upon, by actually inhibiting my own experience of the glory of breathing my own breath – and my awareness now that these experiences were offered, bringing the scales back into some sense of energetic order? Worthy of consideration perhaps.
Our Lungs and the In-Breath & Out-Breath of God
It seems to me now that the sacred movement within our lungs reflects the beauty and divinity of the closeness of our connection to the universe and the stars for they, the lungs in form, allow the flow – the flow of the very In-breath and the Out-breath of God.
Has all of this activity of having experienced the imposition of cigarette smoke affecting my health and my life actually been my Soul offering me clarity; a deeper understanding of the separation that is created, and of what it is in truth to breathe the Light and the Love that is the Christ Energy?
In these moments of revelation, I feel such appreciation for the gift of understanding of the possible truth of the situation; and I might add here that since then there have been fewer impositions from others casting their chosen habit upon my sensitivities. When it does occur, I feel it is but a reminder to treat all equally, without judgment – and to remember that we are all the Sons of God remembering who we truly are.
By Roberta Himing, aged 76, Student of Life, Gold Coast, Australia
Further Reading:
Good Health, Intelligence and Smoking
Reincarnation and Karma: Hocus Pocus or Perfect Balance?
Our mind might tell us to have a cigarette but if we asked our lungs they would say no.
395 Comments
The first separation is with ourselves, that we have stepped away from ourselves that causes any separation and judgment from others. The more we fight something the more it chases us to the end of the world, to show us that the frustration we feel is the core issue of stepping away from ourselves and hence a separation from the connection and love that we then cannot offer to anyone, but naturally our body only wants this .
I agree Adele, we are funnels through which energy comes through. Through our solid re-connection back to ourselves we ensure that the energy that is coming through us is the base energy of The Universe but when we are adrift from ourselves, roaming around in the land of ideas, beliefs and identity then that is an open invitation for another type of energy to come through us. It is that other energy that wreaks havoc with our world, adding to the illusion of separation and perpetuating the myth of individualisation.
If we truly want we can trace back the various kinds of smoke we experience in our lives, to the true cause that burns underneath. Anything less is just pushing smoke around thinking you’ve overcome the issue.
Now everyone has been made aware of the dangers of smoking ‘vaping’ is becoming the norm.. Billows of smoke come from these little contraptions and it is being hailed as a safe alternative but already there are findings being aired that show that this may not be anywhere near as safe as we have been told…just like tobacco smoking all those years ago.
Ah the blatant lies of advertising “riding a great steed until he finally stopped on reaching the top of the mountain; then he would light up a cigarette and breathe something foreign deeply into his lungs, supposedly to more easily enjoy all that God in nature was offering!”. The more harmful the substance the greater the juxtaposition from truth needs to be.
It was interesting having some of the old advertising and use of cigarettes in movies. I grew up with the Marlboro man ads too, and it was clearly directed at men, and suggested to be a manly man you had to smoke. I also got the message from old movies that for women it was elegant and tied in with having a ‘romance’. They were perfectly designed to our weak spots and desires. Men want to fit the ‘manly model’ and women dream of a romantic partner.
The Ageless Wisdom tell us that the In-breath and Out-breath of God are the repose and motion parts of an infinite universal cycle that we too are an intrinsic part of. Whoever first came up with inhaling a substance into their lungs must have been acutely aware of the lack of something, of the emptiness inside when disconnected from this oneness and majestic order.
I love how the wisdom of your body told you smoke in your lungs was a major issue for you. The body does speak and can guide us if we can listen.
“the sacred movement within our lungs reflects the beauty and divinity of the closeness of our connection to the universe and the stars” so beautifully expressed Roberta, not just our lungs but every particle of our whole body is bathed in this divine light as we breathe in and out.
We are fascinated by books and films but isn’t it time we started to see that everything in life has a story to tell? If only we are open to reading what is there, we’ll understand life isn’t barren or banal but super rich instead.
“the sacred movement within our lungs reflects the beauty and divinity of the closeness of our connection to the universe and the stars” – This is incredibly beautiful Roberta. Every body part or organ certainly has a unique purpose in what it does and reflects to us. Injuries or illnesses are also never ‘random’ because of this fact.
It is a great reflection to see that our inbreath and outbreath of God,and then look at smoking : we will honestly see why we smoke.
Lovely to be reminded of that simple sweet breath as a child, to be filled with the wonderment of nature and everything around us…. quite the antithesis of a smoker filling my lungs so I don’t have to feel as much. So many steps have been taken away from the sweetness, but at least now I am on the journey home to those simple, sweet origins.
All of life is telling us everything – but do we want to know? Why fight being educated and informed and supported to grow?
Once we admit that we know, responsibility is the next step; taking responsibility for how we conduct ourselves and for our every choice. This is what many shy away from, erroneously thinking that taking responsibility will curb their liberties of doing as they please. But has ‘doing as we please’ delivered the goods, has it brought freedom, settlement or truth? The answer is clearly no. Is responsibility the true alternative to our licentiousness and ill ways? And if so, what are we really scared of?
The physical and practical function of smoking makes no sense what so ever and really everyone knows this. What we usually don’t want to look at is the disregard and self loathing we are in that takes us to a place where we want to smoke cigarettes. Until we look at the lovelessness we are never truly free of abuse.
Agreed Natalie. I used to be a smoker and whilst a big part of me knew that it was a very disregarding thing to do, the part of me that was lacking in self-worth and self-love needed the distraction and so I overrode what I knew to be true to fill the emptiness with each in-breath of smoke.
Wow how wonderful to understand the Truth of Whole Body Intelligence, now thats what I call true education.
“Severe whooping cough was a frightening experience at that age where my little body bent over racked with the effort to breathe” – Having this experience when you were young would have been very intense, and isn’t it interesting that later on in life this sense of constriction from smoking for so long was similarly affecting your relationship to your breath. Could there actually be a link between the two, and something to look at in terms of why it was your lungs that showed you something was up in your body both times?
‘As a 5-year-old I felt the breath of the trees, sky and the stars inside my lungs.’ How beautiful the connection is to the something grander that we are when we are little. It’s deeply sad that as we become adults, that wonder and all-knowing gets lost in the myriad of day to day activities of life that become the struggling mundane.
‘..have we actually chosen to allow these beliefs to be taken unwittingly into our bodies and once there, these beliefs have been stagnating, revealing themselves physically in many and varied ways?’ I really like this question. It shows to me the ways that beliefs have an energy that we ingest and letting go of beliefs and ideals is clearing our bodies of the smoke, the cloudy thoughts, to return us to clarity. It’s like the sea mist lifting to let the sun shine through.
Many people smoke electronic cigarettes now. They don’t offer so much smoke but they have not really changed the issue. I haven’t looked at any research yet but it feels like an implosion for smokers. When we smoke or we are addicted to any harmful substance, we do not like ourselves very much. It feels this has intensified with electronic cigarettes. That smokers have another way to Loathe themselves more, thinking it is now less visible to others, or generate less attention or distaste from others. In other words it is more numbing of what really goes no, a protection to not feel.
The human race is very ‘creative’ when it comes to disguising the inner emptiness with evermore gadgetry and sophisticated ruses that try to hide or paint a different picture of what is really going on – the inner emptiness that, as their can never be a vacuum, demands to be filled with something. So let there be smoke, we say. Something is better than nothing, but is it really?
I live with people who smoke. I don’t smoke. The person smoking has to smoke kind of hidden, smokers sometimes carry the energy of being rejected. While I don’t smoke, sometimes I may have to smell smoke and be affected by it. Knowing this affects me, I have asked it to be done elsewhere, but when the rejection kicks in and retaliates, I keep quiet. There is the tendency to hurt myself not wanting to hurt another in feeling. The scenario is clear and nominated, surrendered like never before.
Not reading life is the habit we have to quit.
It’s tempting to see life’s events as incidental markers in time, when in fact everything that happens presents us an energetic reading, a gift. This isn’t just a cute side note to living but hugely significant information. We ought to pay great attention to these messages aimed at helping us return to Love.
Of course, when we come into a family of people who smoke, it is an issue that needs sorting in our lives. it gives us the opportunity through this lifetime to heal this if we choose to look at it. And you certainly have Roberta, which needs a huge appreciation that you have gone into such depth of understanding to get to the root cause and clear it for good, and what an incredible healing you have chosen.
I agree, Roberta. It was very different in the 1960s and 1970s – I even can smell cigarette smoke in my nostrils just writing about that time. Smoking was everywhere and if you said something you were put in your place, depending on the context it was mild or very aggressive.
Seeing life literally is our greatest destructive habit – we absorb lies instead of seeing that everything’s about light and multi-dimensionality.
When we sign up for something or make a contract, so to speak, be it with cigarettes, loveless relationships or any other vice, they actually own us until we change our behaviours and come out of the contract, hence why it feels like the cigarette smoke could be following you – because that’s what you’d signed up for.
Super interesting Susie – how a contract leaves an imprint and that can follow you, hoping for an entry, a weak moment, a way back in.
Great comment Susie, this makes so much sense, explains how we can fall back into patterns and inspires a commitment to change.
It is incredible how something like smoking is considered to be a cool thing to do. When I was younger I tried to smoke to ‘fit in’ and I found it very difficult to do as my body naturally coughed and spluttered and I actually found it very difficult to do but I tried to keep going at the time and tried to over-ride my body so that I was not considered odd. It did not last long though as my body just could not handle it. At the time it felt like a failure but now I know it was a blessing from my body.
It still surprises me how many young people I see in the street with a cigarette at their lips. It reveals how much tension society is feeling and the difficulties people are facing as the energy of the world changes.
Making cigarettes and so many other distractions are reminders that the tension does not go away or leads us to more severe levels of distraction that can be harming beyond words.
Growing up in the fifties and sixties our house seemed to be full of smoke. Both my parents smoked a lot as did most of their friends. In contrast I used to love being outside in the fresh air, or in the safety of my bedroom where the smell didn’t pervade so much. In my late teens I even took it up too for a short while as it gave me something to do with my hands at parties. That didn’t last long but out of five of us siblings three are still heavy smokers. What we do and how we live becomes a role model for our children.
Yes, I was lucky as neither of my parents smoked. I tried it at 12, didn’t like it and never tried again.
Smoking was considered to be acceptable and normal 60+ years ago, and many people used to smoke and not have the information that it was harmful. Their bodies knew, but they weren’t listening. We can look at the past through rose-coloured spectacles and think of the ‘good ‘ol days’, but the post war energy was pretty thick then. Today it is possible to be much more aware and informed, so we can make choices that support the body when we wish to do so.
I love how you refer to the ‘sacred movement within our lungs’ and the ‘divine breath of God’. You make me want to breathe and appreciate every breath.
Indeed same here and also it makes me feel how abusive it was when I let that smoke interfere with that sacred movement.
If we truly appreciated every breath it would be a hop, skip and a jump to love.
What force must we call in after the first time we inhaled smoke into our lungs and the body’s reaction to it? It is not dissimilar to the raw burning sensation alcohol had to our throat the first time also! But, do we persist because of pressures outside of us to override the messages from our body?
It seems extraordinary that with all that we now know, the advertising that simply says ‘Smoking Kills’ and the even the negative social build up in recent years that this is still a popular thing to do. And yet it goes on. There is something people get on an emotional level that is still driving this behaviour and no amount of theory of knowledge is going to cut it. This is where Universal Medicine steps in – to help us understand why – what are we lacking that we are trying to fill up. Work on that and giving up is easy.
When I asked an old friend of mine who has had cancer and still smokes why she doesn’t stop she admitted that when she tries she feels so empty, so you are right Simon, if she worked on the emptiness she might stand a better chance of quitting.
It is crazy that we can pollute the body with cigarette smoke, alcohol, drugs etc and think that this is ok. Why have we normalized abusing the body and then we stand out if we begin to honour and love what the body’s wisdom is telling us?
Such wisdom and understanding of the world shows that an any age we can begin to see more than we ever have before.
I too have experienced the horror of the taste and the horrible feeling of having smoke in my lungs, all of this from 1 puff at the age of 11. My body knew, clearly the true harm of smoking and it is not something that I wanted to repeat. Yet getting emotional and feeling helpless was something that I choose over and over again. Both the intensity of emotional turmoil and the sucking in of cigarette smoke is equally as harmful to my body and others, yet it could be said that we judge the cigarette smoker, but not the one in emotional turmoil. There is much that we accept as ok that truly is not.
This article poses the life long question as to why we look upon another’s choices, and judge them. Being imposed upon by cigarette smoke is one of those all time moments where it seems justified to judge. Yet this act is but one in a myriad of behaviours that we feel justified in judging. Little do we realise the ramifications of such behavior is something we carry with us until we choose to change it, as is shared so clearly above.
“Did I then consider the possibility that there was a reflection for me to be aware of?” – This is a key part of your article Roberta, and something we can all learn from. We can get confused by something and feel at the mercy of an issue or complicated situation for years, without looking at the reflection that is actually on offer for us to learn from. It is this reflection that almost always has the key to what’s truly going on, and how we can adjust our livingness or deepen our understanding going forwards.
To have such a moment as a young child where you truly connect to the divinity of your breath, and then to go against that with smoking must take a toll on the body. But it is what so many of us do – ignore the magic of the breath, and substitute with chemicals. This blog shows how we can go into the head about what to try and disregard what the body naturally communicates to us. That must be a deep sadness. In my time I have tried smoking, and cannot deny the hurt that comes up from dishonoring my body in doing so.
There are so many areas of life that we accept as normal, things that we tell ourselves we should do, must do or are good for us when in fact they are not. With smoking its the same, whilst through the generations we’ve known it is harmful we still choose to partake, when we get to feel why we smoke then we can start the healing, understand what its telling us and naturally we stop. Easy to say when you’ve been through it, difficult if we don’t want to look at what is behind our smoking choices.