At this week’s Awakin Circle, I was fortunate enough to spend some quality time with the honored guest, Jayeshbhai Patel. As he sat down to eat, Nipun introduced me, telling him about my recent cancer diagnosis and how I had decided to refuse conventional treatment and pursue more natural and spiritual forms of healing.

Jayeshbhai immediately began rubbing my back. In Hawaii we call this ‘olu ‘olu—roughly translated as gentleness, but more accurately described by Auntie Pilahi Paki as to treat others like you would a baby. All night, I watched Jayeshbhai ‘olu’olu everyone he encountered. He patted the tops of their heads hugged them, squeezed their hands and arms, rubbed the backs of their scalps, and just loved them like a mother loves a newborn.

When Nipun finished, Jayeshbhai turned to me and without a touch of pity or fear said, “the natural man uses nature to heal, and if he doesn’t heal then he accepts it is the will of God.” {I’m recreating all these quotations from memory, so I apologize if I misquote anyone or anything.] This one sentence encapsulated everything I’ve been sensing into since I got the pathology report two months ago.

He told me about how this was my path and how I could use it to send ripples of peace and healing to others. Then he looked deep in my eyes and said, “But you must have faith and patience.” To tell the truth, I had been getting a bit impatient recently and even had some lapses of faith, so these words struck a chord deep inside me.

Earlier in the evening, Jayeshbhai shared with the circle that he wants to create a movement, not a campaign. Campaigns have a beginning and an end. Movements never end. There is not exit strategy in a movement. I realized that my journey with cancer is a movement. There is no end—no cure. There is only loving what is, consistently, persistently.

I told Jayeshbhai that I admired how he deeply connected with everyone he met. He replied, “I just want to see everyone as myself. I want to see myself in everyone. I want to experience everyone’s darshan.” He smiled and said how simple life is—just love, everyone and everything.

“You don’t fight cancer; you love it,” he offered. I replied, “Yeah, I want to have darshan with cancer.” We laughed.

Parveen came by and Jayeshbhai spoke to him in their native tongue. Parveen translated for me:

“Our parents decide to give birth to us, but no one decides when we die. It is in the hands of nature. It is nothing to fear. It is just nature.”

“You can be the example of equanimity for everyone to see. We all sit in meditation trying to cultivate equanimity, but you can show us what equanimity looks like with how you deal with your journey.”

Before I left, Jayeshbhai gave me the sweetest hug. He put his head in my chest and just held me. I wanted to kiss the top of his head—like you kiss an infant’s head when they fall asleep in your arms.

In the short time I got to spend with this saint, he shared so much love, understanding, wisdom, care, and gentleness with me that I felt like I had just gotten some radical new high tech treatment. But it wasn’t radical. It wasn’t new. And it wasn’t high tech. It was just love.