Healing Emanations
Charlotte Schmid
I sit on my favored garden bench with an early cup of tea. Birdsongs dominate the wakening hour of the day as I become still and mindful of the process of healing. I gaze at the pine tree in my neighbor's garden. Some branches with gray shriveled pine cones hang as dead as the branch itself, seemingly forgotten. Vines climbing high on the tree, almost choking the trunk. This pine tree is crying for help, for healing but nobody seems to notice. Life in that garden receives no care. Isn't our life like a garden? If we are so inclined, we plant and plant. We would like to see a beautiful space. We pull weeds, give fertilizer that we think will help the plant grow better but then the snails move in the dark of the night and decimate new growth. We re-plant, and perhaps even talk to the plant and if we are lucky and sensitive we can hear more than our own words.
Who would want to count the many books on the subject of healing of which we have read many. Yet, when we hear of another new book published that may come up with a simpler answer to healing, we go and buy that one too. After all "this may be it." This one may really, really help. So we collect more thoughts, more ideas, more pages, and try new recipes, visualizations, deep breathing and what not. Of course, all these tips are helpful and can be beneficial but do they bring the answers, do they show us the underlying cause of needing healing in the first place?
Who is the "wounded healer"? Who heals whom? While we sit at the bedside of a very ill person and try to comfort him or her, in the last analysis, we may be the ones who benefit from such a 'healing time', more than we thought possible.
We have studies that show clearly how prayer can heal, even in the absence of the healee. We know of psychic healing in Asian countries, esoteric healing, shamanic healing, laying on of hands and many more modalities, all aimed to lessen suffering. The intense pain we experience, both physically, emotionally and spiritually, the fears we harbor, the losses we encounter and all the attachments that disrupt a harmonic existence, we know them all. The pharmaceutical industry spends billions of dollars to encourage us to try their products to help in the healing process. Of course, many medicines are a god-sent, but we can never forget the underlying causes, the pull of energy that can get any state out of balance.
Suffering – a state of non-grace, a state where we want things differently from the way they are, that is what suffering is. If we listen to the sound of the word 'suffering' we can perceive a whole wave of emotions and pain. However, we can learn to release such pain which is not of the nature of well-being. How to achieve healing in all its forms and all its depths, will occupy us for more than a lifetime.
Healing may begin when we become more aware of 'things', of energy as it moves through our bodies and the bodies of the universe. We may then move through stages of deep seated anger (do I speak healing words when I am angry?), words and anger we thought we had long ago forgotten. We may move through stages of fear, loss and grief. Starting on the path of healing we may initially feel worse, and think we are 'dying'. This dying can, however, be part of the process of healing, of surrendering to that greater force.
"Thy will be done" will not be empty words but will move us into a deeper understanding of the fragmentation we feel, the separateness from the greater life we experience and the longing for peace and wholeness.
We all have experienced places of stillness, of healing, where everything becomes quiet and calm, the body is relaxed, no longer ticking in furious pursuit. What is different in these states from the sense one may get in an innercity classroom or in gridlock on the free- way? Scientists and esotericists have long spoken of "all is energy," where all is held together energetically. People with etheric vision know about the radiation that emanates from all living beings, from hands that heal. Scientists have recorded how radiation becomes minimal in systems that are injured. What then initiates the healing, whether non-locally or locally, whether through direct intervention of a person, a friend, or a plant or an animal? How does a flowering cactus emanate this lightness, this shining blossom above a prickly base? Energy permeates any distance and thus healing thoughts quickly circle the planet.
We may do well to learn more about the pigeons who always find their way home, even when anesthetized before being moved to a new place where they are released, or when colored lenses are implanted and numerous senses interfered. Our own, final healing may come when we realize that All Is One, when we bathe in the light of that greater Being that shows us the shining light in all creatures, in every speck of dirt and sand. At that moment we can no longer feel a separation. Healing then will no longer be an issue. We will be at peace because we have found our way home.
True Health
Nancy M. Davison
During the two years I was in training to be ordained, we practiced something called "laying on of hands". We moved our hands over and through the etheric body, not touching the dense physical, knowing that if the former is healthy, the latter must follow suit. This practice led me to a decades-long study of the processes of health and healing. Along the way I adopted a vegetarian way of life, and gained an appreciation of the wide variety of holistic and "alternative" methods to allopathy and surgery which have long been used in the East and in Europe. These methods include, among others, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and kinesiology. Some of these methods recognize the existence of the etheric nature, and all honor the interaction of the various systems, dense and subtle, which go to make up the human being. Since the next step for the race is said to include telepathy and etheric vision, this is an important evolution in the field of health services.
We know that a clean diet, adequate rest, exercise and lots of water, inside and out, will encourage the health of the physical body. However, it seems that no matter what we do, we still get sick, the physical body still "dies". We have to look beyond the dense physical to the subtle natures the etheric, emotional and mental to find the true causes of disease and sources of healing. With a serene mental outlook and a calm emotional nature we can live and serve at a high point of effectiveness, even if the physical nature is beset with disease.
True health doesn't necessarily mean physical robustness. It is said that Helena Blavatsky and Alice A. Bailey had major health problems and were kept alive by the Masters whom they served until the work they had agreed to was completed, while in one of The Mahatma Letters it is related how the Master DK was incapacitated for several days after hitting his head on a beam at his home in the Himalayas. So if we take up the spiritual life hoping to become physically healthy and protected from pain we will be sorely disappointed.
The Buddha's Four Noble Truths teach that all suffering is the result of desire, satisfied or unsatisfied, and when you think about it, it is clear that it's giving in to desire that often causes our physical ills. We know what is good for us, there is plenty of coverage in the media, but unfortunately, we haven't, as a race, reached the state of "a-ha, now that I know better, I will stop/start doing [fill in the blank] right now!" Instead we light up a cigarette, pour a drink, eat a cholesterol-laden pizza, and/or watch a violent move from our supine couch-potato position. As we do, or don't do, all these things, we say, "Yeah, I know it's good/not good for me...but...!" The same can be said of our emotional and mental desires that giving in to them usually results in pain and suffering on more subtle levels. If we can train ourselves to overcome our physical desires, think how much easier it will be to control the emotional nature and quiet the mind.
If we really want to attain and maintain true health, we need to train ourselves to live in ways that keep all our lower natures in balance. It isn't so much giving up something bad as adopting something better, taking a conscious step forward on the spiritual path. Spirituality really has nothing to do with religion or belief, but is defined as taking focused and determined steps toward our next higher poss- ibilities. You will note, not the "highest" possibility, but the "next higher." Surely those tiny, baby steps are not too difficult, especially when the health of the whole planet is at stake. We are, each of us, integral to every other being, and to this whole planetary system. When one unit is unwell, the planet suffers, as do all the kingdoms on the planet, and when we are healthy well, you get the picture.
A person who strives toward true health must develop a sense of humor, taking her frailties and her imperfect humanity in stride. S/he learns, through trial and error lots of error what is really important and not to sweat the small stuff. In the interests of humor, I offer the following.
The Vegetarian
My vegetarian life is strange,
as seen through your carnivorous eyes.
Nuts, seeds and grains you shrug aside,
while carrot sticks you just despise
as food unfit for your consumption;
as if by some insane presumption,
I live, unnourished by the thing
you've crowned as your own diet's king.
"How can you eat," you flinch, "those greens?"
"How about a little chicken there,
or don't you think a piece of pork
would put some curl back in your hair?
You're looking tired, peaked and wan,
you wheeze, and drink your poisoned milk,
to chase the taste of cardboard beef
and other predigested ilk.
You gaze, aghast at sprouts and seeds,
and choose, instead a BLT,
go heavy on the mayo, please."
Your heart is pounding, pressure's high,
and you will live less years than I.
"Now, where's the beef?" you question me.
"The cow has had its day," I say.
The Real Deal
Lisa M. Payne
The soothing, swirling feeling surrounds the head. It caresses the nape of the neck lovingly, only to trickle almost inaudibly down the back. The effect of water that heals the vehicle. It comes from without to comfort, but only the real deal can heal; from within. It doesn't come from without; it is yourself.
If one cannot heal oneself, how can one heal others? Perhaps we need look no further than the life of Nkosi of South Africa. Born diseased with AIDS, he was a vehicle of healing. His spirit and activism focused on an entire world in need of healing understanding. Nkosi could not be healed but his very existence should give us the strength to heal ourselves both within and without.
The inevitable came this week with Nkosi's death but not even Mbeki will not withstand his truth. Healing must commence now. Death and destruction must not be allowed to prevail. No longer can the world wait and watch. Healing will come at a huge price but the absence of it will be even bigger.
We that hold the key to affect the healing change must act. First we must strengthen ourselves in our new awareness. Second face the brutal reality; the unflinching, unforgiving, indiscriminate enemy of AIDS. Call upon our own ability to heal from within and thus move out in a pro-active manner to heal without.
Nkosi's shy smile of uncertainty, his fragile vehicle yet eminent strength should forever be etched in our minds. He was the real deal that could heal because his reality was total. Nkosi lived to die yet that short life was the paradigm shift for healing change. Like the healing waters, his effect may appear to be only an inaudible trickle. Yet, in fact, it is a thunderous floodgate of truth, a call to change and heal the world and ourselves.
All disease is the result of inhibited soul life.
Alice A. Bailey in Esoteric Healing
Heavenly Healing
Ford Boyer
There are some who say that if you are "saved" and die you will go to heaven and no longer experience sickness or disease. And some of those same people live with illness throughout their lives just waiting for their sick-free days in heaven. There are others who don't even believe in the soul who seem never to be touched by illness or disease.
There are some who believe only in medical professionals to help heal illness and others believe only in non-medical treatments to improve health. There are fanatics on both sides of the fence. What with today's high medical costs, it's no wonder people hesitate to seek out medical professionals for help. Yet, some of the so-called "holistic" treatments are just as expensive because generally they are not covered by health insurance.
What is an ill person to believe or do these days, just leave it all up to karma and let it be solved next life or later this life? Unless we are a great highly illuminated being of some type, we will continue to experience ailments because we are humans and exist in physical bodies and these physical bodies do tend to wear out after so many years.
What can we do? We can use common sense and preventive measures; an ounce of prevention, remember. Common sense tells us to see a medical doctor for a possible diagnosis and treatment – scientific advancement allows for quicker and more positive diagnosis in this modern day. If further treatment is needed, then methods other than standard medicine may be sought and used.
We die holistically just as we do medically. Without becoming a psychosomatic, pay attention to the bodies physical, emotional and mental and try to keep them functioning in alignment with an open spiritual practice.