Healing Allowed--Alan Cohen
While I was presenting a program at a long-established spiritual
retreat center, several participants and I were eating lunch at a
picnic bench next to a snack bar. As we finished, one of the
participants stood behind me and began to gently massage my neck and
shoulders. I, of course, was delighted to receive this gift. I sat at
the bench with my eyes closed, soaking it up.
Suddenly I was jarred by a deep voice booming, "No healing allowed
here!" I was certain this was another student playing a joke, and I
opened my eyes to see who it was. To my surprise, the retreat center
security guard was standing behind us. He looked the part: burly, a
close-shorn crew cut, and a well-substantiated gut brimming over his
belt. His name badge said "George."
I looked at George in disbelief."I’m sorry," George uttered
authoritatively."No healing is allowed on the campus except in the
healing temple. If you want to be healed, you have to go there.” I
looked around at my friends and we cracked up. We thought this was a
practical joke. After all, who would make a rule against someone being
healed?
We looked again at George and realized this was no joke. The student
removed her hands from my shoulders and sat down. After lunch I walked
back to my room for a siesta. By that time I decided the situation was
quite funny.
Who, then, do you think I encountered along the way? You guessed
it--Officer George. I decided I would have some fun with George."Sorry
about that healing back there,” I told him."I can’t imagine what came
over me.” George remained quite serious."I hope you understand. If I
let you do healing there, before you know it, people will be healing
all over the place!”
I had to muster all the will power I could to keep a straight face. I
told George,"And that’s the last thing we would want to see happen,
isn’t it?”"That’s right,” he answered.
I dashed to my room, closed my door, and roared. This was too strange
to be true. Then I remembered a Bible story that put my experience in
perspective. Jesus was admonished by the Pharisees for healing on the
Sabbath.
Now, if you value healing, you would love to see anyone who needed
healing, receive it, right? My God, if you were in pain and someone
came along who could help you feel better, you would jump at the
opportunity. But not the Pharisees; they had rules, you know. Later
Jesus chastised them,"You pay more attention to the letter of the law
than the spirit. . .You strain over a gnat, and miss the whole camel.”
Now I’m sure that George was a very nice man, and he was just doing
his job to the best of his ability. I took the experience as a lesson
that I cannot afford to miss the Big Picture because I have gotten
caught in the details.
And what about other ways that we push healing away? What about the
various actions we believe are prerequisites for healing? Do you
believe that you need to attain a certain level of spiritual purity
before you can be healed? Or quit smoking? Or meet the right guru? Or
master your sexual desires? Or be a vegetarian? Or have the right
mate? Or earn enough money to have the right medical treatment? Or
lose 10 pounds? Or? Or? Or?
Healing can happen anywhere, in any way, under any circumstances,
through any person or avenue. The universe is always trying to deliver
well-being to us. There are no obstacles outside of us. The only
obstacle is our own resistance to it. No external condition whatsoever
is required for healing. The only conditions are internal.
What makes or breaks healing is our belief, our desire, our
willingness, our openness, our readiness. One thing is or sure: the
moment you are ready and willing, the healing must come.
Course in Miracles tell us that all that is required for healing is “a
little willingness,” and that “the real doctor is the mind of the
patient.”
We choose doctors or external agents who tell us what we want to hear.
If you want to be healed, you will find a doctor who will tell you
that you can get better. If you hold some investment in staying ill,
there are plenty of doctors who will agree with you.
When my mother was seeing an oncologist, one day I accompanied her to
his office and asked him about my mother’s prognosis. He told me it
was not good. When I asked him if there was anything he could do for
her, he answered, “We are not the masters of biology.” Right then and
there I knew he and I had nothing to talk about.
He believed that cells are in charge of the universe, and I believed
souls are in charge of the universe. End of conversation. My mother,
you see, was ready to leave. A few months later she passed away, but
before she did, she told me that she was ready to go. She told me that
she had led a good life, she was very proud of me, and she had done
everything she had wanted to do. It was her choice to move on.
Interesting, isn’t it, that she picked a doctor who agreed with what
she intended to do anyway? There are many cancer patients who are not
ready to go, and they find Bernie Siegels and Andrew Weills and others
who say, “You have a choice. If you choose to be alive and well, I can
help you to do that.”
These doctors would be the first to admit that they are not the source
of healing; they are the agents chosen by the patients to assist them
with their intentions. Patients who realize that spirit is the master
of life, not biology.
Healing is allowed here. Healing is allowed wherever it is chosen.
<--Back
|
|
|
