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Healing Allowed
by 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.
A Course in Miracles
tells 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.
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