Devote most of your time to healing your heart of its indifference to divine love, your soul of its indifference to joy, your ego of its indifference to humility.
To understand healing, we must understand the principle of energy. Paramhansa Yogananda, my guru, who described his life experience in the spiritual classic, Autobiography of a Yogi, based his teachings of Self-realization on the relationship between energy and will power. Yogananda would say, “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” The application of this universal principle is the key for healing yourself and others.
To illustrate this principle, there is a story about how Yogananda used the power of his will to heal himself. He was making his first voyage to America from India in 1920. While aboard ship, he became quite seasick. Tired of being subjected to the affects of this illness, he affirmed with great strength and energy, “I command my subconsciousness to accept the new habit of not being seasick!” From that moment on, he had no more trouble.
I had a similar experience myself. Years ago I was busy trying to raise money to build Ananda World Brotherhood Village. I was giving yoga classes every night of the week in a different city. With many students attending the courses, class fees enabled me to purchase the land and build the retreat to start Ananda. It was a difficult period, with a lot of pressure. One day I was driving in San Francisco to give a class when suddenly I felt this cold come upon me. I thought, “I just can’t afford to be sick now. Too much depends on this income.” So, I said to the cold, “GET OUT!” And it got out. Between that breath and the next, it was gone. What I did at that moment was to put a lot of energy into the thought of overcoming the cold.
I had directed enough energy, over years of practicing Yogananda’s Energization Exercises, to learn how to channel healing energy by the use of will power.
We all use this principle in one way or another. I’ve read that mothers who are having to take care of a sick family, often don’t get ill, because they don’t have the time for it. It shows the extent to which will power is the determining factor. Doctors and nurses have all seen how people who have no physical reason to die will do so, if they have lost the will to live. Likewise, people who may have everything against them, will live and thrive, if they have the desire to become well.
When you use will power, you find that you draw to yourself energy. When you don’t have the willingness to do something, when your heart isn’t in it, suddenly you find you don’t have the strength to do it.
We’re coming into an age when the medical profession is realizing that energy is the real healer. The old approach is to kill the disease by attacking it; using allopathic medicines, radiation therapy or cutting it out.
The other approach is more preventive. It seeks to strengthen the organism so it won’t be subject to disease; using homeopathic medicines, massage, chiropractic, acupuncture, herbs, etc. In strengthening the organism to make ourselves immune to disease, we must learn how to open blockages of energy and strengthen its flow.
To use a simple illustration, when you introduce an electric current into a wire, it generates a magnetic field. This magnetic field is what you’re generating when you send out a strong thought. You’re sending energy with that thought. “The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” Your will creates an energy field and magnetically draws to you whatever you need.
Yogananda described the human body as a battery. When a battery runs down, you can’t recharge it merely by refilling it with water. Water is needed to keep it going, but recharging it with a generator is necessary. Conversely, our body is a physical electromagnetic motor which we live in, and we need to learn how to recharge it by drawing on the divine source of energy.
By consciously attuning yourself with the healing forces of the universe, you will feel the whole dynamo of power flowing through your body. That flow is everywhere. Realize that the power you’re drawing on is the same power that is all over the universe. To get in tune with healing, think of the generative power that produced the universe. Be a person that says “Yes!” to life. You must have a cosmic view of everything you do if you want to make it really powerful. Most people think only of the little tip of the iceberg. They don’t think in terms of the great vastness underneath it.
When you seek to heal people, it must be with that kind of faith. If you really want to heal somebody, then all your energy has to go that way. You’ve got to tune into the divine and ask the divine to use you as It will.
Use prayer and meditation as a part of your healing work. It’s a very important thing. Become centered in yourself. Ask God, Christ, or one of the great Masters, “Guide me. Give me a solution.” Listen for the inspiration and the guidance from the reaches of your superconscious mind. You’ll be amazed to see what particular answer will come.
“When you try to heal people, you must understand that the real healing is of the soul. Sometimes, physical problems are a very important part of people’s growth.
And, sometimes a person must die, and it’s none of your business to try to prevent that. It is your business to try and help their transition, giving them the faith and encouragement of being in the Light of God.
Yours is not the place to say, “I will that this person be healed.” It is ultimately God’s will. You need to do ask, “Is this Your will?” Always attune yourself to the inner flow and feel what you should do. And in attuning yourself to that flow, try to attune yourself to the other person’s center. Try to feel where they are coming from, what it is that their deeper nature wants. “Is this really the right thing for them?” Stimulate the person to be their own healer. That is the highest kind of healing of all.
