by Mary Kretzmann
One evening, during our weekly healing prayer night, we had finished praying for individuals, and we were ending the evening with a general prayer for planetary healing. Using Paramhansa Yogananda’s longer and deeper Technique for Healing at a Distance, we would visualize a particular area, send healing light through our hands, and then move on to the next area.
This was during the time of the war in Kosovo. I’d only kept myself minimally aware of the details of the war, but I knew of the need for healing and prayer, and that many people were being “ethnically cleansed,” or slaughtered. Looking back, I see now that I was praying with a sense of good guys/bad guys, and a strong desire to end the war and slaughter…be done with it and bring peace.
As I visualized sending energy over the general area of Serbia/Kosovo, I was very surprised to feel my hands get prickly and uncomfortable. I realized that the area was such a tinderbox of war that I needed to take care in how I sent prayer energy there! Healing power is energy and I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire. I had to back up, and see that my prayer (above) was playing off the duality of the situation. The healing energy had to feel harmonious and whole, even as it flowed through me to the area. It was an extremely sensitive situation. In a tense war situation there is a mixture of “needs and wants”. Each side wants to win, but one side may be darker than the other.
(Sometimes we can send a powerful stream of positive healing energy to a person, and it will be very healing, if there is receptivity. But if the person is resistant to healing, there will be a sense of friction, which will be felt by the healer and possibly also by the patient.)
I pulled back my energy for a moment, and tried to feel how to pray in that moment. I realized that I needed to pray for all those who were currently enduring that war, and especially for those who were trying to bring harmony to those around them.
Deep inspiration began flowing through my hands in the healing prayer. This feeling guides me in prayer, and helps me know that I am going in the right direction. Paramhansa Yogananda says, “The instrument is blessed by what flows through it.”
A few weeks later, someone put a small news article on my desk about an incident that happened around the time we had prayed for those in Serbia. (Divine Mother often finds a way to whisper to us that a prayer has been answered.) The article said that a long line of people was lined up in front of a long grave, with a firing squad prepared to shoot them. This was on the border, and in full view of a refugee camp there, in order to terrify them all the more.
At this moment, one of the condemned young men began to walk out of the line toward the commander.
The commander, with his rifle raised said, “Go back, or I will shoot!”
This had little effect on the man. He kept walking forward, ignoring the protests of the enemy commander. Amazingly, he reached the end of the commander’s rifle, put his hand on it, and calmly pushed the point of the gun down until it was pointed at the ground. This was done wordlessly.
The commander then ordered his men to drop their weapons. Most amazingly, he said that they would all march to the nearby border, so they could join the refugee camp there. The soldiers, who had just been ready to shoot the line of people, joined them in crossing the border to become part of the refugee camp.
God’s grace was clearly present for those people that day, not only for the prisoners, but also for the soldiers! Only God knows the secret prayers of their hearts that day. Perhaps the silent prayers of all involved served as a magnet, and drew our healing prayers to them that day.
God’s loving grace can flow in merciful and miraculous ways. Thus, we continue praying for healing of the planet, though the results may remain a mystery. Our upliftment in the process is a sign, however, that something holy has passed though us on behalf of others.
