Receptivity to Healing

July 2014 Newsletter

Dear Ones,

I just completed teaching a 3 day healing seminar over this past weekend, held at Ananda’s Expanding Light. It was my joy to share these deep healing teachings with those who came, many of them new to this path. They were moved by the depth of the content and by the loving and spiritual environment here at Ananda Village. We covered many topics, of course, and one of the main cornerstones of Yogananda’s healing teachings is, “Healing depends on the power of the healer, and the receptivity of the patient.”

We spoke of ways to increase the receptivity in individuals who have asked for prayers or other help. Sometimes I ask people to do an affirmation daily for one month or more. (Of course, this is not the case if they are in the hospital, etc. Then it is our job simply to pray for them!) But if they are asking for prayers to overcome alcoholism, or financial troubles, or relationship issues, I will ask them to affirm and pray in specific ways, and even once they commit and say, “Yes!” it opens their receptivity to the healing prayers we send to them. It is a way for them to get involved, instead of sitting on the sidelines saying, “Please fix me.”

But what if you sense blocked receptivity when you are praying at a distance? I told them a story from years ago when a woman (a guest at Ananda’s Expanding Light) asked for prayers for her 12 year-old granddaughter who was being emotionally (but not physically) abused. I lead the small group in preparation for our longer/deeper prayer technique, but when I finally held up my hands to pray for this girl I felt…nothing. I wondered what to do because I usually feel something and then build from there. I asked inwardly what to do and I realized that because of the abuse, she was very guarded and this protectiveness was even blocking her aura to receive good things –like the prayers. I said to the group, “Let’s first simply send loving energy to surround her home. We need to first make her home feel safe, even if for a few moments, so that her aura can relax and receive the prayers.”

Soon after praying this way, I felt her aura open up to receive all the love and healing that we were sending to her. I felt that she was immediately helped, but the seriousness of her situation needed continued healing. I gave the grandmother instructions on how she could keep the healing going through daily prayers, and that she could ask us for further prayers, as needed.

Thank you for your service through prayer. God bless you all!

Joy to you,

Mary Kretzmann
Ananda Healing Prayer Ministry

Rays of the Same Light: Week 29, Bible: The Need for Self-Effort
By J. Donald Walters (Swami Kriyananda)^[1]

This passage is from the Gospel of St. Luke, Chapter 8, Verses 41-48:

“But as he went, the crowds nearly suffocated him. Among them was a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years and who had derived no benefit from anybody’s treatment. She came up behind Jesus and touched the edge of his cloak, with the result that her hemorrhage stopped at once.

“‘Who was that who touched me?’ said Jesus.

“And when everybody denied it, Peter remonstrated,

“‘Master, the crowds are all round you and are pressing you on all sides….’

“But Jesus said,

“‘Somebody touched me, for I felt that power went out from me.’

“When the woman realized that she had not escaped notice, she came forward trembling, and fell at his feet and admitted before everybody why she had had to touch him, and how she had been instantaneously cured.

“‘Daughter,’ said Jesus, ‘it is your faith that has healed you—go in peace.’”

Commentary
The teaching here is fundamental to healing of all kinds. For while power went out from Jesus, and we know that without that power the woman would not have been healed, he also made it clear that her faith, which is to say, her soul-receptivity, had been vital to the healing process.

Jesus often hinted at the importance of man’s role in the flow of grace. In this episode he made it clear that the woman had been healed by her faith, and not merely for her faith.

Many people in that crowd were jostling Jesus. Most of them, no doubt, hoped for some kind of healing from him. Why was only she, out of so many, successful in drawing from him?

People usually await only passively the answer to their prayers. Even if they accept the importance of drawing consciously on God’s grace, they normally draw with their egos, instead of tuning in sensitively with their souls. They leap into the breach with noisy self-affirmation, as if expecting to seize with both fists that which can be absorbed into oneself only with humility and love.

When great masters come into this world, crowds often gather around them, just as they did around Jesus. Those who flock to them, anxious to be healed, or to receive some special blessing, may vie almost fiercely for the master’s attention. Yet only one woman in all that crowd around Jesus drew power from him. Why only she? What was so special about her manner of drawing? On a right understanding of this point depends the very effectiveness of faith.

The woman drew from Jesus not only actively, by her will power, but also with devotional love. She opened her consciousness to him, and attuned herself to his spiritual vibrations. She not only drew from him, but gave to him also, on a soul level. Both openness and self-giving on a deep level are important in divine healing.

People who are only passively receptive, or who, alternatively, try to snatch healing to themselves with the urgency of ego, achieve little spiritual benefit, if any. Self-effort must be of the right kind. Giving of one’s self, from and of the heart, is a necessary attitude for healing on every level. It is necessary, above all, for those whose deepest desire is to be healed of the disease of spiritual ignorance. And this, finally, is the most important kind of healing of all.

Thus, through the Holy Bible, God has spoken to mankind.^[2]

^[1] Rays of the Same Light, By J. Donald Walters, Copyright Hansa Trust

^[2] Rays of the Same Light, By J. Donald Walters, Copyright Hansa Trust