The Healing at the Pool

I will be away on my first week long family vacation in 4 years. I have lined up some INCREDIBLE guest posts. Please make Chris, Amy and Jevon feel welcome and leave comments for them. They are all incredible people doing inspirational things to help humanity.

The following is a guest post from Chris Cade of “Spiritual Short Stories”. Chris’s blog has been inspiring to many. I was thinking about what to write about Chris but I feel his mission statement on his blog says it all:

“My hope is to encourage, guide, and assist others as they try to learn more about themselves on their own unique spiritual paths. This site not provides that opportunity by connecting people of all religions and no religion, and sharing among each other the wisdom learned during each of our own paths through the spiritual stories shared on this website.

While some of my writing inspiration comes from the spiritual books I read and the spiritual movies I watch, even more comes from delving deep within myself to understand universal truths. I hope that by reading these short spiritual stories, you will find great enjoyment, inspiration, and a reference point for further self-reflection.”

Chris is a wonderful person and it has been a pleasure working with him and getting to know him even better. Thank you Chris for this thought provoking and very relevant post. I know my readers will make you feel at home. To get in touch with Chris you can contact him on http://twitter.com/ChrisCade or on Facebook: http://profile.to/ChrisCade. Please stop by Chris’s site “Spiritual Short Stories” – where you will find LOTS of inspiration.

THE HEALING AT THE POOL

My particular choice niche of service is sharing spiritual stories, so today I’m going to share with you a story about healing. Since this particular story is centuries old, I rewrote it in modern English to make it easier to understand. Also, though it’s drawn from the most popular religious text of all time, the story and its wisdom can be helpful to anybody, no matter what their religious affiliation (if any). I’m also going to share with you a unique healing technique that you can use anytime, anyplace, to call upon the power of the greatest healers of all time.

The Healing at the Pool From The Holy Bible — John 5:1-9 — Adapted by Chris Cade

In Jerusalem there is a pool near the sheep market which is known for its great healing properties. Sick people would gather there; the blind, lame, and paralyzed. It was known that when the water became stirred up, whoever stepped in first would be healed of their ailment.

On one particular Sabbath, Jesus came across a man who had been trying, unsuccessfully, for thirty-eight years to enter the water first and be healed. Jesus knew this and so he asked, “Do you want to be healed?”

The sick man answered, “Sir, it is very difficult for me to move. I don’t have anyone here to put me in the pool when the water is stirred; while I am trying to get in, somebody else always gets there first.”

Jesus said to the man, “Get up, pick up your mat, and walk.”

Immediately the man picked up his mat and walked. He was healed.”

— Copyright 2009, Chris Cade

In the above story, it’s very easy to attribute the healing to Jesus. He’s known for having miraculous healing capabilities, so something of this nature would have been trivial for him. However, to place so much emphasis on Jesus himself is to lose sight of the very messages he brought forth to the world. Instead, let’s take a look at a quote (paraphrased) that is attributed to him:

“Unless you become like little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

If heaven is a metaphor for being present and connected to the divine while we’re here on Earth, we are challenged to ask ourselves: What qualities of children are so important that they, alone, enable us to enter this kingdom of heaven?

Although I believe that Jesus was referring to the childlike qualities of presence and curiosity, there’s another one I feel relates to this story. Children come into the world naive. They’re innocent to the ways of the world, both good and bad, pleasant and harsh. They look to adults as the authorities in their lives, and as a result, this means that whatever parents say is what children believe to be true (unless / until their experience later tells them otherwise). Children have done some amazing things, and perhaps it’s simply because somebody else thought they could.

In the context of this story, the man also saw Jesus through a similar lens of authority. The man assumed that if Jesus said he could be healed, or was healed, then it was true. Notice the man didn’t even get to the pool to be healed like the others; he was simply healed. Jesus didn’t even say that he healed the man, either. He only told the man that he was healed.

Modern science attributes 30% of all medical results to the placebo effect, so it’s reasonable to consider that perhaps Jesus merely inspired the placebo effect in this man. It becomes irrelevant whether or not Jesus healed the man, and all that matters is that Jesus said it was true. Jenny said it perfectly in one of her recent blog posts:

“Just as your cuts and scrapes heal because you know nothing different and EXPECT them to – your whole body has the same capabilities.”

This story challenges us to consider this new healing paradigm. What if we could invoke the placebo effect any time we wanted to? If that were possible, how might we go about doing just that? To explore that possibility, let’s combine the wisdom of the story with the knowledge of modern science, and guided imagery.

In the realm of healing, there’s often people we consider to be authorities. Maybe it’s Deepak Chopra, or Jesus, maybe it’s Adam Dreamhealer or your favorite local Reiki practitioner. Whoever it is, there’s probably somebody, somewhere, from some point in time (past, present, or future), who you truly believe could heal you of any ailments. Whoever you consider to be your most absolute authority on healing, bring that person into your awareness.

Then walk yourself through a guided visualization in which that person heals you completely of an ailment (if any) that you are currently healing. Take your visualization deep, to the point where you feel that person actively healing you. Is it warm or tingling? Do you notice a bright light or a halo around the area being healed? What kind of smells or sounds do you notice? Get as specific as possible, since the more specific you can become, the more powerful this technique also becomes.

On the surface, this visualization looks like we’re just deferring our healing powers to another person the way the man in the story does. However, at a deeper level we understand that we’re blending the best wisdom from modern science, ancient healing, and childlike innocence. What we’re really doing is facilitating self healing by projecting our inner healing power onto an image of authority that resonates more deeply with us.

We cannot separate inner from outer, and our mind cannot separate physical reality from visualization, so we move to a place where healing becomes inevitable.

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