Читать книгу Healing the Cause - A Path of Forgiveness - Inspired by A Course in Miracles - Michael Dawson - Страница 3

It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognising what you are.

from A Course in Miracles (W351; W-pI.190.5:1-6)1

Symptom Relief Versus Healing

False healing can indeed remove a form of pain and sickness. But the cause remains, and will not lack effects.

(S16; S-3.II.1:4-5)

"I’ve had this headache for three days and nights. Can you help me?" Joan was the mother of a friend of mine and had heard I was quite good at relieving headaches through giving massage. "I’ve consulted two doctors but have not received any relief. Unless I keep my head upright, I feel nauseous as well." After listening to the severity of the symptoms, I felt my simple head massage technique would be of little value in this case. However, I said I would do my best and asked her to lie down and relax. To help centre and relax myself, I laid my hands gently on her head for about a minute. When I felt more at peace, I started the first massage strokes on her scalp. Almost immediately Joan said, "Thank you, the pain has all gone!" But it can’t have, I thought, I have hardly started yet!

This experience had a profound effect on me. What was going on here? I started to read about spiritual healing and the laying on of hands. It was pleasing to think I might have special powers or energies which could help others. My friends began to turn to me to help them with their aches and pains and I was happy to try to help. On most occasions it was possible to reduce or eliminate their pains.

Whilst visiting a friend, I was introduced to his flatmate, Peter. He suffered from lifelong lower back pain. On hearing that I gave healing, he asked me for a session. As I worked with him, he reported that the pain was moving out of his spine and into his right buttock. From there the pain travelled to his right leg and finally left his body via his foot. The whole process took about ten minutes. He was free of pain for the rest of the day. The following morning, the back pain had returned to its normal level.

I had noticed this return of symptoms on other occasions — headaches, back pains and other complaints had been cured for a while and had then returned. This was not always the case but had happened often enough to arouse my curiosity. It reminded me of people who had chronic pain which could be relieved by medication; however, the pain would return the moment the effect of the medicine wore off. Were my hands simply a form of aspirin to be taken regularly? And if so, was I doing the best I could for my clients? Why did the pain return sometimes? What was the causative level of the problem? I began to read widely on this subject, especially in the field of psychosomatic medicine.

The link between the mind and the body began to assume a major importance in my research. As long ago as 500 BC Socrates had said, "There is no illness of the body apart from the mind." Even Louis Pasteur, the father of antibiotics, stated "It is not the bacteria, it is the terrain." My study of spiritual healing took me into the area of channelled books. Here I found deep sources of wisdom and inspiration. I became a member of the Arcane School which was started by Alice A. Bailey. Over a number of years she had telepathically received some 18 volumes of esoteric teachings, including the book A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Vol IV, Esoteric Healing. In here I read:

The basic law underlying all occult healing, may be stated as follows: All disease is the result of inhibited soul life, and that is true of all forms in all kingdoms. The art of the healer consists in releasing the soul, so that its life can flow through the aggregate of organisms which constitute any particular form.

This struck a chord within me which was reinforced by the study of the White Eagle literature. White Eagle was the spirit guide of a woman called Grace Cooke. In Jesus Teacher and Healer by White Eagle, I found the following statement:

When the body is sick, it is in some way lacking the light. All disease will in due time be traced to this.

Intuitively I felt I had come across the key I needed to understand the causative level of disease. I saw that the condition of the body depends on the state of the mind. If we use the body in a loveless fashion, it starts to break down and disintegrate. If we use it as a tool of loving communication, it will remain healthy and serve us well.

I now realised that if my clients wanted a healing that lasted, they would need to participate in the healing session. They would have to be willing to go deeper than their bodily symptoms and learn to heal some dark spot in their minds, of which the bodily condition was just a shadow. I was no longer satisfied in offering my hands as ‘aspirins’ to be taken twice a week by clients until they were well. What seemed important now was to provide a supportive and non-judgemental presence which would facilitate my clients’ changing their minds about some issue in their life. Later, I would realise that I was trying to aid them in their process of forgiveness.

At about this time I visited an international spiritual community in the north of Scotland called the Findhorn Foundation. It was here that I discovered a book that was to change the direction of my life.

A Course in Miracles

One day, after finishing my lunch in the Community Centre at the Foundation, I visited the Phoenix Craft and Book Shop. In the window were displayed the three volumes of a book entitled A Course in Miracles. The title did not appeal to me very much but I was drawn to inspecting them. I picked up the largest volume called the ‘Text’, opened it at random and read a paragraph. I cannot remember what I read, but I do recall its impact. It was like receiving a shock and it made a deep impression upon me. The book seemed to have no author, just the name of the publishers — the Foundation for Inner Peace, USA. The second largest of the three volumes was called ‘Workbook for Students’ and contained 365 lessons designed to apply the theoretical foundation described in the Text on a practical level in our everyday lives. The smallest volume was entitled ‘Manual for Teachers’ and contained summaries of the Course’s principal themes in a question and answer format.

The following day I was drawn back to this window display, whereupon I again read at random from the three books. I kept this up for two weeks until I had to return to London. The memory of the impact of the book stayed with me and I wrote to the Phoenix Bookshop for a copy. I soon discovered that I had come across another channelled book which would deeply affect my approach to healing myself and others.

How A Course in Miracles Came

The way the Course came to be written illustrates very well the principles to be found within its pages. In 1957 William Thetford, a professor of medical psychology, was made Director of the Psychology Department at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. The following year he appointed Helen Schucman, an associate professor of medical psychology, to head a research project. Although they worked well together professionally, their personal and departmental relationships were marked with much criticism, anger and blame. Each felt the other to be the cause of their unhappiness.

During 1965 Bill said to Helen that there had to be ‘another way’ to relate to each other and within and between departments. Helen agreed with him and said she would help him to find it. This is an example of what the Course would call ‘a holy instant’, where instead of holding on to a grievance, forgiveness is chosen instead. This shift of perception is what the Course calls a miracle.

The moment of joining between them was the moment that the Course was born. Helen soon began to experience dreams, visions and psychic experiences which she found very disturbing to her logical, rational and scientifically-oriented mind. Bill was very supportive towards her and managed to convince her she was not going mad.

During the October of 1965 Helen ‘heard’ in her mind the words "This is A Course in Miracles. Please take notes." In desperation she rang Bill who tried to placate her and suggested she take down this inner dictation and bring it to the office the following day. He told Helen that if it was found to be nonsense, they could simply discard it and no one need ever know anything about it.

However, it soon became clear that the Course contained profound teachings and they could not easily dismiss it. For the next seven years, Helen continued to receive this inner dictation which she wrote down in shorthand. She said it was like having a tape recorder in her mind which she could start and stop at will, even in mid-sentence. Bill continued to support and encourage Helen in this process and would daily type the notes as Helen read them from her shorthand notebook.

The Course comes from Jesus, with much of it written in the first person. Several references are made to his life 2,000 years ago, especially regarding his crucifixion which he describes in a very different light to what we have been taught to believe. Helen was shocked to realise who the source of this material was. At this time of her life she described herself as an atheist. She had sought to find God in her early years but felt she had failed. She had retained an anger against a deity whom she felt had not made the same effort towards her. Her ambivalence towards God now extended to Jesus, with whom she maintained a love/hate relationship for the rest of her life. In the Course, Jesus tells us he understands that many of us experience difficulty in relating to him and that we need not believe he is the author of the Course to benefit from his words. (See M84; C-5.6)

The Course has been published as it was received except for the removal of material personal to Helen and Bill. The Text was received in one block and needed editing in the form of inserting chapter and section headings, punctuation, paragraphing and capitalisation. They were helped in this work by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, a clinical psychologist. Ken tells the whole fascinating story of how A Course in Miracles was born in his book Absence from Felicity — The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of 'A Course in Miracles', published by the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. Bill looked upon his work with Helen as a ‘sacred trust’. The Course was the answer to their joint need for ‘another way’ of relating.

Two further channelled writings came through Helen from Jesus in the form of pamphlets. The first was completed in l975, three years after the Course was written. It is entitled Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and is a summary of the Course’s teachings on healing as applied to the profession of psychotherapy. In 1977 Helen channelled The Song of Prayer. This was in response to questions Ken had raised about the correct use of prayer. It is a poetic summary of prayer, forgiveness and healing.

After Helen’s death in 1981, a book of her inspired poetry was published, entitled The Gifts of God.

What the Course Is

Much of the material in this book is based upon my understanding of some of the principles of the Course. I have included below some introductory material about what the Course says.

It is a book about how to heal our minds, for this is where the source of all our physical and psychological suffering lies. The aim of the Course is for us to achieve a state of inner peace, a quiet joy, no matter what we are doing, who we are with, or where we may be. It does this by teaching us a new way of looking at the world. This change of perception is the miracle — hence the title of the book.

The Course teaches that everything in this world can be used as a mirror to what we believe. Our relationships are the most powerful of all our mirrors. By relationships I mean all forms: lovers, parent and child, therapist and client, employer and employee, friends, etc. A relationship is an extremely powerful way of bringing into our awareness what needs to be healed within our mind. The Course teaches that through forgiveness and turning within for help, we can undo all the guilt we carry. This guilt originates from the false belief in our unconscious mind that we have willed to separate ourself from God, and have succeeded in this attempt. Chapter 2 will explore this theme more fully. Guilt is the term the Course uses to describe our self-hate, feelings of inferiority, lack of self-worth and all the negative beliefs we have about ourself. As we learn to undo our guilt, the memory of God’s love for us will return to our mind. When we re-experience the unconditional love of God, everything in this world will lose its appeal, including our identification with our body. (See Figure 1.1)

The Course is a unique blend of modern psychology, radical metaphysics and deep spiritual truths. Much of the psychology echoes Sigmund Freud’s teachings on our ego defence mechanisms of denial and projection and will be explained further in Chapter 3. The three volumes comprising the Course are a lifetime study requiring much re-reading to benefit from the depths of its teachings. The metaphysics of the Course have many parallels with some Eastern philosophies and religions. There are over 700 references to the Bible, and Jesus often reinterprets these biblical sayings. Many Christian terms are used in the Course but with entirely different meanings. Jesus stresses that we are not guilty, sinful creatures who need to atone through sacrifice and suffering. Instead, he gives us the inspiring message that we are guiltless, sinless creations of God who have fallen asleep in Heaven. In our collective dream, we have forgotten the abstract eternal beauty of our real nature and believe we are bodies in a world of form.

The Course is not trying to convince us that it is the only spiritual path. It states that it is but one of ‘many thousands’ of spiritual paths and that other teachers with different symbols are also needed. (M3; M-1.4:1-2) Jesus often says that the message of his Course is simple. However, when we first start to study it, it does not appear that way to most of us. This is because the Course’s thought system is completely opposite to our ego’s way of looking at the world. The Course uses the term ‘ego’— as is also the practice in the East — to describe our ‘little self’ which we have made to try to take the place of our real Self which God created. Our ego identifies with our body whilst our Self (or Christ nature) knows only the truth of our formless, spiritual magnificence.

Jesus stresses that all God’s children, referred to in the Course as the Son, Sonship or Christ, were created equal. Thus Jesus is not especially favoured in God’s eyes but is equal to all of us. He simply awoke to his true reality before us and seeks to help us regain what we have forgotten. In later chapters I will expand on some of the Course’s teachings, especially with regard to healing our mind.

The Text in particular seems hard to grasp and the practice of forgiveness equally as difficult. Because of this some people tend only to read the Workbook. However, there is much material in the Text, especially concerning relationships, which is not found in the Workbook. The Text forms the theoretical foundation of the Workbook. It becomes very easy to misunderstand the Workbook and read its message out of context without a knowledge of the theoretical framework of the Course which is found in the Text. On the other hand, to study the Text but not apply it through the Workbook lessons is to end up with an ungrounded and abstract view of the Course. Yet, with time, the message of the Course does become simple, although never easy to apply. 'Victim consciousness' is ingrained in our psyches and the desire to blame others for our unhappiness is universal. To read in the Course (see first quotation on page 13) that no one can take away our peace, only ourselves, is a difficult message to accept, but one which will eventually lead us to happiness.

Health is Inner Peace . . . Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly.'

(T15; T-2.I.5:11; T146; T-8.VIII.9:9)

After my first visit to the Findhorn Foundation, I returned the following year and took part in a healing workshop. During this period I said ‘yes’ to working more deeply with healing. I did not realise until much later that this was the path I had chosen to help heal myself. Most of the people at the Foundation believe that their thinking at least contributes to their disease. This allowed me to help my clients reach deeper levels in their mind where a lack of forgiveness lay and gave them the opportunity to change their mind about some painful issue. If my client could achieve forgiveness, his sense of guilt would disappear and its shadow in the body — the disease — would go. The following story seeks to illustrate these points.

John asked to see me about the chronic pain at the base of his neck. He was somewhat sceptical about experiencing this type of healing as he came from a scientific background. The neck pain had been present for some months and his hospital had advised a long course of physiotherapy. I explained to John that there was a part of his mind which knew exactly what the cause of this problem was. To help him to access this, I told him I would take him through a relaxation procedure and try some ways which might help him to let go of his rational mind so he could open to his inner wisdom.

I asked John to lie down and made him comfortable with cushions and a blanket. Using a progressive relaxation method, I asked him to tense and release all the muscles in his body. Whilst he was doing this, I kept my hands lightly on his head as I find this helps me to join with the client as well as aiding their relaxation. I asked John to say a prayer to indicate his willingness to receive the help that is always there and to ask for help in seeing what thoughts he needed to change in his mind which would bring about healing. In my previous conversation with him I had discovered he was open to working with prayer. I joined his silent prayer with one of my own. I asked that I might open myself to my own source of help and be used as a channel in this healing session.

We remained in silence for a few minutes whilst I continued to lay on hands. I then asked John how he was feeling and if there was anything happening for him. He told me that the face of his aunt had appeared to him and had spoken the following words: "This pain in your neck is vengeance upon yourself for what you did." John told me that this was not said in any accusing manner but as a simple statement of fact. However, the words made no sense to John and we decided to leave this intriguing message for the moment. Although John had stressed that he had a well-developed logical, rational and scientific mind, I felt he also possessed strong intuition. I felt drawn to try some imagery in the form of a guided journey, to help lead him to his own source of inner wisdom.

I began the journey by asking him to visualise himself walking down a country lane on a summer’s day. To encourage him to experience all his senses, I asked him to feel the road underfoot, smell the flowers, hear the sounds of nature and observe the surroundings and the sky above him. In this manner he became more involved with his inner world which, in turn, loosened the hold of his rational mind. I continued to guide him on his journey in nature, sometimes stopping to enable him to study some object of interest.

The goal of this journey was to connect John with some symbolic form of his inner wisdom or higher self — what the Course calls the Holy Spirit. However, this guided journey was soon to come to an abrupt end. I had thought that I was leading him through a forest when he stated, with some irritation, that he had tried four times to enter this forest without success. Each time he tried, the trees would turn into a white mist and the forest would disappear.

One of the maxims I work with in healing is: "Anything you resist persists — anything you accept can heal." I told John to accept this mist, ask for help and continue to walk through it. As he continued, a human cell appeared in the mist surrounded by violet light. His scientific training enabled him to recognise it as a human cell and, further, to know that it was cancerous. Suddenly, the memory of his dying mother returned to him accompanied by strong feelings of guilt and shame. He told me he had felt unable to cope with the situation at the time and had given the care of his mother to his aunt. This was the same aunt who had appeared at the start of the healing session.

John began to cry tears he had been unable to shed at the time of his mother’s illness. He realised he had repressed all his guilt and shame around this issue and now needed to obtain forgiveness. I encouraged him to ‘invite’ his mother into this session and express to her all the things he needed to say. I told John to imagine that his mother was really here in the room and to speak out loud to her. When he had finished, I asked him to listen to anything his mother wanted to say to him and to speak out loud what she said. In this way John was given an opportunity to share his buried feelings with his mother and forgive himself for his past actions.

I then asked John if he felt complete with his experience and to return his awareness to the room we were in. He told me that the pain in his neck felt much better and he now understood the significance of his aunt’s remarks at the start of the session. His mother had died of cancer of the base of the neck and John felt his repressed guilt and shame over the handling of his mother’s illness was reflected in his own bodily pain occurring in the identical area.

About four days later, just before John was leaving the Findhorn Foundation, I asked him about his neck pain and he told me that the improvement had been maintained. We had both experienced a powerful example of how the guilt in our mind is reflected in our bodily condition and how the power of forgiveness can dissolve both.

The above story is the first of a number of case histories which illustrate how healing can occur through forgiveness. I have chosen stories which have successful outcomes so that I can demonstrate what can be achieved when client and healer join together. There have, of course, been many instances when little or no progress has been achieved in healing sessions. The resistance of our ego to the healing process and the subject of the healed healer versus the unhealed healer will be covered in later chapters.

I was beginning to understand more clearly that only the mind is in need of healing, not the body. If the mind could regain its peace through forgiveness, then healing would be achieved. In Chapter 5, I shall explain more fully what I mean by forgiveness. Even if physical symptoms still remain after forgiveness has occurred, healing has taken place if peace of mind is the outcome. Looking back to when I first started to practise healing by laying on of hands, I now wondered what was really happening. In the Course I was to read:

It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the word of God. They merely give what has been given them.

(M18; M-5.III.2:8-10)

And, as previously stated:

False healing can indeed remove a form of pain and sickness. But the cause remains, and will not lack effects.

(S16: S-3.II.1:4-5)

I now saw that the use of my hands was but a form which helped me to join with my client. To join with another is to undo the ego’s thought of separation and allow the love of God to return to our awareness. It is this love that undoes the guilt in the client’s mind and allows the healing to take place. My function as a healer was to drop all judgement and criticism of my client. This then makes room for God’s healing love to be extended from my mind to the client’s mind. In the presence of that love and light, the client would have an opportunity to change their mind and forgive the past. I shall expand upon the subject of healing others in Chapter 7.

My challenge in a healing session is to reach a peaceful, centred and non-judgemental space and to withdraw any investment I might have in the outcome. The power of this has occasionally been demonstrated to me by some unintentional healings which have occurred over the years.

On one occasion a friend of mine was suffering from painful knees. This condition had started a couple of days earlier whilst she was watching television. The programme had made her fearful and when she got up from her chair both knees were painful. She stopped me in the corridor and asked for a healing session. I intuitively felt I should see her right away. I turned to her, put my hand on her shoulder and said that we could have a healing session now if that was convenient. She looked at me and said, "Don’t bother — the pain has just gone in both knees!"

There had been no intention on my part to heal in that moment and I became curious as to what had happened. When I analysed this and other times when spontaneous healings had occurred, I remembered that I was in a peaceful, joyful and accepting space. When we can temporarily lay our ego aside, there is no barrier to the presence of God’s love in our mind. God’s healing love is now free to flow spontaneously into the mind of the other person, giving them the opportunity to change their mind about the guilt they are carrying. When we are in a joyful and accepting state of mind we give them a different message about themselves in contrast to what their ego is telling them. We demonstrate they are not the sinful and guilty person that they thought they were and thus allow them to change their mind about themselves. This shift of perception, the miracle, allows them to forgive themselves and let their guilt, with its physical symptoms, disappear.

‘. . . sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body.’

(M17; M-5.II.3:2)

Everyone who has ever come to me for a healing has, and must have, a resistance to being healed. In some part of their mind is the decision to get sick in the first place. We believe we gain benefits from our disease and do not want to lose these benefits through being healed. Thus there is usually a strong ambivalence towards the healing session and the healer, although this may be unconscious. The pamphlet Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice makes this point very clear:

The therapist is seen as one who is attacking the patient’s most cherished possession; his picture of himself. And since this picture has become the patient's security as he perceives it, the therapist cannot but be seen as a real source of danger to be attacked and even killed. The psychotherapist then, has a tremendous responsibility. He must meet attack without attack and therefore without defence. It is his task to demonstrate that defences are not necessary and that defencelessness is strength.

(P9; P-2.IV.9:5-6. 10:1-3)

David was a participant in a two-week workshop I was giving at the Findhorn Foundation. During the first week he became aware of a hatred he carried towards himself. He felt the hatred to be ‘located’ in his solar plexus and that its origin lay in the sexual abuse he had experienced from his uncle when he was ten years old. He only realised in the workshop setting that following the period of abuse, he had repressed feelings of guilt and blame for what had happened. This new awareness caused him much discomfort and he developed asthma and a chest infection by the end of the first week of the workshop. David felt ashamed of his memories, did not want to explore this issue with anyone and considered leaving the workshop. He visited the local doctor and was given a course of antibiotics.

During the start of the second week of the workshop, David asked me for a private healing session. After a period of relaxation and laying on of hands, I decided I would try to get him to explore and accept the hatred he was experiencing in his solar plexus. The Course states "There is an advantage to bringing nightmares into awareness, but only to teach that they are not real, and that anything they contain is meaningless." (T159; T-9.V.3:1) If David could uncover his ‘nightmares’ of self-hatred and guilt without judging them, he would then have an opportunity to change his mind about his seeming ‘sins’ of the past. My own feeling of acceptance and non-judgement of him, which I experienced as I gently guided him on this journey, would also help this process.

To help him undo his state of repression — what the Course calls ‘denial’ — I asked him to explore the sensation in his solar plexus. Previous experience had taught me that important messages are locked up in our areas of pain. I asked him to describe how large the area of discomfort was, its shape and depth, its colour and texture, and whether it felt hotter or colder than the rest of his body. As it is impossible to resist and explore the pain simultaneously, I was encouraging David to undo his denial about himself. When clients follow this approach, they are describing the ‘clothes of the messenger’ and this can lead them into deeper levels of their mind where the ‘nightmares’ are to be found.

David discovered a hard red ball in his solar plexus. I asked this ‘messenger’ how it was feeling and David replied that it was angry. He experienced a strong resistance to his discovery. He could not accept it in his body and hated it being there. He said it felt like a foreign object which needed to be attacked and thrown out. Feeling his strong resentment towards this part of his body, I went within and asked for help in what to say or do. What came to me was to ask him how this hard, red, angry ball had served him all these years. After all, it was his creation and he was holding on to it with great determination. Not surprisingly, he objected strongly to my question and reiterated he did not want this ball inside him. I felt guided to continue gently exploring this issue with him without any investment on my part in trying to bring about changes in him that I thought were necessary.

Slowly David began to receive insights on how this ball of hatred was serving him. He realised that he had created it as a protection against his fear of opening his heart to people and acting more spontaneously in life. He saw himself as a person dominated by his mind and rigid control patterns. To let go of his investment in his self-hatred and guilt was to free himself to relate more lovingly and openly to people. This opportunity was now before him. He could hear two parts of his mind counselling him: the ego and the Holy Spirit. His ego told him that it would be very dangerous to let go of his control patterns, as he would not be able to predict how people would behave to him if he related more from his heart than his head. The Holy Spirit part of his mind counselled him in the opposite direction.

He had nothing to lose but an illusion of sacrifice. The new way of relating would bring him renewed energy and joy. David could also sense a suppressed part of himself he called the ‘joker’ and felt it would be fun to let this joker out. As he struggled with these two voices, I asked him if he would try to see if he could give away his angry red ball. I reassured him it would be okay if he could not, but he could lose nothing by the experiment. I suggested he visualise a pair of loving, gentle, golden hands outstretched before him awaiting the gift of his angry red ball. I told him that these hands wanted his pain, not his love, as a gift. The hands were only interested in "removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence" (Intro., Text) in him. David decided to give his pain away to these hands. As he did this, he started to laugh and cry at the same time. A lightness of being came over him and a strong energy entered his body, so much so that after the session he went off to run and literally jump in the nearby woods. Although he had been on the point of leaving the workshop, he now felt happy to stay and complete it.

The Course lists a number of reasons why we choose sickness and we shall explore these in Chapter 4. We are not usually aware of these decisions, as our ego immediately denies having made them. Thus it appears we are innocent victims of circumstances beyond our control. We say to ourselves that our body is sick and our body needs healing, forgetting that the causative level of disease is in our mind.