| Sacred Moments Well-known authors and speakers in the fields of spirituality and healing share their personal experiences with the profound. by Phil Bolsta DR. BERNIE SIEGEL Siegel, a former surgeon whose book, Love, Medicine & Miracles catapulted him to the forefront of the mind/body/spirit revolution, founded the Exceptional Cancer Patients support group (www.ecap-online.org) near his home in New Haven, Conn. His latest book is Prescriptions For Living. The Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac has always been difficult for me to accept, because the idea of sacrificing one of my children is so unthinkable. Well, two years ago, I had some experiences that gave me a deep appreciation of that story. While talking to a friend on the phone about my travel schedule, she asked, "Why are you living such a busy life?" I suddenly and literally went into a trance-like state and I saw myself with a sword in my hand, killing people. The same thing happened again a month or two later as I was sitting in an airplane looking out the window. It felt like I was watching a movie with me as the main character. I was a knight, and my lord told me that I was to kill the neighbor's daughter, because the neighbor had been imposing on his land. I agreed to do it out of fear that I would be punished if I refused. I learned where the daughter slept, but when I walked into her room with my sword drawn, she awakened and turned towards me. I saw my wife's face, yet I went ahead and killed her. I can't tell you how emotional that was for me. I brought her head back to my lord and said, "Are you happy now? Look what you've done!" And he said, "I didn't do it, you did. If you had had faith in me, there would have been another result." I was very concerned about these visions so I sought the help of James Hillman, a Jungian therapist whose name kept popping up in articles I was reading. Because he lived in Connecticut, I drove up to see him. I started telling him what happened and he said, "Wait a minute. Are you listening to what you're saying? You keep talking about the lord." I said, "Well, it's the lord of the castle," and he said, "No, it's more than that -- it's the Lord." We then discussed the story of Abraham, and when I re-read the Bible story after the session, I saw with great clarity that Abraham, who offered no resistance to God, and Isaac, who offered no resistance to his father, both had tremendous faith and knew that God would not allow Abraham to commit such a terrible act. The key question is, are you listening to and following the true Lord or an artificial one? I realized that when you truly follow the Lord, then everything you do will be life-enhancing and that, just like Abraham, you'll feel an angel's hand on your shoulder to keep you from doing any harm. When you have faith in your Lord, you simply say, "Yes, I will go." Soon after that, I had another episode where again my lord told me to kill the neighbor's daughter and I said, "Fine, I'm going." But this time I felt a hand on my shoulder and my lord said, "Stop. Now that I know you have faith, bring them here so we can resolve this." Ultimately, my lord said that the way to resolve the dispute was to have his son (which he now called me because of my faith in him) marry the daughter, because then we would be one family and there would be nothing to fight over. And that's what struck me, that the way to resolve the problem, and indeed any problem in the larger world, was to bring love to the situation and become one family. And that's what I had to learn. I also intuitively knew that my career as a surgeon was in response to my need to heal with a sword rather than injure with one. DR. LARRY DOSSEY Dossey, the author of eight books and the executive editor of the bimonthly journal, "Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine," has become an internationally influential advocate of the role of the mind in health and the role of spirituality in healthcare. For more information, go to www.dosseydossey.com. The most important aspect of my spiritual life is a sense of oneness with the divine; it permeates my life and manifests as a sense of oneness and unity with other people. A lot of people believe that unless they have some sort of incredible, life-changing sudden epiphany, their spiritual journey is not valid or genuine. We have to guard against that. The spiritual path is extraordinarily varied and it comes in many flavors. One of the things I would want to suggest to folks is that the depth and the endurance are what really matter, not the pyrotechnics, the fireworks that one may experience from time to time. A fundamental part of my spiritual development has involved science, most dramatically in the study of distance healing and intercessory prayer, which I've written about extensively. I consider the scientific studies supporting the power of prayer to be evidence of the unity the great mystics have described throughout history. My research has convinced me that we are all connected at some very deep level across space and time in ways that we scarcely perceive in waking consciousness. There also seems to be a benevolent, quite wonderful side to the universe; otherwise, healing through thought and intention and prayer could not be expected to take place. Although there really have been no incredible moments in my life that one would call epiphanies, I've had experiences of what I call non-local mind uniting me with my patients through dreams. These dreams, which generally occurred the night before I was to see the patient involved, were extremely vivid and full of clinical facts. For example, during my first year of practice as an internist in a Dallas hospital, I dreamt about Justin, the 4-year-old son of a colleague of a mine. I had met this child only a few times and certainly didn't know him well. In the dream, he was stretched out on an examining table and one of his parents was trying to comfort him. There was some sort of medical technician trying to do something to his head, but Justin would have none of it; he was going berserk. Finally, the medical technician threw up her hands and said, "I give up, I quit!" and walked away. The dream was so vivid and disturbing that I almost woke my wife up to tell her about it. Later that day at lunch, I was having a sandwich in the cafeteria with Justin's father. Suddenly, his wife approached us carrying their little boy, who was crying. She told her husband she had just come from the EEG (electroencephalography) lab where a technician had been trying to obtain a brain wave tracing. But Justin had gone berserk and would not cooperate. It was such a chaotic fiasco that the technician, who had never before been thwarted in her efforts to obtain an EEG tracing on a child, had finally given up and abandoned the procedure. I was speechless, because I had dreamt this event in almost photographic detail the night before. I later went to the father's office and said, "Look, we need to talk. Is there any way that I could have known that your child was scheduled for an EEG today?" He said, "Don't be silly, of course not. No one knew except my wife and I and the neurologist." He said Justin had developed a fever the day before and had had a brief seizure, so his parents had made an appointment for a quick consultation. When I told him about my dream, he was extremely disturbed and wanted to hear no more of it. He knew in an instant, as did I, that if we took this dream seriously, we would have to revise our idea of reality, of the very nature of how the world worked. It took me years to revisit that experience, which I finally did in the book, Reinventing Medicine. DONALD SCHNELL (PREMA BABA SWAMIJI) Schnell is the author of The Initiation, a memoir of his encounter in India with Babaji, the legendary deathless guru. Schnell also authored the book "Fitonics" with his wife, Marilyn Diamond Schnell (co-author of Fit For Life). The couple also offers an online course in spiritual enlightenment through www.enlightenment101.com. The Bible says the average life span is three score and 10 years, which means we each get about 25,000 days of life. What I learned in my brief time with Babaji is that each of those days is sacred, that this beautiful miracle we call life is ours to experience in every precious moment. As often as possible throughout every day, we need to remind ourselves that, "This is the day that God hath made." One of the most profound experiences of my life was saying my wedding vows to my wife. That was seven years ago, but I can still clearly remember the Huppah we were under, the rabbi's voice, the close family members, the beautiful Santa Fe Mountains, the fresh air, the flowers everywhere. The festivity and the sanctity of that moment, that sacred union, continues to bless my life and I am forever grateful that, through his grace, Babaji gave me such a beautiful soul mate. In every day, we are presented with countless opportunities to experience such bliss, to savor the joy of being with our soul mate and to deepen our connection to God. Enlightenment and spiritual awareness is not static; no matter what we achieve, no matter what grace has been granted to us, the moment is always fresh for new insights, new aliveness, new joy. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, pay attention to opportunities to live in the moment, to celebrate life. Never think for a moment that you are alone. That would be like a fish in the ocean asking, "Where's the water?" You are one with God in every moment. You are literally a drop of God in a sea of God. I am currently on a fast that Babaji has directed me to undertake for clarity, to free me from any clutter that prevents me from seeing the aliveness and freshness of every moment. During this fast, he's telling me how important it is to look at the roots of your own religion. There's a hunger in this country to know more about the roots of Hinduism and yoga and Eastern philosophy. That's fine, but Babaji says we should know our own roots deeply, whether we're Jewish, Christian, Muslim or even atheist, that doing so will help us to honor the sanctity of our lives. The media has been bombarding us lately, and justifiably so, with horrible images of war. There have always been battles throughout history and the warriors are going to do what they have to do. But many of us are asking, "What can I do as a spiritual being?" Each one of us can become the antidote to all the negativity and violence. We all need to start with ourselves, to create a fortress of peace from within us, to listen to the voice inside of us that says, "Focus on the life -- do what you can to honor life." Only then can we begin to spread the vision of love. Phil Bolsta is a certified massage therapist. To make an appointment, contact him at (763) 553-7703 or at PhilBolsta@mediaone.net. Copyright © 2002 Phil Bolsta |
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