Church as Healer VII

Our healer is the Holy Spirit; literally the breath set apart. Figuratively, by this breath life was breathed into Adam. Counselors are taught to watch the breat as an aid for understanding the clients process, some forms of therapy teach specific breathing patterns. The religions of the world have long taught the importance of the breath. We ar told to slow the breath, to stop the breath or speed it up. We are told to simply watch the breath, or count the breaths. Christian contemplatives synchronize the breath with meditative phrases as some yogis do with mantras. The scientific research increasingly shows abundant benefits for such practices, yet the advanced adepts know a couple of secrets the beginners do not.

There is an energetic parallel to the breath. It is the breath set apart. It is the life force and the carrier of vast amounts of information related to our interconnectedness with all life, as well as our personal history. It is intelligent beyond comprehension as that which “runs” or subconscious process and gives insight in our creative and spiritual lives. When one comes to see all our moods, emotions, attitudes and thoughts as simple forms of this energetic breath and can enter the stream, the flow of it without resistance, one truly begins the spiritual path of return to our reflected image of G-d.

All suffering is a disturbance of this spirit-breath, and the joy of the Lord is found in its uninhibited, spontaneous expression as it restores the soul to a state of peace and unity. This life force is the true breath that needs to be monitored and it is available to those who would not otherwise consider themselves mediators or contemplatives, but simply lovers of life.

There is another secret of the wise who have gone before us. This is to proactively engage the witness consciousness – you – the observer of the breath in cultivating a joyous attitude. This secret is found in the Buddhist anipanasati sutra, that continual exhorts to “gladden” the mind while engaging the outer breath in contemplations. The Tantric master Pundit Acharya - who helped bring a scientific view of yoga to the west - says to fully enjoy breathing, or you are doing the exercise wrong. The Taoists say cultivating the inner smile is the first and final practice of a sage. And thye contemporary Christian mystic Bernadet Roberts says that when all her ideas of G-d had vanished she found a smile and knew that the smile, the one smiling and the one smiled at were one.

These are two key insights of my own practice, which has earned me a reputation as mystic and healing coach. They could hardly be simpler, yet yield results most profound. Assisting people in integrating these into their ordinary life is the basis of my free coaching practice patterned after the ideal of the “cure of souls”. It is a ministry of love.

© Arjay, 2009, All rights reserved