Self-Healing

Madhuri invites us to explore her healing technique; “A first-aid kit in your own hands.”

This meditation, or inner exploration, is an extremely effective and reassuring deconstruction and release of physical and emotional difficulties and pain. I stumbled upon it in my own inner work after undergoing a wondrous 10-day retreat on a Scottish island during which I had Biodynamic Craniosacral sessions daily. It has been my rock ever since: for troubled times, illnesses, injuries, worries, unidentified angsts, middle-of-the-night wakings.

I think it is safe to say that this technique has a place in my heart second to none.

(I would only suggest: if the problem is anger at somebody, it’s going to be more direct and efficient to do Dynamic Meditation. Anger needs physical movement. But for many another thing, this technique is just ace.)

I would love to be able to simply give this technique to everyone in the world, so that they could go inside themselves and discover what was really bothering them; and give it a chance to release all by itself.

It is very very non-doing; only the asking of the questions requires a sort of detachment of part of you; or, you can create a little voice program on your dedicated session-room phone or iPad, with the questions; or get a friend to ask them whilst you lie down. But if you yourself work from the list of the questions, you will soon get a visceral memory of them and won’t need the paper any more.

Allow two hours; less time might be needed, but you will want to be relaxed and to feel as if time is not an issue. Do this technique when you feel alert: morning, middle of the night if you wake up, or any other time you can be undisturbed for the duration.

You will need:
• a place to lie down on your back, where you can be warm and cozy and comfortable
• a small rolled-up towel to put under your neck
• two small pillows, one for each elbow (Don’t leave these out. Your arms will get tired.)
• a blindfold or folded scarf
• a shawl or blanket
• your own two hands!

The method

Lie down with towel under neck, a pillow under each elbow, and the scarf over your eyes. Cover yourself so that you are very comfortable. Place your hands where they feel like going on your body – where the symptom is. If in doubt, heart or belly are good. But if you have a cold, hands could go on your nose or the lymph notes under an ear. If you have a heartache, hands on the heart. Your hands are non-doing; just resting there. (Eventually they will become conduits for healing energy to pass through, without your Doing a thing. Very lovely! The hands nourish you in their passive caring, and the cosmos nourishes you by somehow also coming through into your hands.)

It’s important to be very, very comfortable. If the blanket is too heavy on your chest, adjust it. You want to be neither too warm nor too chill, with everything just right. The small pillows under your elbows will keep your arms from eventually feeling like they are dragging down at the elbows and distracting you. Your neck is supported by a small rolled towel. Your eyes are covered. You are ready.

You will be asking yourself a list of questions. Keep the list handy and refer to it. Soon you will memorize it and not need the list anymore; but no need to try to do this. The list will just become part of you. You can also give the list to a girlfriend and have her read it to you if you want to try it like that. But once you have the list, you are self-sufficient with your own healing, as far as possible… within the vagaries of the universe! And, if you need healing help from outside – if you need to go to the doctor or dentist or chiropractor or whatever – you will be given this intuition during the session. You will know if there’s anything more you have to do. And you will have discovered and released the emotional component, and have much more clarity.

Relax easily. Let the mind mutter and move about – no problem. Don’t try to control anything. Let everything be as it is. Your body is just where it is, it is just the size that it is, just the weight on the bed. I find this ‘just-is-ness’ a beautiful moment in the session: Aha! I’m just here, like this! Nothing to be changed!

Once you are feeling relaxed and loose and present in yourself, begin the questions:

Where is a safe place in my body? (Just note what arises. This is a place you can always come back to if you are scared.)
Show me the Core of Health. (This is your intrinsic health inside – we all have this, or we could not be alive. It might look different at different times. And it might be just a feeling you get and not an image. People are different in their cognition styles.) Once you’ve seen or felt this Core of Health, you can go on to the next question.
Where is the Silence in this? Now focus on the symptom again. Just feel it, let it be, don’t run away, no avoiding. Be with it… not trying to change anything (this is very important!) You might very possibly see everything but the Silence. That is absolutely fine; seeing what isn’t the Silence shows you the issue more and more clearly. Go on asking this question until you feel satisfied that you have really seen the difficulty – if not the Silence! Don’t ‘try’ to see the Silence! There is no hurry. I often remain in this step for quite a long time, looking at the difficulty from many angles as I go on asking the question. If the Silence never shows itself, it’s fine – just say aloud, “I can’t find the Silence in this.” Then you can go to the next question.
Take me to the Root. Here you might see childhood pictures. Just allow whatever is; feeling, not avoiding, not doing anything about it. Just trust the process and allow. Keep asking the question until you feel complete with it; as if everything in there has come up and been seen.
Take me to the Real Root. As before – but you might get past life or early childhood impressions/pictures. No matter how strange, just allow and feel. Don’t be in a hurry. If something is very scary or painful, remind yourself that you are just lying here for this hour or two; in this short time, it’s okay to allow the pain, not to avoid it a jot or a whisker. Also, don’t be ambitious for a healing. Just be in the space of what arises. Any ambition will take you away from that, and prolong the issue’s existence in you.
Take me to the Deepest Root. Just allow what is. I often get cave-man-time pictures/feelings here! But whatever comes is right. Let it go on as long as it wants; just keep asking the question and watching what arises, not avoiding and not Doing or controlling, not even a particle.
Show me the Key. Here you will get some sort of information, or a picture, about what you need; what will unlock the difficulty. Just trust…
Show me the Healing. Here can arise a feeling/knowing/picture of the Healed State.
Show me the Light. This can be a vision of the transcendental through your body.
Show me the integration of this into my daily life.

That’s it… Before you get up, thank the Invisibles… and clap 3 times, to indicate that the session is over.

Quotes for Self-Healing

I had decided not to use quotes in this book – I would have been busy for way too long, digging them out – way too many of them – from all my piles of quotes collected over the years. I wanted this book to be elegant and simple, a place to go to find instructions for particular processes.

But for Self-Healing I had found a few that are just too perfect, and so I decided to make an exception for this technique only.

Here goes:

Life follows that principle: it keeps its treasures hidden. But it goes on challenging you, calling you. You have to become pilgrims, seekers, searchers. And all the doors are inside, so you don’t have to go to the Himalayas. You have just to go inwards. The deeper you go in, the more you know that life is not alien; it is your very heart. You are not separate from it. You have always been part of it, in some form or other, and you will remain always part of it. You belong to this eternal celebration.

– Osho, The Golden Future, Ch 38, Q 2 (excerpt)

The highest form of human intelligence is to observe yourself without judgement.

– Krishnamurti

When you got a headache
a headache powder soothe the pain
When you try to rest
Lord, you feel all right again.

When you got a backache
a little rubbin’ will see you through
But when you got a heartache
there ain’t nothin’ you can do.

Electric lights go out
a candle light will see you through
But when you got a heartache
there ain’t nothin’ you can do.

When you lost your love one
it makes you feel so blue
and then you’ve got a heartache
and there ain’t nothin’ you can do…

– Bobby Blue Bland (excerpt)

I’m including this because it is precisely not true any more! There IS something you can do! Lie down, put your hands on, go inside, ask the questions, watch… and avoid NOTHING! What wonders you can find, and watch releasing, in a heartache! What whole worlds!

St Francis of the Sow

The bud
stands for all things
even for those things
that don’t flower;
for everything flowers,
from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to re-teach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on the brow
of the flower
and re-tell it in words
and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again
from within,
of self-blessing;
as St Francis put his hand
on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her
in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow,
and the sow
began remembering all down
her thick length,
from the earthen snout
all the way through the
fodder and slops to the
spiritual curl of her tail
the long perfect loveliness
of sow.