The nature of healing

This is the continuation of our interview that started with, A challenging journey.

There are many different layers and many different aspects of healing. I wish to share an aspect that has been crucial to my recovery. It has to do with the inherent healing potential that we all have.

When I was under the oak trees – as I have described earlier – these were the questions: Where is this energy coming from? What is it? What is this vitality? I really had the feeling that something was descending upon me. It was not something arising from the inside. What is that?

Nowadays, in the frame of biodynamic craniosacral therapy, I would call it ‘the breath of life’ – but still the questions remain: Where is that breath of life coming from? How come it had such a strong impact on me? From being completely exhausted for weeks… I almost started running.

Do you think that a human being could also give this energy to somebody else?

No. When I had cancer I had seen healers. Some of them had a certain capacity to channel energy, but I’m talking about something totally different. At some point I learnt another modality – which I never practised – where the practitioner takes an active role in channeling universal energy. Every healing modality has its own value, but I never felt at home with this idea. For me, this universal energy is so much bigger than an individual. It is very humbling.

In my understanding, and this comes from the experience I had in hospital which I also talked about earlier, this energy cannot really be channelled by anybody. You can only make yourself available, and by the grace of God, it happens. So, in a craniosacral session, it’s not about sending energy or channelling anything. It’s about being present and letting the breath of life guide the practitioner. When we are in this much wider field, I often have the experience that what unfolds happens between the person and existence… in other words, with God’s will…

It reminds me of this story: during the late 90’s, whenever Indradhanu and I left Pune or returned, we would go and see Ramesh Balsekar, an Advaita spiritual teacher, at his place just off Peddar Road in Mumbai. He loved to see sannyasins, poke and challenge them. It was a small darshan in a room maybe one and a half times the size of this living room. And there were some hot seats. When there were new people he loved to call them forward and challenge them.

What’s your name? Chintan. Oh, are you from Lucknow or Pune? This kind of thing – and everybody would laugh.

He asked me if I had anything to ask, so I said, “Quite a few years ago I was supposed to die of cancer and I didn’t. A childhood friend, who eventually became a professor in psychosomatic disease at Geneva Medical School, also had cancer. He was a psychiatrist and an internist. He had access to all the latest cancer treatments and a good understanding about healing. He had a very similar cancer. And he died… and I didn’t. Can you comment on that?”

Ramesh spoke to me for quite a while, but the one statement that stuck out became for me like a key. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Again, at the right moment! He said, “You can do whatever you want in life. The outcome of whatever you do is not in your hands. It is God’s will.”

In my case, I had done whatever I could. I took the responsibility to explore many different avenues, allopathic and naturopathic. Yet the outcome was not in my hands. Existence decided it was not my day. And my friend did whatever he could and the outcome was that it was his time to transition. This clear understanding that there is something bigger at work left a strong impact on me.

It’s the same in my cranio practice. I’m not there to fix people. I can create a supportive environment so that the healing forces of the breath of life can do their job in the best possible way. The outcome is not in my hands. In a session, we never know what will unfold. The body has its own priorities. If you come for a shoulder ache the body may decide to work on the lower back first.

When I was going through chemo, in that difficult period, even when I felt better, when I was no longer suffering from any side effects, I was still in a frame of mind where I could not imagine life past winter. As if there were no future. I’ll never forget that. Not that I was thinking that I would die, but that there was no future. The days were unfolding one at a time.

During my illness there had been shitty days when I was in pain, discomfort, and depression. Mainly after the treatment because my liver had taken a big strain – I would sometimes wake up in the morning feeling, Oh God, this going to be a challenging day. On other days it was much easier.

But for some reason, I managed to stay mainly in the present. It took me a while to understand that this is what had maintained that openness. If I had started to be over-concerned or worried too much, What am I going to do? …it would have been different for sure. It was really one day at a time.

If you ‘over-focus’ on the challenging moments or start worrying about the future, something in you contracts and then the inherent healing forces cannot work as well. This is why in biodynamic cranio you spend time in the beginning of the session to slowly open the space to something bigger, more ‘resourced’, as we say, more clearly in touch with the forces of the breath of life

Do you think chemotherapy is still helpful?

Yes, at least for me it was. I hear a lot of people say, Oh no, I’m not doing chemo, which I understand. It is not a walk in the park. What it did for me was: it gave me time. This is the very important bit. I had a tumour the size of a pineapple in my belly. It was 15cm long and was compressing my left kidney, so much so that the kidney was no longer working. I was in agony. Without morphine I wouldn’t have been able to handle the pain.

For some reason, my body responded well to chemo and the tumour started to shrink. Fairly quickly I didn’t have to take morphine because the kidney was functioning again. So, it gave me time. And then, at one point, the tumour stopped shrinking in spite of the on-going chemotherapy. Shortly afterwards I had that experience in the hospital corridor – and then three weeks later the tumour was gone. My understanding is that healing happened spontaneously through this experience of expansion, and surrender to a much wider field of function. So, chemo gave me time for something else to unfold. This is how I look at it.

After treatment I started reading books and articles about spontaneous healing and miracle healing. Amazing stories. Very often because something happened on a deeper level. It can be going to Lourdes, in France. It can be some guy having a satori watching a bullfight, when the bull dies… Spontaneous healings tend to have a shift in awareness, or a shift in consciousness, which opens up a completely different level of action where the body can take care of itself in a better way.

In my case, I can say that it was a blessing that I had chemotherapy. Even if it was a rough ride, it gave me time.

These experiences… you cannot bring them on.

No, no, not at all. It’s God’s will. I love that expression, because it’s really what it is. It’s inshallah. It brings this understanding that there is something much bigger at work, whatever we may call it.

But you can prepare yourself?

In my understanding, yes, you can prepare yourself by being open to the idea that there is something bigger at work. I am aware that at times it is easier said than done. As long as you stay contracted, stay locked into your story, it is more challenging for healing to happen, but if you can open up the space to something bigger…

I’ll give you an example that had a strong impact on me. It was on a tape that my oncologist had given to me; a talk by Richard Moss. He’s a doctor and apparently does great work with people. He told a story that was very important for me to hear. It was right at the beginning of chemotherapy.

He was giving a workshop on dying. His principle was that talking doesn’t help, that it doesn’t lead anywhere. What is important however is to express ourselves and our story through the body.

If I remember, during the workshop there was an exercise where the participants had to go into the middle of the circle, one at the time, and express through the body what was happening to them. He noticed that a woman was sitting in a corner and not participating. She was completely folded in on herself.

He went up to her and asked, “What’s happening with you?”

And she replied, “Oh, you know, I’m going to die anyway. I have cancer and I only have a few months left. I don’t want to do anything.”

He had this amazing answer. He said to her, “Great, and you’re not dead yet, so why not join in?”

She took the challenge, at some point went into the middle of the circle and had a major satori. She had a spiritual experience which completely transformed her life. She had cancer that had metastasized everywhere; she had had diabetes since she was a child; she had glasses that thick.

Moss didn’t hear from her until nine months later she walked into his office and asked, “Do you recognise me?” As he didn’t, she introduced herself and he remembered her. She told him that after that experience the cancer had gone. “Also, I no longer have diabetes and don’t have to wear glasses.” A complete transformation. Such profound experiences can lead to a very different physiological response where healing can happen.

What Moss says is that diseases are often connected with a certain level of consciousness or – I would say– a certain kind of field you are evolving in. Are you trapped in your stories? Is there an openness or not? He says that if you can jump out of that level of consciousness and shift into a more open and aware level, then spontaneous healing can happen. It makes total sense to me.

As you said, you cannot count on it. It’s not like, Okay, today I’m going to have my satori and will feel good and be healthy. You can’t, but you can create the conditions for something to happen.

This woman got up and went into the middle of the circle.

Exactly. She took the challenge. That was the jump; that was what created the conditions.

I have seen that when someone gets cancer people say it is their fault. “It’s because you’re not…” I think it’s very ugly. It makes you feel guilty for your own illness.

It’s not empowering. The way I look at it, yes, it’s true that bad life hygiene, environmental toxins or trauma, or some specific life circumstances may create the conditions for cancer to happen, but it doesn’t mean that it’s your fault. I was reading Louise Hay in the beginning and I always looked at it from a distance. That’s interesting but it is just one element. She healed herself from cancer, which is the fantastic part. That’s what led her to the understanding that there’s a direct connection between mental state, emotions and body. What I have seen is that it can be misunderstood and make people feel guilty. It’s my fault, or, What did I do to myself? I did something wrong. And then it is easy to beat yourself up for it.

The way I look at it is, OK, this is where I’m at in my life. Maybe the way it has been so far has created conditions that were not supportive to my health. How can I move on from here? Well-knowing that something else could always happen.

It’s important to look at any illness from an open space. This is where biodynamic craniosacral therapy is great because it’s not treating a condition. It’s rather, Let’s open to that bigger field, let’s open to the breath of life and see what this breath of life wants to do. With the support of the practitioner, of course. With the trust and willingness of the client, of course.

Is there something you would like to add?

As I said, Ramesh loved to tease Osho sannyasins with questions like What have you learnt over all those years? And I saw that often for sannyasins it was difficult to say what they had learnt.

He didn’t ask me that question. Very interestingly! He asked, “What is left from all these years?” He did not ask what I had learnt, but what was left from all those years with Osho? My answer was, “Gratitude.”

It feels like a good moment to complete this sharing for now.

Gratitude from me as well.

As told to Punya
Full interview: My Life – A Healing Journey
Featured image by Izzie Renee on Unsplash

Related discourses by Osho

• Once you know yourself, there is no death – Beloved Osho, My friend, Chintan, is just starting six months of heavy chemotherapy. You have already sent him such beautiful messages for his meditation while passing through this. Now, Osho, do you have some jokes for him too?
• True acceptance – Osho replies to Chintan’s question, ‘Beloved Osho, Can you talk a bit more about acceptance?’

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• A challenging journey – Chintan talks about his personal experience with cancer and how it changed his understanding of health and healing