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Updated:
01-Jan-2008
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Updated:
01-Jan-2008
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Mandalas and healingService through healing is strongly related to the sense of compassion that underpins the ideal of a brotherhood of all life. Healing can be focused on many levels – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It relates to healing at an individual level, and at a wider community or national level. We can serve through offering information, support and comfort, through providing treatment if we are trained in a healing area, through music and art, and through our healing meditations.
Mandala is a Sanskrit word meaning circle and is a symbolic pattern of light and sound. In many spiritual traditions, mandalas are used as sacred imagery to express and focus divine energy, represent connections with the One and mirror an illuminated state of consciousness.
Dr Judith Cornell introduces her book, Mandala: Luminous Symbols for Healing, by explaining that creating mandalas can:
For people interested in exploring ways of using mandalas in healing, Cornell’s book provides a valuable source of background information, related meditations and practical drawing activities.
(Above: Om Mani Padme Hum Mandala from Dharma Haven)
According to the Buddhist tradition, human suffering is intimately related to a sense of separation from the One; it results from our focusing on separateness from other living things rather than experiencing a sense of Oneness with all life. Through meditation we can increasingly experience this Oneness.
Meditation is at the core of spiritual development. Through meditation a practitioner can calm the mind, diminish personal suffering and develop feelings of love, sympathy and compassion. Ultimately, meditation may bring a more positive reflection on the inevitability of death and unlock doors of insight into the depths of human existence, write Dr Arunachalam and Al Robinson. Both are Brisbane TS members and Dr Arunachalam is an active TOS member. Their recently published little book, The Meditative Path, provides a succinct commentary on meditation together with clear explanations of the stages of meditative practice.
Another practical and longer guide to meditation is Christmas Humphreys’ book, The Search Within: a course in meditation.
Spiritual healing
Many years ago, Geoffrey Hodson wrote a beautiful spiritual healing ceremony. It is used by several TOS groups around the world, including the USA ’s Healing network.
If you’d like to find out more about the USA Healing network, their webpage, (http://www.theoservice.org/node/23) has details and a contact for its facilitator, Hutoxy D. Contractor.
For those interested in holistic approaches to healing, this book edited by Karen Shultz and published by the Theosophical Order of Service in America, brings together information from a wide range of traditions. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides an overview of the history of healing and the use of etheric, astral and mental energy fields. Part 2 describes several traditional systems of medicine and their use of food, herbs, energies and music.
The following technique, designed by Geoffrey Hodson, is described in The Essence of Healing, edited by Karen Shultz.
It is a personal healing meditation designed to restore the harmonious flow of the Divine Life through one's whole nature. This Life, which is the vital energy of the Universe, is present everywhere in abundance. Its steady and continuous flow through us maintains perfect health and strength. Illness is a sign that through lack of inner harmony, we are temporarily shut off from this universal supply of healing force. When we attain a state of spiritual, mental, emotional and physical harmony and accord, the Divine healing and vitalizing power will flow freely through us, and we shall be whole.
To achieve this flow of spiritual energy, visualize the Divine Life as being everywhere present and as filling the upper air with its radiant and golden glow: Reach up towards it with all the power of your thought and will, aspiring ardently to become one with It, to embody it within yourself, so that it may flow freely through you, in the helping of the world.
Then you may dwell in thought upon the One as the Source of all power and life. Seek to realize Its presence and to lose yourself Therein. You may think of yourself as a chalice into which the Divine Life is poured, and as you aspire to at-one-ness with the Divine Life, the cup will increase in size, growing ever higher, into the inner worlds, where dwells the Healing Life.
Then think of the Divine Life in all its glowing splendour, as pouring down upon and into you in a torrent of vital force, filling the cup to overflowing and flooding your whole nature with its power. After dwelling for a time in silent realization, this power may be directed outwards through your heart to heal the sorrows and sufferings of the world.
This meditation may safely be performed regularly, day by day, even many times a day, preferably at early morning, midday, and before retiring.
Gradually an automatic flow of healing life will be established in you, the aspirant, and you will then bear about with you, wherever you go, a healing and uplifting power of incalculable value to the world. Thus, as you tread your upward Path, you may heal and bless your fellow-beings.
Therapeutic Touch is an energy therapy developed in the USA in 1970 by two theosophists, Dolores Krieger and the late Dora Kunz. It is now a technique used in hospitals and universities in Australia and North America, and may soon be as well known as Reiki.
You’lI find more information on several websites, including
http://www.therapeutictouch.com/tt1.html
http://www.therapeutictouch.com.au/
With the razzamatazz of the Bali meeting on global targets for carbon emissions finishing, we can be forgiven for wondering if our small personal efforts are worth anything. Just as I was contemplating this question, I came across a feature article in the 17 November issue of New Scientist, entitled ‘Why bother going green?’.
The statistics about the impact of human activity on our planet give food for thought. Every year our activities add about 30 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, largely through burning fossil fuels but also through destroying forests that act as major carbon dioxide absorbers. Since pre-industrial days, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the air has increased by over one third. Most scientists think it will reach an unsafe level by 2040 if emissions continue at today’s rate …. and indeed they are rising, not falling.
So can we do anything useful when many nations are being slow to act? The answer is an unequivocal YES! Chris Goodall, author of How to Live a Low Carbon Life, describes how it is possible to cut individual carbon emissions by around 75% without seriously altering our Western lifestyles. He suggests a wide range of actions that reduce energy use. You’ll find many of these ideas in our April 2007 TOS newsletter.
By making small changes, it is estimated that the average Westerner can cut almost 8 tonnes from their carbon footprint. If a third of the UK population did this, it would save around 160 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Our individual reductions may not seem much, but together with millions of other people’s energy savings, they could make a very real difference to healing our planet! SO LET’S MAKE THOSE REDUCTIONS!
Did you know that becoming vegan, vegetarian or cutting down on animal products could make a significant saving to your carbon emissions? According to an Australian National University team led by Professor Tony McMichael, the world’s appetite for meat is increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Agriculture contributes about 22% of global greenhouse emissions and 80% of this comes from livestock production.
Professor Tony McMichael argues that “for the world’s higher income populations, greenhouse gas emissions from meat eating warrants the same scrutiny as do those from driving and flying.”
The study also points out that reducing meat consumption would have health benefits for many people, including potentially lowering the risk of several types of cancer.