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Are spiritual healing and energy work compatible with modern medicine?

1/17/2023

Spiritual healing and energy work may be compatible with modern medicine in certain cases. For example, if you have a broken bone. Modern medicine (and even ancient medicine) can be of service to you. But how quickly you heal, as well as your attitude towards the inevitable pain, depends on energy systems that you tune into.

Pills, cutting, and burning can only take us so far down the healing process. They remove things such as pain, set things such a bones, and. destroy things such as cancer cells. But they can do nothing whatsoever to speed healing. Healing depends on how tuned in we are to the abundant energy of the Universe. It depends on our trust in all of its miraculous systems instead of running and hiding out of fear. Modern medicine feeds our fear to feel pain for even one instant, instead of seeing pain as our friend that is there to guide us further into healing.

Modern medicine is based on fear and the raging need for survival at all costs. It has caused us to view all people as possible vectors for disease. If we want to survive, we should keep away and be very afraid of them. They could make us die. Instead of a friendly face that could add beauty to our lives, we see masked up faces scurrying along, trying to make it through another day. Trying to make it through another day of fear, with some escapes, courtesy of the pharmaceutical industry.

So from that point of view, modern medicine is not compatible with energy healing techniques or approaches. However, I have used spiritual healing approaches to find the right physician when I did need one. I also did metaphysical work and intentions to guide his or her hands. This has worked out very well for me. I have had two knee operations with almost no visible scarring. During the healing period I kept my consciousness in a blissful state through conscious breathing to speed the healing process. Now both my legs are stronger than ever.

I did not use the pain pills because I needed my body to signal when it was time to get up and start moving around. I did not want to fool it into a false sense of where I was into the healing.
Many physicians chose the field of modern medicine because they wanted to help people and to save lives. Coming from that intention, they can be of enormous service. But if people herd to them like sheep and give up any sense of responsibility for their own health, it is also not compatible with energy healing. Energy healing is about determining the root cause, not putting a bandaid on it and suppressing it. It is about looking within instead of finding something “out there” to save us.

The root cause may be any form of imbalance, any form of immoderate behavior that simply showing up at a doctor’s office and saying, “Here doc, make me better,!” will not cure. What is causing us to drink too much, eat too much, smoke too much, or do other self-harming practices? That is what we need to address and that is where energy healing is effective. Modern medicine does not address these issues, nor can it, for these are sicknesses of the Soul and they cannot be seen under a microscope.

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What is the connection between eating mindfully and being mindful according to Thich Nhat Hanh in "The Miracle of Mindfulness"? How is it related to Buddhism (in general)?

1/11/2023

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Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, instead of racing ahead to the next thing that needs to be done. It also means not getting lost in ruminating about the past, especially past suffering. And since Buddhism is all about healing our suffering, mindfulness of the beauty of the present moment brings us peace.

If we rush through our meals because they are an obstacle to getting things done, we turning our eating time into another arena of suffering. We gallop through the meal, barely tasting anything. Shoveling the food into our gullets so we can “get on with it.” Eckart Tolle tells about a meal he had with some accomplished professors. They stopped slamming down the food in long enough to make a verbal point, and then resumed their ravenous slurping.

Or, we can be ruminating about the past. Some past hurt that we felt and continue to feel because we bring it up again and again. We can go through a whole meal this way and not taste anything or appreciate the harvest of the earth. Not even appreciate the skill of whoever prepared it. This type of lack of mindfulness can actually bring on heartburn and other digestive issues. We are not at peace while our body is trying to digest food. We are secreting too much acid or not enough acid and we will feel it shortly thereafter.

The Miracle of Mindfulness is the abundant peace we feel instantly when we just stop with all this ruminating and anxiety about the future—or thinking that the future is better than right now. When we eat mindfully, we are not so intent on filling up the empty hole that we feel. This can help with weight management, because we are not just flinging food down our throats because we feel so empty inside. We don’t run to food for comfort because our mind is quiet enough when we are fully in the Now.

Eating mindfully means tasting each bite. Appreciating the flavors. Feeling gratitude for everyone and everything that made this food possible. It means slowing down and experiencing all the textures, flavors, aromas, and the vibrations of care and love with which they were combined and prepared. This is gratitude for what basically sustains us. It is living with appreciation and attentiveness. The future is not going to bring anything better than right now. And so we are in a state of bliss as we pay attention to the present moment.

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Can a woman attain enlightenment in Buddhism?

1/10/2023

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As a woman, whose entire life has been devoted to the Spirit and the unseen powers of the Universe, I have been dismayed by some of the antiquated views on the ability of women to be enlightened.

In some world religions, such as Svetambar Jains, women don’t have a chance of getting off the wheel of birth and death until they are reborn as a man. They were reborn as women as a result of being deceitful in a former life and have to work like crazy to prove themselves worthy of even being born a male next time around. One of the Jain sacred texts states:
“As the result of manifesting deception, a man in this world becomes a woman. As a woman, if her heart is pure, she becomes a man in this world.”

In the Aganna-Sutta from the Pali Canon, a record of the teachings of Gautama Buddha, imply that women are responsible for the downfall of the human race.

These attitudes toward women were imposed many, many centuries ago, when women were not seen as men’s equals. Historically they were seen as men’s possessions or as brood mares for ensuring the birth of a son. A girl birth was seen as a liability, especially when it came to the dowry for marriage.

In other religions such as Islam, women may not pray in public. They are also not permitted to pray during menstruation as they are not considered clean. Judaism also has constraints around women’s spiritual attainments with the concept of not being clean for the menstruating woman. If a woman is seen as not clean during the natural process that enables her to have a child, it brings a great stigma in terms of self-worth even if it not acknowledged.

Buddhism can then also be seen as a sexist religion in this way. Buddha himself was reluctant to take women as nuns. He was afraid of the various consequences that would arise if women were enrolled. The consequences he thought would have a negative impact on the society at that time, when women were held at little value. It was only upon the request of his stepbrother Ananda that Buddha agreed to take female followers into the worship practice.

And even when allowed to enter the practice, only women were required to follow the eight garudhammas. These are the “eight heavy restrictions” the male practitioners were not ordered to follow. These eight restrictions clearly kept monks at a much higher level than the nuns. One of these restrictions is:

"A nun who has been ordained even for a hundred years must greet even a newly-ordained monk by rising up from her seat and saluting with joined palms."

Therefore, women were not considered as complete entities in the old Buddhism of thousands of years ago. This attitude has still carried over to modern times in some Buddhist societies. Women's bodies are not considered fit to attain enlightenment and to become Buddha. There is a still a concept that women are not complete until they attain enlightenment when reborn as a man. The man’s form is required for completeness. The Bahudhatuka-sutta states that there could never be a female Buddha.

The psychological impact of this view is to keep women in a weaker and inferior position. Their morale is kept low because they think, “What’s the use? What if I get born as a woman again? How holy do I have to be before I get a chance at freedom from this bondage? There’s something wrong with being a woman.”

According to Ajahn Sujato, the early texts state that the first garudhamma, which states that every nun must bow to every monk, was instituted by the Buddha because of the customs of the time. But modern scholars doubt that the rule even originated with the Buddha.

The rules were written only after the people started to become literate. And in ancient times, men were the first ones to learn to read and write. It was only much later that women got the chance to be educated because they were seen to be more at the level of the animals. These rules were written by a male-dominant society to favor that male Buddhists. It was one more power play over women.

But now, the world has changed. Yet fundamentalist world religions have not changed. Their opinions and beliefs are based on what seemed practical many centuries ago. These beliefs do not apply today if they ever applied at all. As a deeply spiritual person, I know that we are not just these bodies, miraculous as they are. At the Soul level, we are beyond being men and women. The body and its endocrine and hormonal systems do not apply to the world of the Spirit. Any view about men being spiritually superior to women is not relevant when we know that women are capable of every task a man can do—and also produce children!

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What was it about your spiritual awakening experience that allowed you to connect so deeply with your guides/spirits?

1/2/2023

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It was actually through my Spirit Guides or angels that I became connected to the vast unseen realm of infinity and eternity.

I was four years old when both of my parents were afflicted with fatal illnesses (a brain tumor and pernicious anemia—both considered un-healable at the time in Brazil). And so I was left in the hands of caretakers who were sometimes neither kind nor honest. I began to play a game—if God is everywhere, let’s see if I can hide from Him. I discovered I couldn’t. That God, the Holy Spirit, the Source of All That Is, the Eternal One is indeed everywhere.

Just then, by grace, guides and angels visited. I needed them badly and they appeared with comfort,, compassion, love, and a sense of peace. They were not embodied. They were energy and waves of peace. Turmoil was around me, I had found the eye of the storm. I knew They were there and all I had to do, any time of the day or night, was let them in, acknowledge them, and thank them. They transferred their wisdom and deep knowing to me and they have been my companions ever since.

This was different from a child’s make-believe friends. I had them too and they were fun in a child’s world. But this was something much more profoundly touching. I wouldn’t be able to put words to what happened until I was 12 years old and began reading Alan Watt’s writings and other mostly Eastern approaches to the deeper questions of life and death.

And so, since I was four years old, my view of life is that we are in the Physical now, yet we are also connected to the endless power and beauty of the Universe. The messengers of this realization were my guides. Since then, I have added many more to the “team.” Beautiful Souls that have left their physical forms are still there for me—only they are not in the physical any more. This makes them stronger for me than even when they were alive, in terms of their wisdom and power.

And so it was my guides that initiated me into a life-long devotion to the underlying Wholeness of the Universe. Spirituality has been my biggest love, without which, the daily chores of bodily maintenance and taking care of business would be akin to an insect mechanically going about self-preservation. I would be busy and accomplish things but at base would be a meaninglessness and fear that would make life more pointless than beautiful.

This doesn’t mean I am a saint or don’t feel any of the negative emotions that cause suffering. It only means that my guides are clearly there for me. Inasmuch as I am willing to let them in, they impart everything I ever need to feel the profound beauty of the Soul. They came to me through grace and mercy and I am grateful for them.

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Are spiritual healing and energy work compatible with modern medicine?

What is the connection between eating mindfully and being mindful according to Thich Nhat Hanh in "The Miracle of Mindfulness"? How is it related to Buddhism (in general)?

Can a woman attain enlightenment in Buddhism?

What was it about your spiritual awakening experience that allowed you to connect so deeply with your guides/spirits?

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