Yoga, neutron healing and the inertia of pain

Once upon a time there was a young man, only sixty or seventy years old, and he had begun to think that he was old. Now, to think that one is old brings a lot of misery, and the old man began to think that his joints were stiff, and that was why they were stiff. And he thought that maybe he had diabetes, so he had diabetes and many other things.

But, that was fine, the guy reasoned, he had lived a good life. It was just a fact of life that he got old and miserable. This was the way it had been through the centuries, so why would it be any different for him?

So he limped through the streets of life, more and more hunched over, feeling aches and pains, and eventually began to think that maybe it was time to forget about life. He continues from the body. Die.

And, after a particularly brutal day of dealing with her grief, sensing her impending mortality (and, honestly, joy!), she went to bed. Maybe tonight she would come out of her body and float away.

The night stretched on, the idle chatter of minds lessened, and the old man was stunned to find himself standing in a throne room, and seated on the throne was Buddha!

Tears streamed down the old man’s face, and he limped toward the throne.

“Oh, Big Buddha!” the old man rejoiced, “You have come to take me away!”

Buddha raised his head, ceased his eternal meditation (a meditation, it could be described, in which he was in total and constant control of ALL beings in the universe, and all universes for all time) and opened his eyes.

A golden light flooded the old and half-crippled man, and he fell to his knees under the onslaught of pure happiness.

But Buddha said, “It is you who came to me. Besides, what use is a cripple to me?”

Shocked, the old and almost dead type of old man dropped his jaw and widened his eyes.

“Goal…goal…”

Buddha stood up and stared at the kneeling one. “I’m not a butt… I’m a Buddha, and it would be nice to remember that!”

Sheer ecstasy turned to terror, and the old man cringed and cringed.

But such action was not what Lord Buddha wanted, and he took pity on the poor creature kneeling before him. He descended from his mighty throne, lifted the man to his feet, and they were both instantly transported to Buddha’s eternal garden.

There, in paradise, with the birds singing softly and the flowers sprinkling their graceful perfume in the heavenly air, the Buddha was walking the old man.

“Old friend,” said the Buddha kindly, “you have misunderstood.”

They paused as Buddha shined his heavenly light on a baby deer. The mother deer immediately jumped onto a nearby leafy bush and nuzzled the baby deer lovingly.

“Life is not to be an inertia of pain until you give up… it is to be a healthy joy of living, of experiences and friends and discovery of the truth.”

“But, Lord Buddha, I don’t understand!”

“Then think about this simplicity: You have two tools. One is your integrity and the other is your imagination. Your integrity is intact, you lived a good life, you didn’t kick dogs or shave cats, so that’s not the problem.” . The problem is that you have come to believe in the inertia of pain, and that it cannot be solved.”

Light began to filter through the old man’s aging skull, and his eyes flickered with dawning awareness. “I think I understand, but…how can I use my imagination to…to undo the inertia of pain?”

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? I suggest you use whatever discipline you’ve used throughout your life.”

Buddha disappeared. The garden evaporated as if it had never existed (although it would be forever in the old man’s mind). Only the scent of eternal flowers remained, and that as a distant memory.

The old man lay on his bed. It was three in the morning and he knew the truth: it was always dark before dawn.

But how could I find that sunrise? How could he imagine himself back to the good health that Lord Buddha expected of one?

For several long minutes the old man lay in the dark. He felt his pain. He felt the pain from arthritis, low blood sugar, and all the foods that came with it.

His integrity was intact, he just had to use his imagination, and suddenly he understood something about imagination. It was what you made up. And if you made things up well enough, you could change things. If you imagined it… you could change your life. The trick was having enough discipline to do that.

So what was your discipline?

He had been a contractor. Houses built. Put in swimming pools. Hotels built. Fixed things. And… wait a minute! Did you fix things? So all she had to do was imagine fixing his body!

Thinking like this, excited by his epiphanies, the old man closed his eyes.

He imagined himself in her body. He imagined the body as space and the flesh as enclosing walls. He imagined the contours of his body from the inside.

Since he was lying down, it was quite easy to walk inside his body, so he walked to one shoulder.

The shoulder had been bothering him a lot, so he got on the bones and started to really look. Hey! There was some black stuff smeared around his joint! That must be arthritis! And, as soon as she realized that, she envisioned a bucket of drool in her hand and a brush in the other hand.

She smeared on the slime, knowing she would eat the black slime and sure enough, there was a bubbling and the black slime loosened.

He imagined a towel and began to dry the arthritis in his shoulder. When it was done I threw in the towel and it disappeared while still in flight.

Then he looked down the leg. Bad circulation. Her toes ache, feel swollen. She walked along one leg and reached the foot. What an odd shape, the foot, and she saw that it had a lot of curves that were good for catching…things. And, of course, things and accumulated on her toes, and the swirling energies from her body had begun to spin around, rather than through, her toes.

He pulled out an electric drill with a large, spongy, ball-shaped bit. He inserted the bit into his toes and began to drill the matter, calcification or whatever, out of the toes. He pierced quickly and efficiently, and the ball-shaped bit ignited, and soon his toes were empty, and the energies in his body began to circulate. And she knew that as the energies circulated, so did blood and good health.

Finally, when she was done with all ten toes, feeling like she was tap dancing, she stepped back and inspected her work. He was satisfied with his professional work, but why had such nasty stuff accumulated on his toes in the first place? How had the calcification, or whatever it was, come to build up in…?

Flicker. Imagining the question was getting the answer, and she saw the culprit. His pancreas from him!

It left the legs and entered the room of the meaty machine that was its internal organs.

The organs were arranged in a circle, each leading to another, with smaller connecting lines running back and forth on the floor of his back. She stepped over the lines and stood on the pancreas.

The pancreas lay there, weak and trembling, gasping and dying, and the old man knew it had given up. So he gave CPR to the pancreas. He leaned down and massaged the faithful organ, leaned over and patted it on the back, held it close.

The pancreas began to respond. Although he had no eyes, he emitted gratitude. And she began to ooze from her skin just the right balance of sugar.

Suddenly, the old man realized that it was close to dawn, almost time to wake up.

He had done a good job and he knew he would feel better the next day.

Yes, he may have to become a contractor and fix his body the next night, he may have to do it multiple times, but then…maybe not.

After all, the imagination was quite a powerful tool. With a bit of integrity, that tool could be used to chisel, erase, cut, smear, put ladders in hard-to-reach places, and do anything in the universe.

And, thinking thus, he suddenly found himself awake. He opened his eyes and sunlight flooded the window. He sat up very straight.

“Dear?” he asked his wife next to him, “Are you okay?”

The old man moved his shoulders, stretched, yawned, and said, “Actually, I feel pretty good.”

The wife was glad, because the old man had been in so much pain lately that it had been, shall we say, less than pleasant.

“That’s good,” he said, and the relief was in his voice.

The old man got out of bed and went to the bathroom and shower.

The wife sat upright at his activity. “Are you okay? Where are you going?”

The old man ignored the first question and responded to the second by saying, “I heard there was a yoga class at the Y. I have to go do some yoga. I have to bend that old pancreas and make it work.” “

“Yoga?” The old woman got out of bed and followed her husband to the bathroom. As he lathered and sang, she pondered, and when he opened the door, she asked, “What’s wrong with you? I haven’t seen you have this much energy in years!”

The old man smiled, kissed her and gave her a hug, and said, “You’re just imagining things.”