Yoga, neutron healing and the inertia of pain

Once upon a time there was a young man, only sixty or seventy, and he had begun to think that he was old. Now thinking that one is old brings a lot of misery, and the old man began to think that his joints were stiff and therefore stiff. And he thought 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 became old and miserable. It has been that way through the centuries, so why would it be any different for him?

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

And, after a particularly brutal day of dealing with her grief, feeling her impending mortality (and, honestly, she was glad about it!), She went to bed. Perhaps tonight it would come out of his body and float away.

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

Tears streamed down the old man’s face and he limped over to the throne.

“Oh, Great Buddha!” the old man rejoiced, “You’ve come to take me away!”

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

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

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

Shocked, the elderly and nearly dead guy dropped his jaw and opened his eyes.

“Goal … goal …”

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

Pure happiness 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, and both were instantly transported to the eternal garden of the Buddha.

There, in paradise, the songbirds chirped softly and the flowers sprayed their elegant perfume in the heavenly air, Buddha walked the old man.

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

They paused as the Buddha shone his heavenly light on a baby deer. The mother doe immediately jumped onto a nearby leafy bush and fondly petted the baby deer.

“Life should not be an inertia of pain until you give up … it is a healthy joy of living, of experiences and friends and the 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 did not kick dogs or shave cats, so that is not the problem. The problem is that you have come to believe in the inertia of pain and that it cannot be resolved. “

Light began to filter through the old man’s skull, and his eyes flickered with awakening consciousness. “I think I get it, but … how can I use my imagination 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 (though 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 darkest before dawn.

But how could I find that sunrise? How could you imagine yourself regaining the good health that Lord Buddha expected of you?

For several long minutes the old man stood in the dark. He felt their pains. He felt the pain of arthritis, hypoglycemia, and all the ailments that accompanied it.

His integrity was intact, he just had to use his imagination and he suddenly 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 to have enough discipline to do that.

So what was your discipline?

He had been a contractor. Built houses. Put in pools. Hotels built. Things fixed. And … wait a minute! Did you fix things? So all he had to do was imagine himself fixing his body!

Then, thinking, 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 enveloping walls. He imagined the contours of her body from the inside.

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

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

He smeared the goo, knowing he would eat the black slime and sure enough there was a bubbling and the black slime came loose.

He pictured a towel and began to wipe the arthritis off his shoulder. When he finished, I threw in the towel and he disappeared while still in flight.

Then he looked down the leg. Poor traffic. The toes hurt, they feel swollen. He walked along one leg and reached for the foot. Such a strange shape, the foot, and he saw that it had a lot of curves that were good for catching … things. And sure enough, things came together on his toes, and the swirling energies in his body had begun to spin, rather than through his toes.

He pulled out an electric drill with a large, fluffy, ball-shaped drill bit. He inserted the bit into the toes and began to pierce the substance, the calcification or whatever, from the toes. He drilled quickly and efficiently, and the ball-shaped bit ignited, and soon his fingers were empty and the energies in his body began to circulate. And he knew that as energies circulated, so did blood and good health.

Finally, on all ten toes, feeling like tap dancing, she stepped back and inspected her work. He was satisfied with his professional work, but why had such unpleasant material accumulated on his toes in the first place? How had the calcification accumulated, or whatever it was?

Flicker. Imagining the question was getting the answer, and he saw the culprit. Your pancreas!

He stepped out of his legs and into the room of the fleshy machine that were his internal organs.

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

The pancreas lay there, weak and trembling, panting and dying, and the old man knew he had been negligent. So he gave the pancreas CPR. He leaned over and massaged the trusty organ, bent over and patted his back, hugged him.

The pancreas began to respond. Although he had no eyes, he was emitting gratitude. And the right balance of sugar began to exude from his skin.

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, you might have to become a contractor and fix your body the next night, you might have to do it multiple times, but then … you might not.

After all, imagination was quite a powerful tool. With a little integrity, that tool could be used to chisel, dry, cut, smear, climb stairs to hard-to-reach places, and do anything in the universe.

And, thinking so, he suddenly found himself awake. He opened his eyes and sunlight flooded the window. He sat bolt upright.

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

The old man rolled 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 recently that it had been, shall we say, less than pleasant.

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

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

The wife sat upright in her 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 into the bathroom. As he gasped and sang, she reflected, and when she opened the door she asked, “What’s wrong with you? I haven’t seen you so energetic in years!”

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