In Ridgewood, NJ there is a man who does healing. He moves his hands around, touching your body briefly, gently, speaking numbers and levels, asking the body various questions and muscle-testing to get answers. "Think of the color black," he says, and as you do, he presses down on your arm. Your arm stays strong. "Good," he says. "Now, think of the color red," and again he presses down on your arm. Again your arm stays strong. "And now green, think of the color green," and when he presses down on your arm your failure to hold against his push is so absolute, your arm plummeting to your side, that it causes you to gasp in surprise. "Um-hm," he says, and nods knowingly.
He talks about three different bodies that we have (the physical, material body; the psychical body, the body of your emotions; and the noetical body, the body of your thoughts). For a big man, he's very gentle. His hands are gentle. He talks about the ways in which we can come out of balance, and the ease with which we can be restored to balance. His hands are hot. He smiles with his eyes. He talks about the elements our body is made up of. "This won't hurt. It's going to move like butter... See?" He talks about the fact that there is only one thing and that each individual soul is a part of this one thing and that the only reason we individual souls are embodied here is in order to self-realize. To remember the truth of our being. To know the true Self.
As we go through life, subject to its ebbs and flows, attracting people for a while, being attracted to others, following the natural magnetism of charm that guides us without fail in the direction of progressive change, of evolution, we meet others on the path who are looking toward the oneness from their own place in things, through paradigms that may seem foreign to us, esoteric in the extreme; yet if we look and listen from a place of non-judgment, we always can see, hear, discern a truth behind what they're saying that is familiar, a truth with which we can relate. Truth is that which never changes. The body changes moment by moment. The mind, our thoughts and feelings, always are changing. But behind all these there is the truth that is our Self. Our connection to the oneness. It doesn't really matter what lens we're looking through as we seek it. We just find the one that is clearest for us today. And today in New Jersey the lens was an adventure for me and a window into a parallel universe with a language I almost was able to understand, but not quite. And though the problem I've been having with my ear is not yet fully healed, as I think of it tonight, I am not disappointed. Rather, I find myself smiling. How cool is that?
Today I will listen and look until I can see the truth in the people I meet.  Buddha in Window, Modern Tibet, Sullivan St., Soho NY
All material copyright Jeff Kober |
