The Tale of the Healer

Baba Gene spoke:

"A young woman from Bombay pressed her face against the window of her seat on the bus and stared out with eyes that had diminished from blue to grey in despair. Every town she passed through seemed the same to her now. All the houses and people became one endless tragic blur. She saw the dreams torn from the hearts of the young, discarded in the gutter and dragged away by endless streams of tears flowing down either side of the road. In almost every face she saw the death of joy, demeanours hardened by the bitterness served up to them with each disappointing day.

She shared the stress of the struggling businessman, whose efforts to make ends meet became harder by the year. She winced with the pain of the crippled and diseased, who bravely carried on despite everything. Her heart made room for every gutted soul, forsaken in love and she took on the fear of each lost child, bewildered by the size of the world they found themselves in. She felt the struggle of the oppressed, living under the yoke of injustice and the plight of every underdog kept her awake at night.

She was born to a family whose fortune had been made on the backs of thousands toiling in the fields. Her knowledge of this and the accompanying guilt meant that she felt compelled to throw her life into helping others. Whilst her parents tried to drag her into college to imporve her prospects of marriage, she instead buried herself in grass roots philanthropy.

But in her compassion for the woes of everyone else, she had little attention left for herself. She took so much on board that her own steps became heavy and burdened. Every place she passed through and every person she met all claimed a piece of her and her heart was scattered like confetti throughout the land.

Finally, a look in the mirror revealed to her that she could not continue like this - although still pretty and sweet, her looks had become withdrawn and stretched, adding years to her features. The vitality of her eyes was hidden behind a haze of dejection and all hope had drooped at the corners of her lips. So, with what little determination left in her, she struck out for the Western ghats of Karnataka where she had heard of a Healer who understood the remedy for all sicknesses.

She dismounted from the bus at her destination on the outskirts of a non-descript industrial town and saw with dismay that he lived up on a hill, overlooking the factories and squalid housing. She could not imagine why he should isolate himself in such a way from all those below who were so much in need. Already she could feel her heart leaning towards the underpaid workers in the dingy sweatshops and thr children sniffing glue in the alleyways. And it was only with a great effort that her head overruled her heart and she tore herself away, up the slopes to where she could see the Healer's bamboo shack, his dhuni smoking before it.

The Healer sat in his loin cloth before a smouldering fire and whittled at an ashen stick, the same colour as his own sun soaked skin. He looked up and saw with pity the young woman who approached him. With a vision that transcended appearances, he perceived at once that her spirit was bleeding in many places and leaked out in a trail behind her. He beckoned for her to come closer and sit down. He poured her out some cinnamon milk and waited as she came to her story in her own time.

"Why do you live up here?" She asked at once, "So far from all those who need you - Why are you not down there doing your work amongst them?"

The Healer smiled to hear these words as they reminded him of something from long ago. He answered kindly:

"Nobody can really be helped until they themselves realize their own need. Until that time they will either distrust your good intentions or abuse them, in which case you will not be helping them at all. Only when they understand that they are ill can the cure begin. Thus I wait for them to take the journey towards me before I can come to them. As you have now done."

He put a finger to his lips and then withdrew a shining needle from a pouch on his waistband. He plucked an eyelash and threaded it through the tool. He began to move around the girl, humming a gentle lullaby mantra as he made invisible stitches in the air close about her. When he was done, he sat back down and said:

"I have sewn together the holes in your spirit and that will keep you well for some time. But unless you address the cause of your malady from deep within then your condition will worsen again.

Listen now. When I was a young man, I was not so different to you. I walked into the houses of the sick where no others dared to tread and carried their sickness away on my shoulders. Parents brought their feverish children to me and I laid my hands upon their sweating foreheads to draw the delirium into my body - Many were the days I spent writhing alone in the forests, battling with the terrible hallucinations meant for others.

I absorbed the aching joints of the arthritic and the skin afflictions of the diseased. I turned no one away and worked until I dropped, day after day. By the time I was twenty-five my hair had turned white and my teeth were coming loose in their gums. It was clear that I could not go on like this. So it was that I abandoned my patients and withdrew far into Nature, fasting for many days as I waited for the answer to become clear to me.

I watched the rivers tumble down the hills, delighting to splash on the rocks yet always moving on. I saw the Earth recover from the devastation of the winter with small, hopeful flowers of Spring. And I perceived that Nature does nothing with regret, always moving on gladly to make room for the arrival of the next phase.

Even now, the sun blows its farewell kisses to us from its Western bed and allows the cool mercy of the night to fall. I realized that healing can only begin when the hardship is allowed to depart. Not through suffering can we help those in pain; for sorrow shall be healed only through joy, prescribing the dose of a light heart and a smile.

So go out now and spread your love amongst those in need: know their ailment, understand it but do not dwell with them in their darkness - Rather lead them through to where light may shine again in their lives. Keep that light aglow as a candle within your own heart and then you will be able to walk through the blackest of places, nourished from within. The suffering is not endless and by your example, others may come to know this too."

The young girl raised herself lighter than she had felt in years. PLacing her hands together she bowed and gave a respectful na ma ste to the healer. Then she set off down the hill to walk again in the midst of the sick and the needy, to give such help as they might accept.”

Chapter 22