QUESTION: I read on the back cover of your book (Profound
Healing) that you had experienced “a modern-day miracle.” Can you please
explain to me what a miracle is and how I might experience one? Not that I can
say I even believe miracles are real. For much of my life I've been battling
poor health and low expectations.
CHERYL: Albert Einstein said, “There are only two ways to
live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though
everything is a miracle.” Miracles, from that perspective, are really about
perception. They are not consciously directed happenings, but rather a changing
or opening of perception that allows for the reality of an invisible and
unlimited force.
The miracle of healing that I experienced (recovery from advanced cancer after
a prognosis of just six months to live) was from my perspective, the result of
an inner healing that usually, although not always, results in physical healing. It does, however,
always lead to a sense of peace and acceptance of whatever the outcome might
be. It is a very freeing perspective. What I learned or transformed from belief
to knowing, is that laws that govern the physical world are limited.
Consciousness that transcends the physical world is unlimited. Miracles can
reverse physical law.
Dr. Wayne Dyer has talked about meeting a man in Hawaii who was known as a
healer. He asked, “How do you get to be a Kahuna?” and the man said, “Kahunas
are raised to have no doubt, to have a knowing. And when a knowing confronts a
belief in a disease process the knowing will always triumph.”
Dr. Dyer illustrated that principle with a story about his young daughter
who'd had a condition called flat warts since she was two and a half years old.
These flat warts were on her face and by the age of seven they were getting
worse, even though different doctors had said she would outgrow them and they
would go away in a few months. While visiting a friend who was a dermatologist
Dr. Dyer asked the man to look at his daughter. The dermatologist examined the
little girl under big lights and said, “You've got flat warts.” The little girl
hated that term and told him so. She preferred to call them her bumps. “Well,”
he said, "the good news is that when you get married you won't have
them." But he didn't know when they would go away. He said he couldn't
burn them off because it could burn her face. He also said that there was no
medicine he could give her. But he told her that she had the ability within
herself to be rid of them. "If you can call upon that healing capacity within
you and begin to talk to these bumps in a way in which you ask them to leave,
you have a much greater chance of getting rid of them faster than anything I
could give you."
That night Dr. Dyer went into the little girl's room and she was under the covers
with a flashlight. He went over and lifted up the blanket and asked her if
everything was all right. "Shhh! I'm talking to my bumps," she told
him. The next night and the third night the same thing happened. The
conversation with the dermatologist had taken place on a Monday and by the
following Friday every one of the little girl's bumps had disappeared and never
came back.
A clinical psychologist named Wes Hiler said, “Spiritual healings are called
‘supernatural’ because they are rare and we have not yet learned all the laws
involved in their operation. Nor have we been able to replicate them at will.
They seem to be different from events of everyday life. But life, itself, is a
miracle; the existence of living organisms could not be anticipated on the
basis of the laws of physics and chemistry. We are so accustomed to such
organisms, however, that we forget the enormous complexity and ingenuity to be
found in all living creatures. Therefore we do not recognize the miraculous
nature of life.”
What is a miracle anyway? It might be an extraordinary or awe inspiring
event that elicits an incredulous response. “What was the chance of that
happening?” To those who respond to such events as random happenings, the
little miracles of every day are more likely to go unnoticed. To those who
respond to the synchronicity of an event with a belief in divine guidance or in
the unexplained forces of nature and the universe, the experience of miracles
become more abundant. If you don't believe it, experiment with a change of
attitude and perception—and see what happens. If your expectations are low you
can be pretty sure that you will meet them. Poor health and low expectations
are spokes in the same wheel. Set your expectations high and you might be
surprised by a positive change in your health. Here is another story to inspire
you:
Luther Burbank was a pioneer who discarded the limitations of popular belief
in the field of horticulture and created miracles. He devoured Charles Darwin’s
two-volume treatise in 1868 entitled “The Variation of Animals and Plants Under
Domestication,” which espoused the idea that organisms vary when they are
removed from their natural conditions. Convinced that plants, as well as
people, behave differently when in a different environment, he began to order
varieties of plants from countries like Japan and New Zealand to cross with
homegrown plants. The results were thousands of varieties over his lifetime,
like the Climax Plum that tastes like pineapple and the Royal Walnut that
outgrew regular walnuts eight to one, and which Burbank hoped would
revolutionize the furniture business.
When he later happened upon a seed ball in his potato field he applied
Darwin's theory. Since potatoes almost never set seed they are propagated from
the buds or “eyes” of the potato. He knew that when potato seeds were found
they would grow a batch of hybrids and that got him excited. What if one of the
hybrids developed into a miracle potato? He experimented with the 23 seeds in
the ball and one of them gave him a variety that doubled the average yield—and
was white and creamy, unlike the common red skinned variety. This excellent
baker was purchased by a seed man and went on to dominate the US potato market.
Not miracles you say? When Burbank wanted a plant to develop in some
particular and new way uncommon to their species he would get on his knees and
talk to them. He believed that plants have more than twenty sensory perceptions
that we are unable to recognize because they are different than our own. He didn't
know if they could understand his words, but he felt that they could comprehend
his meaning.
Burbank went on to develop a spineless cactus. “While I was conducting my
experiments with cacti,” he said, “I often talked to the plants to create a
vibration of love. You have nothing to fear,” I would tell them. “You don't
need your defensive thorns. I will protect you.” According to Manly P. Hall,
“Burbank explained to me that in all his experimentation he took plants into
his confidence, asked them to help, and assured them that he held their small
lives in deepest regard and affection.”
In 1906, the earthquake that devastated San Francisco also laid waste to
Santa Rosa, where Burbank lived. While everything around it lay shattered and
broken, not a pane of glass in Burbank's huge greenhouse was even cracked.
Quietly, Burbank surmised that his communion with the forces of nature and the
cosmos might well have protected his greenhouse. He believed in and accepted
the miraculous in his everyday life.
To a crowd gathered expecting to hear him give explicit details on how he
produced all of his horticultural wonders he said, “Preconceived notions,
dogmas and all personal prejudice and bias must be laid aside. Listen
patiently, quietly and reverently to the lessons, one by one, which Mother
Nature has to teach, shedding light on that which was before a mystery, so that
all who will, may see and know. She conveys her truths only to those who are
passive and receptive. Accepting these truths as suggested, wherever they may
lead, then we have the whole universe in harmony with us.”
