What lies beyond and supports both is a state of utter stillness and silence. It is unreachable by either words or mind. The only way to know it is to be it. 

There is a drive in all people to evolve. We can argue about whether it comes from God, The Universe or our nature, but whatever the source, the drive is clearly there. But at this stage in our development we are held back by our fears and anxieties. But because we have free will, the process of our evolution needed to be foolproof. People would be encouraged to challenge their spiritual limitations and choose to grow in consciousness on their own. People would be encouraged to change, but pain would be the source of motivation for most of them.  

Consciousness needs life in order to develop, so spirit came to earth and made the transformation into physical form. But because we felt incomplete spiritually, we would seek refuge in the mind for protection. It would become the dominant driving force in our lives. But because the physical body is vulnerable to disease and being harmed and because the mind is susceptible to dark influences, our experience would end up being largely one of fear.    

To compensate for the spiritual void we felt in ourselves, in place of reality, we fabricated a world of attachments such as vanity, the desire for notoriety, success, achievement, the false god of self-worth or its opposite, rebellion. This gave us at least some sense of security.   

We created a world based in experience – a quality that does not exist outside the mind. And experience is what passes for reality in our world. The unenlightened soul created a world of dualities – love, hate, greed, jealousy, inadequacy, unworthiness, neediness, etc. to numb its anxieties. Hope and anxiety are also products of the mind and as a result, we became shackled to our desires and fears.  

It is when the mind refuses to flow with life that it creates problems. The issue is acceptance. Acceptance is letting come what comes and go what goes. It is not that you live, but how you live that matters. The goal is desirelessness. This is the highest bliss.  

Pain and pleasure exist in the mind. Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an object for its affection, and all attachment implies fear, for all “things” are transient. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in intensity and duration. You want pleasure because you suffer, therefore pain is the background of all pleasure. On the other hand, the search for pleasure is the cause of pain. Fear makes one a slave. It is a vicious cycle.  

All things mental will inevitably lead to frustration. A life built upon compassion – never. After all, when you base a life in passion, it is painful. What we are left with is the desire for expression and all suffering is born of that desire. It is the false that makes you suffer – the false desires, the fears, etc. Real love is never frustrated. When we are in a state of non-duality there is bliss. Pure experience does not bind; experience caught between desire and fear is impure and creates karma. 

Love does not cling. When you cling you feel poor and powerless. So long as we delude ourselves by what we imagine ourselves to be, to know, to have, to do, we are in a sad plight, indeed. There is no chaos in the world except the chaos which the mind creates. It is self-created in the sense that at the very center is the false idea of oneself as a thing different and separate from others. 

By forgetting who you really are, you create so much trouble for yourself that you will have to eventually wake up, as from a bad dream. The ultimate purpose of this conflict is to bring you to realize the untruths upon which you have built your life and to give you the opportunity to realign yourself with the truth. Then the scales will fall from your eyes and you will see, perhaps for the first time, your true self. 

When people continue to avoid real love there will be an increasing ratcheting of challenges such that eventually they will be confronted with the ultimate challenge – to change or die. It is only in complete self-negation that there is a chance to discover your real being. And to know itself, the self must be confronted by its opposite – the non-self, the darkness, the shadow. You are love itself when you are not afraid. 

In sort of a curious twist, the pain from our fear based attachments is what will (eventually) motivate us to deepen our spiritual experience. This is the beauty of the process we are involved in. What appears to be a painful obstacle at one level at the same time opens the door to an opportunity to transcend our beliefs and move to greater spiritual insight. 

This is not a “failing” on our part, but rather the logical extension of where we are in our spiritual development. All these things came from our inability to accept our true spiritual selves. And perfectly built unto the process is the creation of conflict from our attachments, both within ourselves and with others. 

Each step you take brings you to closer to your goal because to be always on the move, learning, discovering and unfolding is your eternal destiny. To live without self-concern is life’s only purpose. However, desire is useful because it also shapes our destiny. It is desire that leads to experience. And experience, with its duality of pain and pleasure, leads to discrimination, self-knowledge and eventually liberation. And what is liberation after all? To know that who you are is beyond birth and death. 

The thing is, nothing can set you free because you are already free. Once you know that nothing can trouble you but your own imagination, you come to disregard your desires and fears, concepts and ideas and live by truth alone. It is at this point that you leave the stage and join the others in the “audience.” 

The realized person is egoless. He or she has lost the capacity to identify with anything other than the truth. And in time they will even move beyond truth. This person is without location, placeless, beyond space and time, beyond the world. He or she is also beyond words and thoughts. And everything that happens before that, contributes to this ultimate perfection.   

To live at peace is to see your world as it is, not as you imagine it to be. What is perceived in pure awareness, unaffected by desire and fear, is truth. That means action in which one is not emotionally involved (which is beneficial and does not create suffering nor bind the individual). One can be engaged with enormous zest, yet remain inwardly free and quiet.  

If you are angry or in pain – separate yourself from your feelings and observe them. Watch your mind, how it comes into being, how it operates. Discover yourself as the watcher. Externalization in this way is the first step to liberation. The solution is to live your life as it comes, but alertly, watchfully, allowing everything happen as it happens, doing the natural things the natural way, suffering, rejoicing – as life brings. All you need do is to keep quietly alert, inquiring into the real nature of yourself. This is the only way to peace.  

To be a living being is not the ultimate state; there is something beyond, much more wonderful, which is neither being or non-being, neither living or non-living. It is a state of pure awareness, beyond the limitations of space and time. Once the illusion that the body-mind is oneself is abandoned, death losses it’s terror; it becomes a part of living. The ultimate answer to the human dilemma would be the attainment of “I am,” a state that cannot be verbalized but can be experienced. What lies beyond, and supports “both” is the supreme state, a state of utter stillness and silence. It is unreachable by either words or mind. The only way to know it is to be it.* 

​*With gratitude and thanks to Nisargadatta Maharaj

​In Asia, a Buryat shaman ties a silk string to an arrow lying near the patient, extending the string out to a birch tree.  The string is the pathway for the return of the client’s soul.  While other people of the community watch, the shaman calls to the soul for return, and if need be, will go in search for it through a shamanic journey.  The Chukchee shaman enters into a shamanic journey to ask advice of the spirits in the face of a client’s illness.  The Abakan Tartar shaman may take a shamanic journey in order to seek remedies for the client’s illness.  The Tremyugan shaman enters into the trance state through drumming and guitar music, seeks the soul of the client in the underworld and returns with the soul in his right hand, which he then puts into the body of the client through the right ear.  

As Eliade (1992) so vividly illustrates in each of the above cases, the shaman is the agent of healing in many traditional approaches to shamanic healing.  The shaman is the one who takes the shamanic journey (a deep trance state which acts as a gateway, allowing access to non-ordinary reality).  The shaman is the one who goes in search of remedies or advice on behalf of the client.  The shaman is the one who seeks out and retrieves the lost soul of the client. 

Until most recently, this exclusive role of the shaman as the agent of healing has remained unchanged even in more modern westernized approaches to shamanic healing.  For example, in a popular modernized version of the shamanic healing intervention of soul retrieval (restoring lost soul energy, often lost as a result of trauma), Harner (1981) and his student Ingerman (1991) still maintain that the shaman is the rightful agent of healing.  In this version of soul retrieval, the shaman lies next to the client in a particular way, enters the trance state usually through drumming, then journeys to find the lost soul part.  The shaman then brings the soul part back and blows it into the chest and crown of the head.  At this point, the shaman will share parts of the shamanic journey experiences with the client.  In cases where the journey revealed some type of abuse, the shaman may not disclose this information to the client as it might involve some emotional risk.  Throughout the soul retrieval process, the client lays quietly while the shaman is at work.  According to Ingerman, (1991, p. 69), “The client’s work starts once he or she walks out my door and begins to integrate the soul parts back into everyday life…”  She goes on to write, “When parts of a soul split off…it is the job of the shaman to restore wholeness,” and “Only a shaman is able to navigate skillfully among the beauties and the dangers found there [in the spirit world]” (p. 27).  Even in this more modern version of soul retrieval, there is a clearly stated distinction between the roles of shaman and client.  The shaman is the agent of healing. 
 
But it does not have to be this way.  ​

​Shamanic Healing that Empowers the Client to Become the Healer
During and after his shamanic apprenticeship with an indigenous Maya teacher in Chiapas, Mexico in the 1980’s, Ross Bishop (2013) began to shape the shamanic healing interventions (with the approval and encouragement of his teacher) in such a way that the client becomes the primary agent of healing.  This innovation was practically unprecedented at the time of its inception in the 1980’s and is still rare among some modern practitioners as evidenced above.  The exception are modern practitioners who apprenticed with Bishop (myself included), who apprenticed with one of his students, or are currently enrolled at The Institute of Shamanic Healing where this method of shamanic healing is taught. 
 
In order to clearly understand the difference between this method and other shamanic healing methods, both traditional and modern, let’s look at a description of soul retrieval in Bishop’s method.  (This brief description should not be considered a comprehensive examination of the method, the steps in soul retrieval, or the interaction with forces of transformation in a session; rather, it serves only to underscore the empowerment of the client as the primary agent of healing). 
 
In Bishop’s soul retrieval method, once the client has described the current life situation, the shaman and the client begin a shared journey experience.  Certainly, the shaman facilitates discernment within the shamanic journey and guides the client towards right action, but the client is the one who actively takes the steps needed for healing.  Thus, the soul retrieval session begins with the shaman guiding the client into a shamanic trance state and leading the client into a shamanic journey, entering in such a way that honors the traditional teachings of the method.  As this shared journey progresses, the client finds the soul part with the shaman’s assistance and begins to build a relationship with this inner part.  Oftentimes, this encounter between the client and the inner part is emotionally stirring as the client clearly sees the effect of the wounding and feels the feelings that are so present with this inner part.  Compassion and love flow towards the soul part from the client.  With continuing guidance from the shaman, the soul part takes the client and practitioner back to the causal event or events that contributed to the wounding and the individualized work of healing begins.  When this part of the healing is complete, the soul part returns, already with the client.  Oftentimes at this point, the client and the inner part will consider the current life situation from the new perspective that was gained as a result of the healing.  In this way, the new perspective is reinforced within the present life circumstances, easing the emotions tied to those circumstances.  The shaman then guides the client out of the journey. 
 
Notice that in this method, the client locates the soul part; the client sees and begins the relationship; the client is sending love and compassion to the lost part; the client goes back to the causal events and completes the healing work; the client returns with the lost soul part, all while the shaman is facilitating and supporting the process.  As a caveat, this description of Bishop’s innovation is admittedly simplistic.  The spirit realm is fantastically complex and healing journeys can take unexpected twists and turns that are unaccounted here, yet the description underscores how the client is empowered to become the primary agent of his or her own healing.  The effect on the client as the agent of healing and as an active participant is immediate and oftentimes remarkable to the client.  Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of conducting shamanic healing in this way.  

Benefits for the Client as the Primary Agent of Healing
Bishop’s method of facilitating shamanic healing as described above has many benefits for the client.  Perhaps the most evident among them is empowerment.  Not only is the client aware of all the events in the healing process, the client is the one to take active steps towards his or her own healing.  The client experiences the steps directly, becoming aware of how the healing process works.  The client feels the emotions of the inner soul part and feels the impact of beginning a relationship.  Oftentimes the client will feel the shift of energy that comes with the healing transformation as the causal event for the wound is revealed and then healed.  In each step, the client experiences the intimacy of the shamanic journey, even as he/she is empowered to take the steps towards healing.  The empowerment itself contributes to the client’s healing.   
 
In fact, clients who are emotionally or physically distressed often feel a sense of powerlessness and look to their therapist or healer to help in becoming empowered (Harrison, 2013; Krycka, 2000).  Of six core principles (Harrison, 2013) for counseling psychology, two of them are about power, thus suggesting that the healer orient the healing towards empowering the client.  In counseling psychology, empowering the client is often an assumed, rather than a stated goal (Brown, 2004; Greeneberg, 2002; Larsen & Stege, 2010; Orange, & Brodwin, 2005), yet clearly, empowerment is an integral part of the process.  Bishop’s innovation to empower the client in shamanic healing stands in good company with more westernized versions of emotional healing.    
 
Furthermore, this empowerment is not limited to the session itself; rather, the client continues to be empowered long after the session is over in other ways.  As a result of being the primary agent of healing, the client learns how to do shamanic journeying and can continue to maintain a healthy relationship with this inner soul part, reinforce any new perspectives gleaned from the healing transformation, and practice new behaviors with the soul part.  Knowing how to do shamanic journeying, the client can journey to directly interact with the inner part after the session and into the future, solidifying this new relationship.  While this interaction is occurring, the new perspectives can be reinforced.  With these new perspectives more solidified, new behaviors can be practiced with a close monitoring of the effects on the soul part, adjusting the pace and rhythm of integration according to need.  In this way, the empowerment of the client extends beyond the session. 
 
In addition to the empowerment of the client, the pace of the healing is directly determined by the client and the inner part as it happens in the moment.  If there is some sort of violent abuse (sexual or otherwise) that either the client or the inner part is not ready to confront, then the event may not be reviewed in that session.  In such a case, another event or series of events which contributed to the wounding less directly may be revealed and healed, allowing a more gradual overall healing to occur.  Alternately, the client (with the shaman’s guidance) may work with the inner part’s fear around confronting the causal situation, eventually allowing the situation to be revealed.  The particulars of working with such fear in a session are varied according to the client, but the point here is that the pace of healing centers on the needs of the client and the inner part.  This flexibility comes from the alteration in the healing method.
 
That the client is the primary agent of healing allows the client to practice equanimity – the ability to maintain strength, poise, centeredness, and presence in the face of external challenges.  In order to clarify this point, it is necessary to consider what happens before a session.  Clients seek healing because they are in emotional pain.  The events of life have activated an emotional wound and caused pain to erupt in the person.  Emotions are swirling.  Thoughts are reverberating.  Moods can be intense and even debilitating.  The client is being blown around in the whirlwind of the activated wound.  Any equanimity or emotional composure is gone. 
 
During the shamanic healing journey in which the client is an active participant however, the client is continually practicing equanimity.  During the shamanic journey, as the primary agent of healing, the client holds the “healer’s position” and as such, must maintain a strength and composure so that he/she may be effective in healing the soul part.  With the shaman facilitating, the client is encouraged to feel what the inner one feels without becoming overwhelmed with the feelings or overidentifying with the inner part.  It is as if the client is walking on the edge of a fence, neither becoming overwhelmed by or distancing from the inner one, which maintains the “healer’s position” of equanimity and occurs throughout the journey.  It is an inner practice that occurs naturally as a result of this version of shamanic healing, but nevertheless serves the client well within and outside of the journey. 
 
Considering the benefits of Bishop’s method, the potency of empowering the client to become the primary agent of healing is illuminated.  The client experiences the healing directly, actively participates in the steps of the healing, and in so doing learns how the healing process works.  The client learns the basics of shamanic journeying and can maintain a healthy relationship with the inner soul part, reinforce any new perspectives gleaned from the healing transformation, and practice new behaviors.  As the primary agent of healing, the client along with the soul part determines the pace of healing and gains an ongoing practice of equanimity.  Bishop’s method provides an innovative and potent way to do shamanic healing.

​Shamanic Healing that Empowers You to Become the Healer
Bringing all this information down to a more personal level…If you were to seek shamanic healing from a shaman who is trained in Bishop’s method, you would be actively involved in your healing session.  In a soul retrieval session, for example, you would enter into a peaceful and relaxed state of being, guided inward in a shamanic journey that would lead you to a beautiful and peaceful sacred place, a sanctuary of your heart.  There you would meet and begin a relationship with a part of you that has been lost.  Imagine meeting a part of yourself who has been hurting for a long time.  Even the sight of this part fills you with compassion and maybe tears, for the wounds of this inner one are reflected in the appearance of this soul part and your heart melts.  Imagine opening your heart to this soul part, then seeing and feeling the healing effect of your love, a beautiful and perhaps even jolting impact.  Imagine holding this inner one in love while you both confront what has happened in the past that caused this wounding, then helping this inner one heal from whatever held sway in the past.  Imagine feeling the relief and sense of peace from this healing, the empowerment from this inner one’s release of the past and any influence it has had on your present.  Imagine bringing the inner part back with you to take a rightful place with you in the present and how that might impact your life.  Imagine being empowered to do your own healing and how it would feel to know how to continue to maintain both the relationship with your inner part and the healing that you have accomplished.  In this method of shamanic healing, you are the one who is at the forefront of your own healing with the shaman providing all the support that you need.  Rightfully so.  

Bishop, R. (2013).  Healing the shadow. Santa Fe, NM: Blue Lotus Press.

Brown, L. S. (2004). Feminist paradigms of trauma treatment. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41(4), 464-471.  doi:10.1037/0033-3204.41.4.464
 
Eliade, M. (1992).  Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 
 
Greenberg, L. S. (2002). Termination of experiential therapy. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 12(3), 358-363.  doi:10.1037/1053-0479.12.3.358
 
Harner, M. (1980). The way of the shaman. New York, NY: Harper. 

Harrison, K. (2013). Counseling psychology and power: Considering therapy and beyond. Counselling Psychology Review, 28(2), 107-117. Retrieved from http://www. http://shop.bps.org.uk/counselling-psychology-review-vol-28-no-2-june-2013
 
Ingerman, S. (1991).  Soul retrieval: Mending the fragmented self.  New York, NY: HarperCollins. 

Krycka, K. C. (2000). Shamanic practices and the treatment of life-threatening medical conditions. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 32(1), 69-87.  doi:10.1.1.466.2002
 
Larsen, D. J., & Stege, R. (2010). Hope-focused practices during early psychotherapy sessions: Part I: Implicit approaches. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 20(3), 271-292.  doi: 10.1037/a0020820
 
Orange, L. M., & Brodwin, M. G. (2005). Childhood sexual abuse: What rehabilitation counselors need to know. Journal of Rehabilitation, 71(4), 5-11. Retrieved from ProQuest.  (236296299)
 
 

There is a fire in the soul of every healer that will not be denied.  This is the fire that touches the healer’s awareness and ignites the desire, even with a sense of urgency, to be of service in the healing of others.  As we look out on the sea of humanity, (or more personally, as we look into the eyes of another), we recognize the suffering, we feel deep empathy and compassion, and we naturally seek to be a partner in eliminating that suffering.  The looking, the recognizing, the feeling, and the seeking to eliminate suffering all originate with the fire in the soul of a healer. 
          What is this fire within you?  Does part of you rise up in recognition of the above description?  “Ah yes,” you think, as you read, “I know that fire.  I know the inner pull towards doing this work…In fact, I am called to do this work.”  Or perhaps, you feel the edges of the fire, but don’t have a strong sense of it, can’t really feel it fully.  Or perhaps you remember the fire from long ago, but now the feeling is vague within you, muted by too many years of difficult healing work.  Yet simply contemplating the fire probably tugs at something within you.  You know that if you were able to remember it, feel it, get in touch with it more fully, it would renew your passion for your healing work.  You’re right.  It would. 
          Here, we are going to take a look at what underlies the desire to do healing work, but we will not start with the fire, for the fire lies at the center of it all, at the soul level.  It is pure, untainted by other aspects of the being.  We’ll look deeply into the nature of that fire, but first we need to give a nod to the less pure motivations of healers.  

​​The Dark Side of the Healer
          If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, many of us healers tend to be what Dr. Stephen Karpman called rescuers (Weinhold & Weinhold, 2017).  Slipping on the Superman or Wonder Woman costume, our superhuman sensitivities tell us when suffering is happening and we leap, dive, fly forward to save the person, situation, organization and so on.  We are Harmony Heroes!  We make everyone happier, restoring harmony everywhere we go; never mind that we’re taking responsibility inappropriately much of the time and disempowering the one that we’re saving.  We might even be entering into a co-dependent relationship when we do this, contaminating the healing relationship with a dynamic that is harmful, but we do it anyway.  Why do we feel the need (for it is a need) to do rescuing? 
          For me, I do it because I don’t like conflict.  Disharmony in emotions feels like the discordant twang of a wrong musical note in a melody (which is my equivalent of scratching a chalkboard with your nails or biting on foil).  Shivers everywhere.  This will not do.  Harmony must be restored!  So off to work I go tuning the world to harmony.  Notice that this need to restore harmony doesn’t come from a particularly altruistic place.  I restore harmony because I can’t put up with disharmony.  It has nothing to do with the other person, (which makes sense; after all, we are talking about the dark side, aren’t we?).  Maybe you share this dislike of conflict or maybe your version of it is slightly different.
          ​Another reason for rescuing is that the healer experiences inner stress as a result of suffering.  “I need to fix you because your suffering bothers me.”  This reason is right next to having a dislike for conflict.  The motivation to heal comes from discomfort in the healer, rather than from an altruistic motivation.  Sometimes the need to end the suffering is so extreme that we don’t even mind whether healing happens or not, as long as we don’t have to witness the suffering.  The thinking goes something like, “I can’t stand to see you cry!  So, I’ll tell a joke, distract you, make you laugh.  There you go.  All better!”  Better for the healer at least. 
        In considering the tendency for healers to be Harmony Heroes, we have given a nod at the dark side and rightfully so.  (After all, we’re as willing as our clients to take an honest look inside, right?)  Being gentle with ourselves, we can acknowledge that these dark elements are temporary wounded spots in our selves.  Once we heal these wounded places, I would bet money that the motivation, the driving passion to help others heal would still be strong within us.  With that nod at the darkness then, let’s turn now to exploring the pure fire within us that ignites a truer passion, down deep in the soul.  

Love for the People
          Beneath all those wounded places that display the taint of darkness lies a pure and bright motivation, a fire that radiates from the soul.  We have to look deep, deeper even than the layers of psychological mess that is ordinarily the purview of therapy. Look deeply.  Focus on that fire in your healer’s soul.  Feel into it.  What is the primary feeling that radiates from it? 
          Love.  Love is the fire.  “Whoa,” you say, “wait a minute.  We’re talking about therapy and healing here.  We can’t love clients…” (cough, cough, sputter, sputter) “there are boundaries that should be maintained, potential ethical issues!”  Right you are.  This is probably why Carl Rogers (1951) decided to call it unconditional positive regard, a much safer and acceptable label, but it is love nonetheless.  And love is a perfectly acceptable word to the soul.  After the initial balking, we can open to the idea that the purest love, the love of the soul, fuels the fire that burns within us. 
          The word love has been battered and bruised in our society.  Love can be used to mean “I’m so drunk with lust and passion for this new person that I can’t see straight,” or “I promise to treat you kindly and never leave you if you’ll do the same for me,” or “I am not strong enough to hold myself up in this life, but your love for me is strong enough.”  Whether it’s the murkiness of the rose-colored drug-like state of falling-in-love, the love contracts that are often only tacitly arranged, or the simple need of love, in all of these states of being, for all of these meanings, we would still say, “I love you.” 
          Here, however, I’m talking about the purest love.  This love has a sense of stillness and expansiveness.  It is whole and open, completely fearless (for it is powerful).  It is silently accepting, no matter where its attention is directed, for it sees.  Boldly looking into the eyes of another, it sees the layers of wounds and the darkness that attempts to protect those wounds.  It sees the vulnerabilities, the fragility that holds tight to old perceptions for survival.  It sees too, the brightness in the soul of the other, the authentic self, the potential for blooming into a shiny light which is so needed in the world.  All of this, love sees and love is simply present in this seeing without need or demand.  It is within this container of love that healing begins. 
          Love is the fire and when we refer to love for the client, we’re really talking more broadly about love for the people, all of our people.  It is this love for the people—the desire to eliminate suffering, to spur them forward in their soul’s progress, to see them positively thrive in their lives—that emblazons us.

Love for the Creator
          This fire in the soul, this purest of love has another side to it.  I believe that for many, most, maybe even all healers, this fire nurtures a desire to serve, not only out of love for the people, but also out of love for the Creator.  
          There is a great work happening on this earth.  Humanity is moving forward in a spiritual evolutionary process.  Although this topic is far beyond this scope of this article, I will say that gradually, so slowly, we are evolving towards living from soul and eventually towards a full descent of divine consciousness to all of humanity on the earth.   (If you’re interested in learning more, please read The Emergence of the Psychic compiled by A.S. Dalal or The Integral Yoga by Sri Aurobindo).   This is the Creator’s great work.  The love and devotion that resides in a healer’s soul embraces the Creator and then blazes up in a desire to serve.  Put simply, love for the Creator fuels a desire to serve in whatever capacity we may.  As healers, we serve by assisting others in their evolutionary path and in this way, we serve the Creator in this great work. 
          Most days, in order to remind myself of these primary motivations to serve as a healer—love for the people and love for the Creator—I offer a prayer that is a modified version of the prayer by St. Francis.  I modified it for my own use, but share it here because it embodies the fire in the soul of a healer. 
 
Beloved Creator and Earth Mother,
Make me an Instrument of Your Peace, Light, Love, Power, Grace, and Bliss;
Where there is Hatred, let me sow Love;
Where there is Injury, let me sow Pardon, Understanding, and Peace;
Where there is Doubt, let me sow Faith and Trust;
Where there is Despair, let me sow Hope and Light;
Where there is Wounding, let me sow Healing;
Where there is Fear, let me sow Love;
Where there is Ignorance, let me sow Light and Knowledge;
Where there is Sadness, let me sow Joy and Comfort;
Where there is Darkness, let me sow Light;
Where there is Disrespect, let me sow Inner Sight and Light of Connection;
Where there is Isolation, let me sow Awareness of Your Constant Presence
 
O Heavenly Father and Earthly Mother,
Grant that I may not so much seek to be Consoled as to Console;
To be Understood as to Understand;
To be Heard as to Listen;
To be Loved as to Love
 
For I have Vowed to Serve, to be an Instrument of Your Perfect Will.
Thus fill me utterly with Your Peace, Light, Love, Power, Grace, and Bliss
Obliterating completely the Small “I,” so that I might Merge in Union with You
To Serve the People and the Earth Mother well,
Creating nothing less than Heaven on Earth. 
 
Fire indeed.  And with this fire, we are ready to serve...

​​References and Recommended Readings
 
Dalal, A.S. (2002). Emergence of the psychic: Governance of life by the soul.  Pondicherry, India: Sri Aurobindo Ashram.  
 
Rogers, C. (1951).  Client-centered therapy.  New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
 
Sri Aurobindo (1993).  The integral yoga: Sri Aurobindo's teaching and method of practice. Twin Lakes, WI: Lotus Press.
 
Weinhold, B. & Weinhold, J. (2017).  How to break free of the drama triangle and victim consciousness.  Colorado Springs, CO: CICRCL Press.