Facing mr. Bush

It's been maybe a year or more since my post-Vipassana realization that we should start a community based around a "synergistic communication system" (read:website) whose goal would be to improve the world political situation through direct and focused meditative healing.

ie MeditateForBush.com

Where every morning thousands of people would meditate for Mr. Bush's personal healing and strength on his journey wherever it may lead (us all). Premised on, naturally, the notion that people doing shitty things do them out of pain, out of a slightly misdirected desire for the Good, for their own healing. And that our healing is his own.

So there's that and it's on the infamous list. I received the following email a few days ago and it seems to take the idea to the next level. Fitting in perfectly with the fractal nature of the universe and the notion that all of your current incarnation is codified in each chromosome, and all of our current global turmoil is codified in each incarnation.

So I think it's a beautiful thing. I've edited what I perceived to be unnecessary ego from the following and as always I'm presenting an idea not the writing style. Veracity even I have no desire to vouch for -- the eternal truth of the ideas involved far surpass the validity of these particular incidents...

[ding]

The World's Most Unusual Therapist
~ By Dr. Joe Vitale

Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a
complete ward of criminally insane patients--without ever seeing any
of them. The psychologist would study an inmate's chart and then look
within himself to see how he created that person's illness. As he
improved himself, the patient improved. When I first heard this story,
I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone heal anyone else by
healing himself? How could even the best self-improvement master cure
the criminally insane?

It didn't make any sense. It wasn't logical, so I dismissed the story.
However, I heard it again a year later. I heard that the therapist had
used a Hawaiian healing process called ho 'oponopono. I had never
heard of it, yet I couldn't let it leave my mind. If the story was at
all true, I had to know more. I had always understood total
responsibility to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.
Beyond that, it's out of my hands. I think that most people think of
total responsibility that way. We're responsible for what we do, not
what anyone else does--but that's wrong. The Hawaiian therapist who
healed those mentally ill people would teach me an advanced new
perspective about total responsibility. His name is Dr. Ihaleakala Hew
Len. We probably spend an hour talking on our first phone call. I
asked him to tell me the complete story of his work as a therapist. He
explained that he worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That
ward where they kept the criminally insane was dangerous.
Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot
or simply quit. People would walk through that ward with their backs
against the wall, afraid of being attacked by patients. It was not a
pleasant place to live, work, or visit. Dr. Len told me that he never
saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files.
While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked
on himself, patients began to heal.

After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being
allowed to walk freely, he told me. Others who had to be heavily
medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no
chance of ever being released were being freed.

I was in awe.

Not only that, he went on, but the staff began to enjoy coming to
work. Absenteeism and turnover disappeared. We ended up with more
staff than we needed because patients were being released, and all the
staff was showing up to work. Today, that ward is closed.

This is where I had to ask the million dollar question: What were you
doing within yourself that caused those people to change?
I was simply healing the part of me that created them, he said.
I didn't understand. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility for
your life means that everything in your life- simply because it is in
your life--is your responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world
is your creation.

Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do
is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or
does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete
responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste,
touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is
in your life.

This means that terrorist activity, the president, the
economy--anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to
heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections
from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to
change them, you have to change you.

I know this is tough to grasp, let alone accept or actually live.

Blame is far easier than total responsibility, but as I spoke with Dr.
Len, I began to realize that healing for him and in ho 'oponopono
means loving yourself. If you want to improve your life, you have to
heal your life. If you want to cure anyone--even a mentally ill
criminal--you do it by healing you.

I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself. What was he doing,
exactly, when he looked at those patients' files?

I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again,
he explained.

That's it?

That's it.

Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve
yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world. Let me
give you a quick example of how this works: one day, someone sent me
an email that upset me. In the past I would have handled it by working
on my emotional hot buttons or by trying to reason with the person who
sent the nasty message. This time, I decided to try Dr. Len's method.
I kept silently saying, I'm sorry and I love you, I didn't say it to
anyone in particular. I was simply evoking the spirit of love to heal
within me what was creating the outer circumstance.
Within an hour I got an e-mail from the same person. He apologized for
his previous message. Keep in mind that I didn't take any outward
action to get that apology. I didn't even write him back. Yet, by
saying I love you, I somehow healed within me what was creating him.

It would take a whole book to explain this advanced technique with the
depth it deserves. Suffice it to say that whenever you want to improve
anything in your life, there's only one place to look: inside you.

When you look, do it with love.