How to Heal Trauma
>What
types of practices are best for those who want to heal trauma but
have only 1 or 0 bhumis open?
The process of healing trauma
heals but not without becoming aware and accepting one's subconscious
pain. It is very demanding to remain willing to face and surrender to
one's psychological pains. These pains come from our blindspots, they
come from the dark, like the punches of a boxer that you don't even
see and before you know it you're remembering all the bad and
difficult things that happened to you. To remain engaged with this
process, you definitely need willingness to be surprised by the
punches of the hurt stored in your subconscious and at the same time
understand that it's just pain coming up. It might make you feel
really awful at moments but it won't kill you and because it won't
you can learn to work with it, and this is how the path to healing
appears.
Now, for someone who truly understands that accessing
and remembering all that stuff is a way to become free of it, it's an
immense blessing to have tools and practices that enable you to do
that but to someone who isn't really ready, it can be a living
nightmare. The purpose of all practices that we have is to return our
bodymind into its natural state but we need to understand that just
like Jung said, the path to light goes through darkness. There is no
way to the light around darkness, only the way through it which means
that light is found in the middle of darkness. Profound peace and joy
is found in the middle of fears but only for the one who understands
how the practice works and how the practices are correctly applied.
Of course, everyone gets momentarily overwhelmed when working with
traumas but the right view and application bounces you right back on
track, and this is what being protected means.
I recently
changed the system with our Path of Wisdom and Clarity, the way how
new practitioners of Rainbow Body Yoga get empowerments. Since the
last empowerment new students only get a Guru Yoga empowerment of
Guru Padmasambhava and Guru Yeshe Tsogyal and practice RBY with them
for 2 full years before given the first 12 deity empowerment. The
reason for this is in preparation, acclimatization. It's like a
protected cocoon with the gurus and taking couple of years to ponder
on the meaning of bodhicitta and bodhisattva activity. At the same
time, they'll have bhumi events because of the dynamic practices
practiced together with bodhicitta.
Now that I think of it it
is a good preparation formula for the Path of Healing and Light as
well, which is largely concerned on healing of trauma. Get used to
sitting and working with yourself. Pray for yourself and for others.
Turn to our gurus for blessings. especially the ones coming from the
hindu tradition; develop loving devotion and take those blessings in.
Take refuge in the gurus, their teachings and offer yourself at their
feet. Doing this will not only heal your traumas but light up a
sacred light in you which will change your life and give it a meaning
that you didn't have before.
People used to know the meaning
of having spiritual masters and gurus in their live but modern people
have forgotten this so we need to remind them, especially for the
fact that modern medicine and methods fail to such a large degree. I
am not telling anyone to try to fix their aching tooth or broken leg
solely with the help of spiritual masters but the fact is that just
like Dr Gabor Mate, the leading trauma therapist said, he still
hasn't fully healed of his psychological trauma at the age of 75. So,
again, secular and sutric methods have deficiencies.
Dr Gabor Mate |
People
simply need to bring spiritual energy and light back into their
lives. The minds of people of our time are marked with suspicion and
cynicism towards anything that cannot be measured or explained with
technology. People need to be shown that there is so much more to
life than they know. It is the sacred in them that needs to be lit up
so that they can heal and change the direction their lives are going.
The best way to do that is with the help of masters who are
specialists of this kind of human problems. Depending on how badly
they need help, some will shed tears of gratitude learning about
these things while some will keep looking for solutions from places
where they cannot be found. Both are fine but there is a way to full
healing and ceasing of confusion. As many people as possible should
know this.
Of course there is much more to say about the trauma healing practices of Amrita Mandala. People who are interested should study our materials and join our retreats.
Blessings,
-Baba, 9.12.2023