Joy and healing

Once a man whose right hand was paralyzed came to our monastery. The Teacher asked him what he used to do with his right hand. After pausing for a few moments, he said, " I used my right hand to slaughter bulls and sheep for many years".
"How many did you slaughter"? asked the Teacher?
"Thousands"

I did not hear the rest of the conversation because suddenly the dinner bell rang. Later I asked the Teacher how slaughtering animals could paralyze someone's arm. He said, "Every time that man felt the pain and suffering of the animals, the life-giving energy decreased in the arms, and it eventually disappeared. Lack of joy causes paralysis.

In such a sophisticated age, people may laugh at this statement and consider this a superstition. But my Teacher healed that man's paralysis in six months by daily for four hours making him exercise joy. Once I copied one of the exercises:

"Visualize your right arm,and with it pull a drowning man from a river....Write a joyful letter with it.....Give money and jewels to the poor with it.....Serve food for hundreds of people with it....."
This man used to sit like a statue and follow the Exercises given by my Teacher for four hours daily.At the end of four months, he used that hand to give water to a mountain deer which was visiting our garden.


-Torkom Saraydarian
Joy and Healing