At the Healing Fount
“A flowing spring that people called the Healing Fount was near Persepolis. And all the people thought that at a certain time of the year their deity came down and gave a virtue to the waters of the fount, and that the sick who then would plunge into the fount and wash would be made whole. About the fount a multitude of people were in waiting for the Holy One to come and potentize the waters of the fount. The blind, the lame, the deaf, the dumb, and those obsessed were there”(Aquarian Gospel 41:1-4).
We will be given more on this subject of healing waters in chapter ninety-one. But now Jesus challenges those present.
A challenge
“And Jesus, standing in the midst of them, exclaimed, Behold the spring of life! These waters that will fail are honored as the special blessing of your God. From whence do healing virtues come? Why is your God so partial with his gifts? Why does he bless this spring today, and then tomorrow take his blessings all away? A deity of power could fill these waters full of healing virtue every day”(Aquarian Gospel 41:5-7).
This is completely straightforward and needs no explanation, but I would like to point out a principle that is valuable to spiritual seekers. Jesus asks how it is that one day the waters would have healing power and the next day lack them. Anyone who perseveres in spiritual life will experience this phenomenon: what inspires and empowers us at a phase of our development will in time cease to inspire and empower–often the opposite. Does that mean we were deluded, that there was never any real value there? No; it means that we have grown beyond the point where those things could help us and we need to move on to higher and better things–and be ready to move beyond those as well until the Goal is reached where there is no “beyond.”
For example, books that were awakening and enlightening to us at one point in our life can later on be seen as minimal and even erroneous. But when we first read them they presented ideas new to us, ideas that brought about very real and beneficial changes in our way of thinking and living. Teachers that seemed veritable divine masters can in time be seen as possessing only partial and sometimes defective knowledge. Even meditation techniques that at one time seemed to open the skies of Infinity to us can in time be seen as of minimal worth–and perhaps possessing detrimental side effects. It can be the same with spiritual groups and practices. In my spiritual journey, many times places that seemed holy and healing to me later were sterile and empty. The change was not in them but in me, yet until I realized this it was a source of confusion and doubt. We cannot move on without letting go of where we are at the moment.
Unhappily, not many people keep on growing in understanding and evolution, so most people just stop at a point and never move beyond it. This is mistakenly considered stability and maturity when it is really stagnation. However, those that keep changing and moving from point to point are looked upon as unstable–spiritual butterflies that never put down roots and get serious. The old simile of digging wells in many places and so never getting water is trotted out over and over, but what if it really means that they have enough intuition to know when a hole will not strike water and have the wisdom to move on to another spot? Those who keep learning and growing will keep changing–it cannot be otherwise. Just a few months before leaving his body Yogananda discovered a vastly superior way to practice a major meditation technique and taught it at his last yoga initiation. “Changing the tradition” can be a sign of superior understanding rather than a transgression. As Yogananda said: “Don’t became a spiritual antique.”
I write all this to encourage you in remaining fluid and ready to learn and change–even drastically. There is nothing in relative existence that cannot be grown beyond. Some people need to get beyond their present, limited theism, so a period of atheism is beneficial. When someone told Sri Ramakrishna they were atheists, he would comment that atheism, too, is a stage on the path to realization. Swami Vivekananda was immensely helped by his honest and intense doubts and denials as a young man, because they led to understanding and assurance, making him a worthy teacher of others.
The source of healing
“Hear me, you sick, disconsolate: The virtue of this fount is not a special gift of God. Faith is the healing power of every drop of all the waters of this spring. He who believes with all his heart that he will be made whole by washing in this fount will be made whole when he has washed; and he may wash at any time. Let every one who has this faith in God and in himself plunge in these waters now and wash” (Aquarian Gospel 41:8-11).
Faith is the healing power of every drop of all the waters of this spring. Similar statements in the four gospels are often misunderstood as meaning that it is only our faith that is the power behind miracles–including healing. For example, Jesus said: “Thy faith hath saved thee” (Luke 7:50; 18:42), and there is no doubt that faith is a power that does bring about changes. But there is more to it than that. Faith is often the force that opens the channels for the reception of healing and blessing. That this is so is revealed in the gospels of Matthew and Mark where unbelief prevented healing: “And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matthew 13:58). “And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5, 6).
Even if we are immersed in water, if we do not open our mouth no water will come in. Similarly, if a bucket is held upside down under a waterfall it will stay dry inside. But if it is turned upward a bit, some water will enter, and if it is turned fully upright it will be completely filled. So it is with faith. Faith enables us to receive outside forces and unbelief blocks them. Those who believe negative things can attract negativity into their lives, and the same is true of positive beliefs having the power to attract positive things.
He who believes with all his heart that he will be made whole by washing in this fount will be made whole when he has washed. Being made in the image of the Creator, we too can create within our limited life sphere. Actually, we all are creating our life from moment to moment. Even karma is in our mind–not outside us. “The Lord does not create either the means of action or the actions of people, or the union with the fruit of action. Swabhava [self-nature], on the other hand, proceeds [in all this]” (Bhagavad Gita 5:14).
“Let every one who has this faith in God and in himself plunge in these waters now and wash.” So Jesus did not exhort the people to only look inside and not bother with the healing waters–just the opposite. Whatever will stimulate or release the inner power of good and benefit should be put to use. Margaret Laird, one of the greatest metaphysical thinkers of the twentieth century, was at one time on the board of the Christian Science Church, but she resigned because of philosophical differences, one of the major ones being that anything which triggered faith and healing should be used–including medicine. If people were able to cure themselves by mental means alone, she advocated that, but if it took a pill to make a person believe in their recovery, then she recommended that. As the great healer Ben Bibb often said to us: “You can’t argue with results.”
Metaphysical greed
“And many of the people plunged into the crystal fount; and they were healed. And then there was a rush, for all the people were inspired with faith, and each one strove to be among the first to wash, lest all the virtue be absorbed”(Aquarian Gospel 41:12, 13).
When shopping in a health food store, have you ever noticed how unhealthy looking most of the customers are? There is a reason: selfish greed. Most of them are obsessed with “live foods” and talk about them like vampires discussing their victims. One juicer company waxes lyric about how their juicer alone rips the fibers of the vegetables and fruits in such a way that all the food value is released. Look at the shelves of those stores and you will see such unnatural horrors being sold such as human “mother’s milk” and colostrum seized from mother goats–thereby depriving their offspring of necessary nourishment. I remember when “royal jelly” was all the rage, snatched from the hives whose newly-hatched bees died without it. And the most disgusting of all: fertile eggs. These people believe that anything which will benefit them is their right–even obligation–no matter what the source. So of course they never attain health–their minds are polluted and starved of human decency.
In the same way there are those who are spiritually and metaphysically greedy. If they hear of a place or person that has a good atmosphere they rush there like vampires and begin sucking it all up. They especially like being touched in “healing,” in fact they flock to healing services and sessions even when they have no illness at all. They also buzz around famed gurus, sticking near to “absorb the vibrations” and be touched as a “blessing.” I will never forget the awful spectacle of a Western “swami” approaching Swami Sivananda in the morning satsangs. She would come forward like the undead in the silent Nosferatu, with her hands and fingers extended like claws. Then, like Bela Lugosi in Dracula, she would slowly bend down and attack his feet. I expected to see tubes come out of her fingertips and enter into his feet to draw out the blood. These energy vampires are big on hugging, too–insistent, actually.
Sometimes it backfires, though. One time such a person went into a Greek Orthodox church to pray, and saw two women bowing at the front of the church with the priest’s stole (epitrachelion) laid over their heads and a prayer book laid over that as the priest was chanting a prayer. Determined not to miss out on getting whatever they were getting, she ran up and pushed in between them, right under the book. When the priest finished the prayer, she stood up with the other two. Imagine her confusion when the priest said to her: “Your name is Irene.” She asked him what he meant, and he said: “I’ve just made the three of you nuns. And your monastic name is Irene.” What a surprise! At least she had enough sense take it seriously, and she entered a convent. But from then on she was careful about getting in on what she did not completely know about.
So in these two verses we see a picture of such greed–they began rushing to get into the water first lest the healing power get used up and they not get any–or at least not enough to heal. This happens in India every six years at the Kumbha Mela. At the time when the “amrita” is supposedly in the water, they fight and trample one another like wild beasts to get in and absorb the power. Oftentimes people are killed in the rush. This is not dharma, only greed and superstition.
A wise child
“And Jesus saw a little child, weak, faint and helpless, sitting all alone beyond the surging crowd; and there was none to help her to the fount. And Jesus said, My little one, why do you sit and wait? Why not arise and hasten to the fount and wash, and be made well? The child replied, I need not haste; the blessings of my Father in the sky are measured not in tiny cups [see John 3:34]; they never fail; their virtues are the same for evermore. When these whose faith is weak must haste to wash for fear their faith will fail, have all been cured, these waters will be just as powerful for me. Then I can go and stay a long, long time within the blessed waters of the spring. And Jesus said, Behold a master soul! She came to earth to teach to men the power of faith”(Aquarian Gospel 41:14-19).
Here again we have reincarnation expounded, and the understanding that a child may be a sage, wiser far than those with older bodies.
In the master’s hands
“And then he lifted up the child and said, Why wait for anything? The very air we breathe is filled with balm of life. Breathe in this balm of life in faith and be made whole. The child breathed in the balm of life in faith, and she was well”(Aquarian Gospel 41:20, 21).
This truth was continually being pointed out by Paramhansa Yogananda, including in his autobiography. We swim in the ocean of divine light and power, the very air about us carrying the blessing and healing power of God. He told about both Teresa Neuman and Giri Bala who lived on light and air, without ever eating or drinking. (Again I would like to point out that Autobiography of a Yogi merits a lifetime of study. As one of Yogananda’s disciples told me: “He often said in a single sentence what an ordinary person would have to write a book to express–and then not as well.” Every sentence should be mined for hidden treasures.)
The cure of sin and sickness
“The people marveled much at what they heard and saw; they said, This man must surely be the god of health made flesh. And Jesus said, The fount of life is not a little pool; it is as wide as are the spaces of the heavens. The waters of the fount are love; the potency is faith, and he who plunges deep into the living springs, in living faith, may wash away his guilt and be made whole, and freed from sin”(Aquarian Gospel 41:22-24).
After healing a paralyzed man, Jesus told him: “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (John 5:14), indicating that it was negative karma that had brought the sickness upon him. The cure for all illness of body, mind, and soul is not greed or demanding prayer, but entering into the abundance of God’s love which inspires the needed faith.
Read the next section in the Aquarian Gospel for Yogis: The Fivefold Gospel