In the past few months, I have had experience in healing a few people suffering from cancer. Unfortunately, the cancer had already advanced to a stage where nothing could be done even by the medical fraternity. The doctors recommended the patients try alternative therapy. At this stage, when the patients were living the last few days of their lives, I felt it would be wrong to start healing them to 'fight' the cancer. There were many reasons for this.
Firstly, after months of suffering, a person loses the will to fight. By now, he has accepted imminent death and is awaiting it. Secondly, due to advanced age, the body has degraded enough to make it really hard to replenish the strength and quick healing ability. If one were to fight cancer at such a stage, it would only prolong their suffering. And so, what Reflexology and Reiki healing can help in, is to provide some pain relief and comfort, so at least they can sleep in peace.
One aspect I concentrated on while healing was to heal the Karmas done in the present life. I also prayed that death would come peacefully and attachment to the present family would be let-go easily. I believe that a violent death can carry forward to the next life, so it was very necessary to do this.
While using these therapies on the patients, I learnt some facts about their pasts. I found that although they were very good people and had spent their whole lives helping others, there had a few vices -excessive drinking was a major factor in two cases. This is when I learnt that it is not just the actions we do on others that count as Karmas, indulging in something (even a seemingly harmless thing) which leads to abusing our own body also counts as Karma. And to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. We have to pay for whatever we do. And God or Fate decides how we pay for it.
After this experience, I realized this was true for every single person who required healing, even for a small matter like knee pain or fracture. A lady who indulged a lot in food, rest and luxury, gained weight over time. This started damaging her knees. However, not yet realizing the dangers, she continued to overuse her legs for roaming around unnecessarily and now both her knees had to be operated on (not very successfully), and she's living in pain.
When I looked at my past, I found that whatever little sickness or suffering I have gone through till date have also been due to some abuse of the body or mind. If my eyes were showing signs of weakness, it was because I indulged in too much T.V. and working long hours at the computer without break. If my stomach is sensitive today, it is because I had indulged too much in chocolates and fried food when I was little. If I lost some valuable possession, it points to excessive thinking and lack of mindfulness.
Every small action we do is recorded in some register to be accounted for at a later date. This realization has compelled me to watch every single act I perform. Time can never be turned back, so we need to watch ourselves and prevent wrong actions, rather than trying to find a solution for them later. Following the yoga way of life is the only answer for this.
Healing people helps us to study even the subtle aspects of life. Not everyone is lucky enough to have an understanding of life that yoga and healing gives us. In these cases, Reflexology, Massage and Reiki do help counter our Karmas- sometimes by damage control or relief or by complete healing. One of the cancer patients I was healing was my uncle. He is no more, but after his funeral, I heard that the doctors were surprised that he went so peacefully in his sleep. They had expected a very gory and painful death because the cancer had affected his lungs. Maybe the Reiki helped, or maybe it was my uncle's good Karmas that made him go peacefully. We will never know. But one thing I know for sure now is that "As We Sow, So Shall We Reap."