Description
Leah
Forward to Leah by Richard Gere:
Reading Leah, the phrase that speaks strongest to me is that "miracles are hard work."
The healing process is one of opening-- opening the heart (to Love) and the mind (to Wisdom). (Curiously, when Tibetans refer to the mind, they gesture to the heart.)
Throughout this autobiographical story, Stuart describes spiritual techniques to generate love and gratitude that have been discovered and developed by the great teachers and spiritual friends of the countless ages and world systems, more specifically his own teacher Swami Rudrananda, who I was not fortunate enough to meet in this life.
Obviously, these techniques have little to do with our normal view of medicine which primarily focuses on the relief of external symptoms, without reference to their inner spiritual causes.
But that is how we have been raised and how our brains are structured. We then, in turn, project this distorted view "out there" on the movie screen of our conventional reality. Therein lies the "hard work" Stuart refers to-- the total transformation of our minds. And it is hard work-- the constant and ruthless monitoring of our minds and hearts in order to root out and utterly destroy negativities, self-cherishing ignorance and other defilements and obscurations that impede the natural flow of infinite and tireless healing energy (Love) within us and without us. This is the miracle.
In the end it is for each of us to find within ourselves the heroic courage to really change our lives, and really let go of our ordinary (deluded) selves and ordinary (deluded) world view, however frightning and painful that may be. Spiritual friends and Wisdom Beings will be there to help us, but again it's up to us and us alone to do the hard work necessary to open ourselves to receive their grace. Not Christ, nor Buddha, nor all the assembled armies of Shambhala can do it for us.
May we all quickly find the heroic courage to attain supreme Health, Wisdom, and Happiness through Love.
--Richard Gere (added by author)