My Own Shift With Ibrahim Jaffe
Phil Bolsta on how a weekend workshop changed the way he sees the world.
The title of my book, Through God’s Eyes, reflects a pivotal moment of personal enlightenment. At a 1998 weekend workshop, spiritual healer Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe shared a life-changing story with his students. He said that after watching a TV nature program in which a lion savagely ripped apart a gazelle, he had been distraught.
Retreating into meditation, he implored God. “How could you allow such carnage and tragedy to exist?” He told us that the response he received humbled him and restored his faith in Divine Intelligence.
“I felt and saw through inner revelation how this incident was experienced from a higher level as pure love and that it was beautiful beyond description.”
Ibrahim explained that this world may appear cruel and harsh to our unenlightened eyes, but even the brutality inherent in the animal kingdom has meaning, purpose, and a stark beauty all its own. Indeed, looking through God’s eyes, we see that simply by living our lives, we all serve each other in ways both simple and profound.
From that day on, I challenged myself to see the world through God’s eyes — to the extent that I could, of course — so that I too could witness every moment unfolding with beauty, love, and perfection.
Granted, that is much easier said than done, especially on days when I am the gazelle. Yet, I’ve found that the more I train myself to view the world in this way, the more peaceful and grounded I become.
On the final day of the workshop, Ibrahim demonstrated his healing method on a few of the participants. One woman he brought up to the front of the class had sustained injuries in a car accident that restricted the use of various parts of her body, including her hands.
After only a minute or so of working with her energy, Ibrahim, who is clairvoyant, stopped and gently said, “You could be healed right now, but you’re not ready for that, are you?”
To my astonishment, she agreed.
She explained that she had obsessive-compulsive disorder and was actually thrilled when she could no longer use her hands because that meant she didn’t have to touch doorknobs. She said that the thought of being healed was such a foreign concept to her that she was afraid of it, that she wouldn’t know how to think or act in the absence of her maladies.
I was dumbfounded. For the first time, I realized that some people would prefer not to be healed.
Her confession affirmed that the best outcomes occur when healing the mind and spirit precedes the curing of the body, and that if the underlying reasons for the body’s ills are not addressed, the same problems may resurface after the body is repaired.
That day, I understood that healing is a choice, and the more consciously we make that choice, the healthier we will be.
My Own Shift tells stories of personal moments of transformation. If you have a story of your own to tell, send it to TheDailyShift@TheShiftNetwork.com
Phil Bolsta is a senior editor and manager in product marketing at The Shift Network and author of the book, Through God’s Eyes.