“IF YOU HAVE FAITH AS SMALL AS A MUSTARD SEED, YOU CAN SAY TO THIS MOUNTAIN, MOVE FROM HERE TO THERE, AND IT WILL MOVE”
Mathew chapter 17, 14-21, NIV
Ozodi Osuji
“14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”
17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”
20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
HERE IS WHY WE ARE UNABLE TO TELL MOUNTAINS TO MOVE AND THEY MOVE
The meaning of this saying by Jesus Christ is apparent. If we have faith, just a little bit of it, we could say to a mountain move from here to there and it does so.
In the situation that elicited his saying, we could cast out the demon that had taken possession of a child’s mind, which his disciples could not do and asked him why they could not do it and he did it and he responded that it was because they had little faith in God. This response is clear and understandable, but the real question is this, has any human being, other than Jesus, been able to have faith in God and use that faith to heal other people’s physical and mental sicknesses?
I have been a nominal Christian all my life and have not seen one Christian heal anyone, not even heal a little disease such as banish the pimple on a teenager’s face! What I have seen is just talk about healing; it is all talk and no reality!
So, how come Christians are unable to replicate what their Lord and Savior effortlessly did and told them that if only they had a little faith and trust in God that they would easily do. Why? I do not know.
Be not knowing as it may, somehow, something tells me that it is possible to be able to heal the sick, how so?
I believe that if an individual can align his mind with Love, that is, with God, for God is love, and not seek vengeance for those who harmed his ego and body he can heal other people.
No one can harm our real self, which is spirit, because spirit is not in body and cannot be harmed; well, if one can love all people and forgive those who did one wrong, as we define wrong to be on earth, that is, if one is no longer in ego pattern of thinking and behaving one can become a healer; the ego sees injustice done to it as a call for bearing grievance and seeking vengeance and immediately seeks revenge; if it cannot do so right away it plans to do so in the future; the ego does not forgive, it does not even forgive a small slight of its phony pride and dignity!
If a person can overlook the ego’s shrieking for vengeance and insistence on revenge; if one parks one’s mind in one’s right mind, the part of one’s mind that the Holy Spirit dwells in, the part that forgives and overlooks the ills done to one, one can perform miracles.
The left, ego mind insists on bearing grievances and seeking vengeance for every wrong done to it.
If one can shift one’s thinking from ego mind to the Holy Spirit directed mind, one would have aligned one’s mind with love, which is God. One is now living from love, and from God.
A mind parked in union with God is a healed mind; it is healed of its split between ego and Holy Spirit/Christ mind; one has removed the ego pattern of thinking and behaving and returned to the Christ, Holy Spirit pattern of thinking and behaving, one is now in alignment with God. In this God aligned, love aligned mind, one is healed; a healed mind heals the body.
If one’s mind is returned to total love and forgiveness one has ended separation from love, from God and is now returned to love, to union, to God and is healed.
A healed mind, a mind that is living from love, and from union with God and all his creation, has ended separation and is returned to how God created one.
One’s mind is now aware that it is joined with God and all people’s minds; such a unified mind is healed; a healed mind is calm, peaceful, and happy.
I believe that such a healed mind, a calm mind, a mind that does not think and act from the ego and its seeking of vengeance, but thinks and lives from Christ, and its love and forgiveness, can actually do what Jesus said is possible, tell a metaphorical mountain to move from here to there and it does so; that is, one can do what Jesus did, heal the boy with a mind possessed by demons (that was how they used to explain epilepsy and mental disorders).
If a mind is healed (knows that it is joined to God and all people’s minds and loves all of them to love its whole self) it can heal other people. It can heal people’s bodily illnesses and, up to a point, also heal people’s minds; heal their mind by loving and forgiving them hence giving them peace; and, hopefully, they learn from him to forgive and love all people hence have healed minds.
Love and forgiveness are what heals one’s mind; only one can decide to love and forgive all people; one cannot make that decision for other people hence cannot heal other people’s minds for them. But one can temporarily heal their bodies, but only they can heal their minds by choosing to live from love and forgiveness.
DISCUSSION
Have I healed anyone? The answer is no; have I seen other people heal people, the answer is also no.
If I have not done it or seen anyone heal himself, heal other people, use faith in God to move mountains what makes me believe that it is possible to have the faith of a mustard seed and use it to achieve incredible goals?
I am capable of great cynicism and can easily tell me that this whole idea of faith in God is a crock and does not exist and that God does not exist; yet, a part of me would like to believe that God exists and that if we live godly lives, that is, love God, love the whole, love the parts of the whole, love the sons of God and forgive all of us our sins of separation from God and from each other and our evils towards one another that we can actually do what Jesus did and said is possible for us to do it.
Prudence requires me to keep quiet until I have done what the old boy did instead of giving folks the false hope that they can do it. I know that but still a deeper part of me keeps telling me that a loving and forgiving person has a mind that recognizes its union with all minds and selves, feels connected to all selves and to the God self can do what the old boy from Nazareth did.
Am I deluding myself, am I living in the world of fantasy, trying to believe what is not true as true because in believing it, I give my life meaning and purpose? That is what my cynical ego tells me that I am doing!
Yet, a part of me tells me that the old chap called Jesus Christ must know something that I do not know! Somehow, Jesus Christ accomplished what I have not been able to accomplish, annihilate his entire ego separated self, and does not desire the ego and does not defend the ego self-concept and, instead, live from the conceptualizer of the ego, his real self, the son of God who is one with God.
I have not transcended the ego yet; do something bad to me and my ego will come after you and will not rest until I take you down (thereafter, I regret doing so; why not forgive instead of fighting back, sometimes destructively, and later feeling guilty?).
CONCLUSION
I think that jettisoning the old ego and loving and forgiving all of us gives us the ability to heal ourselves, but I have not done so!
I think that a healed mind can do what Jesus did, heal other people and accomplish enormous good; I hope to be able to do it before I exit from the universe of space, time, and matter and return to the realm of oneness, unified spirit self, where all selves share one self and one mind, where there is no I and no I, no subject and object, no seer and seen, where all are one self and know it and transcend the world of separation and its perceptual nature.
In the world of perception, you cannot understand other people because they are not you, hence regardless of your purification of your perception it does not give you the truth of what you see; truth, knowledge is gained only in unified spirit self.
To be able to heal people, tell metaphorical mountains to move and they do so, one must have regained the knowledge of one’s oneness with God.
Only Jesus Christ and, may be, Gautama Buddha have had that level of spiritual development. Of course, there are many religious charlatans running around claiming the ability to perform miracles.
I have not seen one genuine miracle worker; this is because all of us are living in ego; the ego is the opposite of love; to heal is to love so if you live in ego, you cannot heal anyone, not even yourself.
In the language of the world’s greatest spiritual poet, Helen Schucman ( A course in miracles), what we have in our world are unhealed healers, folks who are still separated from God and from other people, folks who have not yet regained the awareness of their union with God and all people pretending ability to heal other people; they cannot heal any one because only the healed can heal other people.
To be healed is to be in the awareness that one is one with God and all his creation; that is, one has eliminated the spirit of specialness and separation, the ego, and embraced the spirit of union with God and his creation, the Christ.
Only the Christ, the son of God who is guided by the Holy Spirit, can move mountains, not the ego that trusts only on human powers; the ego is weak and powerless and cannot move mountains or heal anyone.
Ozodi Osuji August 15, 2022