The  Healing  Power  of  Suggestion:  The  Voice  Within  and  Without    

Considering  the  power  of  the  words  we  speak  to/within  ourselves  and  the  words  we  speak  to  others    There  are  five  elements  that  constitute  man’s  being:  earth,  water,  fire,  air,  and  ether.  Air  represents  the  voice,  and  it  reaches  the  ether,  which  means  that  the  voice  reaches  farther  than  anything  else  in  the  world.  It  touches  the  depths  of  man’s  heart.  Therefore,  music  is  a  living  miracle.  There  is  nothing  that  can  thrill  man’s  being  through  and  through  as  sound  can.  This  explains  why  suggestion  is  much  greater  and  more  beneficial  in  healing  than  any  other  remedy.      From  morning  till  evening  we  are  impressed  by  suggestions  coming  to  us  automatically  in  different  forms.  The  importance  does  not  lie  in  receiving  or  in  rejecting  suggestions;  it  lies  in  understanding  what  will  benefit  us  and  what  will  be  detrimental.  Practical  suggestion  has  four  different  aspects.  The  first  is  the  suggestion  that  is  made  to  oneself,  which  is  called  autosuggestion;  the  second  is  the  suggestion  that  is  made  to  another  person;  the  third  is  the  suggestion  that  is  made  to  the  lower  creatures;  and  the  fourth,  which  is  little  known  to  the  scientific  world  but  which  has  always  been  understood  by  the  mystics,  is  the  suggestion  that  is  made  to  an  object.      Auto-­‐suggestion  is  something  by  which  one  helps  oneself  to  be  encouraged  or  to  be  discouraged,  to  be  well  or  to  be  ill,  to  go  down  or  to  rise,  to  be  happy  or  to  be  unhappy.  There  are  two  kinds  of  auto-­‐suggestion:  the  kind  that  one  intentionally,  consciously  makes  to  oneself  and  upon  which  the  whole  mystical  training  is  based;  and  the  suggestion  that  one  makes  to  oneself  automatically,  knowing  neither  its  nature  or  its  result.      In  India,  where  the  daily  life  of  people  is  based  upon  physical  laws,  they  take  great  care  in  speaking  to  another  person  that  it  may  not  produce  an  adverse  effect  upon  his  physical,  mental  or  spiritual  self.  A  healer,  who  by  the  power  of  zikr  develops  the  healing  power  of  his  voice,  impresses  his  word  with  the  power  of  his  heart  on  the  heart  of  the  patient.      I  am  speaking  about  the  influence  of  sound,  vibration  upon  matter,  because  that  is  resonance.  Thought  is  communicated  to  matter  through  resonance,  through  sound.  One  of  the  clearest  examples  of  the  action  of  sound  upon  matter  is  when  you  subject  sand  to  the  vibrations  of  a  piezoelectric  cell.  You  find  that  the  surface  of  the  sand  will  assume  certain  forms  which  correspond  to  the  frequency  of  the  sound.      This  encourages  us  in  working  with  the  wazifa.  We  are  actually  using  sound  upon  the  cells  of  the  different  plexi  of  our  nervous  system  like  the  solar  plexus.  You  can  imagine  what  happens  to  these  chakras  when  we  subject  them  to  sound.  What  we  learn  in  doing  the  wazifa  is  to  focus  vibration  in  a  particular  center.  The  suggestion  of  sacred  words  first  impresses  one’s  own  spirit,  helping  one  to  develop  that  quality,  that  virtue,  that  merit,  that  power  of  inspiration  suggested  by  the  words.  Thus,  if  a  person  has  repeated  a  sacred  word  for  fifteen  minutes,  throughout  the  day  and  night,  this  word  goes  on,  as  the  spirit  repeats  it  continually…God  then  begins  to  repeat  it  until  it  has  become  a  reality  on  all  planes  of  existence.      Excerpts  of  the  teachings  of  Pir-­‐o-­‐Murshid  Inayat  Khan  from  the  Sufi  Healing  Order  Healing  Conductor  Manual  (2011).        Practice:    

Ya  rahman    (source  of  all;  boundless  and  unconditional  reality  of  love  contained  by  Allah)  Ya  rahim    (divine  mercy)  

 x33    -­‐  Consider  doing  this  with  intention  of  speaking  love  and  divine  mercy  within  yourself  and  out  into  the  world.