THE HEALING POWER OF THOUGHT BY PARAMHAMSA YOGANANDA

Divine Will Healing Book Excerpts
The Yogic System For Supreme Health of Body, Mind and Spirit from the
Original Teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda

Chapter Fifteen
The Healing Power of Thought, by Paramhansa Yogananda
from Inner Culture, July 1934

Nobleman of Capernaum:
46 So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water
wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at
Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus was come out of Judaea into
Galilee, he went unto him, and besought him that he would come down,
and heal his son: for he was at the point of death.
48 Then said Jesus unto him, Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will
not believe.
49 The nobleman saith unto him, Sir, come down ere my child die.
50 Jesus saith unto him, Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man
believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went his
way. And as he was now going down, his servants met him, and told
him, saying, Thy son liveth.
52 Then enquired he of them the hour when he began to amend. And they
said unto him, Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him. So
the father knew that it was at the same hour, in which Jesus said
unto him, Thy son liveth: and himself believed, and his whole house.
54 This is again the second miracle that Jesus did, when he was come
out of Judaea into Galilee.

John 4:46-54

Jesus preferred those people who loved God as a result of their own
innate reasoning and perfect accord, rather than those who were
compelled to believe in God as a result of the awe and fear they felt
at the display of miracles. In other words, Almighty God prefers to
have His children use their own free will and reason to love Him
rather than be led to love Him through the force of His miraculous
powers. Jesus wanted the nobleman of Capernaum to believe in Him
without the performance of the miraculous healing of his son.

However, when the father insisted, through true faith, Jesus at last
said: "Go thy way; thy son liveth." After this, the nobleman
believed, or rather, sensed the vibratory healing power of Jesus and
went home. On his return home, the nobleman was greeted by his
servant, who happily announced to him that his son had been living
since the day before at the seventh hour. In absent healing the word
of healing has to be spoken by the healer. If songs can float through
the ether, ready to be caught out of the ether by a radio, so it is
that broadcasted healing vibrations can be picked up by sensitive
Soul radios.

How the Law of Healing Operates

In this healing it must be remembered that the nobleman's son became
well immediately when Jesus spoke; that is, when Jesus set in motion
His will-impregnated healing Soul Force in the ether. Jesus
broadcasted the God-given healing vibrations and they were received
by the nobleman, who relayed them to his son, just as songs,
broadcasted at 7 A.M. from Los Angeles, reach New York at exactly the
same time.

This happens because sound is carried by infinitely fast-moving
omnipresent electrons in the ether. If sound waves can be carried
through the ether, then sounds impregnated with healing Soul Force
can also be transmitted through the ether. Ordinary songs and
speeches, received through the radio, produce some mental effect upon
the listener, but words impregnated with Soul Force remain in the
ether, ever ready to work. Jesus impregnated His utterance with His
Almighty healing power. Ordinary songs and thoughts transmitted over
the radio give only momentary inspiration, but the words of
Jesus, "Thy son liveth," contained in them the all-accomplishing,
invisible healing power.

As the energy in the body can be directed by the will to move any
part of the body, so also, by omnipresent Divine Will, any atomic
changes can be initiated in any body, in any thing, and at any place,
no matter how far distant. God had a reason for creating the Cosmos;
then He willed it, and light or energy came. Then He willed that the
light become flesh and earth. Hence, the Universe, being a product of
Divine Mind, can be changed by Divine Mind at any time.

Matter, although it has dimensions, is not different from thought,
for material objects are nothing but the frozen thought of God.
Hence, the body and the life in it, are dream products of God's will
and thought. The dream Cosmos, with the earth and the living Beings
on it, are sustained by God's concentrated thought. If He should
dissolve His dream, the Universe, with all things in it, would melt
away like a dream. If the Cosmos is made of the frozen thought of
God, then the human body is also made and sustained by the same
Divine Thought.

Hence, God's thought, being the Creator of the thought-body, can
create changes in it through the power of Divine Will. Jesus realized
that, since God brought the body of the son of the nobleman into
existence through His thought, so also His Almighty Power could
produce the desired change in it. God's will and thought created all
things, and those people who are in tune with God's will and thought
can produce any desired changes in matter or in human bodies
instantaneously, merely by concentrated thought.

The nobleman thought that his son was sick, but Jesus thought
differently, and so the son recovered. Jesus was able to displace the
dream of sickness in the son by a dream of health, because He knew
that the entire Cosmos was made of the tissue of dreams. Ultimately,
all disease is found to be psychological, so a strong mind, fostering
thoughts of health and perfection, can displace a stubborn thought of
illness in another person.

Most people cannot heal themselves because their own thoughts are
poisoned by the habit of thinking of chronic sickness. It is strange
that the people who are always well never seem to believe that they
can become sick. But if they happen to become sick after having
enjoyed fifty years of good health, and are then unable to keep well
for three months, they believe that they can never get well again.
Right at this time, if a strong mind can revive the will of the
patient who is paralyzed with sickness, then he himself can change
his thought and energy, and thus heal himself.

No one can heal us except through the hidden power of our own
thoughts. Thought is the brain of the cells and units of Life Force
present in every particle of bodily tissue. Hence, a disease thought
upsets the entire government of the Life Force in the cells, whereas
the thought of health corrects any disorder in the cellular system.
It must be remembered that I am speaking of the concentrated Divine
Thought which can heal and not of the fanciful thought of imaginative
people. In order to move Divine Thought, the ordinary man must know
the relation of thought, Life Force, and body without denying the
existence of the body thought.

The body is the frozen thought and frozen energy of God.
Nevertheless, man cannot realize this until he knows that thought is
frozen into energy and energy is frozen into the body of man. Many
people try to explain away the body delusion. First, it must be
realized that the body is made of invisible electrons, and that
electrons are made of the invisible thought of God.

Instead of saying that the body does not exist, one should say: "The
body is not what we think it is. It is not anything but the frozen
thought and energy of God, and cannot be gained by fanatic fancy, or
by strong Orthodox belief, but only by tuning in with God and by
waking up His consciousness to find that the Cosmos is nothing but
His frozen dream."