Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe on the Healing Power of Love

Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe

I conducted this interview with Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe shortly after attending his 1998 weekend workshop, which was truly life-changing. Ibrahim’s love and wisdom resonated deeply within me and I have learned much from him, including the Awareness Release Technique, a powerful method to achieve deep and lasting healing.

We have kept in touch over the years and, in fact, I interviewed him for my book, Sixty Seconds: One Moment Changes Everything. In that story, he recounts how he redirected his healing path after witnessing a deathbed ritual involving three rabbis and a cage filled with doves.

 

THE HEALING POWER OF LOVE

Ibrahim Jaffe, M.D., a licensed medical doctor, clairvoyant, healer and spiritual teacher, co-founded what is now the University of Spiritual Healing & Sufism in 1988. Dr. Jaffe has done extensive research on how emotional and psychological issues alter the human energy field and cause disease. In this interview, Dr. Jaffe discusses the dynamics of energetic healing, his passionate quest to share his knowledge and skills with others, and his belief that all of us can heal our lives by connecting with the deep love of God.

Dr. Jaffe, what role does love play in healing?
Basically, all healing comes from awareness and love: awareness of what has caused the problem and then using that awareness to reconnect the discordant energy back to the deep love of God. The ultimate goal is to immerse yourself completely in the deep love and maintain that connection in every moment of your life, which will prevent disease from ever occurring.

Healing is a Choice

At a 1998 weekend workshop conducted by spiritual healer Dr. Ibrahim Jaffe, I learned about energy healing, the practice of balancing the energy field that surrounds the human body. On the final day, 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 added that the thought of being healthy 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

Ego Swatting

Whenever I meet someone new, my ego keeps poking me like a little kid, badgering me to blurt out something impressive so the person I’m talking to will find me interesting and special and worth listening to.

I monitor myself continually in social situations, so I can see my ego barreling in from a mile away. Most of the time, I’m able to step in front of it and deflect it, but sometimes it crashes through my defenses and I find myself saying things like, “Yes, I wrote about that in my book.”

On the way home from a social gathering, I mentally scan my “ego vs. spirit” scorecard. On a good night, my ego gets shut out and I congratulate myself on my restraint. On a typical night, I gratuitously reference a recent achievement and drop a name or two.

It’s maddening! Even when I’m asking the other person questions about themselves and listening intently and genuinely, I’m constantly swatting my ego away. Yes, it’s certainly acceptable, even advisable, to share complimentary information about yourself during

Three Wooden Crosses

I love this song by Randy Travis. It’s exquisitely crafted and has

Still Clueless Perhaps, But Making Progress

My buddy Tom Endres (left) and I hosting a college talent show in our wild and crazy days

One February, when my daughter Erin was five years old, I picked her up at a friend’s house where she had been playing after school. As we arrived home, she mentioned that when spring arrived, she’d like to grow a plant that she had received as a gift since it was dying now. I said, “Better ask Mom how to do that. She knows a lot about plants and flowers.” Erin paused, then said, “You don’t know much, do you?”

It was true. Erin was a perceptive kid and even though she loved me dearly, she sensed that I had as much growing up to do as she did.

I had always been the life of the party in high school and college, cracking jokes and hamming it up. In my late twenties, however, I began dreading parties, especially those where intelligent conversation was expected. Surrounded by smart, successful people, I’d feel like a one-man island, disconnected from everyone else and largely ignored. No wonder others had no interest in talking to me; I had nothing to say. I was immature and self-absorbed. I had grown stagnant.

Ask and You Shall Receive

You set an amazing process in motion by asking the universe for whatever it is you want—as long as you meet four conditions as you pray.

First, you have unshakable faith that your request will be granted. The law of attraction states that if you don’t believe it, you won’t receive it. 

Second, you want what you want for the right reasons. Why is intent important? The more enlightened you become, the more likely your request will be relevant to your life’s purpose. And the more genuine your

Welcome Home, Zippy!

Funny thing, nostalgia. I went through a period not long ago where I threw out or gave away many iconic items from my childhood, thinking it best to keep as few possessions as possible. I still strive to live simply, but the older I get the more nostalgic I get.

Lately, I’ve been missing Zippy, the stuffed monkey I had when I was a kid. Fortunately, I had found a home for him with Kathy, a friend from college who collected Zippys. I gave her a call and she very graciously offered to return the Zipmeister to his original owner. 

Zippy now occupies a place of honor in my bedroom. It’s nice glancing over and seeing the little guy. Brings me

What Happened to the Child?

Many a bewildered parent has wondered how their bright, cheerful grade-school daughter could turn into a sullen, depressed teenager virtually overnight. Clearly, twelve-year-old girls face a tremendous amount of pressure from society, their peers, and themselves. Many girls feel that they cannot perform well academically and still be attractive to boys. And then there is the wholly unattainable Barbie doll model of feminine attractiveness that shreds girls’ self-esteem and spawns potentially fatal eating disorders.

Sign Up for Alan Cohen’s “Daily Inspiration”

Alan Cohen

Click here to sign up for free for Alan Cohen’s daily inspirational e-mail, which consists of a simple quote or bit of wisdom. Here is a sample:

Enlightened beings have their moments of humanness just as human beings have their moments of enlightenment.

Alan is the author of many books, including Dare to be Yourself and I Had it All the Time.

And here is

The Energetics of Giving

I received this insightful message from a friend the other day:

Isn’t it funny how when you ‘get’ something, it is so obvious you wonder how you ever missed it?  I recently found myself feeling a little miffed when I decided my niece wasn’t as appreciative (for a gift I had given her) as I thought I would be in her place.  Right after the negative thought, a shiny question popped into my head.  Am I helping her so that she’ll love me more?  Or am I helping her because I love her?  That got me back on track.  

A wise observation. True giving has

To Smoke or Not to Smoke

Today is the Great American Smokeout, an annual event sponsored by the American Cancer Society to encourage smokers to quit for a day in the hop that they quit for good.

Personally, I have zero tolerance for cigarette smoke. It gives me a fierce headache so I avoid it at all costs. But the psychology behind why people smoke fascinates me. I consider it a colossally self-destructive behavior. Not everybody feels that way, of course.

Bill Hicks

Houston comic Bill Hicks, who died of cancer, loved to smoke. “I like to think of my life as a highway flowing through the universe,” he eloquently explained, “and I need the tar to fill the potholes in my soul.”

To smoke or to complain about smoke, that is the question. Smokers and nonsmokers alike are ready to deliver their impassioned views at the drop of a match. Over the years, I’ve collected passages from celebrities who have climbed up on the smoking soapbox to express their love or hatred of cigarettes. They range from arrogant to insightful to hilarious. Overall, they make for a good read

 

FRAN LEBOWITZ
New York author and curmudgeon
From her essay, “When Smoke Gets In Your Eyes … Shut Them”

“Smoking is, if not my life, then at least my !

Truly Hearing Your Beloved

In the June 2008 issue of Guideposts, I like how Elizabeth “Tibby” Sherrill described how she and John, her husband of sixty years, figured out how to communicate effectively:

Like all long-married couples we have our own vocabulary we call “hog hilling.” Hog Hill Road is a quiet street near us where we’ve probably logged 500 miles over the years, speaking and listening. Going outdoors take the issue out into a larger world where our problems don’t loom so large. It puts us side by side instead of face to face in confrontation. We’ve hog hilled all over the world, finding ears hear best when feet are moving. . . . And perhaps the best hearing device of all, to not talk about facts but feelings. Not about what one of us did or failed to do, but about the emotions involved. Feelings are something we all have in common, truths we can hear.

Masters Continue to Walk the Earth

Babaji

I have heard many a person scoff at the notion that avatars (those who have achieved oneness with divine consciousness) have been present throughout every age. They ask, “If such exalted beings existed, why haven’t we heard of them?”

One reason is that skeptics are the least likely to read accounts of such lives, which can be found in a number of spiritual texts. Indeed, evidence suggests that these masters have walked the Earth and continue to do so to this day. Their lives serve as both proof and inspiration that all things are possible when you wholeheartedly give your life to God.

While these contemporary Christ-like figures can effortlessly perform miracles that defy the laws of physics, the general public will remain unaware of their existence. Uniting with divine consciousness necessitates the death of the ego; the notion that these selfless saints would flaunt their abilities is unthinkable. Holiness and humility walk hand in hand.

Eckhart Tolle made another important point on page 87 of his powerful book, The Power of Now:

Never personalize Christ. Don’t make Christ into a form identity. Avatars, divine mothers, enlightened masters, the very few that are real, are not special as persons. Without a false self to uphold, defend, and feed, they are

Be Empathetic AND Energetic!

At dinner the other night, a friend told me that she was so empathic that she took on others’ emotional pain when she was in their presence. She had been wired like that her entire life and viewed it as a good thing, even though she often felt drained and overwhelmed in the aftermath of such an encounter.

Certainly, while there is value in connecting so intimately and vulnerably with another human being, the downside of becoming so emotionally entwined is that you may not be clear-headed enough to help the other person—unless, of course, you both consider it most helpful to sob on each others’ shoulder, which very well may be the case. Indeed, sometimes a good cry can do you both a world of good.

Where being hyper-empathic tends to be more problematic is in the field of bodywork—massage, energy healing, etc. How often have you heard such a practitioner say that they feel drained after a session, or that they’ve taken on the client’s “bad energy”?

Phillip Moffitt’s “Teaching for the Week”

Phillip Moffitt

Phillip Moffitt, who teaches vipassana meditation at retreat centers around the United States, offers a free e-mail “Teaching of the Week” from his book, Dancing with Life: Buddhist Insights for Finding Meaning and Joy in the Face of Suffering.


I’ve written about Phillip’s remarkable journey

Neale Donald Walsch Addresses Suicide

Neale Donald Walsch

Neale Donald Walsch, author of the Conversations with God series, devoted a post on his blog this week to a comment from a man who was considering suicide. I have lost a number of friends and loved ones to suicide. I share Neale’s post with you now in the hope that his words may provide comfort to anyone who is in a dark place.

SUICIDE IS NOT THE ANSWER

Yesterday a person who posted in the Comments Section here without a name indicated that he was close to suicide. I need to respond to that post, and I invite you to do the same. Here is the comment as originally entered…

No Name
November 12, 2008 8:31 AM
I am as close to suicide as I have ever been. It terrifies me. Im 32, i have my health, I have 2 beautiful young children whom I adore, a wife who has wisdom and kindness that blows me away. I have read your books several times, they changed my outlook, I love your books and I believe the message. But believing is not the same as experiencing. I am unable to experience it…..

Reading so much of what you wrote was more like being reminded of things I already new instinctively, it wasn’t like I was learning new stuff.

But here I am, now, in the moment. And I just want it to end. I loathe this world, I feel like I was supposed to be something, to do something to make it better, but that I’ll never know what it is.

Words fail me, confusion imprisons me here, I wish I could type more through the buzzing behind my eyes. Its the tears that wont come and they sting like hell.