A Healing Balm

In the spring-summer of 2010 I went through an agonizing recovery period resulting from an emergency surgery on my spine. A dermatologist had negligently prescribed a horrible drug called CycloSporine to treat my acute psoriasis-eczema; after two months of taking this medication and experiencing severe pain in my upper back and shoulder, the drug had actually eaten a hole through my C6-C7 vertebrae. Needless to say, I was immobilized for some time after the surgery and endured severe pain that could not be dissipated through the use of pain drugs; nothing helped to ease the incredible throbbing that incessantly shot through my upper torso—not medication, not prayer, not meditation. Amazingly, it was the “Dance of the Siddhars”, music and video by Turiya Nada that helped to subside the agony for substantial amounts of time. I would sway back and forth in my chair as this enticing yoga of the siddhars seemed to transport me beyond the ever-present pain into a timeless realm—indeed, into the deathless dimension of the Unborn Itself. That experience left an indelible mark that revealed the marvelous and diverse ways that the Unborn Spirit comes and reveals Itself in our times of desperate need.

*addendum

Just had to add the following to this particular blog–it refers to healing drums as referred to in the Suramgamasamadhi Sutra:

It is like the great king of medicaments (mahdbhaisajyardja) called Vipravasa, ‘Dispersion’ in time of battle (samgrdma) the drums (dundubhi) are coated with it; as soon as the wounded, hit by an arrow (salya) or struck by a lance (sula), hear the sound (svara) of those drums, the arrows come out [of their wounds] and the poisons (visa) are eliminated.

Pretty wild–appears to have some further mystical import to my experience.

Tags: C6 C7, meditation, Turiya Nada, Unborn Itself