Healing Together: How to Bring Peace into Your Life and the World

259 Pages·2002·0.55 MB·English

by  Lee Jampolsky

Healing Together
How to Bring Peace into Your Life
and the World
Lee Jampolsky,
Ph.D.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Healing Together
How to Bring Peace into Your Life
and the World
Lee Jampolsky,
Ph.D.
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
To all of us.
Our unwavering commitment to healing and
spiritual growth can demonstrate to all that
beautiful lives can be born from tragic times.
Copyright © 2002 by Lee L. Jampolsky, Ph.D. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc.
The author gratefully acknowledges the following for permission to quote from these sources:
“AFather’s Story,” with the permission of Azim Khamisa; “Born of the Water,” with the per-
mission of J. Michael Kanouff; Aeesha Clottey’s story with the permission of Aeeshah Abbabio
Clottey; “The Prayer of Complete Personal Forgiveness” from The Gift of Life,with the permis-
sion of Howard Wills; material from Beverly Hutchinson of the Miracle Distribution Center,
with the permission of Beverly Hutchinson; “Parenting—Leading One’s Children” by Arun
Gandhi, with the permission of Arun Ghandi; “Faces of the Enemy” by Sam Keen, with the per-
mission of Sam Keen.
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ISBN 0-471-23685-3
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword by Neale Donald Walsch v
Foreword by Gerald G. Jampolsky, M.D. ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
Part One
What to Do When Tragedy Enters Your Life 7
1 The Key to Maintaining Peace of Mind 9
2 Universal Spiritual Truths to Remember 29
Part Two
Eight Steps to Personal and Global Healing 43
Step 1 Let Yourself Feel 46
Step 2 Rise above the Details 63
Step 3 Ask Important Spiritual Questions 77
iii
CONTENTS
Step 4 Find Opportunity in Crisis 92
Step 5 Let Go: A Time for Prayer 105
Step 6 Decide between Violence and Nonviolence 121
Step 7 Develop and Commit Together to a Purpose
of Peace 132
Step 8 Understand and Practice Forgiveness 146
Part Three
Building a Positive Future 161
1 How Tragedy Affects Our Relationships 163
2 How to Overcome Feeling Separate and Helpless 188
3 How to Talk with Our Children about Tragedy 210
4 How to Create a New Vision for Our Lives Following
Tragedy 216
Epilogue 231
Suggested Reading 233
Index 238
iv
Foreword
by Neale Donald Walsch
ALL OF US WANT PEACE. Throughout human history there has
scarcely been a time when we have not searched for it. There has
also scarcely been a time when we have experienced it. The world
does not experience it now.
Yet how can we experience peace in the collective humanity
when we do not experience peace in our individual souls? We can-
not. And so, this is the challenge of human beings everywhere. We
must find a way to live peacefully within ourselves before we can
hope to live peacefully with others.
My experience is that what stops us from finding peace within
is our deep lack of awareness of who we really are, of what life is
really about, and of the gifts we have been given by God with
which to express and experience our True Selves. This, at least, has
been the case in my life, and as I look around me, I observe many
other people in the same place.
How can we move out of this place? By what manner or means
can we come to greater awareness, larger understanding, and
more effectiveness in the living of our lives, so that they may bring
peace to our hearts and to the world?
Is it just impossible to find, much less create, peace within and
around us? The answer is no. In fact, it is quite easy, once one
knows how. But how to come by such knowledge?
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FOREWORD BY NEALE DONALD WALSCH
First, there must be a willingness to receive it. The soul must
call out for its own inner truth to be revealed, through the world
around it. You soul has done so, or you would not be holding this
book in your hands.
Second, there must be an openness. We must be prepared to set
aside everything that we imagine ourselves to know about life,
and even our thought that we have heard it all before, in order that
we may hear the simplest truths for the first time. How often I
have come across a statement or an insight in a book which I had
heard many, many times, only to truly hearit for the first time!
Then, we must be prepared to act on that to which we have
opened ourselves. We must make a bargain with ourselves, that
we will not ignore what we have brought to ourselves, but use the
gift we have given ourselves that we may, in turn, give the gift to
others.
Now you stand on the brink of a new tomorrow, a time of
peace in your soul, in your heart, an in your mind. You have called
out for a path to that peace to be shown. There is not only one path.
There are many. There is not only one way. There are many ways
to resolve the inner and the outer conflicts which fill so many of
our lives. Yet it takes only one path to take us where we wish to go.
Only one path is required.
This wonderful book from Lee Jampolsky offers you a path. It
is not The Ultimate Truth, nor is it The Only Truth. It is simply A
Truth—one among many. A Way—one among many. Yet it may
just be the right and perfect way for you, articulated in just the
way that you can understand, expressed in perfect harmony with
what you are now ready to hear. That is how the universe works.
It places in our hands just the resources we need to allow us to ful-
fill the deepest yearnings of our being.
Right now the deepest yearning of the collective soul of
humanity is for peace. Our world is being shaken, our faith in the
vi
FOREWORD BY NEALE DONALD WALSCH
goodness of life is being tested as it has never been tested before.
We need tools. We need guidelines. We need understanding. We
need books like this.
I am grateful to Lee Jampolsky for the work he has done here,
for placing these tools in our hand. They can bring you to peace
within, and to a place where you can play an important role in
bringing peace to the world you touch every day.
You asked for this book to come to you. At some level, perhaps
one of which you may not even be consciously aware, you sought
the answers you will find here. So dive into this now. Revel in it.
For you soul has answered your heart’s desire with the words you
will find on these pages. Turn them now, and move into peace.
vii