Recently I tried the pool at our new retreat location in Spain. Rancho de Suenos. An idyll. I sank into the easy chair at the edge of the tub. Within five minutes the water turned into a healing bath.
Translated from Dutch with Google translate
The sick staggered out of five colonnades. They knew that once in a while an angel would come to stir the water. The first one that jumped in the pool would be healed.
A paralyzed guest had come to lie next to me.
I said: "You certainly want to heal."
"Yes," he said. "I've been coming here for 38 years. But I have no one to carry me."
I figured out his next question. Whether I wanted to lift him into the water for sure. I didn't like that at all. Not in 38 years. He was big, fat and dirty.
So I said: "Get up, take your mat and walk!"
And there he went. Walking don't look back. Listening to Black Sabbath.
It was a wonderful dream. A Bible story starring myself: That's when you know you are a spiritual teacher. I now apply the insights from the big book. For example, a lady recently came into my coaching practice who was struggling with chronic shyness. Lisa has been blushing since junior high. It had only gotten worse in 38 years. So I read to her the original story, John 5, about the miracle of Bethesda. And explained to her the deeper meaning:
1. “Those five porches resemble your senses. In this way you keep yourself trapped in your old self-image.
2. The water symbolizes your consciousness.
3. The angel represents your desire to be cured from your shyness.
4. But Lisa, you make all kinds of excuses to not have to change.
Each time someone else jumps into the water.
5. You would prefer someone to come and carry you. Your mother, for example. Can you see it? She would then speak to all the people you meet beforehand, that they should be nice to you.'
6. Lisa looked angry. Being shy is bad enough, she thought, you don't have to blame me for that.
7. I provoked her: "You wish I was like the Jesus from the story, a kind of wizard, who transforms you into an extroverted person."
8. "You're insulting my religion," Lisa whispered.
9. "I can't hear you," I said.
10. "You're insulting my faith," she repeated. A little harder.
11. "I'm sorry Lisa, I don't quite understand what you mean. Your believe in what? In God or in your embarrassment?”
12. Her blue eyes opened wide. Her lower lip trembled. And her complexion changed for a moment to red, then to white. I saw white foam appear on her shrinking lips. “You must not mock the name of the Lord!” she bellowed.
13. I said nothing. Our Lord had already done his work. Another satisfied customer. Her shyness was healed.
