Step 10 & 11… The Hands of Healing Light – Chanting
Blessings, Dear Friends,
Welcome to Step 10 & 11… The Hands of Healing Light – Chanting
Our next step invites us to journey from the Christ Healing Centre, flowing through the medulla oblongata and outward to the hands. Each step represents both hands, two divine channels of energy, two expressions of christ’s healing light. The hands play a role in our healing journey. They are instruments of divine energy, expressing our service, devotion, and the quiet power of God’s ray of love moving through us. As divine instruments, the hands also guide us in spiritual practice.
From my experience, chanting with the harmonium has become a living, healing force in my life. In chanting, the hands become instruments of light, they guide the harmonium keys, shape the sound, and help channel the heart’s longing upward. Through this simple act of the divine instrumental hands moving with awareness, voice rising in devotion, we awaken to a healing within ourselves and open a space for a quiet transformation.
Paramhansa Yogananda said that“chanting is half the battle.”
For the past six years, I’ve been learning and practising chants by Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda. Chanting with the harmonium has become the longest and most meaningful musical practice of my life. Before discovering the harmonium, I played guitar and took piano lessons, but chanting opened a different doorway, one that connects music with healing and inner transformation. It is a practice where the hands, heart, and soul move together toward the Divine.
At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. - Luke 4:40
This month, I invite you to do something meaningful with your hands, whether that is playing a musical instrument, cooking with love, creating art, or simply placing your hands together in prayer. Let your hands become instruments of healing light. Invite Christ into your practice, however simple or humble it may be, and then journal about what you experience. Notice how the act of using your hands with intention opens the heart and awakens a quiet healing from within.
Self Healing in Meditation
Rub your hands together briskly and strongly until you feel heat in the palms.
Place your palms on a part of your body that needs healing,
With an inhalation, draw the life force into your body, then transmit the life force through your hands to the part in need of healing.
As you exhale, visualize the intelligent healing life force flooding the area where you have placed your hands, and correcting anything that needs to be adjusted as you gently massage the region to distribute the life force over a wider area.
Repeat this healing exercise several times, including different locations as needed.
To heal mental or emotional imbalances, place your energized hand on your forehead and visualize healing light filling your brain.
Excerpt from: "Healing with Life Force, Volume 1—Prana: Teaching and Techniques of Paramhansa Yogananda" by Shivani Lucki.
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He spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.
“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
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I Was Made for Thee
My hands were made to serve Thee willingly, to remain folded in adoration, waiting for Thy coming;
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Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
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You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
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Affirmation: The Hands of Healing Light, Heal Me, Heal me.
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After spending some time in reading, reflection and journaling … Refer to the Visualisation & meditation and when you have finished, if you feel too… You can offer your gratitude and devotion to Jesus Christ by drawing art or writing poetry or finding your own meaningful hearts way.
Chanting Is Half the Battle
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WHO IS THIS RAMA?
Gandhiji reiterated that Rama whose name he prescribed as the infallible
remedy for all ills was neither the historical Rama nor the Rama of those who used the name as a charm or black magic. Rama whose name he prescribed as a cure-all was God, by taking whose name devotees attained purity and peace, and he claimed that it was the one infallible remedy for all ailments whether mental, spiritual or physical. It was, of course, possible to cure physical ailments by going to doctors and vaidyas. But Ramanama enabled one to become one's own doctor or vaidya and to find the elixir of healing within oneself. Even when the ailment could not be cured, because physically it was incurable, it enabled one to endure it with equanimity and peace of mind.
"A person who has faith in Ramanama would not run from pillar to post and dance attendance at the doors of celebrated doctors and vaidyas in order to prolong existence anyhow. Nor is Ramanama meant to be taken only when the doctors and vaidyas have failed. It is meant to enable one to do without them altogether. For a believer in Ramanama it is the first as well as the last remedy."
Harijan, 2-6-1946
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In the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali,
Aum (Om) is spoken of as the symbol of Ishvara or God. This great authority on yoga refers to Aum as a Cosmic Sound continuously flowing in the ether, unutterable by any human voice, and fully known only to the illuminated. Further, Patanjali says that deep concentration on
Aum is a means of liberation. Many people who do not understand the inward meaning of the scriptures think that by softly or loudly chanting Aum they can reach the superconsciousness. The Hindu scriptures, however, point out that one whose mind is identified with the kaya or body cannot possibly perceive the true Aum sound. In ancient times only the knowers of Brahman were allowed to utter Aum because they were able at will to hear the Cosmic Sound and perceive, behind it, the presence of God. A literal interpretation of this injunction led to the nonsensical belief that only Brahmins (no one of lower castes) or those who take sannyas and thereby have renounced all caste, should chant or meditate on Aum. In point of fact, none can escape a constant communion with Aum, for it pervades the consciousness and every fiber and atom of every being. Those who become consciously attuned to the omnipresent Cosmic Vibration receive untold blessings.
The scriptures classify ordinary chanting as (1) repeated loud utterance of the word Aum, (2) repetitions of Aum in whispers, and (3) continuous chanting of Aum in one’s mind, listening to it mentally.
Superconscious chanting, however, is that iin which the mind is deeply directed to the repetition of, and the actual profound listening to, the Cosmic Sound as it vibrates in the ether. This is the true way of contacting God as He is expressed in creation.
The cosmic Aum sound is the combined vibration of the three phases of Nature: creation, preservation, and dissolution operative in the physical, astral, and causal universes. The vocal chanting of Aum should be intoned first in a high pitch, representing creation; then in a lower pitch, representing preservation; then in a still lower tone that gradually fades away, representing dissolution. The chanting should be first loudly, then softly, and then gently until it is inaudible, or mental only.
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What Is Ananda Chanting?
Paramhansa Yogananda introduced a new kind of chanting in the West, based on the repetition of meaningful phrases rather than the repetition of various names of God, as is traditional in India. Its purpose is to focus the heart’s feelings and raise them toward superconsciousness.
The highest purpose of chanting is to help awaken us to our own spiritual potential: to bring us closer to Self-realization.
Ananda chanting includes those chants shared by Yogananda that are in the public domain, plus chants by Swami Kriyananda.
AA Step 10 & 11
Visualisation (The Hands of Healing Light – Chanting) by Prashanti
As we consciously align our faith, trust, and speech with the eternal words of God, let us mindfully direct our awareness towards
Our Hands of Healing Light for a few seconds. Now focus your full attention on the image before you.
Begin to slowly close your eyes, focusing all your attention again on your Hands of Healing Light.
Feel Christ’s healing light, flowing into your hands.
Now gently rub your hands together until you feel heat in the palm of your hands. Place your palms on a part of your body that needs healing, drawing Christ’s divine life force energy into your body,
Silently affirm:
“I am whole, for Christ’s Healing Light is in me.” “I am well, for Christ’s Healing Light is in me.” “I am Healed, for Christ’s Healing Light is in me.”
Feel Christ manifesting his healing life force flowing through you, healing you in body, mind and soul.
Now, let us quietly and reverently affirm together the sacred words from the Psalms, from St. John, and from Paramhansa Yogananda.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:.
My hands were made to serve Thee willingly, to remain folded in adoration, waiting for Thy coming;
He spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
Aum Peace Christ Amen
Sacred Music & Mantras
Book References
Ghandhi, M. (N.D) The Eleven Vows of Mahatma Gandhi-Their Observances and Relevance
https://www.gandhi-manibhavan.org/educational-resources/the-eleven-vows-of-gandhiji.html
Kretzmann, Mary. (2013) Divine Will Healing: From the Original Teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda". Crystal Clarity Publishers.
New International Version. (2025). BibleGateway.com. https://www.biblegateway.com/
Yogananda, P. (1952). Metaphysical Meditations. 1952 Edition. Crystal Clarity Publishers.
Yogananda, P. (2007). How to Love and Be Loved: Wisdom of Yogananda. Crystal Clarity Publishers.
Yogananda, P. (2021). God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita. Ebook Edition. International Publications Council of Self-Relization Fellowship.
Yogananda, P. (2021). Scientific Healing Affirmations: Theory and Practice of Concentration. Ebook Edition. International Publications Council of Self-Relization Fellowship.
Yogananda, P. (N.D) Whispers From Eternity. https://www.ananda.org/free-inspiration/books/whispers-from-eternity/
Yogananda, P. (2021).The Divine Romance: Collected Talks & Essays on Realizing God in Daily Life, Volume II. Ebook Edition. International Publications Council of Self-Relization Fellowship.
