Historically we’ve been taught that we’re insignificant specks of life passing through a brief moment in time, limited by the “laws” of space, atoms, and DNA. This view suggests that we’ll have little effect upon anything during our time in this world, and that when we’re gone the universe will never even notice our absence. It’s precisely these beliefs that often leave us feeling small and helpless in the face of life’s greatest challenges.

Are We Capable of Miracles? 

What if we’re more than this? Could it be that we’re really very powerful beings in disguise? What if we’re delegates of a miraculous potential, born into this world with capabilities beyond our wildest dreams—capabilities that we’ve forgotten in the conditions that have shocked us into the illusion of being powerless?

Such a radical discovery would change everything. It would change what we believe about ourselves, the universe, and our role in life. It’s also precisely what the leading-edge discoveries are showing us today and what the great masters discovered for themselves in the past.

A Tibetan Yogi Does The Unthinkable

In the ninth century A.D., the great Tibetan yogi, Milarepa, began a personal retreat to master his body in this world, a journey that would last until his death at the age of 84. Before he died, Milarepa left proof of his mastery in the form of a miracle that modern scientists say should simply not exist. I wanted to see for myself the place where Milarepa breached the laws of physics to prove that our beliefs determine what’s possible for us in life.

I’d first heard about Milarepa from a Sikh mystic who became my yoga teacher in the 1980s. For years, I’d studied the mystery surrounding the yogi’s journey throughout the remote mountains of China’s Western plateau and the secrets that his devotion had revealed. In 1998, I led a group pilgrimage into Tibet following a route that would take us directly to Milarepa’s cave. Nineteen days after the trip began, I found myself in the thin air of a cave hidden 16,000 feet above sea level, standing precisely where the great yogi had stood nearly 800 years before. With my face only inches away from the wall of the cave, I was staring squarely into the mystery that he had left behind.

To demonstrate his mastery of the physical world, Milarepa had placed his open hand against the cave’s wall at shoulder level, and then continued to push his hand deep into the rock in front of him, as if the wall did not exist! When he did so, the rock beneath his palm became soft and malleable as he left the imprint of his hand embedded in the stone for all to see.

As I opened my palm and placed it into the impression of Milarepa’s hand, I could feel my fingertips cradled in the precise position that the yogi’s fingers had assumed eight centuries earlier—a feeling that was both humbling and inspiring at the same time. The fit was so perfect that any doubt I had about the authenticity of the handprint quickly disappeared. Immediately, my thoughts turned to the man himself. I wanted to know what was happening to him when the rock softened to his touch. What was he thinking? What was he feeling? What did he change within himself that allowed him to defy the “laws” telling us that two physical things—like human flesh and a rock—can’t be in the same place, at the same time?

In anticipation of my question, our Tibetan translator, Xjin-la (pronounced jen la) answered before I even spoke the words. “He has belief,” Xjin-la stated in a matter-of-fact voice. The geshe he said, (the Tibetan word for great teacher) believes that he and the rock are not separate. The rock cannot contain him. To him, this cave is not a wall, so he can move freely as if the rock does not exist.”

How Our Conciousness Shapes Our World

In the face of an event like Milarepa’s breach of physical laws, we must reconcile our direct experience with what our family, friends, and culture accept as the reality of our world. The qualities of a cave’s stone wall depend upon the way we think of them. Before Milarepa’s students witnessed the possibility that their teacher showed them, for example, they believed that the rock was a barrier to the human body. After their teacher’s demonstration, their beliefs changed. Both views are accurate. Each one depends upon the way we think of our world—it’s all about what we choose to believe.

The Language of Quantum Physics

So the question that we must ask ourselves is simply this: Could the same thing be happening in our lives today? As far-fetched as this question may sound in light of our scientific knowledge and technological advances, modern scientists now describe a similar irony. Using the language of quantum physics rather than yogic miracles, a growing number of leading-edge scientists suggest that the universe and everything in it—including the healing of our bodies—“is” what it “is” because of the force of consciousness itself. Interestingly, the more we understand the relationship between consciousness, our inner experiences, and our world, the less far-fetched this suggestion becomes.

The ancient mystics reminded our hearts and modern demonstrations have proven to our minds that the great secret of creation itself lives within each of us: the power to create in the world, what we’ve imagined in our beliefs. While it may sound too easy to be true, the evidence suggests that the universe and our healing works precisely this way, and is just this simple.