CONTENTS
An Ancient Secret Hiding in Plain Sight
Making the “Impossible” Possible
Help From the Past
The Key to Finding the Blueprint
Six Steps EXTRA
A Basic Tool
Step One: Turn Away
Step Two: Remove the Stone
Step Three: Great Expectations
Step Four: Upfront Thanks
Step Five: A Strong Command
Step Six: Drop the Old Role
Cherish the Gift
Endnotes
About the Authors
The Lazarus Blueprint
A Unity Books Paperback Original
Copyright © 2012 by Mary-Alice and Richard Jafolla. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from Unity Books, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews or in newsletters and lesson plans of licensed Unity teachers and ministers. For information, write to Unity Books, 1901 NW Blue Parkway, Unity Village, MO 64065-0001.
Unity Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases for study groups, book clubs, sales promotions, book signings or fundraising. To place an order, call the Unity Customer Care Department at 1-866-236-3571 or email wholesaleaccts@unityonline.org.
Cover design: Hailee Pavey, Multimedia Artist, Unity
Interior design: The Covington Group, Kansas City, Missouri
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012933866
ISBN: 978-0-87159-359-7
ISBN: 9780871597786
Canada BN 13252 0933 RT
The art world often uses X-rays and infrared techniques to verify a painting’s authenticity. Sometimes, quite unexpectedly, they discover another painting underneath. The portrait of a woman was discovered underneath Van Gogh’s Patch of Grass. A Leonardo da Vinci sketch was hiding behind his venerated Virgin on the Rocks. An earlier Picasso painting lies under his famous Rue de Montmartre.
In each case, a masterpiece beneath a masterpiece lay unseen and unappreciated, sometimes for centuries.
A hidden masterpiece also lies beneath the Lazarus story.
Also by the Authors
The Simple Truth
The Quest
Adventures on the Quest
Quest for Prayer
Quest ’96 Calendar Journal
Quest ’97 Calendar Journal
Quest 2000 Calendar Journal
Nourishing the Life Force
ENDNOTES
1 Authors’ note: We have abridged the story of Lazarus here in order to feature passages containing the most meaningful pieces of the hidden blueprint. The complete Lazarus story is in the Gospel of John, Chapter 11 (New Revised Standard Version).
2 Taken from an article entitled “Cure of the Mind,” by Maj-Britt Niemi, which appeared in the February 2009 issue of Scientific American magazine.
3 Harper & Row, NY, 1950.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mary-Alice and Richard Jafolla have always used holistic teachings and spiritual principles as the core of their professional work. Mary-Alice has been a university instructor with an M.A. in humanities, and Richard has been a substance abuse counselor with an M.S. in counseling psychology. Both were teachers at Life Therapy Institute in Palm Springs, California.
They founded Spirit of Life, Inc., a nonprofit spiritual and educational organization dedicated to all aspects of wellness. In addition, they established and owned health food stores in California, Alabama, Florida and Texas.
While directors of Silent Unity® in the 1990s, Mary-Alice and Richard served as executive editors of Daily Word® magazine. They have authored many articles and best-selling books, including The Quest, Adventures on the Quest, The Simple Truth, and Quest for Prayer. They have appeared on numerous radio and television shows, and have conducted hundreds of lectures, classes and seminars in the United States and England.
From having been contributing editors for National Greyhound Update (that’s greyhound dogs, not buses!) to maintaining their current websites, golfnook.com and jafolla.com, writing continues to be a major part of the Jafollas’ lives.
An Ancient Secret Hiding in
Plain Sight
The Lazarus Blueprint will bring to light the masterpiece that lay beneath the biblical story for 2,000 years.
This book approaches the Lazarus story from a fresh, new perspective—a nonreligious perspective. You see, woven throughout the ancient story, yet concealed in plain sight, lies an extraordinary blueprint for overcoming a difficult situation, and healing even a situation that may seem impossible.
Are you struggling with this kind of problem?
Whatever your need—physical, mental, emotional, spiritual—this valuable information hidden beneath the surface of the Lazarus story outlines Six Steps you can use to overcome an unwanted situation and redesign your life.
It doesn’t matter what degree of authenticity you ascribe to the biblical story. View the original story any way you wish: religiously, intellectually, skeptically or indifferently. That’s outside the scope of this book. The fundamental principles embedded in the Lazarus story reach beyond the story itself and will always remain the same—consistent, unchanging, powerful.
Making the “Impossible”
Possible
Something deep within the human spirit yearns to triumph, no matter how impossible a situation seems. We search for answers. Sometimes, if we can just hold on, just wait long enough, the ebb and flow of changing circumstances will carry us out of the depths of darkness back up into the sunlight. Things get better.
Sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes we feel trapped in a situation we can’t control and think only a miracle could move us back into the flow of life. We don’t know where to turn. We don’t know where to look for help. We wonder if any help even exists.
It does.
Incredible storehouses of wisdom and possibilities are available to us that, when we open ourselves to them, will lead to an outcome we would have believed impossible.
Help Is Available
Need help with a physical healing? Emotional healing? Trying to restore a relationship? Have an addiction problem? The steps embedded in the Lazarus story, when you apply them to your specific situation, can help lead you to the solution. Together the steps form a psychologically and spiritually sound blueprint to get you started on your own path back into the flow of life.
This blueprint is so basic, so universal, so timeless and so powerful that it can work for everyone. Whatever your situation, the steps outlined in the blueprint can be your guide. Clearly laid out for you to follow, the instructions show you how to turn your “impossibility” into “possibility.”
“I Can Do It Too”
The Lazarus Blueprint is the culmination of a series of classes and workshops we, the authors, presented. Many who worked with the Six Steps shared their stories with us. You will read the accounts of some of these people at the end of each chapter. Their names have been changed, but their stories are genuine and heartwarming. We include them because another person’s success can inspire and motivate you, and help you feel “I can do it too!”
Maybe you have been reading these words because you are searching for help to be free of some unwelcome condition or situation in your life. If so, you, too, can use this blueprint to overcome that “impossibility” facing you today. You can redesign your life.
Timing is everything.
Now may be the time for you to discover the dynamic help this blueprint offers.
Help
From the Past
Let’s review the original Lazarus story. Throughout the book, we will be working with key passages, although not from the usual religious perspective. We delve into these passages because they carry the blueprint for redesigning your life and turning the impossible into the possible. Cloaked in its biblical setting, the 2,000-year-old blueprint soon proves its ability to stand alone beyond the biblical story as timeless, universal and decidedly current.
The Six Steps of the blueprint can help you restore your life. Hope instead of despair, light instead of darkness, and a certain knowing deep within you that things are going to be okay.
The Lazarus Story
Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha … So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” … Though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was. Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.”… When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother … When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”… He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.”… Then Jesus … came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, that they may believe …” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”1
The Key to
Finding the Blueprint
Okay, time to get specific about the blueprint and discover what’s in it for you. The biblical story you just read is the Lazarus story that’s well-known. Now we will step beyond that story to discover another story, deeply woven into the fabric of the biblical one. A story within a story.
A hidden communication—a cryptic message—waits to be uncovered. Here is where we find the blueprint outlining the series of steps for healing what needs to be healed. The blueprint, however, like the paintings hidden under paintings, is concealed and you must have a key to unlock it. This chapter provides you with the key, giving you access to the information about how to recognize and understand the blueprint, and how to use its Six Steps.
How to Gain Access to the Help You Need
The secret to the Six Steps is to recognize this “other story” within the story and hear its personal message to you. How do you do this? You interpret each character and circumstance in the story as having its counterpart in your own life and in the circumstances that surround your present challenge.
Each character in the story, every word spoken, every place and object mentioned represents an aspect of you and your life. The Six Steps come alive when you translate the elements in the story into your specific situation and apply them to your own life. Only then, when the steps are personalized to fit your specific needs, can they be effective. This is the key to unlocking the instructions that apply to your unique set of circumstances.
This key is your access to the help you need.
Now you will learn how to use it. Begin by reading the following two examples that illustrate how it works.
This Is Your Story
Right up front, it’s obvious that Lazarus and Jesus are the two most important characters in the story. Each in his own way represents an aspect of you. Interpret these two characters and their words and actions as parts of yourself—as parts of your life, as parts of the challenge you are dealing with—and you are well on your way to understanding the message in the story and applying it to your own situation. The application of the Six Steps will be unique to each person who will interpret the characters and objects in his or her own way. Here’s a hint to save you time and get you started.
Lazarus in the story represents the current you. Invariably you will find that Lazarus is a symbol of your current difficult circumstances. Lazarus, lying lifeless in the cave, might represent the you that is encumbered by a physical illness, or the you who has an addiction problem, or the you feeling trapped in an abusive marriage. Lazarus could be your despair over your child’s involvement with drugs. Or he could represent your broken relationship with one of your parents. Maybe Lazarus is the part of you whose dreams and hopes somehow got sidetracked along the way, yet still linger on, aching to have new life breathed into them—the loving, compassionate you who got buried under an avalanche of abuse received as a child, or the you who so desperately longed to go to a university but got buried under a lifetime of family responsibilities. Lazarus might be the slender you who got trapped under a mass of body fat that physically and emotionally weighs you down, and that you just can’t seem to shed.
Whatever part of your life you feel is dead and needs to be brought back to life, any part of your life languishing in a “cave of darkness,” that is your Lazarus. Right now, whether buried under a recent devastating predicament or a lifetime accumulation of hurts and disappointments, you are not fully alive. Part of you, like Lazarus in that dark cave, needs resurrecting.
Starting to get the idea?
Now let’s look at the other main character in the story. Once again, we’ll explore beyond the surface.
Jesus in the Lazarus story represents the “real” you. He represents your highest nature—the essential, genuine, one-of-a-kind you—the you that is unique in all the universe and the you who is able to express your uniqueness in fulfilling ways. The Jesus character represents your life as you desire it to be: the sober you, finally free of addiction, or the you who is respected and loved, or the you who has forgotten the negative past and is able to get on with a normal life. Jesus in the story represents the life you will experience when you free yourself from your problem and celebrate the goodness life holds for you.
To summarize the two main characters, Lazarus represents the part of your life that needs to be restored. Jesus represents your highest nature—the real you.
In addition to Lazarus and Jesus, other characters, places and objects will show up in the story. As you become comfortable with interpreting characters and situations in the story as parts of your own life, you will be able to recognize even those not specifically mentioned in this book.
How to Read Your Blueprint
Finding your “story within the story” by identifying the various characters, places and objects and what they represent in you is a simple technique.
You may want to first read the story’s original passages at the beginning of the chapter, not trying to analyze, but just letting the words “sink in.” Next, read the entire chapter. When you finish, go back and reread the passage from the story at the top of the chapter, this time making a mental note of the people and objects presented and what they do in the story.
Now you are ready to sit quietly and let your subconscious mind take charge. No intellectual evaluations. Just relax and “listen” to whatever surfaces.
Don’t worry if initially you cannot identify everything or even anything. It will come. The more you patiently practice this technique, the more the insights will emerge—helpful and wonderful “aha” insights. Eventually you will see yourself and your story at every turn as you progress through the Six Steps. The more you progress, the more you will look forward to new discoveries about yourself and your situation.
Heading to Step One
As you read and reread the Lazarus story, some ideas and impressions will pop up immediately. Other times they can take longer to surface. Whenever you do identify what the various characters and objects and words represent in your situation, you will notice they usually emerge not from your analytical brain, but from your subconscious mind.
Things may seem confusing at this point, and that’s okay. Without the proper tools, it is difficult to clearly discern a painting hidden beneath a painting. It is just as difficult to discern the uniquely personal message for you hidden beneath the Lazarus story if you don’t have the proper “tools.” So if things seem a bit confusing right now, please know they will soon clear up. The proper tools lie just ahead.
Six Steps
EXTRA
When we (the authors) discovered the unique and timeless blueprint hidden in the Lazarus story, we knew from the start that it was a completely different approach to transforming lives. While lecturing and teaching the Six Steps, we quickly realized this was something new—something that really could help people find the healing and peace of mind they craved.
Exciting, fresh, contemporary—it was obvious that the blueprint, ancient as its roots are, seemed to suit today’s world. We witnessed the success so many people attained by working with this timeless blueprint and its Six Steps. We are also convinced that this process is simple to work with and can be applied to any situation. As you, yourself, evolve and progress through the Six Steps, you will quickly realize that all it requires is your continual sincere commitment to follow it closely and let it become part of your life. The degree of commitment you give it is equal to the degree of success you achieve.
The desire to change your life is not enough, because a desire without a deed is a dead end. However, a small step in the right direction is enough to get you started. A simple change in your lifestyle can act as a catalyst toward larger, more meaningful changes. Making these changes in your outlook, your thoughts, your actions will keep you moving in the direction that allows the healing of whatever needs to be healed in your life.
In order to help you incorporate into your life what you will be learning in the Six Steps, we have added an EXTRA, which consists of practical suggestions. The EXTRA can help you maintain your commitment to the Six Steps and incorporate the new material into your everyday life.
You will find an EXTRA following each of the steps.
A
Basic Tool
Changing your life by turning the “impossible” into the possible is infinitely easier and quicker when you tap into your inner wisdom. This is an aspect of you that is beyond your logical, rational and conscious mind. It speaks to you in the form of intuition and impression and instinct and hunches and a variety of other feelings, even dreams.
An effective way to hear this inner voice is by sitting calmly and quietly, and simply opening yourself to it. This conscious direction of your attention to that wisdom deep within is commonly called meditation.