 | Art of Healing
Author
Irma Golubiani , 05/01/2010
The alternative healing has very long history and influences from different countries, such as India, China, Egypt, Greek, etc but usually natural alternative healing is often referred as a type of treatment that does not follow the conventional medicine, sometimes is not based on evidence or scientific findings, and knowledge from experiments and practices are passed down from ancestors. In modern world, natural alternative healing methods has been slowly growing. A survey recently show that tens of millions of Americans are already relying on natural ways of healing. As spiritual revival is gaining momentum, sacred healing is reaching its greatest acceptance. Humanity is driven to recapture a sense of spiritual connection with miraculous healing, which goes beyond and cannot be explained.
Such healing methods could include non-invasive, non-pharmaceutical techniques such as: Naturopathy, Acupuncture, Homeopathy, Reiki, Aromatherapy, Ayurveda, Chiropractic Care, Hypnotherapy, medical Qi gong, Feng Shui, Reflexology, Art therapy, Sand Therapy, Nutritional Therapy, Sound Healing, Faith Healing, Shiatsu Massage Therapy, TFT (Thought Field Therapy), Transpersonal therapies, Visualization-Meditation, Guided Imagery, Yoga, Karmic Medicine, Pranic Healing, Chakra Healing, Spontaneous Healing, Shamanic Medicine, Sacred Hawaiian Healing, Quantum Touch, and many more.
Some of these methods are body work oriented, like Acupuncture, Massage, or Chiropractic care. Some of them help to calm down and balance mind, some are helpful for emotional healing and some are designed to heal invisible, unknown, spiritual parts of human energy field.. Even though methods are very different and each of these techniques uses different tools to influence human body or mind, one thing all of them have in common, they all acknowledge existence of invisible, subtle energy around and through human body and through everything in Universe. This energy is referenced in many cultural traditions is called: “life force”, “chi” or “Qi”, “aura”, “ki”, “prana”, “spirit” or just simply energy. It is everywhere, in everything. Even words, sounds, crystals, plants, thoughts, prayer, carry this energy, which is believed to influence an individual’s well-being. There is a close correlation between energy field and human mental, emotional, physical body. If human energy field is damaged, it can cause mental, emotional, physical sickness. Human energy field can be healed if it is damaged and that healing translates into physical, emotional, mental, improvement also. If the energy around the lungs is blocked, for example, there may be a corresponding physical problem. If the energy is smoothed out, the physical problem may be improved. Alternative medicine is a healing practice that focuses on balancing the energy field that surrounds the human body in a natural way. Healer directs energy consciously towards damaged area of the field and restores it. Healing can happened even from distance, because according to energy theory, spiritual subtle energy operates in “no time, no space” dimension, it is simultaneously everywhere.
Modern science tries to scientifically explain energy phenomenon. In the early 1980's a team of scientists at the University of Paris led by Alain Aspect made an incredible discovery that may be one of the most important discoveries in modern science. They found that under certain circumstances some subatomic particles were able to communicate instantaneously with each other no matter how far apart they were from each other. It didn't matter if they were millions of miles apart.
In other research in 1997 Nicolas Gisan duplicated these findings and concluded that some particles appeared to be communicating at the mind boggling speed of 20,000 times the speed of light. These conclusions may give clues as to why distance healing works. Well known quantum physicist David Bohm concluded the reasons why subatomic particles can stay in contact with each other despite vast distances is not because they are transmitting some unknown signal back and forth, but because the separateness of the particles is an illusion. Bohm surmises that at a deeper level of reality the particles are not individual entities but are extensions of the same fundamental something and everything in the universe is infinitely interconnected.
Interconnectedness of everything alive, nature, environment, man and the whole universe, is not a new concept. Far, before quantum theory was born, about 5,000 years ago, ancient healing traditions in India and China, stressed living a healthy way of life in harmony with nature. "Socrates warned against treating only one part of the body 'for the part can never be well unless the whole is well.' Although the term holism was introduced by Jan Christiaan Smuts in 1926 as a way of viewing living things as 'entities greater than and different from the sum of their parts,' it wasn't until the 1970s that holistic became a common adjective in our modern vocabulary"-wrote Susan Walter, president of American Holistic Health Association.
Alternative Medicine has holistic approach to healing and the term Holistic Healing and Holistic Medicine has been very closely associated with the term Alternative Medicine because it emphasizes the need to look at the whole person, including analysis of physical, nutritional, environmental, emotional, social, spiritual and lifestyle values. Holistic medicine focuses on education and responsibility for personal efforts to achieve balance and well being. Susan Walter mentions that, "The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that the key factors influencing an individual's state of health have not changed significantly over the past 20 years. Quality of medical care is only 10%. Heredity accounts for 18% and environment is 19%. Everyday lifestyle choices are 53%. The decisions people make about their life and habits are, therefore, by far the largest factor in determining their state of wellness"
Nature is man’s healer, because they are interconnected. When Ayurveda-traditional Indian Medicine-says that the “sun is our right eye and the moon our left eye”, one mustn’t sneer. It’s well known that human fetus develops by remembering and imitation the shapes of fish, amphibians, and early mammals.
Like Ayurveda, Chinese medicine focuses on treatment of the entire human body, but Chinese healers made invaluable contribution in understanding nature of Chi energy and it’s influence on the human body organs. According to Chinese medical science, “body has twelve main channels, they are like rivers of Qi energy and they are associated with twelve main organs. There are eight Qi vassels also in human body, which are often compare to reservoirs, because they store Qi energy for the body. The twelve body organs are divided into two main groups: six Yin (inner) organs and six Yang (outer) organs. Yin organs store and do not drain energy, while yang organs drain and do not store. Each Yang organ is associated with Yin organ by special Yin/Yang relationship. To obtain health, a harmony is sought between them and any imbalance is avoided.”(Yang 46-48)
Chinese medicine also discovered relationship between five main elements (phases), body organs, and human personalities. These elements are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water. They are thought of as the five properties inherent in all things. ”Each phase symbolizes a category of related functions and qualities. Wood is liked with active functions that are in phase of with growth or with increasing. Fire expresses that the function have reached a maximum state and are ready to decline. Metal represents declining functions. Water symbolizes that the functions have declined and are ready to grow.(Yang 47) In order to stay healthy, function of five elements and flow of Qi energy has to be smooth and continuous.
Why does Alternative Medicine sometimes has magical healing effect on patients, sometimes it doesn’t? What marks a survivor as opposed to a non-survivor?
The successful patients have learned to motivate their own healing, and the most successful have gone much further than that. They have found the secret of quantum healing. They are the geniuses of the mind-body connection.
Consciously directed spiritual energy is a force that most people undervalue. Generally humans do not focus their inner awareness or use its real power, even in the most difficult moments of crisis. That may account for why “miracle” cures are greeted with a mixture of awe, disbelief, and reverence. Yet, everyone possesses healing energy. Perhaps these miracles are extensions of normal abilities.
Modern science cannot even begin to duplicate their cures, because no cure that relies on drugs or surgery is so precisely timed, so beautifully coordinated, so benign and free of side effects, so effortless as theirs. Their ability springs from a level so deep that it’s impossible to go any deeper or know what their brains were doing to motivate their bodies. Medicine has not taken the quantum leap yet, and the word quantum has no clinical application. Because quantum physics works with ultra-high-speed accelerators, it’s easy to assume that quantum healing uses radioisotopes or X rays. But that is the opposite of what it means. The deepest core of the mind-body system is where healing begins. To go there and learn to promote the healing response, one must get past all the grosser levels of the body–cells, tissues, organs, and systems–and arrive at the junction point between mind and matter, the point where consciousness and healing actually starts to have an effect. Quantum discoveries makes it possible to go into very atoms and remember the early universe itself.
“This is a place where time stands still, where you touch your own soul and feel that you are touched and forever changed by your soul. This requires no special gift, but comes naturally to each person who sincerely chooses to give. There is no need to stroke the ego with titles, levels, or badges of “mastery” to acknowledge our angelic identity. Our love needs only to celebrate the flow of the moment. The joy in the giving and receiving is clearly reward enough. The act of receiving and giving is truly a blessing to all.The heart and essence of running energy is that of giving love. By this I mean that we can enter a place within ourselves that has no judgment or fear; a place where you simply wish to give, and to care, and to help, and to embrace, so as to allow the miracles of healing to occur.” This is how founder of “Quantum Touch” , Richard Gordon, describes mechanism of healing.
Hawaiian healer, Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len, went even farther in his explorations of secrets of healing. He says that one doesn’t have to heal others, it is enough if one heals only himself. This looks paradoxical, but interconnectedness of all makes it possible to transfer healing from oneself. Dr. Hew Len describes amazing, miraculous Hawaiian healing method called ho 'oponopono. He worked at Hawaii State Hospital for four years. That ward, where they kept the criminally insane, was dangerous. Psychologists quit on a monthly basis. The staff called in sick a lot or simply quit. Dr. Len never saw patients. He agreed to have an office and to review their files. While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal. After a few months, patients that had to be shackled were being allowed to walk freely. Others who had to be heavily medicated were getting off their medications. And those who had no chance of ever being released were being freed. Staff began to enjoy coming to work. Today, that ward is closed. What was he doing within yourself that caused those people to change?
He was simply healing the part of himself. Dr. Len explained that total responsibility means that everything in one's life is one's responsibility. In a literal sense the entire world is one's creation. "This is tough to swallow"-says Dr. Len, "Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility, because it is in your life. This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy or anything you experience and don't like--is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you. If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal you do it by healing you.I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again, he explained. That's it. Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, you improve your world".
There are many who look at Alternative Healing with a skeptical eye. They simply don’t believe in concept of energy and some of them think that Alternative healing simply depends on placebo effect. "Critics of alternative medicine often say that much of its purported effectiveness stems from the ‘placebo effect,’ in which a sick person credits his recovery to the preparation he took, even though it may have had no active ingredients. Often, critics say, the patient had a mild illness that would have gone away without intervention, or the person's determination to get well sparked recovery. Believers in alternative medicine dismiss such comments as quibbles. They point out that many ancient healing techniques, and modern holistic medicine as well, respect the mind's role in maintaining health and combating illness. Research suggests that ‘hope stimulates our immune functioning’, Gordon wrote, 'and helps protect us against the onset of illness of all kinds."(Worsnop 285). Faith and hope are key ingredients in healing sickness. If patient believes only in conventional ways of healing, it’s better for him to find a medical doctor,
Manifestation of healing in Alternative medicine depends not only on patient’s openness and believes, but it depends also on the healers attitude. Gerald Mary, Psychiatrist and Transpersonal Therapist, in his article A Pilgrimage of Healing, with disarming honesty describes how his training and intense desire to alleviate suffering led to objective distancing, loss of empathy and a search for personal gratification. In his desire to become a good therapist and to effect change in people, his clients became “things one wishes to fix. “For one thing, I’ve learned that there is a difference between healing and fixing. If I try to fix the person that I see before me, I am embarking on a path that will lead both of us into ever-increasing separation and alienation. But if I can blink my eyes and see what’s there, and quit thinking about it, then there may be some space for healing to occur. For healing is not something I do to someone else, nor is it something one does to oneself, rather it is a process within us, happening-just happening-if we can get out of it’s way.”(Boorstain 35).
Alternative Medicine continues search of different ways: how to get out of the way of healing, how to create atmosphere within and without, where energy, life force, flows freely, without obstacles. As science and spirituality continue to merge in 21st century, as people become more conscious about their divine origin, Alternative Healing slowly becomes natural, conventional, everyday medicine for body, mind, and soul. |
