Consciousness and health
Consciousness as medicine: reflections and experiences with acute illnesses
Editor’s note
The word’ consciousness’ is coming into wider and wider usage in modern times. It is a sign that we are getting more deeply engaged with the subjective side of human experience. It is also an indication that we are seeking for some fundamental basis of life and existence as we have hit a road-block there, a block that only the introduction and inclusion of Consciousness as a fundamental Reality behind all phenomenon can alone remove. All other theories leave a big hiatus between what is experienced as real and the basis of that experience of reality. However, the word is also used in a more general sense, to describe the state of awareness we are in at a given moment. It is important to draw the distinction since while Consciousness in its deepest sense indicates the fundamental Reality, the base of Knowledge-Power that exists behind all things, the common Matrix of creation so to say, the states of consciousness are limited by the bandwidth of the experiencing person. Thus we can speak of different levels and layers of experience such as mental, vital, physical consciousness or even a subconscious and a superconscious state. In other words, there is only One Consciousness which becomes limited and is experienced as different in different persons depending upon the limitation of the experiencing person. The present article uses the term mostly in the latter sense though there is an obvious undercurrent of the former usage at places.
Abstract
A combination of inner and outer causes results in a creation of disease within an individual. The intervention of medicines, therapies and doctors breaks the disease-cycle and modifies the healing process. Healing follows a certain law of nature, which is governed by certain factors. Once we modify the factors or bring in a new factor, the pathway and the outcome is changed. Consciousness is one such vital factor that has a powerful influence on the healing pathway.
It has been four years since I discovered simple ways to directly act on one’s own body and facilitate its healing. I wish to share a few experiences and insights gained on the way.
Peace, love — concrete powers that influence the body
Over the years, I have begun to realise that peace, joy, love and light are not mere psychological states, but in fact concrete powers that have the power to influence the body. I have seen the effect of these powers working even in acute illnesses rather dramatically. I have observed the body respond immediately, the pain flowing out, inflammation receding and a sense of peace settling in the physical organs. I have seen a rapid change in the psychological state of people. The power of peace breaks the cycle of fear and panic and brings in a new influence on the body. There were numerous cases, wherein the acute suffering of the person transformed within a few minutes.
Cancer pain and the power of peace
Mrs. R was an accomplished businesswoman in her late 50s. She was suddenly diagnosed with advanced stage of cervical cancer a few months earlier. The doctors had ruled out any surgical or radiotherapy intervention at this stage and for the excruciating pain put her on palliative therapy with injectable opioids. The first time I met R was in her house, she was confined to bed and in a state of depression. She could not come to terms with her illness and the question of, ‘Why me?’, still rankled deep inside.
The initial healing sessions were focused on freeing her from the dense clouds of depression and gloom and rekindle the will to live. In fact after the first session, her friends and family members were surprised to see her transformed psychologically, she was cheerful, back to work and in fact even visited her factory after several months.
During one of the days, I met her before her morning dose of morphine and suggested having a brief healing session. After much effort at trying to work through the emotional sphere, she was for a brief moment able to bring down peace into the abdominal region. As the peace descended, she felt the pain receding. The experience was quite amazing, for many hours the effect of the peace remained and there was no pain even without morphine. Even the big emotional heaviness around her heart receded.
However, she found it difficult to sustain this ‘consciousness’. The moments she was indrawn and felt the Presence, she felt good, but later when the old nature returned, life became difficult with all the pain and suffering. Unfortunately, I was unable to work long enough with her. She succumbed to her disease in peace a few months later.
Asthma exacerbations and peace
Mr. P, my colleague, was in distress and suffering from an acute exacerbation of asthma. Unfortunately that day he did not have his inhaler with him. I saw him in my office, and asked him to sit down and relax. I instructed him to withdraw inwards from the outer feeling of breathlessness and move into a vast space inside. Within a few seconds, the panic was gone, his breathing became quieter and slower and the expressions on his face changed. P, being a doctor himself, was pleasantly shocked at the simplicity and effectiveness of the approach. I have had similar experiences with a few other patients with acute asthma, and consistently observed an immediate effect on the symptoms.
What amazes me is that even after people have seen such a dramatic effect on their own body, it does not necessarily change their fundamental perspective. Slowly the mind drifts back to its old ways and the consciousness gets lost in the ways of the mundane.
Backache — prāṇa and Light
Backache is a common complaint and I have helped many clients overcome the pain and stiffness using simple inner ways of healing. Ms. A, a yoga teacher in her late 30s, had been suffering from acute backache since the previous few days and was confined to bed because of the pain. She had tried different yoga techniques in addition to the medicines, but apparently they had not helped much. When she narrated her condition over the phone, I guided her through a healing session over the phone. Over more than an hour, we explored the inner conditions of her back muscles and painstakingly removed the old hurts and fears. She could feel the block of prāṇa flow in those parts, and soon we restored the flow of prāṇa. She invoked Light to clear the dense emotional patterns and strengthen the muscles around. Once the blocks were cleared, the pain disappeared and she was able to get up and walk around.
On mosquito bites, lactose intolerance and talking to the body
Here is a mail I received from one of the workshop participants:
“Hello Dr. Mohan, my name is Daniel Moskovitz, from Israel, and I was at your seminar on 22.3.14 in Veritee, Auroville. The same night of the seminar I was sitting outside in a restaurant and mosquitoes were circling around me and I realised that I could tell my immune system that mosquitoes could not harm me and then a mosquito sat on my arm and I let it bite me. I was watching everything and I told my immune system that ‘the mosquito is not my enemy, he is my friend, don’t attack the area of the bite.’
“So the mosquito finished his work and flew away and the allergic reaction was so small, it was barely itchy. And since then mosquitoes don’t bite me or if they do I don’t feel it.
“The day after the mosquito incident, I learnt from it that every allergy can be controlled by consciousness. I was lactose intolerant before and I wanted to see if I could tolerate milk with this technique. So I told myself that milk is not my enemy and my body could digest it and I drank 1 litre of milk. I had no abdominal pain and no diarrhoea at all. And I have drunk milk every day since and my body accepts the lactose, I only have a bit of mucus but I am not sure if it is from the milk. I telling you this so you can explore and experiment and tell people and help the world become a better place.”
Diabetes and Light in the cells
Mr. N in his late 40s was newly diagnosed with diabetes with very high fasting glucose of 240 mg/L and HBA1C of more than 10. He was quite shaken by the diagnosis, and had developed symptoms of peripheral neuritis. All the doctors around suggested he start immediately on drugs. I told N to give himself a couple of weeks of working with my methods, and if nothing happened then he could go back to the conventional treatment.
Within a couple of days, he was able to overcome the emotional shock and free himself to some extent from the heaviness around the chest. Ironically, within a few days, he said that he was feeling better, rather much better than the pre-diagnosis days — a feeling of lightness. I tried to explain that the problem was merely one of sugar metabolism and easily reversible. That he need not believe he was a diabetic, for once the sugar metabolism is restored he is no longer a diabetic.
In the initial days, the focus was on making the consciousness free from fear and anxiety. Slowly as he learnt to go within and visualise his inner body, he saw the state of his pancreatic cells — dry, and full of fear. For three weeks, we worked daily, reassuring the cells and invoking Light and Love. The inner milieu of the organs changed; the cells became more alive and started secreting. Within three weeks, the blood sugar too came down, along with a feeling of peace and confidence.
Auto-immunity and thought-patterns
After working with a few patients with auto-immune disorders, I realised that the immune system is highly sensitive to our thought-patterns. Ms. G, an Australian middle-aged lady, had suffered from Hashimotos thyroiditis for many years. She was also in serious emotional distress, having lost her father recently. She had a healing session after attending one of my workshops. While in meditation, she visualised darkness and multiple prickly structures in her thyroid tissue depicting auto antibodies. As she prayed and invoked Light, the antibodies too disappeared. A couple of months later she came for another workshop, and shared that for the first time in many years her thyroid hormones were within normal limits without need for any supplements.
Drug allergy and consciousness
I got a distress call one evening. Ms. Y was having severe pain and inflammation on her right leg allegedly due to drug reaction. Over the phone, I guided her to sit quietly and breathe deeply. The healing session lasted for more than an hour, wherein I helped her to go within and invoke Peace and Love in the tissues. After the session, the inflammation had much subsided; there was no pain and fear. However, once the acute phase was over, Y went back to her old doctors and medicines.
Abdominal cramps and peace
I have had umpteen instances of patients complaining of distress from abdominal cramps, and recovering within a few minutes of silence and invoking peace in the body.
Reflections on healing
Healing methods — reflecting a greater Truth behind
The techniques which have evolved over the years signify a greater Truth of Nature and must be understood and practised with that awareness. However if the person uses the techniques mechanically, there is no deeper change in the Consciousness. The techniques become mere mechanical tools and a sort of replacement of the medicines and the larger purpose of healing is defeated.
Healing methods and the state of consciousness
The power of the healing processes depends on the depth of consciousness from where they come. The deeper the state the client is able to enter, the greater becomes the power and effectiveness of the technique to heal. If the techniques are used in the externalised normal consciousness, the effect is not deep enough. For most of people, it takes some time to enter deep within in a meditative state. There again, the quality of aspiration and the state of consciousness matters much. This fact helps explain why different people react differently to healing sessions.
Hence, one of the important steps in healing is to go within and touch a higher state of consciousness, and from that state, it is much easier and effective to work on the mind, vital and body.
Healing techniques — not rigid methods
All these so-called healing methods or techniques have evolved naturally during the process of healing. I am not sure if these methods can be strictly confined and defined into rigid techniques. For me personally, these are just natural ways to help the body open up to a higher consciousness and facilitate the healing process. So, in fact there is lot of creativity and freedom in using these methods and what matters is not the outer form but the consciousness behind these techniques.
Inner awareness and the power to change and heal oneself
As people go through the healing process, they learn to become more deeply aware of the different parts of their being and gradually learn to use inner ways to heal the body and mind. They realise that the real power to change the body and mind is actually within them. One of the most beautiful side-effects of this method is that one no longer feels helpless and dependent on external therapies and therapists. With the consciousness approach, one learns to become aware of the inner causes of disease, to realise the influence of thoughts and emotions on the body and become empowered to change one’s thoughts, emotions and the body. Rather than looking outside for a solution, one learns to look within and work on one’s own self. People realise that they can change the inner conditions of the body and reverse the disease-process. People realise that they are responsible for their own life and health and that if they want they can change both their life and health. In this inner state of consciousness, healing looks so simple.
Healing — A 24-hour process to change and grow
With each client, we try to discover the inner conditions that are creating the disease or preventing the healing. We also identify the areas of change in one’s thought and behavioural patterns. Healing thus is not merely confined to the healing techniques, but is a 24-hour process, wherein the person needs to remain aware of the inner and external life-patterns and try and change them. It is important to understand that unless we change, nothing really changes. We may overcome a particular episode of illness using techniques, but unless there is a deeper change in one’s thought and belief- processes, the disharmony will manifest in some form of disease or other. Overcoming one’s negative thought-patterns, letting go of past hurts, freeing oneself from jealousy and vindictiveness are essential for deeper and long-term healing of the body. Changing attitudes towards food, offering one’s food to God (before eating) are important tools in changing the body’s metabolism.
Consciousness — effects and impact
I try to help people understand the deeper cause of their malady and to show them a glimpse of something vaster and truer within themselves. Some people are quite taken up by the idea and the healing creates a significant change in the meaning and perspective to their life. Some view the healing process as ‘Integral Yoga in action’; for others it is a validation of their own spiritual paths and knowledge.
However, some are only concerned about curing their disease and do not bother much about changing their habits or thoughts. They perhaps view the healing as just another therapy and do not bother much about the Truth behind it.
Barriers to healing – doubts
The most formidable obstacle to healing is the mind, its arrogant half-knowledge, rigid opinions, blind beliefs and obstinate attachment to its old ways.
There is such a deep-rooted dependence on medicines and doctors. Most of us do not even believe that such a possibility exists, that the body can heal itself, that the Consciousness can facilitate healing, for many of us believe that unless we take in medicines, we will not heal.
I have seen so many people who were well on their path of healing, whose bodies were receptive and healing well. But somehow, somewhere the doubts creep in and they fall back on medicines to support them. There is a lack of trust in our own body’s capacity to heal itself.
Barriers to healing — multiple doctors, mixed influences
I have observed that patients who recovered completely were primarily the ones who had complete trust and followed the inner method with complete faith. I have seen intelligent people who wanted to get the best of all worlds and tried a ‘practical’ approach by using this method in addition to all other methods. I found them still struggling and having to use medicines to control their problem. Perhaps it is a question of complete trust. People who use multiple methods perhaps lack complete trust in any method and try to use all methods with a hope that at least one or more will work.
Healing children — new possibilities
“Does this method work with children?” is a question I face at almost every workshop, and my response would be, “Only if the child is conscious and willing to participate in the healing process”. In the last couple of months, I have stumbled upon some ways, wherein parents especially can play a significant role in healing. We will share more as we gain experience in using this approach.
Note
The word ‘Consciousness’ is used in a broader sense in the article, and denotes different aspects, depending on the context in which it is used. Consciousness covers not only the mental ranges of consciousness, but also refers to the suprarational levels and physical consciousness.
Dr. Yogesh Mohan is CEO, Saveetha Medical College & Hospital, Chennai.
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