• In :
• Personal Growth

January 2007

By Jamuna Rangachari

We are born whole and complete, with an integrated body, mind and spirit. We can heal ourselves by restoring this balance and returning to our natural state of being

When I was young, I used to have severe stomach upsets when my exams were round the corner. I knew it was due to my anxiety and began to learn to de-stress myself. Gradually, this reduced.

This is not an unusual experience. Most of us have experienced controlling our bodily distresses through using our mind. Yet, we still do not acknowledge the profound connection between physical, emotional and spiritual balance.

Cracks in the ‘whole’
Louise L. Hay, the author of You Can Heal your Life, has assisted thousands of people to discover their potential and heal themselves. She affirms that all diseases are really a signal that all is not quite right with our perceptions and beliefs, which by extension means that if we change these beliefs, resolution, or healing, is within reach. Accordingly, she has listed out the negative thought patterns behind a staggering number of diseases, with suggested affirmations to overcome them (box 1). Through her trail-blazing book, she has been instrumental in moving millions across the world towards a more holistic understanding of illness and healing. When Louise herself was diagnosed with cancer, she bade for time and took full responsibility for her own healing. Detoxification, psychological counseling, foot reflexology and, most of all, working on approving and loving herself, helped her heal completely. With the doctors too agreeing that the cancerous growth had totally gone, she reiterates, “Dis-ease can be healed, if we are willing to change the way we think, believe and act.”

Parulekar (name changed), an allopath in Mumbai who is exploring the spiritual reasons for disease, believes that the cycle that we all go through can be summed up in the following steps:
• We are born whole
• We experience some kind of trauma
• The trauma leads either to a feeling of victim hood or aggression
• Whether we deal with trauma as victims or aggressors, the result is a loss of love
• The loss of love makes some part of ourselves die. This death is not a physical death but a disassociation or declining of some kind from our inner being.
• The death of an integral part of our being creates a state of disease

“The state of disease, therefore, can be healed only when we resolve these issues with maturity and return to being whole,” he says categorically.

Chakras
Martin Brofman, the author of Anything Can be Healed, was diagnosed with a tumour in the spinal cord in 1975 and given only a couple of months to live. Working on himself through creative visualization, meditation, affirmations and the Eastern philosophies, he succeeded in totally curing himself. He then went on to heal others and teach them to heal themselves, evolving a technique known as the Body-Mind Mirror system that represents the idea that one’s body is the mirror of one’s life, and uses chakras in his healing process.

Chakras’ literally means ‘wheels’. Constantly moving energy vortices, chakras are channels for spiritual energy to flow through and manifest in our physical body. Each chakra stands for a specific energy and emotion, and when all are in balance, we are completely healthy. Conversely, when there is a blockage in any chakra, the energy flow gets hampered, which then manifests itself as a disease.

We can use chakras to understand and heal imbalances and gradually awaken our conscious minds to our true spiritual natures.

It’s interesting to note that both chakra therapy and the affirmation approach point to more or less the same flaw in our thought patterns and beliefs. For instance, thyroid is related to a blockage in the fifth chakra, that signifies communication and expression. Even in the Hay methodology, thyroid imbalances emerge partly from an inability to express clearly. Similarly, diabetes in both approaches indicates an issue with control.

What you Believe, you shall Manifest
The ‘placebo’ effect in which patients start feeling better after doctors give a sugar pill, with absolutely no medicinal properties, just goes to demonstrate what a strong impact belief plays in our healing.

is indeed surprising that while we willingly submit ourselves to doctors for surgery, take any number of tablets, undergo expensive treatments, believing that others can heal us, we can never quite believe in our own abilities to heal. As Martin Brofman says in his book, “Most people would not believe in their own abilities to heal, though they were willing to believe in mine.”

This must change if we wish to heal ourselves.

Ultimately, whether one uses chakra therapy or affirmations or any other system, the key is an understanding of the imbalance that caused the disease and tapping into the immense creative and healing reservoir of strength that we all have.

the same time, self-healing has its limits. Perfect health may not be ours no matter how pure we get. Let us never forget that great souls like Ramakrishna Paramahansa and Nisargadatta Maharaj met their deaths through cancer. The role of karma cannot be overlooked. It may be that we are not meant to heal. Ultimately, we must all die and disease is still the most common cause of that.

Having said that, it is still important to proceed from the awareness that we can heal ourselves, for within these limitations, it is indeed true.