“Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee!” – Paramhansa Yogananda
Conventional medicine is very effective in terms of diagnosis, but not so much when it comes to actual healing. This letter is for all those who have been dealing with some physical imbalance for which they have not yet found a solution. What I am about to tell you represents a paradigm shift, so it requires opening the mind to ideas that challenge our current beliefs. I rely on this quote from Einstein to explain why: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”
I’ll start by saying that reality is infinite, and all we can truly say about it is “something seems to be happening.” What we humans do, therefore, is create models to help us navigate this mystery. Models based on falsehood lead to internal suffering and external conflict. The more faithful to reality a model is, the greater the peace, love, and harmony it will lead to.
A good model must meet three requirements: it must pass the test of reason, it must be verifiable in our direct experience, and finally, it must point towards peace, love, harmony, and happiness.
The model I would like to revisit today is that of the body-mind-spirit relationship. The conventional way of understanding this is based on the paradigm of reductionist materialism, which says that the only thing that exists is matter. From there, it is deduced that anything not measurable or demonstrable by science is not real. From this very limited view, what you are is a body. Inside that body, there is a brain that thinks. Not long ago, it also started to accept the fact that those thoughts have a physical effect, although not everyone has accepted that fact yet. And finally, consciousness is a product of the brain’s electrical activity and does not intervene in the mind and body, it only observes.
This is the conventional understanding of ‘what a human is.’ I’m not going to delve into the disastrous repercussions that this model produces. If you’re curious, just turn on the news. Additionally, I believe the best way to relate to an outdated model/order is not to attack it, but to renew it or, if it is completely wrong, to abandon it.
The model I want to propose here coincides both with quantum mechanics and with all spiritual traditions. That means that, on one hand, it passes the filter of the brightest minds that have been able to approach reality through reason. It also passes the second filter, which is that of direct experience. All spiritual traditions and religions are based on the teachings of a sage, saint, mystic, prophet, or avatar, who speak of the Truth solely from their direct experience. Lastly, I believe this model passes the third filter, which is that it points towards harmony and happiness. In fact, that’s what drives me to write this letter. Joy always wants to be shared.
The model, more or less as Dr. David R. Hawkins presents it, goes like this: the body does not have the ability to experience itself. An arm cannot experience itself. We do not really know the body directly, but rather what our senses tell us about it. The senses, therefore, occur in another dimension broader than the body, in a field we call the mind. In this field of the mind, other phenomena also appear: thoughts and emotions. Interestingly, the mind also does not have the ability to know itself. A thought does not have the ability to know that it is being thought. An even broader field is needed to encompass the mind in order to know it. This field is consciousness, which is a much more subtle field, without form or dimensions, where all human experience appears and is subjectively known. Religions and spiritual traditions propose that this field of consciousness is universal and we all participate of its oneness: it is the Spirit, the soul, Christ, Brahman, Buddha, or simply consciousness.
In this scheme of things, the body and everything knowable through the senses belong to the level of least power. The next level, the mind, is a field with much more power. Therefore, whatever happens in the mind will have an effect on the body. Finally, the most powerful level is the level of consciousness. A spiritual imbalance will therefore have consequences both in the mind and in the body. That’s why healing from diseases is common in the lives of people who practice spiritual disciplines such as meditation, contemplation, yoga, or qigong.
A simpler model that has come to mind in recent days is that of a projector: the screen represents the body along with the rest of the world, that is, everything we perceive through the senses. The slides represent the mind. The projector is consciousness, which is the light that illuminates everything. This is a simplified version, of course, but it facilitates the understanding of the central idea of this letter: you are only subject to what you hold in mind. What we see in the world and in the body is a consequence of the programs each of us have in our minds. A negative belief is like a stain on the slide that obstructs and distorts the light of the projector, or a cloud blocking the sunlight.
We can see that a model is limited when there are things it cannot explain. This model, much broader than the previous one, explains, for example, the placebo effect. Medicine and science are aware that it is something real: you give a patient a sugar pill, tell them it’s medicine, they believe it, and the symptoms disappear. I have always found it curious that medicine did not give more importance to this miraculous fact, which reveals the power of the mind. Now I understand that to understand the mechanism of the placebo (and of miracles), one must jump to another paradigm. What I am explaining here reaches beyond the domain of science. It is not something you can measure or prove, but it is observable in the effect it has in others and, above all, something you can experience in yourself.
The reason I’ve been experimenting with this idea is because for some time now, I’ve been aware that my difficulties with my voice have a significant mental component. In my quest for healing, I first tried conventional medicine. Antibiotics and ibuprofen are fine for alleviating symptoms, but not for healing, so the pharyngitis and hoarseness always returned. Then I tried not taking anything and enduring a bout of pharyngitis as it is, experiencing all the symptoms. That departure from the comfort of medications was the beginning of the healing journey, from one level of consciousness to a broader one where healing was possible.
This journey led me from one practice to another, each one more subtle than the previous one: physical therapy, yoga, meditation, acupuncture, qigong… I began by treating the physical body, then the energetic body, and what I am arriving at now is treating it directly from the mind. This requires constant attention to what I am thinking; I no longer let any thought of illness pass through my mind without challenging it. Thoughts can be like “oh, my throat feels irritated,” or “is this the beginning of a new bout of pharyngitis?”, or “I feel my voice tired, if I sing now, I’ll hurt myself,” or “what a cold wind, I might catch something.” They are easy to recognize because they always come with fear or some other negative emotion. What I do as soon as one of these thoughts arises within myself is to say, with a sort of spiritual ferocity: “I cancel the belief in X. I am an infinite being, and I am only subject to what I hold in mind. What I feel is the result of a belief system, and I have the power to cancel it.”
An example: I remember how a few years ago I could talk non-stop and even shout and never lose my voice. Now, a 20-minute conversation in a slightly noisy place can leave me voiceless. Meanwhile, the people around me have no problem at all. I myself had no problem a few years ago. This is a clear example of how my belief “if I speak loudly, I will lose my voice,” which has only emerged in recent years, is manifesting in my body. Therefore, now, as soon as I feel some fear of speaking, or even if I start to notice my voice tightening, I say, “I cancel the belief that if I speak, I will harm my throat.”
Most of the time, right after saying this, I notice an immediate reaction in my body, and I know that my words, at the level of the mind, have had an effect on the physical level. I have changed something on the slide, and what appears on the screen changes accordingly and effortlessly.
This idea will undoubtedly cause rejection because it challenges the conventional way of understanding things. Two positions come to mind (which we all hold to varying degrees) that will question the validity and effectiveness of this technique.
The most difficult one to surrender is that we have given away the power of our minds in exchange for the deceptive satisfaction of feeling we are victims. By feeling like victims, we project the cause of our pain onto external factors. This produces a certain sense of relief since it avoids confronting ourselves, but the price to pay is the loss of our freedom and power. This is what I rejected a few weeks ago with my voice. When I got sick, once again, I fully accepted that I had caused that illness myself, as a sickening defense mechanism. I vehemently rejected the victim stance. That triggered all the negative energies associated with victimization: self-pity, sorrow, anger, frustration… Once I let go of all that negativity, a new way of relating to my body opened up. I no longer feel like a victim; I have reclaimed a bit more of the true power of my mind.
Another likely block to this technique is the position of the skeptic, which is very limited. Skeptics limit their power and capabilities to what they consider to “make sense.” By doing so, they deny a vast part of what they are, operationally disabling it. The paradoxical (and almost comical) aspect of skepticism is that it is based solely on faith: faith that only what is verifiable and measurable by science is real. A truer and therefore more powerful stance is to open the mind and exercise discernment to verify the validity of new ideas in our direct experience.
The effectiveness of this practice will then depend on each individual’s ability to reclaim their own power, with the responsibility that entails. At one extreme, those who have given away all their power live in despair and hopelessness, victims of a hostile world governed by a punishing god. At the other extreme, Jesus expresses it this way:
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24)
I discovered this technique in Dr. David R. Hawkins’ book “Healing and Recovery.” It’s so powerful, so simple, and so far removed from conventional thinking that I immediately felt the skeptic within me. But at the same time, I felt the truth of what it said. The skeptic’s doubts are only of the ego, which represents the limitations of the mind. That intuitive understanding of truth is of the spirit, which knows nothing about limits. Doubts still arise in my mind every time I apply this technique, but they have already lost the war. With each doubt I surrender, I reclaim my power.
Shortly after discovering this technique, I realized that I could not only apply it to heal my voice but also to all the other imbalances of my body for which conventional medicine has found no solution: environmental allergies, food allergies, skin problems, digestive system issues, and various other ailments.
As I began to observe my mind from this perspective, I was shocked to realize the number of thoughts related to illness that pass through my mind throughout the day. With slides like these, it’s no wonder so many symptoms appeared in the movie of my life.
What I’ve described so far is only part of the mechanism that Dr. Hawkins describes in his book. In it, he explains that every illness is physical, mental and spiritual. Here, I’ve only presented how to address the mental part. He also explains what to do with the symptoms that are there right now, causing painful sensations in the body. But I feel that delving into that would be way too much for one letter. The central idea for this letter is that the mind has the power to make us sick, and therefore it also has the power to heal us. We are only subject to what we hold in mind. If you want to delve deeper, I highly recommend the book “Healing and Recovery,” which addresses healing from the deeper levels of mind and consciousness. Some of the chapter names are: Stress, Health, Sexuality, Aging, Worry, fear, and anxiety, Losing weight, Depression, Cancer, and several more.
I wish you all the best on your healing journey. May you reclaim the power of your mind and may these ideas open new pathways to harmony in your life.
With all my love,
A.
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