The Breath of Life

The book of Genesis has it that God made Adam of clay and breathed life into him. The clay, of course, represents the material substance of the body. The divine breath gives it life and energy.

The Vedic tradition tells us that, with every breath we take, we draw in prana through the medulla oblongata, “the mouth of God.” From there it flows into the spine and brain and on to all the organs and tissues of the body, infusing them with life and energy – with the power and the intelligence to carry on vital functions, to regenerate, and to heal.

Call it the breath of God, call it prana, or call it chi: life force is the essence of all health and healing – of life itself.

Restoring the Flow

The flow of life force may be obstructed by physical injury, infection, improper diet, substance abuse, genetic factors, stress, lack of sleep, worry, and a host of other negative events, conditions, and patterns of thought, feeling, and lifestyle. Such impairment of the free flow of life force leads to physical and mental disability, disease, even death.

If the blockage is minor and its duration brief, then simply eliminating the negative conditions or patterns that caused it in the first place may be enough to put you on the road to recovery. In time, life force reasserts itself and restores health. Imbued with intelligence as well as power, life force knows just what to do and goes about doing it.

But when the blockage is prolonged or severe, life force may withdraw, partially or totally. Or it may settle into a pattern of reduced effectiveness. It no longer suffices to just re-establish the external conditions that allow life force to operate freely. You may have to employ special methods and techniques to stimulate the life force and coax it back into its normal course. Such measures may be helpful for minor problems – they are generally indispensable to recover from a serious injury or chronic condition.

Aspects of Manifestation

It is customary to speak of just three aspects of manifestation — body, mind, and spirit. However, the pyramid above differentiates the physical body into energy and form, thus yielding four aspects. This fourfold representation frames the discussion of specific approaches, models, and methods of health and healing in the rest of this chapter – as well as throughout the rest of this book.

To work its wonders of health and vitality, life force must flow through all aspects of being: from spirit to mind, to energy, and finally to the physical form. To maintain or restore health and vitality, you need a continuous flow of energy, and a balance among the different energies. For this, means and methods that focus on the physical form are not enough. You must also cultivate mental and emotional harmony, engage the will, and connect with Spirit.

Approaches to Health and Healing

Models and methods of healing are incredibly numerous and diverse. To make sense of this almost boundless profusion, it helps to keep in mind two important points.

One. All effective models and methods of treatment have something in common: one way or another, by design or by inadvertence, they all enhance the flow of life force. Most help to create, restore, and maintain the conditions that allow life force to flow freely. Some also seek to directly facilitate, enhance, or redirect this flow.

Physical Medicine works on the physical body directly; it affects the life force indirectly. Clean a wound and protect it from injury and infection with a bandage, and it will likely heal. The physical measures establish favorable conditions, and life force does the rest. You can also use physical methods to set broken bones, pump poison from the stomach, remove warts with cryonic surgery, or correct vision with lasers. Chemical substances can address a wide range of problems: antacids to neutralize an “acid stomach,” analgesics to reduce pain, antibiotics to combat infection, and so on. Often, physical and chemical interventions are but temporary, stop-gap measures. But they can also help to establish the conditions that enable the life force to do the work of healing and to maintain vital functions.

Energy Medicine seeks to unblock, harmonize, and balance the bodily energies. Here the focus is less on correcting or compensating for specific physical conditions and circumstances, and more on restoring and enhancing the free flow of life force. Thus, for example, in dealing with your “acid stomach,” Chinese medicine will not bother with antacid pills to neutralize the excess acid. Instead, it will seek to restore the balance of energies – perhaps soothe the liver with herbs, or use tuei na to change the flow of energy in the meridians — and thus stop the excess production of acid.

Thought Medicine helps you to overcome a problem or challenge by changing the patterns of thought and feeling that set it in motion. It helps you to connect with Spirit and transform the mind, and thus open pathways for the life force to heal the body.

Over the ages, these four basic approaches have given rise to many models and methods of health and healing. Each model derives from a particular historical and cultural context. Each one understands the nature of man differently. Each has its own definition of health and illness, and its own methods and techniques of treatment.