THE CORRIDOR OF WESTERN MEDICINE

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This is an article about Illness, Health, Responsibility, and Awareness. It comes from the perspective of Yoga, and will relate to every human being on the planet.

Given that most people do not know why they get sick, it naturally becomes difficult for them to solve their own health problems. Yet for 5000 years Yogis mainly in India have been teaching people that it is completely possible to stop any illness, and quite simple to do - and no drugs are required to achieve this. So why doesn’t the whole world believe this? Well the answer here lies much more in the mind, than in the body.

Firstly, it must be understood exactly what Yoga is. If you think it is all about stretching, you are mistaken. Yoga is a system of Health, expertly designed over thousands of years. It has not much to do with ropes and bolsters, physical fitness or weight loss. In fact, most of the modern Yoga styles that people know are so far removed from the original source, they are misleading.

Yoga, actually, is a Science. It is a pragmatic system of Total Health, and by all wisdoms necessarily understands that there is an inexplicable link between the mind and the body. The key vehicle for this work is meditation (observation). Most of all, it is a study of Consciousness.

From a yogic perspective, one cannot separate the mind from the body. Put simply, the body is a reflection of the mind. If a human becomes stressed, their body will bear this stress. Deep psychological and repressed anxieties will quite simply, and by necessity, result in illness or disease. When dealing with sickness, therefore, it would be unwise to separate the mind from the body. It is strange then, with western medicine, to have Doctors for the Body, and Psychologists for the Mind. These areas are considered separate, and mutually exclusive.

From the perspective of Yoga, this is a naive approach not only to health, but to life. Many people are so incredibly separate from their own bodies that they will destroy themselves – with cigarettes, eating disorders, behavioural dysfunction, and self-denial. People are in many ways disconnected from their own environment. All of this separation is quite natural though, it is a tendency of the Psyche - but drugs can never fix this. Only the human can, the person who relates to their own self as unlovable. Drugs, in fact, are a real distraction.

That’s why Yoga developed a system of physical practices, to combine the body with the mind. When people learn Yoga, they start to understand how their body works, and by learning to breathe well, they discover that deep relaxation makes a massive difference to their lives. Breath is the key to all health. Anyone who is stressed will not be breathing well, their muscles will become tight, they will then overheat, and their cardiac, lymphatic, hormonal and immune systems will have to hyper-perform. By relaxing deeply, all of the opposite occurs. The body becomes well-organised, highly efficient at maintaining homeostasis, and the mind becomes calmer. Time actually slows down. These are the right conditions to deal with any problem the body may be having.

The philosophy of yoga shows that the human mind relates to experience in an obsessive way. People actually fear things going wrong in their life. Almost all of their behaviours are arranged around controlling events so they can protect happiness. This is the root of anxiety, and what Yoga clearly shows is that this behavioural stress is unhealthy. Neurotic human behaviour causes illness. In contrast, if people did not exist that way, the health of their bodies would be fine. It is a simple idea, but of course not easy to put into practice. It requires people to take responsibility for their lives. Getting a doctor to ‘fix’ you is a little like passing the buck; yet there are serious ramifications for this choice.

Doctors deal with symptoms. They try to eradicate them. Certainly they are very good at this. In the world of Yoga however, symptoms are only the symbols for a larger problem - the real story is the cause. Yoga deals with this – it must. If the body gets sick, it is important to listen to it, and understand why it is sick. For the body does not get things wrong. People do not trust their own bodies; they have been taught by western medicine to dominate the body (eg: drugs) rather than connect with it. ‘Mind over matter’ is a typical western concept.

This leads us to the subject of Control. Most humans live in fear – of something going wrong. They want to be happy and safe. They seek to control their life, the people in it, and themselves. As long as this instinct continues, the human will struggle, resist, and as a consequence get stressed and sick. Life cannot be controlled. Another issue is that people are obsessed with fixing themselves. This is another unhealthy tendency. It’s all about control. The wisdoms of Classical Yoga teach us – let go.

Now I am not trying to be damning of western medicine. It has created so many wonderful opportunities. It is still learning, and not uniform. Still, the findings of science are so often contradicted by later discoveries, that to some degree it cannot be trusted. Scientific inquiry has changed its mind thousands of times. That’s okay, surely Yoga (as a science) went through this too. But what Yoga highlights is that western medicine exists within a corridor of awareness.

Firstly, there are many doctors and scientists who are not healthy themselves. How can one be an expert on health, if one is not healthy…extremely healthy, in fact? If you cannot BE health, you cannot truly KNOW health. Unless one has done a practical study into the depths of one’s own mind and body, one can only use the information given by others. The study of science, and even of the bodies of others, is not enough. What a Yogi must always do is go deeply into their own body and mind to find the truth. They must understand their body intimately, and they must be emotionally mature. They must be balanced psychologically. They must understand human nature and the more advanced topic of consciousness. It is not enough to be knowledgeable in ideas or even facts.

The real wisdom of health is in an expansive view. Scientists with microscopes are a classic example of a mindset obsessed with detail. Scientific practice actually seeks the definitive answer to everything (Proof). As long as they look inside cells for answers, they will get further from the truth. The answer is outside of this corridor. It lies within the mind (and the mind is the most expansive thing in the universe).

This issue is about Awareness. Wise people always look to the larger picture. Science will never find the “truth” until it can step outside of itself. Yoga will show that you need to be willing to let go of everything you believe in - because we are all trapped inside our desperate need for answers. This is an obsessive and compulsive way to live. It is not healthy! By constantly seeking definition, science and medicine put boundaries around themselves. As long as western doctors keep searching inside cells to find solutions, they will continue to disregard the real issue – the human mind. Science will only ever find symptoms inside a cell – it will never find a Cause. The same applies for dieticians and nutritionists. People get sick because of their unconscious minds, not the food they eat. (They cause their bodies to react to food). Yet most people blindly believe their doctors. So why do we, as a society, bow down to their word? This is mostly because people don’t know much about themselves. What has happened to humans who live inside their own bodies for decades, and still doesn’t know why they get sick? It is a mistake to think that illnesses are purely genetic.

The biggest problem in health today is that people, in general, have a very low level of self-awareness. In essence, they are highly neurotic, anxious, and often immature. Many have emotionally co-dependent relationships that are psychologically unhealthy, which actually affect their happiness (therefore, health). Society conditions people to be insecure, selfish, defensive, and stressed. If a child grows up in a neurotic environment it will inevitably get stressed and sick. Parents actually need to be accountable for the way they are behaving. All adults do. Many adults have children when they are not yet emotionally balanced themselves. This augurs poorly for the health of their children. Even though we know that all people are doing their best, it would be far better if they were doing meditation. This is a preventative measure. Self-awareness is a healthy state. It engenders balance.

The way people deal with illness is a serious topic. Western medicine’s main weapon against ‘dis-ease’ is a drug. Drugs manipulate the body, and interfere with its own organisation. People also become dependent on them. A body will lose its own ability to maintain health if it is dominated by an external. Many people move from illness to illness because the medication they are given also has side effects. Rarely can medication actually create an inner equilibrium. The medical treatment of cancer is a good example of the Corridor of perception: chemotherapy is a violent invasive process that in part aims to kill cells. Anyone who truly understands the body and its own restorative powers would know that you can’t destroy something if you are actually trying to nurture it towards health. These are contradictory messages.

I am not trying to be hard on western doctors. Certainly they are committed, and experts in their particular fields. It’s just that the fields are narrow. They cannot be expected to know everything anyway, nor to fix anything. This brings us back to the main issue: personal responsibility. People need to be accountable for their own lives, and the choices they are making. Sickness is not a random, spontaneous thing – it exists in direct correlation with the way we live. The key here is awareness. Only through meditation (observation) can a human start to understand their own life, self, and body. With great awareness, information is everywhere. To understand, is such a respite. If we know why we become sick, we can do something about it.

If you take a drug, you may alleviate symptoms, but you will rarely solve the problem. If you cover up a problem, it will fester. If a body is harbouring the repressed discontents of its past, a drug will merely placate it. The discontent remains. Like a deep river at the bottom of your mind, it will come out eventually. For if someone else ‘fixes’ your problem, you yourself have not in fact dealt with it. This will have consequences, as does every decision a human makes concerning their welfare. Yoga was developed as a tool to solve any of these concerns. Brilliantly designed to not only maintain balance, it can also be perfectly therapeutic – but it is still something that requires commitment. Regular practice is the only way that works.

So if you are sick, you must ask yourself – if you ever want to get truly free – what is it in my life that I have not been willing to deal with.
What is it from my past that I chose not to face, to deny. (This will be the root of insidious illness). This must be dealt with. Courage will be required, but we all have that ability inside us. Every day we ignore our health is a day closer to death. Humans need to take time to care for their health; and it is important to relate to this idea in a preventative, as well as therapeutic, way. Yoga asserts, as a rule, that proper relaxation is vital. Watching television is not proper relaxation. Meditation occurs when one sits still, and does nothing more than remain aware. Simply stop doing whatever it is you might be doing, and run the mind through the body and recognise tension. For help, breathe deeply as much as you can - calm breathing - and allow your mind to open up. Breathe in and out, slowly, consistently. Have a deep sigh. And f you ever go to a yoga class, remember this: we are not stretching - We are releasing tension. All the best.