Harmony and Healing

I saw a physician (M.D.) this morning, an ENT specialist, and it was a very revealing experience which reminded me again that life in the world is stubbornly multi-layered despite the oft-concealed and frequently deprecated unity that permeates all things.  The physician was startled that I would refuse a pharmaceutical offered as a remedy to a potential (but not confirmed) illness.  His comments were demeaning and, in a sense, hostile.  Well-meaning as he might conceive himself to be, his approach was actually a kind of brutality: the brutality with which the knowledgeable professional assaults the, to him or her, ignorant “native.”

In my experience with pursuing happiness in this physical embodiment, I’ve studied and experienced many alternative approaches to health and healing.  “Alternative” is a rather non-descript word used to describe what are generally holistic health practices and understandings.  As with any rigorous mental discipline, allopathic medicine presumes to own the best possible understanding of the living organism (Stedman’s defines “allopathic medicine” as “A therapeutic system in which a disease is treated by producing a second condition that is incompatible with or antagonistic to the first.” — an apt description which speaks volumes).  I went to this physician because I know, again from personal experience, that allopathic medicine has much that is good to offer, especially as regards those aspects of one’s body and being that are, in essence, primarily mechanical in nature.  But, to an expert in this field there’s little motivation to accept “alternative” perspectives, especially in view of the fact that allopathic medicine is especially adept, in several key ways, at being a self-perpetuating scheme.  In one instance, it protects itself from the void of its own ignorance through being the lawfully mandated health modality. It brow-beats its competition into the soiled earth.  It is also the market’s darling, the discipline which creates and then attempts to cure its own ecosystem of maladies. So there’s much that keeps it dominant.

What sets “western medicine” (allopathic healthcare) apart from holistic healthcare is that its approach is “external” to the body, while it presumes to understand and to be able to resolve the imbalances which arise within the mind-body of the individual.  It is a “model” of the body and mind that is imposed upon the organic being.  As such, it is external.  Holistic medicine as about internal understanding, diagnosis and treatment.

As an example, the only reason that holistic medicine works for me is that I’ve tried over several decades to become self-conscious of my body, what effects it and how, what benefits it, what doesn’t, and in what circumstances these “knowns” may vary over time.  It has taken many years of careful, even painful, observation to gain that understanding.  This is not something that comes from a text book.  There is no model.  I can map out certain logistical correspondences in a conceptual framework, but it would not be complete.  And I am not able, due to continuing spiritual evolution, to actually live in a way that is perfectly harmonious with my physical being – I simply cannot force certain patterns of behavior while certain attachments appear to have the upper hand (I can work on those in a different way, through contemplation and spiritual insight, but nothing comes quickly in this world and one must remain gentle and understanding with one’s self, appropriately allowing, and at times, appropriately self-controlling).  One can know one’s true self only through gentle, expansive “self” contemplation (“self” in quotes because the self one now knows is not the ultimate Self one is – one is always more than one knows one’s self to be at any given time).  The same is true of the body.  Rigid structures imposed upon the body deny the variations of the individual which are essential to a full understanding.  One must know one’s self if one wishes to live a healthful life.  This piece of the puzzle is largely forsaken by the manner in which many, many physicians practice medicine.

The physician that I saw this morning offered a pharmaceutical which I know causes harsh side-effects.  I know this because I’ve witnessed individuals close to me suffer these effects.  And I have studied them.  When I said I’d be unlikely to use said medicine, the physician asked “Why?” in a rather confrontational manner and I replied ”Based on my studies.”  He made a dismissive comment about “the internet” and stated that “the medicine works.”  I explained to him that he did not know me, or my many years of pursuit of holistic medicine and that I would not simply sacrifice hard-won principles and experience at the “drop of a hat.”  I emphasized that it would be something to discuss and that I was willing to do so.  Yet, discussion seemed to be an unpalatable option to this particular physician.

It was unpleasant to be treated this way by an individual in whom I’d invested a certain amount of faith, albeit “provisional faith.”  I was relying upon a healer to heal.  I did not need a tyrant to dictate.  True healing only comes through understanding and treating the whole person.  But this is not seen as a viable economic model, and it does not lend itself well to the western tradition of imposing external conceptual models of reality upon the individual.  This is all a very painful situation, but it is nevertheless, the reality of it.

An important truth, an obvious one that’s yet denied by the West to its continual detriment, is that models and schemas of the world are not in themselves the world.  Conceptual frameworks are but reflections of the actual world.  This is mainly because of two fundamental problems.  We see through physical and mental senses what are but effects of other causes: the senses are not rooted in the causes of things, they are but instruments of perception and as such behold only vague images of reality itself.  Secondly, what is formed by the conceptual faculties are formed from individual subjective awareness which is never complete (except in the enlightened) and therefore always subject to reinterpretation and refinement.

And yet, the world has little else to rely upon and one must do one’s best with what is given, until one can attain a level of direct awareness and eliminate the need for reliance upon the mental and physical senses.  Until that time, we do find that continually evolving self-knowledge and holistic insights about the world are very useful and generally much more gentle and supportive than the rigid scalpels of allopathic perceptions.

Point-counterpoint, dichotomy, duality, conflict – these are the bread and butter of the world.  Some philosophers have attempted to introduce the concept of synthesis, but this is almost always seen as but another “alternative” intended to merge rather than reconcile the parties of a duality.  In other words, the concept of synthesis is again a concept, a framework, and not being itself.  Being already unites all opposites in a single reality.  This idea is the beginning of holistic healing, and more importantly, spiritual fulfillment.

Socrates, and Plato, offered the best advice to all who seek healing: know thyself.

So, in summary, I hope that by calling attention to a boundary of mutual respect I was able to actually teach this head-heavy physician a thing or two about healing!  I certainly had no desire to compete with him.  I was there to seek his help.  I had confidence that he would know that which would be helpful to me (and that confidence was proven valid in the end).  And yet, his certainty regarding allopathic solutions to health problems, while containing a part of the whole, is truly only part.  Love, compassion, seeing, is essential to successful doctoring.  See first, understand the whole first.  But these are ideals.  Much time, personal effort and great willingness is required to give these ideals any kind of reality at all.  It is a painful, lengthy undertaking.  It doesn’t fit the consumer, egocentric era of the present.  One must strike out into the wilderness beyond the merely physical eyes and ears, and the syllogism-imprisoned mind, and be forced to open the true eyes and ears, and to open to insight from the Great Spirit, who is One, before something really useful can be made one’s own.  But even in that we find we own nothing and are in fact owned entirely by a greater Reality that ineffably loves one dearly.