Pranic
Therapy Part I - An Introduction
2. Regulation of Sleep, food & Exercise
5. Removing mental blocks ( Difficult due to Repression )
6. Overcoming Prajnaparadha ( Fault of Awareness due to misuse of
ourcognitive & conative functions)
7. Opening the system to the Cosmic Prana ( Opening all channels to
the
Pranic Therapy is an alternative system of Medicine using
therapy with the
Universal Stream of Consciousness, the Cosmic Prana.
Pranic Therapy can be effectuated by proper knowledge of the psycho-physical organism, physical and mental discipline and opening all
ourchannels to the Cosmic Prana. This is normally effected in seven
steps
The Seven Stages of Pranic Therapy
1. Knowledge of the Psychosomatic Machine
3. Relaxation
4. Attunement to Biorythms ( Circadian Rhythms, Solar & Lunar
Rhythms )
Divine Shakti )
Introduction
With the advent of rapid industrialization, urbanization and
thebreakdown of family life after the Second World War, sociallife in the West became tense & stressful. The spread of
materialistic ideas and ideals and the erosion of faith in Morality& the Law Divine & the social disturbance caused by the
VietnamWar brought a sense of futility & meaninglessness in the Westernpsyche.The limitations of the Western system of chemotherapy& adverse side-effects of antibiotics, sedatives and certain
otherdrugs and the disillusionment with the promises of science &
technology made millions turn to Oriental philosophies, divinepractices & systems of therapy.
The response from the Orient was benevolent. Favoured by thesocial revolution that swept through several countries in the Westin the 1960s, these countries, especially the US, came to be
flooded with Gurus and Yogis. Yoga, TM, Reiki - all attained
world-wide popularity.
Three Modern Movements
As a byproduct three modern movements came into being.They are
Neo-humanisn, interreligious dialogue and Holistic
Health. The term 'Neo-humanism' refers to a basic changein modern man's attitude towards himself and his fellowmenwhich is characterised by
a) the recognition of the essential goodness of man
b) focus on existential problems
c) striving for higher transcendental experience. The contribution of Ramakrishna Movement to inter-faith
dialogue
was immense. Other movements like Maharshi InternationalUniversity & Self Realisation Fellowship contributed to this
change
in the human mindset.
Holistic Health
Holistic Health refers to a modern movement which regards
health asa dynamic state of the total human being. Although the symptoms
of
use of our faculties and be vigorous, alert & happy to be alive,even in old age, despite an occasional bout of illness." This" operational health" has been defined as wellness. It is
a senseof all-round well-being as contrasted with illness. .
The greatest aspect of holistic health is its recognition oftheroleplayedby mind in health. " Mind is omnipotent "
said
Freud & he had shown that the Unconscious played a key rolein causing certain diseases which came to be described aspsychosomatic diseases. He looked upon the
Unconscious chiefly as the repository of negative emotions. His early discipleCarl Jung expanded the concept of the Unconscious to
make it include good emotions and even spiritual urges. Adler,another disciple of Freud showed that the ego could alter
unconscious behaviour.
The connecting link between the body and mind was not clear. Thework of the Canadian endocrinologist Hans Selye brought the
muchn eeded connecting link. In his classic work " The Stress of
Life "Selye showed that mental stress was the root cause of several types
of common illness such as hypertension, hyperacidity etc. The
'stressor' (the original source of stress ) excites the hypothalamus
inthe brain. This vital organ which controls the autonomic nervous
systemactivates the pituitary to secrete the stress hormone ( known as
ACTH )
which stimulates the secretion of several hormones and steroids
(including the well known, adrenaline or epinephrine). More sugar isreleased into the blood & BP is increased as a result of these
changes. According to Selye, stress is unavoidable in life. ( The
emotional centre in the brain, when upset, stimulates the oxintic cells to
secretemore hydrochloric acid in the stomach which leads to
hyperacidity.) When it goes beyond a certain tolerance level ( which varies from
person to person ) the system breaks down resulting in illness.To the scientific picture of body-mind interrelationship given
above, certain new concepts were added. One was the idea that if
negative emotions could cause illness, positive emotions can cause
"wellness".
The attention of medical experts & the imagination of the public
wascaptured by this innovative idea when Normal Cousins, editor of
Saturday Review, published a convincing account of his recoveryfrom a debilitating & incurable disease of the connective
tissue.The patient's understanding of the disease & his active
participation in the recovery process was highlighted by his case.The most difficult and controversial aspect of
holistic health is
another
idea that by creating proper awareness within himself man could
exercise a certain degree of voluntary control over the healing
processes taking place in his body. After the aftermath of Pavlov's
demonstration of conditioned reflexes, another Russian scientist K M Bykov and his colleagues showed in 1924 that severalinvoluntary processes such as regulation of body heat, heart
rhythm, production of urine, BP etc which were mediated by the
autonomic nervous system could be brought under voluntary control. The
above finding was corroborated later during experiments conducted on
animals under 'operant' (voluntary) conditioning Hundreds of peoplefound that they could bring under control their heart rhythm, brainwaves etc with the help of the biofeedback technique. Indian
Yogis in the West also demonstrated that they could alter metabolic rate,
heartbeat, body temperature etc simply by their will power, without
the use of any biofeedback instruments.
Holistic health practioners invaded the scene at this juncture.They showed that not only certain organs but the working of the
wholes
Various meditation techniques like Transcendental Meditation, Zen,Yoga were becoming popular in the West in those days. Apart from the spiritual benefits, (In Transcendental Meditation, the existence ofa fourth major state of Consciousness called Transcendental Consciousness was proved by Dr Keith Wallace in his Phd Thesis )practical Yoga teachers showed that Meditation also produced otherbeneficial effects such as reduction of tension, lowering of BP,relaxation of muscles, increase of concentration & work efficiency& even increase of immunological resistance to diseases. As a result, some form of Meditation has become an essential part ofmost holistic health programmes.( Dr Harold Bloomfied says that TM can be used as an adjunct to psychiatric practice.)The success of Acupuncture, herbology etc which came to be recognised as ' Alternative Medicine " , lent much support to
the holistic health position. Two great discoveries strengthenedthis position. One was the discovery of 'biological clocks' innature and the existence of biorhythms in the human body. The
other discovery was that the brain produced certain neuro-modulators called endorphins which have the property of reducing pain. The production of these natural painkillers isinfluenced by our thoughts and endorphins are produced when our EEG brain waves are in an alpha state ( 8.5 cycles per sec).
