Love as a Healing Force by Leonard Laskow, M.D.
Through love we can heal and become whole again.
With loving actions and felt awareness we can experience our oneness, our universal relatedness.
The new healing model I present here is based on love, expanded awareness, and the empowerment that comes from a conscious choice for change. It provides us with directions and tools for consciously evoking loving energy and intentionally transferring that energy to another person, or to a particular area of our own bodies, with tangible effects that can be sensed as well as measured in the laboratory.
While love can take many forms, its essence is relatedness. We can become aware of this relatedness or nonseparation, which always exists. We can experience and feel it as the impulse toward unity, and we can express and manifest it through our actions.
The exercise “Transpersonal Alignment Process” in this chapter gives you an opportunity to experience this.
Love is the most powerful healing energy and catalyst for transformation. Our inability to love ourselves or to receive love from others is the source of most of our maladies. Our difficulties with love often result from early childhood experiences or perceptions of betrayal, abandonment, humiliation, or rejection, which lead to feelings of unworthiness, shame, and guilt. These deep-seated feelings result in a sense of separation from self, from one’s own body and spirit, and from other people. While this perceived separation may at first be the psyche’s effort to defend itself from fear, isolation, and pain, it eventually becomes the source of continual feelings of separation, alienation, and anxiety.
When illness is manifest in our beings, we can choose to remain focused on symptoms and treatment, or we can go to the source of the disorder and transform it. This entails “going into ourselves,” to that part of our being that maintains the sense of separation, isolation, and pain.
While love can take many forms, its essence is relatedness. We can become aware of this relatedness or nonseparation, which always exists. We can experience and feel it as the impulse toward unity, and we can express and manifest it through our actions.
The exercise “Transpersonal Alignment Process” in this chapter gives you an opportunity to experience this.
Love is the most powerful healing energy and catalyst for transformation. Our inability to love ourselves or to receive love from others is the source of most of our maladies. Our difficulties with love often result from early childhood experiences or perceptions of betrayal, abandonment, humiliation, or rejection, which lead to feelings of unworthiness, shame, and guilt. These deep-seated feelings result in a sense of separation from self, from one’s own body and spirit, and from other people. While this perceived separation may at first be the psyche’s effort to defend itself from fear, isolation, and pain, it eventually becomes the source of continual feelings of separation, alienation, and anxiety.
When illness is manifest in our beings, we can choose to remain focused on symptoms and treatment, or we can go to the source of the disorder and transform it. This entails “going into ourselves,” to that part of our being that maintains the sense of separation, isolation, and pain.
When illness is manifest in our beings, we can choose to remain focused on symptoms and treatment, or we can go to the source of the disorder and transform it.
Traditionally, Western allopathic and homeopathic medicine has left to psychotherapists and the clergy the task of getting to the sources of illness. In psychotherapy, finding the core information and releasing it often involves protracted therapy. However, in holoenergetic healing, we engage the symptoms, intermediate causes, and deeper sources of distress and disease as holoenergetic patterns, or holoforms, located in and around the body-mind. Once this core information is accessed energetically and experienced, it consciously needs to be acknowledged. To acknowledge the source of a disorder as a perceived separation requires that we come into resonance with it, become at one with it, and accept the truth of its existence. We can then assume responsibility for having contributed to the existence of the illness, by virtue of our perspective at the time we formed the core belief. In other words, if in infancy you formed the belief that you were unworthy of being loved, you would take responsibility for having created that belief from your limited understanding of yourself and others at that time.
I use the word responsibility not in a moralistic or judgmental way, but to connote a particular ability that we all have. Responsibility has, unfortunately, been interpreted to mean “I am to blame for my disease; I caused it.” In holoenergetic healing, however, responsibility means the ability to be responsive and to understand and accept our contribution to our ailment, without self-blame or self-judgment. It’s not what others did to us but the way in which we responded that is our “response-ability.”
To accept responsibility is a tremendously empowering experience. When we do so, every illness or reversal, and every healing, becomes a source of self-discovery, another step on the transformational journey.
I use the word responsibility not in a moralistic or judgmental way, but to connote a particular ability that we all have. Responsibility has, unfortunately, been interpreted to mean “I am to blame for my disease; I caused it.” In holoenergetic healing, however, responsibility means the ability to be responsive and to understand and accept our contribution to our ailment, without self-blame or self-judgment. It’s not what others did to us but the way in which we responded that is our “response-ability.”
To accept responsibility is a tremendously empowering experience. When we do so, every illness or reversal, and every healing, becomes a source of self-discovery, another step on the transformational journey.
SYMPTOMS, CAUSE, AND SOURCE
In holoenergetic healing it is important to be able to distinguish among the symptoms, causes, and sources of an illness. With the common cold, for example, the symptoms may include sniffles, coughing, and fever. In modern Western medicine, we still deal primarily with symptoms: take a decongestant, cough medicine, or homeopathic remedy. Obviously, we still aren’t getting at the cause or source.
Recently we discovered that the common cold is “caused” by a virus. Then, further investigation revealed that even when we are well we harbor viruses. Therefore, viruses, in and of themselves, cannot be viewed as the sole cause of colds. If the immune system’s functioning is compromised, the viruses that are always present seem to emerge and attack. So the real cause of a cold must be the state of the immune system. However, more recently we’ve learned that stress compromises the immune system. So wouldn’t stress be the real cause? But wait — there’s more. We are now finding that fear of losing control is at the root of most stress. So perhaps this fear is our real cause? Causal links will continue to build in complexity until we get to what we call, in holoenergetic healing, the source of an illness.
Recently we discovered that the common cold is “caused” by a virus. Then, further investigation revealed that even when we are well we harbor viruses. Therefore, viruses, in and of themselves, cannot be viewed as the sole cause of colds. If the immune system’s functioning is compromised, the viruses that are always present seem to emerge and attack. So the real cause of a cold must be the state of the immune system. However, more recently we’ve learned that stress compromises the immune system. So wouldn’t stress be the real cause? But wait — there’s more. We are now finding that fear of losing control is at the root of most stress. So perhaps this fear is our real cause? Causal links will continue to build in complexity until we get to what we call, in holoenergetic healing, the source of an illness.
The First Level of Source
The first level of source consists of perceptions and interpretations of events, which establish a holographic pattern of beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. I call these patterns
holo forms because they give form to holographic entities, which have their own order and natural frequencies of vibration. Such entities have the capacity to cause unmanifest energy to manifest in our lives. In other words, holoforms can produce harmony or disharmony.
Vernon Woolf, in Holodynamics, also works with these holoenergetic entities, which he calls “holodynes.”
Until we perceive something, we have no experience or felt awareness of it. For example, anger is regarded as a state of physiological arousal in response to a perceived threat. Research shows that the hormones that trigger anger (epinephrine, norepinephrine, and thyrotropic hormone) unleash other emotions such as fear, grief, and even joy. What makes one emotion different from another is not the physiological arousal pattern but our perceptions and interpretations of the causal events. For instance, if you are standing in a crowd and suddenly feel a hand on your shoulder, you experience an adrenaline rush and turn to see who it is. If it is someone you don’t know, you may experience fear or anger; if it is a friend, you will probably experience relief or joy. The salient point is that you identify your emotion according to your perception and interpretation of the event, even though the hormones involved are the same in both cases.
Our perceptions are conditioned by the messages, beliefs, and behaviors we were exposed to from the prenatal and perhaps even the preconceptual period on. Interpretation involves a choice — conscious or otherwise. We perceive what happened and we interpret what it means to us. In other words, it’s not what happens that creates our experience of the event, it’s our perception and interpretation of it.
I refer to certain events and their interpretations as the “critical incidents” and “critical choices,” because they lead to the establishment of disharmonious core beliefs and holoforms, which later become disease patterns. A critical incident could be anything from misunderstanding a parent’s laughter during the early, egocentric years to actual physical abuse. It might even be a fetus’s awareness of its parents’ wanting a child of the opposite sex.
Critical incidents involve feelings such as abandonment, fear, betrayal, humiliation, and rejection. These are immediate reactions to present events. We then give meaning to these feelings: “Because my father left, I must not be good enough,” or, “My parents wanted a boy (girl). There must be something wrong with me. I’m a mistake.” The meaning we give represents the critical choice of interpretation.
Shame, guilt, or both are frequently associated with critical incidents. Shame is the deep-seated feeling that frequently comes from the perception that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, while guilt is the feeling that commonly results from the perception that you have done something wrong.
The various elements of each critical incident are usually formed simultaneously, not gradually.
At the moment of a critical incident, we give meaning to our perception of the event; that interpretation becomes crystallized as a core belief, which has a lasting effect, influencing choices that serve to support the belief. These experiences are received through the physical senses and stored in the mind as multi-dimensional images or holoforms. They develop their own causal potency and resonate with their own frequency. If a crystallized belief is in conflict with the body’s natural patterns of balance and harmony, it can be said to be the source of disease patterns — the source of illness in our lives. Thus, to find the source of an illness, we need to get to the critical incident and the core beliefs that are causing it.
holo forms because they give form to holographic entities, which have their own order and natural frequencies of vibration. Such entities have the capacity to cause unmanifest energy to manifest in our lives. In other words, holoforms can produce harmony or disharmony.
Vernon Woolf, in Holodynamics, also works with these holoenergetic entities, which he calls “holodynes.”
Until we perceive something, we have no experience or felt awareness of it. For example, anger is regarded as a state of physiological arousal in response to a perceived threat. Research shows that the hormones that trigger anger (epinephrine, norepinephrine, and thyrotropic hormone) unleash other emotions such as fear, grief, and even joy. What makes one emotion different from another is not the physiological arousal pattern but our perceptions and interpretations of the causal events. For instance, if you are standing in a crowd and suddenly feel a hand on your shoulder, you experience an adrenaline rush and turn to see who it is. If it is someone you don’t know, you may experience fear or anger; if it is a friend, you will probably experience relief or joy. The salient point is that you identify your emotion according to your perception and interpretation of the event, even though the hormones involved are the same in both cases.
Our perceptions are conditioned by the messages, beliefs, and behaviors we were exposed to from the prenatal and perhaps even the preconceptual period on. Interpretation involves a choice — conscious or otherwise. We perceive what happened and we interpret what it means to us. In other words, it’s not what happens that creates our experience of the event, it’s our perception and interpretation of it.
I refer to certain events and their interpretations as the “critical incidents” and “critical choices,” because they lead to the establishment of disharmonious core beliefs and holoforms, which later become disease patterns. A critical incident could be anything from misunderstanding a parent’s laughter during the early, egocentric years to actual physical abuse. It might even be a fetus’s awareness of its parents’ wanting a child of the opposite sex.
Critical incidents involve feelings such as abandonment, fear, betrayal, humiliation, and rejection. These are immediate reactions to present events. We then give meaning to these feelings: “Because my father left, I must not be good enough,” or, “My parents wanted a boy (girl). There must be something wrong with me. I’m a mistake.” The meaning we give represents the critical choice of interpretation.
Shame, guilt, or both are frequently associated with critical incidents. Shame is the deep-seated feeling that frequently comes from the perception that there is something fundamentally wrong with you, while guilt is the feeling that commonly results from the perception that you have done something wrong.
The various elements of each critical incident are usually formed simultaneously, not gradually.
At the moment of a critical incident, we give meaning to our perception of the event; that interpretation becomes crystallized as a core belief, which has a lasting effect, influencing choices that serve to support the belief. These experiences are received through the physical senses and stored in the mind as multi-dimensional images or holoforms. They develop their own causal potency and resonate with their own frequency. If a crystallized belief is in conflict with the body’s natural patterns of balance and harmony, it can be said to be the source of disease patterns — the source of illness in our lives. Thus, to find the source of an illness, we need to get to the critical incident and the core beliefs that are causing it.
The Second Level of Source
The second level of source involves love, worthiness, and a sense of value. The deeper meaning beneath the core belief “I’m not good enough” is the belief “I’m not good enough to love, or to be loved.” This causes shame or guilt, which leads to the belief “I’m unforgivable.” This in turn leads to the choice to remain separate, by refusing to be loved or to love and by engaging in numbing addictions, self-pity, self-punishments, and more guilt and shame.
In holoenergetic healing we begin to become aware that the source of our illness is our sense of separation and alienation — a lack of relatedness of self to self, self to others, self to the world, and self to the One.
In holoenergetic healing we begin to become aware that the source of our illness is our sense of separation and alienation — a lack of relatedness of self to self, self to others, self to the world, and self to the One.
The Third Level of Source
The third level of source deals with the realization that we have a choice. At this point we discover our individuality. Along with this may come a sense of our power and freedom to choose, or a sense of our separation and alienation when we don’t express our choice.
The Fourth Level of Source
The fourth level of source deals with the choice to be separate from or at one with spirit or God. We are free to become whole and healed to the extent to which we know and relate to something greater than ourselves.
After we access and resonate with an unhealthy energy pattern — which emanates from these sources, be it in the form of a sensation, an image, a thought, a feeling, or a core belief — we can change or “unform” that pattern. In holoenergetic healing we learn specific, highly effective techniques for unforming these undesirable energy patterns; we literally release the body-mind from the disease templates that are influencing it. By working with this disharmonious energy field (the disease holoform or template) and its physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual expressions of disease, our awareness, loving energy, and conscious choice can bring about dramatic change, facilitating transformation and healing.
The feeling of forgiveness of ourselves and others lies at the heart of our healing work. It is important to understand that we often choose before we learn to discern. We tap in to this level of source when we begin to understand how and when we made the choice to separate from our loving feelings. Once we have holoenergetically accessed the issue, we can release the undesirable pattern it created.
After we access and resonate with an unhealthy energy pattern — which emanates from these sources, be it in the form of a sensation, an image, a thought, a feeling, or a core belief — we can change or “unform” that pattern. In holoenergetic healing we learn specific, highly effective techniques for unforming these undesirable energy patterns; we literally release the body-mind from the disease templates that are influencing it. By working with this disharmonious energy field (the disease holoform or template) and its physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual expressions of disease, our awareness, loving energy, and conscious choice can bring about dramatic change, facilitating transformation and healing.
The feeling of forgiveness of ourselves and others lies at the heart of our healing work. It is important to understand that we often choose before we learn to discern. We tap in to this level of source when we begin to understand how and when we made the choice to separate from our loving feelings. Once we have holoenergetically accessed the issue, we can release the undesirable pattern it created.
TECHNIQUES FOR CHANGE
We can effect change in the energy forms within our body-minds in many ways. One way is through thoughts, feelings, and imagery, which have a direct physiological effect on the body, causing changes in the immune, endocrine, digestive, musculoskeletal, circulatory, and nervous systems. For example, fear and stress are quickly translated into muscular tension. This can affect blood circulation, resulting in headache, heartache, digestive problems, and lowered resistance to infections. We can reverse the symptoms in these cases by learning new ways of responding to stress.
Another powerful way to produce physiological change involves our breathing patterns. Breath — that which carries the life force — plays a major role in holoenergetic healing. Breathing builds an energy charge physiologically, and when focused and appropriately directed, that energy can be given form — that is, it can be moderated consciously by the mind to transfer information to an area of the body or even to another person. In natural childbirth, breathing is used to reduce pain and focus the mother’s attention to synchronize her efforts with the normal reflexes of the birth process.
In holoenergetic healing we use breath in many ways. For instance, imagining and focusing on your breath moving in and out of a specific area of your body energizes that area. The energy fields that surround and penetrate your body register that attention and intention. Once activated, the area is prepared for change, ready to access and release old information and receive new information. Holding your breath at certain critical moments gains the immediate attention of your subconscious mind and brings your body into harmonious resonance with it through a slowing of the heart rate. Pulsed breath — blowing in short, forceful spurts — can facilitate the disruption of undesirable energy patterns and enhance the transformation of energy from one form to another.
Another powerful way to produce physiological change involves our breathing patterns. Breath — that which carries the life force — plays a major role in holoenergetic healing. Breathing builds an energy charge physiologically, and when focused and appropriately directed, that energy can be given form — that is, it can be moderated consciously by the mind to transfer information to an area of the body or even to another person. In natural childbirth, breathing is used to reduce pain and focus the mother’s attention to synchronize her efforts with the normal reflexes of the birth process.
In holoenergetic healing we use breath in many ways. For instance, imagining and focusing on your breath moving in and out of a specific area of your body energizes that area. The energy fields that surround and penetrate your body register that attention and intention. Once activated, the area is prepared for change, ready to access and release old information and receive new information. Holding your breath at certain critical moments gains the immediate attention of your subconscious mind and brings your body into harmonious resonance with it through a slowing of the heart rate. Pulsed breath — blowing in short, forceful spurts — can facilitate the disruption of undesirable energy patterns and enhance the transformation of energy from one form to another.
THE ACTIVE INGREDIENT OF HOLOENERGETIC HEALING: LOVE
In holoenergetic healing it is essential that we be able to relate to or interact with those aspects of ourselves or others that we wish to change. Such interactions occur through our energy fields, through the life force that manifests itself as a biosphere in and around our bodies.
Every structure, animate or inanimate, has a set of energetic vibrations or frequencies that are unique and natural to it. When a structure is vibrating in a way that is characteristic for it, it is said to be in resonance. That resonant frequency, or set of frequencies, is the tune to which it dances best. Every structure, including every atom in the universe, is also responsive to other energy fields around it, so there is significant interaction among the vibrating fields produced by each structure.
When one structure vibrates at the natural frequency of another structure, resonant coupling occurs. Then a number of things happen. First, the intensity of the interaction builds because the vibrations of one reinforce those of the other. You may have experienced the effect of such reinforcement when, as a child, you had someone push you on a swing. If he or she pushed you at exactly the right moment, the arc grew larger and you swung higher. The same thing can occur with energy in resonance — each person’s resonance in effect amplifies the other’s. Another effect of resonant coupling is that the energies of the two structures become linked as one, moving together in unison.
We can demonstrate unison in resonant coupling with the use of two tuning forks. Take two tuning forks tuned to the same note, say C. Holding one fork still, strike the second fork so that it begins vibrating. Now set the second fork a few inches from the first. After a few moments, the first fork will pick up the vibrations of the second and begin resonating with it, sounding its note in unison.
In holoenergetic healing we utilize love, which is the universal harmonic, to help ourselves or others release energy patterns of separation and move into energy patterns of wholeness.
The essence of love is relatedness — to a person, a place, an object, a food, one’s self, the universe, or God or an undefined Higher Order. We can look at relatedness in a very literal sense: to relate means “to carry back together.” What I mean by relatedness, then, is that love brings back together what was once one but seemingly became separate. It is a coming home. We can become aware of this nonseparation, or relatedness, for it al ways exists. We can experience it as a sense of wholeness, completion, peace, and the impulse toward unity. And we can express and manifest it through our actions. When we relate fully to what is so, love becomes known as Truth or Pure Consciousness; perceiver and perceived become one.
Love creates an energy field that affects all that enters it. It is said that the loving fields of Christ and Buddha were so powerful that people were healed in their presence. Both of these great avatars taught that loving energy is the energy of oneness, harmony, balance, and peace. In the presence of a powerful loving field, if there is the intention and willingness for healing to occur, the body’s inherent self-healing capabilities will be stimulated and augmented.
To use an analogy, in modern medicine there is a technique called MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), which uses a magnetic field, rather than X rays, to produce computer-generated images for diagnosis. In the blink of an eye, a magnetic field brings all the protons of the hydrogen atoms in the body into alignment, causing them all to spin and move as one; a radio wave resonant with the hydrogen proton is then pulsed through the body, producing signals that a computer translates into visual images.
In the presence of a coherent magnetic field, such as that produced by MRI, the hydrogen protons spin in concert as they align themselves with the field. In effect, they all dance the same dance; they become one. Similarly, when you create a coherent loving field, everything within that field begins to vibrate as one, to dance to the same rhythm.
When all begins to vibrate as one, separation disappears and there is only oneness. Time and space disappear, because they are measures of separation. The end merges with the beginning and the spinning circle is complete. Finite becomes infinite. In this state of oneness, the natural order and harmony inherent in the tissues, cells, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles reassert themselves. The cells remember the higher order and balance of health and wholeness. Love is their reminder.
How can a seemingly ethereal energy like love remind our cells of their natural order and harmony? In The Body Quantum, physicist Fred Alan Wolf speculates that feelings such as love could be described in terms of the quantum properties of matter, light, and transformation (p. 266-67). Wolf is not alone in his beliefs; many physicists now believe that all matter is composed of trapped light. This belief is embodied in Einstein’s famous equation E = MC2. Wolf further speculates that love can be viewed in terms of the quantum statistical behavior of light particles — that is, photons. He points out that all photons tend to move into the same state, dancing the same dance, if given the opportunity. In this sense, the natural impulse of photons is a move toward unity, toward oneness. Thus, the age-old association between light and love reflects a profound wisdom.
In his book Theories of the Chakras, Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama reported detecting photons emitted from the heart chakra of an experienced meditator when she projected loving energy with intention (p. 276). Although the research is not yet conclusive, at this point it is reasonable to speculate that photons respond to a variety of mental and emotional states, particularly to love. How delightful!
To become the light, or to be enlightened, describes and honors that quantum state of the massless, chargeless photon, which recognizes, relates, and becomes one with all.
Thanks to our inherent self-healing mechanisms, our bodies know how to heal themselves and will do so with or without the conscious expression of love. However, there are many ways that we can hinder or support these natural healing processes. As a surgeon, I can facilitate healing by paying attention to asepsis, antisepsis, and homeostasis, by carefully approximating the incised skin, and by using the appropriate suture material. What I say during the surgery, while the patient is unconscious, and how I relate to the patient following surgery can also have an effect on the patient’s natural healing processes.
Knowledge, skill, attitude, belief, intention, will, laughter, love, and human caring can all facilitate the healing process. Thus, we can enhance or interfere with the body’s inherent healing process. In my practice I have seen again and again how the energy of love and the creation of a loving field can profoundly enhance healing, not only physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Love is not only the stuff of poets and mystics but a tangible, transmittable energy that can produce healing.
Every structure, animate or inanimate, has a set of energetic vibrations or frequencies that are unique and natural to it. When a structure is vibrating in a way that is characteristic for it, it is said to be in resonance. That resonant frequency, or set of frequencies, is the tune to which it dances best. Every structure, including every atom in the universe, is also responsive to other energy fields around it, so there is significant interaction among the vibrating fields produced by each structure.
When one structure vibrates at the natural frequency of another structure, resonant coupling occurs. Then a number of things happen. First, the intensity of the interaction builds because the vibrations of one reinforce those of the other. You may have experienced the effect of such reinforcement when, as a child, you had someone push you on a swing. If he or she pushed you at exactly the right moment, the arc grew larger and you swung higher. The same thing can occur with energy in resonance — each person’s resonance in effect amplifies the other’s. Another effect of resonant coupling is that the energies of the two structures become linked as one, moving together in unison.
We can demonstrate unison in resonant coupling with the use of two tuning forks. Take two tuning forks tuned to the same note, say C. Holding one fork still, strike the second fork so that it begins vibrating. Now set the second fork a few inches from the first. After a few moments, the first fork will pick up the vibrations of the second and begin resonating with it, sounding its note in unison.
In holoenergetic healing we utilize love, which is the universal harmonic, to help ourselves or others release energy patterns of separation and move into energy patterns of wholeness.
The essence of love is relatedness — to a person, a place, an object, a food, one’s self, the universe, or God or an undefined Higher Order. We can look at relatedness in a very literal sense: to relate means “to carry back together.” What I mean by relatedness, then, is that love brings back together what was once one but seemingly became separate. It is a coming home. We can become aware of this nonseparation, or relatedness, for it al ways exists. We can experience it as a sense of wholeness, completion, peace, and the impulse toward unity. And we can express and manifest it through our actions. When we relate fully to what is so, love becomes known as Truth or Pure Consciousness; perceiver and perceived become one.
Love creates an energy field that affects all that enters it. It is said that the loving fields of Christ and Buddha were so powerful that people were healed in their presence. Both of these great avatars taught that loving energy is the energy of oneness, harmony, balance, and peace. In the presence of a powerful loving field, if there is the intention and willingness for healing to occur, the body’s inherent self-healing capabilities will be stimulated and augmented.
To use an analogy, in modern medicine there is a technique called MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), which uses a magnetic field, rather than X rays, to produce computer-generated images for diagnosis. In the blink of an eye, a magnetic field brings all the protons of the hydrogen atoms in the body into alignment, causing them all to spin and move as one; a radio wave resonant with the hydrogen proton is then pulsed through the body, producing signals that a computer translates into visual images.
In the presence of a coherent magnetic field, such as that produced by MRI, the hydrogen protons spin in concert as they align themselves with the field. In effect, they all dance the same dance; they become one. Similarly, when you create a coherent loving field, everything within that field begins to vibrate as one, to dance to the same rhythm.
When all begins to vibrate as one, separation disappears and there is only oneness. Time and space disappear, because they are measures of separation. The end merges with the beginning and the spinning circle is complete. Finite becomes infinite. In this state of oneness, the natural order and harmony inherent in the tissues, cells, molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles reassert themselves. The cells remember the higher order and balance of health and wholeness. Love is their reminder.
How can a seemingly ethereal energy like love remind our cells of their natural order and harmony? In The Body Quantum, physicist Fred Alan Wolf speculates that feelings such as love could be described in terms of the quantum properties of matter, light, and transformation (p. 266-67). Wolf is not alone in his beliefs; many physicists now believe that all matter is composed of trapped light. This belief is embodied in Einstein’s famous equation E = MC2. Wolf further speculates that love can be viewed in terms of the quantum statistical behavior of light particles — that is, photons. He points out that all photons tend to move into the same state, dancing the same dance, if given the opportunity. In this sense, the natural impulse of photons is a move toward unity, toward oneness. Thus, the age-old association between light and love reflects a profound wisdom.
In his book Theories of the Chakras, Dr. Hiroshi Motoyama reported detecting photons emitted from the heart chakra of an experienced meditator when she projected loving energy with intention (p. 276). Although the research is not yet conclusive, at this point it is reasonable to speculate that photons respond to a variety of mental and emotional states, particularly to love. How delightful!
To become the light, or to be enlightened, describes and honors that quantum state of the massless, chargeless photon, which recognizes, relates, and becomes one with all.
Thanks to our inherent self-healing mechanisms, our bodies know how to heal themselves and will do so with or without the conscious expression of love. However, there are many ways that we can hinder or support these natural healing processes. As a surgeon, I can facilitate healing by paying attention to asepsis, antisepsis, and homeostasis, by carefully approximating the incised skin, and by using the appropriate suture material. What I say during the surgery, while the patient is unconscious, and how I relate to the patient following surgery can also have an effect on the patient’s natural healing processes.
Knowledge, skill, attitude, belief, intention, will, laughter, love, and human caring can all facilitate the healing process. Thus, we can enhance or interfere with the body’s inherent healing process. In my practice I have seen again and again how the energy of love and the creation of a loving field can profoundly enhance healing, not only physically but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Love is not only the stuff of poets and mystics but a tangible, transmittable energy that can produce healing.
THREE ASPECTS OF LOVE
Love, as I refer to it here, has three aspects: awareness, feeling, and action. Love is our awareness of the inherent connection that we share with everything else; we experience it as a feeling; and we express it as an action. Thus, love is the felt sense of knowing we are a part of everything, a recognition that each of us is a part of a vast, universal order. These connecting, unifying qualities make love the subtlest and most powerful of all energies, which is why it lies at the heart of our healing work.
Behind and between the awareness, feeling, and action of love is the energy of being — the energy of the Self. When these three aspects of the energy of love become coherent, your being universalizes, extending beyond itself to become one with All.
If we view love as a universal pattern of resonant energy, we begin to recognize it as an energetic pattern that can influence other energies to move toward wholeness and healing. Our universe can be thought of as a matrix of consciousness that emerged out of the void. Love is the connecting glue of unifying consciousness in the universe and is ever-present whether we are aware of it or not.
In discussing love, I often use the term resonance. When we begin to resonate lovingly with another person or thing, we become aware (consciously or unconsciously) of two vibrational systems: the self and the other — I and thou. Each separate individual or thing can operate as both a sender and a receiver as it vibrates at its particular frequency. When the waves of energy of each system vibrate at the same frequency, the result is a coupled resonance. With resonant awareness comes a felt connection, an awareness that you have been met.
The loving feelings we experience toward another person are directly related to the resonant link we establish with that person. When in resonance with another person (or thing) you may experience a pleasant or even profound sense of your connectedness with her or him. Resonance with another person is often accompanied by a strong sense of what the person is thinking and feeling, along with empathy for him or her. It is as if a silent communication conveyed a special understanding and warmth that transcends the exchange of words; so it is that communication is established at an energetic level.
Although resonance is a quality of love, merely coming into resonance with others is not to be mistaken for love. For example, you can resonate with another person’s anger, fear, or sadness. Love includes but is not limited to resonance. With love there is also the feeling and awareness of being connected with another in a way that moves us toward harmony and unity.
Love can also become our state of being, characterized by the feeling and awareness of relatedness. Through the energy of love we are able to resonate not just with a special person but with our own self, with all others, with nature, and with everything else in our universe and beyond. The sense of wonder we experience when we regard a spectacular mountain vista is a felt awareness of and a resonance with nature. When love becomes second nature to us, it becomes our state of being.
Behind and between the awareness, feeling, and action of love is the energy of being — the energy of the Self. When these three aspects of the energy of love become coherent, your being universalizes, extending beyond itself to become one with All.
If we view love as a universal pattern of resonant energy, we begin to recognize it as an energetic pattern that can influence other energies to move toward wholeness and healing. Our universe can be thought of as a matrix of consciousness that emerged out of the void. Love is the connecting glue of unifying consciousness in the universe and is ever-present whether we are aware of it or not.
In discussing love, I often use the term resonance. When we begin to resonate lovingly with another person or thing, we become aware (consciously or unconsciously) of two vibrational systems: the self and the other — I and thou. Each separate individual or thing can operate as both a sender and a receiver as it vibrates at its particular frequency. When the waves of energy of each system vibrate at the same frequency, the result is a coupled resonance. With resonant awareness comes a felt connection, an awareness that you have been met.
The loving feelings we experience toward another person are directly related to the resonant link we establish with that person. When in resonance with another person (or thing) you may experience a pleasant or even profound sense of your connectedness with her or him. Resonance with another person is often accompanied by a strong sense of what the person is thinking and feeling, along with empathy for him or her. It is as if a silent communication conveyed a special understanding and warmth that transcends the exchange of words; so it is that communication is established at an energetic level.
Although resonance is a quality of love, merely coming into resonance with others is not to be mistaken for love. For example, you can resonate with another person’s anger, fear, or sadness. Love includes but is not limited to resonance. With love there is also the feeling and awareness of being connected with another in a way that moves us toward harmony and unity.
Love can also become our state of being, characterized by the feeling and awareness of relatedness. Through the energy of love we are able to resonate not just with a special person but with our own self, with all others, with nature, and with everything else in our universe and beyond. The sense of wonder we experience when we regard a spectacular mountain vista is a felt awareness of and a resonance with nature. When love becomes second nature to us, it becomes our state of being.
LEVELS OF LOVE
Love can be experienced at the physical level, the personality level, and the higher levels of the transpersonal self. Love at the spiritual level filters down to the personality and physical levels, where it is expressed in thoughts and feelings, words and deeds. The quality of the experience of love is different at each of these levels.
When we begin to experience love at the spiritual level, the heartfelt love of our soul merges the lower and higher levels of loving awareness. At these transpersonal levels, love is characterized by resonances such as compassion, caring, peace, gratitude, and joy. As these levels evolve, our feelings and thoughts gradually dissolve into a transcendent awareness of oneness, a state of bliss, no longer aware of the object of our relatedness but only its energetic essence. This state of love is unconditional love.
When we begin to experience love at the spiritual level, the heartfelt love of our soul merges the lower and higher levels of loving awareness. At these transpersonal levels, love is characterized by resonances such as compassion, caring, peace, gratitude, and joy. As these levels evolve, our feelings and thoughts gradually dissolve into a transcendent awareness of oneness, a state of bliss, no longer aware of the object of our relatedness but only its energetic essence. This state of love is unconditional love.
Unconditional Love
Unconditional love is inherent in our consciousness. We become aware of this, and of the ways in which we are all one, only as we learn to recognize the boundaries of our individual selves. We become aware of how we’re one with all others in the universe only when we can see the differences that make us think and feel we are separate. Thus, your sense of separation is like the outward bound part of your journey home.
The full realization of one’s self and one’s value allows for the dissolution of conditional boundaries, which include our fears, our beliefs, our desires, and the state of our bodies. When these boundaries are dissolved, self and nonself come into resonance and become one. This boundless love has the capacity to resonate with all others — that is, it has a universal “frequency.” In this respect, unconditional love expresses the innate harmony of the universe, the common chord that is heard in every individual song, be it the song of the atom or that of the entire universe.
Because unconditional love is inherent in the consciousness of every person, we all have had flashes, moments, or even extended periods when we experienced it. These flashes of bliss often come to us during significant events in our lives, such as a birth, the death of a loved one, the overcoming of a life-threatening illness, or a near-death experience.
For most of us, our awareness of unconditional love evolves as we grow to value and love ourselves; then we begin to relate and resonate with others through that new set of vibrations — a chord of self-value. When we relate from our sense of value and self-love, we are able to connect with the authentic self of other people, a self that is beyond the level of personality. With this resonance of unconditional love, we say “yes” from the heart.
The full realization of one’s self and one’s value allows for the dissolution of conditional boundaries, which include our fears, our beliefs, our desires, and the state of our bodies. When these boundaries are dissolved, self and nonself come into resonance and become one. This boundless love has the capacity to resonate with all others — that is, it has a universal “frequency.” In this respect, unconditional love expresses the innate harmony of the universe, the common chord that is heard in every individual song, be it the song of the atom or that of the entire universe.
Because unconditional love is inherent in the consciousness of every person, we all have had flashes, moments, or even extended periods when we experienced it. These flashes of bliss often come to us during significant events in our lives, such as a birth, the death of a loved one, the overcoming of a life-threatening illness, or a near-death experience.
For most of us, our awareness of unconditional love evolves as we grow to value and love ourselves; then we begin to relate and resonate with others through that new set of vibrations — a chord of self-value. When we relate from our sense of value and self-love, we are able to connect with the authentic self of other people, a self that is beyond the level of personality. With this resonance of unconditional love, we say “yes” from the heart.
Conditional Love
Although we all are capable of unconditional love, loving with conditions is far more common. When we love another because he or she meets our needs, we are loving conditionally. Similarly, when we give to get, we are placing conditions on our love. This is the way love is usually defined and the way most of us are brought up to understand it. Conditional love is but a pale reflection or dim remembrance of the universal force we call unconditional love.
“Falling in love” is conditional love, a projection onto our loved one of our own idealized image of him or her. In effect, our attraction to the other person is primarily our attraction to our own projection. While falling in love in this way is not unconditional, it can give us glimpses of unconditional love; through it we may be able to come to know and to relate to the essence of our own and another person’s being. Having “loved and lost” is not in vain when we have allowed ourselves to seek and sense the qualities of unconditional love that lie between and beyond our projections. Such experiences illuminate the world for us through a deeply heartfelt oneness, leaving us with a new perspective from which to view all things.
“Falling in love” is conditional love, a projection onto our loved one of our own idealized image of him or her. In effect, our attraction to the other person is primarily our attraction to our own projection. While falling in love in this way is not unconditional, it can give us glimpses of unconditional love; through it we may be able to come to know and to relate to the essence of our own and another person’s being. Having “loved and lost” is not in vain when we have allowed ourselves to seek and sense the qualities of unconditional love that lie between and beyond our projections. Such experiences illuminate the world for us through a deeply heartfelt oneness, leaving us with a new perspective from which to view all things.
Loving Expressions
Respecting others by seeing and accepting them as they are is an expression of unconditional love. When we give unconditional love, we provide people with a mirror that reflects back their own image so they can know themselves. We love unconditionally when we allow intimacy with others, granting them the freedom to be and to express themselves in new ways each day. Being committed to our own growth and that of another person is another expression of unconditional love. It is giving and caring and responding without concern for getting something in return. By expressing in these ways, you provide yourself and your loved one with feelings of security, pleasure, trust, acceptance, room for creativity and change, and permission to be vulnerable, honest, and intimate. Thus, feelings of separation, fear, shame, and abandonment are greatly reduced.
Feelings of separation that result from the feared inability to love or to be loved frequently bring illness into our lives. Illness is often a cry for help, a call for love and a deeper sense of connectedness in one’s life.
Through love, we can heal and become whole again. With loving actions and felt awareness, we can experience our oneness, our universal relatedness. When we begin to love ourselves, a link is established between us and all else, and fear is dissipated. When the illusion of separation dissolves at a spiritual level, love allows us a state of oneness that harmonizes even the seemingly dissonant patterns of illness and injury.
In her book 'The Inward Arc' Frances Vaughan comments:
Feelings of separation that result from the feared inability to love or to be loved frequently bring illness into our lives. Illness is often a cry for help, a call for love and a deeper sense of connectedness in one’s life.
Through love, we can heal and become whole again. With loving actions and felt awareness, we can experience our oneness, our universal relatedness. When we begin to love ourselves, a link is established between us and all else, and fear is dissipated. When the illusion of separation dissolves at a spiritual level, love allows us a state of oneness that harmonizes even the seemingly dissonant patterns of illness and injury.
In her book 'The Inward Arc' Frances Vaughan comments:
Wholeness is based on a balance and integration of opposites, not on getting rid of what we don’t like. When we feel an inconsistency or conflict between inner experience and outer expression, between persona and shadow, fear and love, life and death, body and mind, or any other pairs of opposites, we experience pain and tension. According to ancient Hindu scriptures, the Upanishads, wherever there is other there is fear, for fear is born of duality. We can be released from fear only when we recognize the unity of opposites and learn to balance the polarities of emotional experience in a context of healing awareness (p. 66).
THE POWER OF LOVE
Unconditional love is the most readily transmittable of all the universal energies. Any information or energy pattern, any thought or feeling, that is conveyed or linked with loving energy will have a greater effect than any other transmission of subtle energy. Thus, its multidimensional pervasiveness and its capacity to serve as a universal vehicle for information makes love the most powerful of all healing energies.
Through conscious awareness of the relatedness that comes with unconditional love, the sense of separation disappears. Without separation, time and space dissolve, because they are simply measures of separation that we have structured and imposed on the universe. Similarly, without separation there is no loss of energy, no entropy. The suspension of time and space allows for the natural order and harmony inherent in the subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and tissues to unfold. Thus, unconditional loving energy is the most potent force in the cosmos.
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Through conscious awareness of the relatedness that comes with unconditional love, the sense of separation disappears. Without separation, time and space dissolve, because they are simply measures of separation that we have structured and imposed on the universe. Similarly, without separation there is no loss of energy, no entropy. The suspension of time and space allows for the natural order and harmony inherent in the subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and tissues to unfold. Thus, unconditional loving energy is the most potent force in the cosmos.
All Rights Reserved
