Chapter 17 Levels of Therapy  

I know that the science of yoga views a person as having many "bodies". If that is the case, then could the same medicine have different effects on different people, depending on where the illness originates?

Human science does not yet exist. Patanjali's yoga, the closest attempt ever made, divides the body into five layers, five bodies. You don't have just one body; you have five bodies, and behind these five bodies lies your essence. What happens in psychology also happens in medicine. Counter-therapy only believes in the physical body—the "coarsest" body. It runs parallel to behaviorism. Counter-therapy is the coarsest form of medicine, which is why it has become scientific—because, until now, scientific instruments can only measure the coarsest things. We need to go deeper.

Counter-therapy only trusts the physical body and directly treats its symptoms. It is the crudest yet most "scientific" form of medicine because it targets a level that can be measured by existing instruments. This approach is absurd and difficult, like trying to change the master by changing the servant, because the master (the higher body) will not obey the servant (the physical body).

Chinese acupuncture goes a step further, focusing on the vital organism. If something is wrong with the physical body, acupuncture doesn't directly address the physical body; instead, it works on the vital organism, on bioenergy or bio-plasma. It applies some force there, and the physical body immediately begins to function well. If something is wrong with the vital organism, counter-therapies will deal with the physical body. Of course, counter-therapies are an uphill process, but acupuncture is a downhill process. It's easier because the vital organism is at a higher level than the physical body. If the vital organism is improved, the physical body will follow suit because the blueprint exists within the vital organism. The physical body is merely a tool of the vital organism.

Now, acupuncture is gradually gaining respect because the Soviet Union developed a highly sensitive Kirlian photography technique that can reveal 700 vital points (acupoints) within the human body—points that acupuncturists have been predicting for five thousand years. They lacked the instruments to locate these points, but through long-term experimentation, they discovered 700 points. Now, Kirlian, using scientific instruments, has also discovered the same 700 points. Furthermore, Kirlian photography proves one thing: trying to change a living organism through the physical body is absurd. It's like trying to change the master by changing the servant—it's almost impossible because the master won't listen to the servant. If you want to change the servant, you must first change the master; then the servant will immediately follow. It's better to change the general than to change every soldier. The body has countless soldiers, countless cells, all working under orders. When you change the one giving the orders, the entire body's pattern changes.

Acupuncture is purely Eastern. So when you approach any Eastern science with a modern mind, you miss a lot. Your whole approach is different; it's methodological, logical, analytical, yet these Eastern sciences aren't really sciences, they're arts. The whole thing depends on whether you can shift your energy from reason to intuition, from masculine to feminine, from yang to yin, from active to passive and receptive. Only then can things function effectively; otherwise, you can learn everything about acupuncture, but it won't be acupuncture at all. You'll know everything about it, but it won't be it. Sometimes a person may not know much about it, but can know it directly; in that case, it's a trick , an insight into it.

Like-the-body therapy can penetrate deeper, working on the psychological body. The founder of like-the-body therapy made a significant discovery: the smaller the dosage, the deeper it penetrates. He called this method of medication in like-the-body therapy "enhancing the effect." They continued to reduce the dosage. He would do this in such a way that he would take a certain amount of the medicine and mix it with ten times the amount of lactose or water. One part medicine was mixed with nine parts water, and then one part of this new solution was mixed with another nine parts water or lactose. He would continue in this way, taking another part of the new solution and mixing it with nine parts water, believing that this would increase the potency of the medicine.

Step by step, the medicine becomes extremely diluted, so subtle that you can hardly believe it's effective; the medicinal components are almost invisible. This is the intensity written in the pamphlet of the same therapy: ten times stronger, twenty times stronger, one hundred times stronger, one thousand times stronger. The stronger the intensity, the smaller the dosage. When the intensity reaches ten thousand times, the original dosage is reduced to one ten-thousandth, almost non-existent. But in this way, it can penetrate the deepest core of the psychological body—the mind body. It penetrates deeper than acupuncture, almost reaching the atomic level, or almost the subatomic level. In this way, it doesn't touch your body, nor your life body; it simply enters. It is so subtle, so small, that it encounters no obstacles. It can slip into the psychological body and begin operating from there. In this way, you have found an authority greater than the life body.

Trust is a form of hypnosis. Without trust, you cannot access the more subtle aspects of your being, because even the slightest doubt will throw you back into the physical body. Science operates on doubt; doubt is the method science uses because it operates on the physical body. Whether you doubt or not, the antipathic therapy doesn't care. It doesn't ask you to trust its medicine; it simply gives you the medicine. But a practitioner of the same therapy will ask if you believe, because if you don't, it's difficult for them to work on you. A hypnotist will demand complete surrender, otherwise they can't do anything.

Hypnotherapy goes even deeper, touching upon the fourth body—the consciousness body. It doesn't use medicine, it uses nothing at all; it only uses suggestions, nothing more. It simply places a suggestion into your mind—you can call it magnetism, hypnosis, or whatever you prefer. Whatever you call it, its effect is through the power of thought, not through the power of matter. Even similar therapies rely on the power of matter, only in very small, very subtle amounts. But hypnotherapy discards all matter, because no matter how subtle, it is still matter; even at ten thousand times the intensity, it is still the intensity of matter. Hypnotherapy jumps directly into the energy of thought—the consciousness body. As soon as your consciousness accepts a concept, it begins to function. The future of hypnotherapy is very promising; it will become the medicine of the future. Because if simply changing your thought patterns can change your mind, and through your mind, your life form can be changed, and through your life form, your physical body can be changed, then why bother with toxins, why bother with "crude" medicine? Why not operate through the power of thought? Have you ever watched a hypnotist hypnotize someone? If not, it's worth watching; it will give you some insight.

You may have heard of or seen this before; it happens in India. You've probably seen people walking on fire. They're simply hypnotized. They believe a god or goddess possesses them, so the fire won't burn them. That concept alone is enough; it controls and alters their bodily functions. They prepare by fasting for twenty-four hours. When you fast, your entire body is clean, without waste; the bridge between you and your body disappears. For twenty-four hours, they live in a temple, singing, dancing, and merging with the divine. Then, a moment comes when they can walk on the fire. They dance as if possessed, completely trusting that the fire won't burn them—that's all. The key is creating that trust. Then they dance on the fire, and the fire truly doesn't burn them. Often, those watching become absorbed in the experience, as if possessed by a deity. Twenty people might walk across a fire without getting burned, and someone nearby will suddenly feel confident: "If these people can walk on fire, why can't I?" They'll jump in, and the fire won't burn them. Trust arises suddenly in that moment. Sometimes, those who are prepared are burned, while the unprepared are not. How does this happen? The prepared person must have harbored doubts; they must be wondering if it will actually happen. There must be a hidden doubt in their consciousness, not complete trust. So, although they come, they still harbor doubts. Because of that doubt, the body cannot receive the message from the higher spirit. That doubt remains in between, so the body continues to function normally, and then it gets burned. That's why all religions insist on trust.

Meditation involves letting go of all support, which is why understanding meditation is the most difficult thing in the world, because nothing is left behind, just pure understanding, just observation.