Copyright © 2009 Don Beckett
As I write this (August 2009), here in the good-old U S of A, there's a raging debate over what to do about "Health Care." Western Medicine, of course, is the king on the throne of Health Care. And "Health Care" is post-Orwellian code for the manipulation of the symptoms of disease. The turmoil over Health Care is about who will pay for the Pills, Procedures, and High-Tech Machinery involved in that.
Diagnosing the "Health Care" catastrophe
What is becoming apparent is that the Health Care system is way too expensive, and no one — not individuals, Government, insurance companies, employers — can afford to continue paying for it. But how did we get to this point?
I think the real seed of the problem was/is the concept of "insurance." It takes us out of the present, projects us into the future, and sells us the idea that something catastrophic is bound to befall us there! Something that will bankrupt us and ruin our life. And the only protection from it is to buy "insurance." We can pay a certain amount of money every month, to an insurance company — and then, when the inevitable catastrophe happens, the insurance company will pay the bill! What a concept! Yes, we're protected financially from the imaginary catastrophe ... but now we begin to feel ripped off by the insurance company. What if we pay and pay and pay them, and the catastrophe never comes? The only way to get our money's worth, for the monthly insurance payments, is to manifest the catastrophe! And, in many cases, that's exactly what happens; the idea of it smolders in our consciousness year after year and eventually materializes.
But, wait, there's also a less extreme possibility. The insurance company starts insuring not only catastrophes, but routine medical expenses as well. Oh, that's much better. Now I don't have to manifest a catastrophe, I just have to get a lot of "routine" procedures from my doctor: frequent check-ups, even when I'm feeling fine; and visits to the doc whenever I'm feeling anything less than fine. (These may include blood tests, urine tests, ECGs [formerly called EKGs], EEGs, CT [or CAT] Scans, PT [or PET] Scans, MRIs, Ultrasound [Sonography], and any other kinds of testing that the doctor has access to.)
Now the doctor is happy (he can charge a couple hundred dollars for 15-20 minutes with a patient — hey, the insurance company's paying for it!). And the patient is happy (hey, the insurance company's paying for it! — the patient is just "getting his money's worth" for the monthly premiums he's paying). And the technicians who do all those fancy tests are happy (the fees for those make the doctor's fee look like nothing!). And, in case any hospital time is required, the hospital is happy (the fee for just getting put in a hospital bed makes the doctor fees and the technician fees together look like nothing!).
Now ... the only one who is no longer happy is the insurance company. The insurance company is getting ripped off by everyone else. Now the insurance company raises its prices and does whatever it can to minimize its payoffs. Then the doctors, technicians, and hospitals raise their prices even more, and the patient avails himself of even more unnecessary services, and this war of the cash registers keeps escalating....
That's where we are now — at the end of a long and exciting joyride, with our vehicle teetering on the very precipice of a mountaintop, and no gasoline in the tank. The joyride is over, folks. "Health Care" is about to do a Humpty Dumpty. And I say, Hooray! — it's a great opportunity for us to get back to Reality!! Let's stop mistaking the maintenance of disease for "Health Care" ... and let's get back to seeing Western Medicine for what it really is.
The difference between Western Medicine and healing
To me, Western Medicine is absolutely a last-resort, life-or-death option (and I'm thankful to it for saving my life, at least a couple times!). In life-or-death situations, drugs and/or surgery are sometimes the only things that can keep us in the physical body ... but it's important to realize the difference between such emergency provisions and real healing.
I think the only "problem" with Western Medicine is that it has come to be perceived as something it is not. It does NOT heal anything. Its only benefit is, in emergency situations, to keep us alive (through extreme measures) long enough that the body's natural healing ability has time to function.
What western medicine does is to suppress the symptoms or effects of disease and injury. This suppression is responsible for its life-saving function ... and also responsible for its equally damaging effects when applied for long periods of time. Drugs and surgery do not address the CAUSE of illness, and therefore cannot possibly heal it. The best they can do is to keep the body alive long enough that it can overcome the damaging effects of the "medicine" and heal itself...!
It disturbs me that the drug industry has brainwashed people (including doctors) into taking (and prescribing) handfuls of pills every day! Even the drug manufacturers admit that their pills don't heal anything, that they merely suppress unpleasant symptoms (while often creating equally unpleasant and dangerous effects of their own) ... but no one seems to connect the dots to where this leads! The energetic effects of drugs are so extreme — almost unimaginably so! — that they cause great imbalance in the body. They suppress the symptoms of disease by literally pushing the energy of the disease deep into the body and trapping it there! People feel better, because the symptoms have been hidden; and they make the mistake of believing that the drugs have healed them.
UNTIL recent years, this was not such a dangerous mistake. When I was a child, for instance — and even after that — doctors did not generally prescribe a drug for extended periods of time. Drugs were seen (accurately) as emergency measures; they were taken for relatively short times, only until the body could heal itself sufficiently that the suppression of symptoms was no longer necessary. Then, without the continued intake of the drug, the body could heal the original disease and also (eventually) rid itself of the drug toxins. But nowadays the fundamental strategy is to get as many people as possible taking as many drugs as possible, every day for the rest of their lives! (Ka-ching, ka-ching — listen to the Song Of The Cash Registers!!)
What people are not seeing in this picture (though I can't imagine why) is that, after years of daily pill-taking, the body eventually breaks down to such a point that it can no longer hold the trapped and destructive energies of the mountains of pills that have been consumed. These extreme energies finally break loose and create havoc in the body (and people say things like, "I don't understand it — I haven't been sick a day in the past 20 years, and now suddenly, overnight, my whole body is full of cancer!") ... and, at that point, nothing can overcome it.
Thanks to this campaign by the drug industry, it has now become a life-and-death matter that we not succumb to their brainwashing! It's crucial that we see Western Medicine for what it really is — extreme, emergency treatment — and that we use it only in that way. Any pills taken for long periods of time will have unintended and dangerous consequences. Therefore, it's important that we take them for no longer than truly necessary — and that we incorporate things into our daily life that bring us true healing and balance.
We must realize that everything physical arises from the spiritual, and that physical and spiritual cannot be separated (as long as we are functioning in a physical world, at least). We must take responsibility for our own health — and one way of doing so is to incorporate into our daily life some practice that keeps us aware of our Source and real Self (which is the only source of true health). My preferences in this respect have been Reiki, Jourei, and Macrobiotics ... and, more recently, The Shinki Method. These are, of course, only 4 of countless options, all of which are pathways to the one and only goal, Self-realization.
Don Beckett is internationally respected as a teacher of Reiki and Jourei – two subtle energies (and methods of using them) that bring about healing (physical, emotional, mental) and spiritual awakening. His book Reiki, The True Story is a much-needed look at the history and practice of Reiki as revealed by students of Mikao Usui (the founder) himself – plus Don's insights after 17 years in Reiki. Comprehensive and thoroughly documented, Reiki, The True Story is used by many as a Reiki teaching manual.
Don has been practicing Reiki since 1991, teaching and initiating others since 1999. In 2000 he became a member of Johrei Fellowship. In 2006 he was authorized to teach Quan Yin Joray. In 2010 he began teaching his own system of Jourei. Many of Don's students are in faraway places. They find him through his website Reiki, Shinki, Macrobiotics, and correspond by email. He also has taught many students in person – in the U.S., Bali, Romania, Turkey, Italy, and Serbia.
Don's latest project is working with the spiritual energy of Shinki ("God-energy" or "Source-energy"), via The Shinki Method, co-founded with Dragan Pavlovic of Serbia.
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