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Consciousness, Energy, and Responsibility: The Three Keys to Healing by Dr. Dick Shepard
The concept of consciousness is as old as time itself. Religion, spirituality, healing, and morality are just a few areas that speak of the importance of consciousness. Healing arts and disciplines over the history of mankind have spoken of the role of altered or healing states or ultimate states of consciousness. From the time of "primitive" humankind (meaning primal or first, not underdeveloped!), priests and shamans of almost all tribal cultures have functioned as the link between the human and spirit worlds. Although the means to reach this altered state varies from culture to culture, the shift itself is common to them all. This shift is caused by various means — drumming, chanting, dancing, the ingestion of certain plants — then the shaman enters the spirit world and obtains vital information about the healing. Shifts in consciousness are acknowledged to be necessary by all sorts of individuals: healers, teachers, and spiritual beings of past and present. Consciousness is perhaps the most important of the three keys. Without a shift to a higher state of consciousness where there are fewer limitations and more possibilities, healing stands still and life becomes stagnant. Whatever induces this shift, it must take place. This is what Drs. Deepak Chopra and Bernie Siegel discovered when they investigated why certain "terminal" cancer patients recovered or went into remission. They found that a fundamental change or shift had taken place and that, essentially, the healing came from that "silent field of intelligence" or consciousness. Other prominent healers also speak at great length about consciousness. Mitchell May, a renowned healer residing in Utah, tells how, as a young man, his teacher and benefactor took him on countless journeys to many different "healing states of consciousness" which were the key to his healing and the subsequent healings of the many people on whom he has worked. Spiritual teachers such as Sri Adi Da Samraj speak of "locating" a prior condition or consciousness that exists before, and independent of, all conditional realities and states. Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi calls this fundamental consciousness the "center of all," and says that contact with this "active-consciousness" removes the suffering of life: "In that state is the highest power...the highest peace." Consciousness is what allows the shift from stagnation (or being stuck) to healing. Consciousness is what creates healing and directs it to move. It is what allows energy and responsibility to come into play, into manifestation. So, first we set our state of consciousness. The beginning of this is setting our intent. Our intention directs what state of consciousness we’ll access. If we set our intent on Rocky Road, most likely the manifesting consciousness will lead us to Baskin-Robbins! If we fearlessly set our intention for healing for the highest good of all, we will open ourselves to a very expansive state, not limited to any one possibility but open to all. We’ve just jumped from our ordinary limitation to what Deepak Chopra calls the "quantum field." In this field are all possibilities and no limitations. What better "place" to access healing? Intent is very important; it sets the tone of what will follow. Next, let’s talk about energy and its role in the healing process. With energy we’ve jumped from unmanifest to manifest — subtly manifest, yet still manifest. From consciousness, energy is born. Actually, when we speak of a field, we are already talking about energy because it has qualities. The shift from consciousness to energy is nearly imperceptible as, somehow, consciousness takes on motion or form; our intention brings on a particular type of motion or form or energy. It has qualities to it and can be experienced through sensation — perhaps warmth or light or pressure. The consciousness then "bleeds through" as joy, happiness, fullness, or brightness. The energy is the carrier for the consciousness. Because energy, like our bodies, is vibrational in nature, it can be used to envelop or infuse our energy pattern with a higher quality of energy or light. Working with both energy and consciousness, we can set up a resonant field. The purer this field, the fewer limitations it holds and the stronger the transforming power. Being exposed to this field, we (and anyone we are working with) begin to change through sympathetic resonance. This is the same phenomenon that occurs when two guitars are tuned together. A string is plucked on one guitar and the second guitar’s string begins to vibrate also, without being touched, solely through sympathetic resonance. The same thing happens in this field. When this quantum field of intelligence is tapped into, the human energy field begins to adapt to it, to align itself to it. The cells of the body begin to vibrate at a different rate and begin to change and shift. The body/mind begins to be transformed, the more subtle energies first; over time, the transformation reaches down into the physical body. This is a truly miraculous process, as anyone who has seen or experienced it can testify; the purer the quality of this sympathetic resonance, the more effective the healer or practitioner. This brings us to the third part of the healing equation, responsibility. This principle ensures that the healing consciousness and energy now infusing the body/mind will continue to do so. It basically keeps the ball rolling. It is a participatory process whereby we take action in our lives to make sure our healing doesn’t become just a "one-time hit." The initial opening that allows the consciousness shift and the descent of healing energy is created by grace, but to maintain that openness requires that we change certain things in our lives. These changes are in our habits, the patterns that hold us in lower states of vibration and consciousness. These are the patterns that keep us stuck and that are invested with all our "stuff." When we experience healing states of consciousness, change begins immediately; but if we are unable to hold (or stay open to) that level of consciousness/energy, our old patterns of adaptation will take over again, producing the same results as before. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. We’ll find ourselves back in the same old story! Initially, we may experience temporary results and even changes that continue (again, through grace), but over time our dominant pathological patterns will resurface and have their way! Responsibility is the tool that can provide consistent results with anything we do. It is, very simply, tuning in to the process. The changes we make can be simple to profound: getting up thirty minutes earlier to leaving a longtime relationship. Each person’s changes will be his or her own, and they will be shown over time through the process of healing. Change is a simple process. It occurs constantly all around us, and the changes we make are always assisted by the field we are in. And yet, from my experience as a healer and a human being, this taking of responsibility is one of the most difficult practices in this healing equation. That is because of the inertia that must be overcome. Inertia is defined through Newton’s law of motion: anything that is moving in a particular direction will continue in that direction until acted upon by another force. My perception is that the "other force" is healing and that its direction is many times directly opposite to the direction we are tending to move. The inertia of moving our lives in a completely new direction when we’re traveling helter-skelter the opposite way can be quite a feat! Yet, once we begin and continue to tap into this field of healing, we find such affinity to this new place that we will brave whatever changes are needed. As I said before, the experience of this new field begins certain changes on its own to assist us in making intelligent and discriminate choices in the way we choose to live our lives. Let’s look back on these three key principles of healing — consciousness, energy, and responsibility — and see that they are really a single flow or process in truth. Any single item is only a piece of the whole, and healing cannot function (or perhaps even exist) without all being present. Consciousness is the senior principle and the actual condition of all the others. It gives life to everything that emanates from it. Energy is this emanation, this power manifesting in, as, and through our bodies. Responsibility is our relationship to this healing power, our response to it. It’s our way of redirecting energy and attention to healing and not dissipating energy and attention via various distractions and unconscious patterns we have built up over our lifetime. This process involves surrender to it; ultimately, even the surrender of being cured or healed. It is surrender to the process itself that effects the changes that constitute true healing and higher adaptation. We are involved in a miraculous process that is taking place every single moment. To truly "be healed" is to be able to participate in that process as fully as possible. Only then can we be really happy in this body, this world, this life. This is my wish and prayer for all. Dr. Dick Shepard has been involved in healing disciplines and spiritual practice for 25 years. His healing heritage has been traced back to Native American roots. He currently practices Network Spinal Analysis, a transformative system of chiropractic, and uses sympathetic resonance in his practice. For more information, he may be contacted at (206) 525-4155. |
There are three key components that determine our course in life and healing: consciousness, energy, and responsibility. These elements are, on the one hand, components of life itself, and, on the other hand, the key elements to our participation in and with life — and our participation in life is our healing. Each of these keys is interwoven with and interdependent on the others. Therefore, any by itself can be useful but ultimately will fall short of total healing or wholeness. Each is a piece in the intricate puzzle of wholeness or healing, and each has its particular function.