Faith, Compassion, and Healing
The Five Steps of Healing
1. Choose to heal your relationship, in your daily life.
2. Kindness has no limitations or boundaries, so be kind.
3. When you love, love completely and totally, as if today is your last day. Today will never come again. This will unfold inner healing.
4. Get out of the prison of identification, the cage of judgment. Don’t judge anyone. That will heal you.
5. Renew your perception and renew your mind. This will heal your trauma.
The role of spirituality in health and the importance of faith in healing is fascinating. What is faith? Faith is trust, surrender, total commitment. A person of faith has an open heart and surrenders to what is. Even if it is surgery or chemotherapy, in that surrender, any resistance becomes minimized. We need that kind of faith both in the patient and in the doctor.
Faith is a rasāyana, a form of rejuvenation. When you have faith in a doctor or faith in yourself, you have faith in God. Such a faithful person, with an open heart and expanding awareness, has clear perception. That gift of faith will bring healing, as the doshas lingering in the deep connective tissues lose their grip over the dhātus (tissues) and slowly start to move back into the gastrointestinal tract. This journey of a dosha from the deep tissue back to the gastrointestinal tract is the key to healing.
Faith has a positive influence on the brain cells and neurons. It can change the brain chemistry and help to secrete neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, acetylcholine and dopamine. The power of faith and belief is an important influence on every part of our life. It is a powerful tool that affects our health and our capacity to heal. Faith can stimulate unique psychophysiological changes in the immune and endocrine systems.
Faith is an inevitable factor in the life of all humans. People develop their own faith. A scientist develops faith in his or her own research. I have observed that many doctors say they don’t believe in faith, but they have faith in antibiotics and other drugs – even those with hazardous side effects.
Faith is trust, whether that is faith in a pharmaceutical company or in God. A scientist has scientific faith, whereas some people have innocent faith in their deity, guru or mantra.
Spiritual healing is the foundation of every human being, whether a scientist, a doctor, or a layman. That is why healing through music and sound, worship, ritual or whatever else you have faith in – all can bring healing. Without faith, there is no happy life.
Excerpted from Ayurveda Today, Volume 32 Number 4
Dr. Vasant Lad, BAM&S, MASc
