HomeSelf-careWhat is health?

IN CONVERSATION WITH PATRICK FLEURY


In this interview, PATRICK FLEURY explores the question: What is health? It seems that it is very much influenced by the perception of how we view ourselves.


Q: Welcome Patrick. You are a healer, and you are also a Heartfulness Trainer, so can you tell us what you think health is?

PF: As well, I am a trainer in Chinese Medicine and acupuncture, and I also know a little Ayurveda, and all these medicinal approaches have been inspired from above, and are in the holy books. We have to understand that human beings have to be placed in Nature, and there is a purpose to our existence. In medicine today we are too far from that purpose and the goal of this incarnation.

Human beings are not only biology. We have so many dimensions in ourselves and we have to consider this when we speak of health. What are we doing here on this Earth? The body and the personality are wonderful instruments to realize what we have to realize, but generally we do not try to understand why we are present on this Earth.


Human beings are not only
biology. We have so many
dimensions in ourselves
and we have to consider
this when we speak of health.


So to come back to your question: to be healthy is normal. When you are in good health, you don’t think about it. You start to notice something is wrong only when you are sick. What does it mean? That you have to change something, to adapt yourself, to transform yourself, to be in tune with Nature.

What does it mean, to be in tune with Nature? Our own nature? Inner nature? So what are we? We are not only bodies. We are not only personalities. We are also spiritual, and even more than spiritual. So it is important to understand the constitution of a human being.

Today we speak of genetics, DNA, and we know that with only four kinds of protein, T-G-C-A, we can write the whole genetic code of Creation – not only human beings. Proteins can write the name of everything, the constitution of everything. But where does it all come from? In the Vedic tradition, we speak of samskaras; the genetics, the DNA, is a result of the samskaras. And now, with the work of Dr Bruce Lipton and others, we know that we can work on the epigenetics and transform some parts of our genetic code, but how?

For example, now for cancer they give specific medicine to change the DNA so that a sick person can recover their health. But if you want to be more efficient, you have to go to the root, and the root is the constitution of the human being from the soul (it is difficult to use another term), then to the subtle body around the soul, in which you have complexities, impurities, samskaras, and then the expression is going directly through the DNA into the outer constitution of the human being.

That is the reason that, if we really want to change, we have to work through meditation, through the purification of our system, to be in tune with ourselves, with our destiny, and with Nature.

It amazes me that today, when scientists study the DNA of a person, they can know what kind of illnesses that person may have in the future. So it shows that there is something programmed. So what is this destiny? To know your destiny you have to go into yourself, to be in contact with your inner Self or the soul. And you also have to be yourself.

But what is to be yourself? To be in contact with the root of yourself and to know what you are doing here.

So now people are wondering: are we human beings with a soul, or are we souls experimenting with the life of a human being? What is the purpose? To my understanding, the purpose is evolution. What kind of evolution?

If we look at medicine and health from this angle, we understand that sickness is a signal. If you want to be healthy, you need to be in balance. The problem for the occidental mind is that balance has no movement in it. We have to be in balance with movement.

With age, the body changes, our physiology changes, our energy levels change, everything changes. Our mental capacities also change. So there is something that is ruling us, and we think that it is coming from outside, whereas really it is coming from inside.

For me to be a good doctor, for example, I have to know my Self at a deeper level, in order to be in tune with the person in front of me, to feel the person, and to know what is the purpose of this life.

Now, coming back to a practical question, Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda are very helpful, because they say that we have two poles – one is Yin and the other one is Yang. With the occidental mind we think of Yin and Yang – not at all! It is Yin Yang. How do you consider Yin Yang when it doesn’t exist? Take a mountain. When the sun is on the Yang side, the opposite side is Yin, away from the Sun, but what we forget is that it is a unity. We have to be One, in balance, in movement, from within.


Shen is the heart, which is
helping to organize all our
life, at all levels – with the
blood, with the emotions,
and with the mind.


In Ayurveda, tamasic is Yin, rajasik is Yang, and sattvik is a balance of the two. So in fact what we need is to be sattvik, but being sattvik only comes from within, in balance: to be able to observe inside and outside; to be in contact with your own destiny. Where does it come from? It comes from your soul that decides which kind of personality, which kind of purpose you will fulfill during this incarnation. And it is not esoteric. It is there.

It is the reason why I think meditation is very important, in the sense that if you can go deeper within your heart, through the Light there, you are really in contact with your Self and also in contact with this universal intelligence. Then you are able to receive so much information, and you don’t need others to tell you what to do. You will know what you need for yourself.

The first level is intuition. But you also have some knowledge coming from within, from revelation, about what you need to do for this life. What you have to do in this life has to come from inside. So basically, if you want to be healthy, you need to be balanced between spirituality and materiality. Why? Because if you are in balance you can go to reality, beyond the spiritual aspect, and there is no more conflict between these two aspects, like Yin Yang. Materiality is Yin, spirituality is Yang – are they bad and good? No! They have to be combined, balanced. If you are balanced you can go ahead.

Q How do we get to that? Look at the way most of us think – we have compartments and we think Yin is opposite to Yang. We think in dualities most of the time. So what do we do to change our thought process so that we integrate these states?

PF For me it is through meditation. I cannot see another possibility. Because we have to unify ourselves. Of course we live in this world, and we need the opposites, as everything is like that around us, but to be able to go ahead means to be unified at all moments, not just sometimes. For this we have to be connected with the Self, and the heart is the best integrator in our system. Take the chakras, for example; if you take the heart and make an expanding spiral outwards from your heart, it is integrating all the levels, all the other chakras, all the other dimensions.

In Chinese Medicine they speak of Shen. Shen is the heart, which is helping to organize all our life, at all levels – with the blood, with the emotions, and with the mind. And now in the West we are also starting to realize that the ruler is the heart, not the brain. The brain receives information from the heart, and scientists have found that there are neurons within the heart giving instructions through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, also by the limbic system, through the amygdala and the hippocampus to the frontal cortex.

So what most of us are doing is like programming a computer [the mind], which is growing by itself – a huge one – but without any ruler behind it. The ruler is the heart.

Also in Chinese Medicine, the heart is harmonizing all the other organs, and there is a distribution of energy, and if you want to be healthy the five main elements associated with the five main organs have to be balanced. And the Chinese studied this with the seasons, with Nature, because at each time one element is stronger than the others, but not too much stronger.

For example, now it is springtime, and energy is coming from the Earth. You see the effect – leaves, flowers, green colors and wonderful light are all around us in Nature. So during the winter the regeneration was deep within the Earth, and in the same way we go inside. Then in spring it comes out. And it is the same with the seasons of life: first you are a baby, and then you grow, and become a mature adult, and then there is a decline at the physical level, and sometimes with the brain also. But what we forget is that at the end of this cycle, at the end of a life, the soul is shining out brightly, and the person can be wise – a wise man full of light, spreading this light all over. So the result is that.

Most people don’t consider this aspect. They think only that they are going to die, and that’s all. But we have also to flow with the movement of Nature, and that is the reason why I spoke with you about movement. Everything is in movement, but the movement is like a circle, where you have to be the center, still.

To be continued …



Interviewed by ELIZABETH DENLEY



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