The New Idealism – Part 6: Consciousness, Healing, and the New Physics

Wednesday, 25 March 2026 Written by Michael Dargaville Views: 10579

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Part 6: This is the sixth article from my book called THE NEW IDEALISM published in instalments on Crystal Wind.

The Shocking Truth: How New Physics Proves Your Thoughts Create Perfect Health (And Why Modern Medicine Is Failing You)

An area where the New Physics and the New Idealism is fully expounded is in the area of health, medicine, psychology and healing. 

The Failure of Newtonian Medicine

World famous New Age physicist Fritof Capra says that to develop a holistic approach to health that will be consistent with the New Physics and the systems view of living organisms, we do not need to break completely fresh ground but can learn from medical models existing in other cultures. He again repeats that modern scientific thought — physics, biology, and psychology and is leading to a view of reality that comes very close to the views of mystics and of many traditional cultures, in which knowledge of the human mind and body and the practice ofhealing are integral parts of natural philosophy and of spiritualdiscipline. “A holistic approach to health and healing willtherefore be in harmony with many traditional views, as well asconsistent with modern scientific theories,” writes Capra.

Capra says that Eastern philosophy and Eastern medicine as practised throughout India and China is quite different from that in the West. He says that in western medicine the doctor with the highest reputation is a specialist who has detailed knowledge about a specific part of the body. In Chinese medicine the ideal doctor is a sage who knows how all the patterns of the universe work together, who treats a patient on an individual basis and whose diagnosis does not categorize the patient as having a specific disease but records as fully as possible the individual’s total state of mind and body and its relation to the natural and social environment.

Health care in Europe and North America, says Capra, is practiced by a large number of people and organizations, including physicians, nurses, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, public-health professionals, social workers, chiropractors, homeopaths and various “holistic” practitioners. He says that for the past three hundred years our culture has been dominated by the view of the human body as a machine, to be analyzed in terms of its parts. The mind is separated from the body, disease is seen as a malfunctioning of biological mechanism, and health is defined as the absence of disease.

Why Every Illness Is Essentially Mental

Capra says that to single out any disorder as psychologically caused would be a reductionist as the belief that there are purely organic diseases without any psychological components. He says that mental illnesses involve physical symptoms and that theorigins and development of many mental illnesses dependcrucially on the individual’s ability to interact with their family, friends and other social groups. 

Capra says that the idea of themind controlling the body is based on the Cartesian division andthat in the systems view of health, every illness is in essence amental phenomenon, and in many cases the process of gettingsick is reversed most effectively through an approach thatintegrates both physical and psychological therapies.

Jung, Freud and the Shift to Holistic Psychology

Capra points out that Carl Gustav Jung was perhaps the first to extend classical psychology into new realms in breaking with Freud and abandoning the Newtonian models of psychoanalysis. Capra says that Jung developed a number of concepts that are quite consistent with those of modern physics and with systems theory. Capra says that many of the differences between Freud and Jung parallel those between classical and modern physics, between the mechanistic and the holistic paradigm.

Freud’s theory of the mind, says Capra, was based on the concept of the human organism as a complex ‘biological machine and that psychological processes were deeply rooted in the body’s physiology arid biochemistry, and followed the principles of Newtonian mechanics. “While Freud’s views about the detailed dynamics of these phenomena changed over time, he never abandoned the basic, Cartesian orientation of his theory,” writes Capra49. On the other hand, Jung was not so much interested in explaining psychological phenomena in terms of specific mechanisms, but rather attempted to understand the psyche in its totality and was particularly concerned with its relations to thewider environment.

Jung saw the psyche as a self-regulating dynamic system, characterized by fluctuations between opposite poles. Capra says that Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious distinguishes his psychology not only from Freud’s but all others. He says it implies a link between the individual and humanity as a whole in fact, in some sense, between the individual and the entire cosmos – that cannot be understood within a mechanistic framework but is very, consistent with the systems view of mind.

Transpersonal Psychology and the Spectrum of Consciousness

Capra says that by the mid-1960s it was commonly understood that the central emphasis of humanistic psychology was concerned with the spiritual, transcendental, or mystical aspects of self-actualization. He says after several conceptual discussions the leaders of this movement gave it the name transpersonal psychology, a term coined by Abraham Maslow and Stanislav Grof. Transpersonal psychology is concerned, directly or indirectly, with the recognition, understanding, and realization of non-ordinary, mystical, or “transpersonal” states of consciousness, and with the psychological conditions that represent barriers to such transpersonal realizations. “Its concerns are thus very close to those of spiritual traditions, and, indeed, a number of transpersonal psychologists are working on conceptual systems intended to bridge and integrate psychology and the spiritual quest,” says Capra. He says they have placed themselves in a position that differs radically from that of post major schools of Western psychology, which have tended to regard any form of religion or spiritual as based on primitive superstition, pathological aberration, or shared delusions aboutreality inculcated by the family system and the culture. He saysthe notable exception of course, was Jung, who acknowledgedspirituality as an integral aspect of’ human nature and a vital forcein human life.

Capra says the new psychology sees the, human .organism as an integrated whole involving interdependent physical and psychological pattern. He says that although psychologists and psychotherapists deal predominantly with mental phenomena, they must insist that these can be understood only within the context of the whole mind/body system. Also, the conceptual basis of psychology must also be consistent with that of biology.

Capra says that in classical science the Cartesian frameworkmade’ if difficult for psychologists and biologists tocommunicate, and it seemed they could’ not learn much fromeach other and there were similar barriers betweenpsychotherapists and physicians. “But the systems approachprovides a common framework for understanding the biologicaland psychological manifestations of human organisms in healthand illness, one that is likely to lead to mutually stimulatingexchanges between biologists and psychologists,” says Capra. He also says it means that if this is the time for physicians to take a closer look at the psychological aspects of illness, it is also time for psychotherapists to increase their knowledge of human biology.

The Bootstrap Approach and Ken Wilber’s Spectrum Psychology

Capra says that one of the most exciting developments incontemporary psychology is an adaption of the bootstrapapproach to the understanding of the human psyche. He says that in the past, schools of psychology proposed ‘personality theories and systems of therapy that differed radically in their views of how the human mind functions in health and illness’. He says that these schools typically limited themselves to a narrow range of psychological phenomena sexuality, the birth trauma, existential problems and family dynamics. Capra says that a number of psychologists are now pointing out that none of these approaches is wrong, but that each of them focuses on some part of a whole spectrum of consciousness and then attempts to generalize its understanding of that approach to the entire psyche. He says one of the most comprehensive systems to integrate different psychological schools is the spectrum psychology proposed by Ken Wilber. He says this unifies numerous approaches, both Western and Eastern, into a spectrum of psychological models and theories that reflects the spectrum of human consciousness.

Each of the levels, or bands, of this spectrum is characterized by a different sense of identity, ranging from the supreme identity of cosmic consciousness to the drastically narrowed identity of the ego,” writes Capra.

Capra says that at the ego level one does not identify with the total organism, but only with the mental representation of the organism, known as the self—image or ego. He says this disembodied self is thought to exist within the body, and thus people would say, “I have a body,” rather than “I am a body”. Under certain circumstances such a fragmented experience of oneself may be further distorted by the alienation of certain facets of the ego, which may be repressed or projected onto other people or the environment and that the dynamics of these phenomena aredescribed in great detail in Freudian psychology.

Rethinking Mental Illness Through the New Idealism

Capra says the bootstrap and systems approach topsychology includes a conception of mental illness in a new way. He says that like all illness, mental illness is seen as a multidimensional phenomenon involving interdependent physical, psychological and social aspects. 

Most current psychiatric treatments, says Capra, deal with the biomedical mechanisms associated with a specific mental disorder and, in so doing, have been very successful in suppressing symptoms with psychoactive-drugs. This approach, says Capra, has not helped psychiatrists understand mental illness any better, nor has it allowed their patients to solve the underlying problems. Capra says that in view of these shortcomings of the biomedical approach over the past twenty-five years a number of psychiatrists and psychologists have developed a systemic view of psychotic disorders that take into account the multiple facets of mental illness.

This view is both social and existential. Failure to evaluate one’s perception and experience of reality and to integrate them into a coherent world view seems to be central to serious mental illness, says Capra. He says that in current psychiatric practice many people are diagnosed as psychotics, not on the basis of their behaviour but rather on the basis of the content of their experiences. He says these experiences, typically, are of a “transpersonal” nature and in sharp contradiction to all common sense and to the classical Western view. “However, many of them are well known to mystics, occur frequently in deep meditation, and can also be induced quite easily by various other methods,” writes Capra. He says the new definition of what is normal andwhat is pathological, is not based on the content and nature ofone’s experiences, but, rather on the way in which they arehandled and on the degree to which a person is able to integratethese unusual experiences into his life.

The inability of some people to integrate transpersonal experiences is often aggravated by a hostile environment, says. Capra. He says the central characteristic in the communication patterns of families of diagnosed schizophrenics was identified by Gregory Bateson as a “double bind” situation. Bateson found that the behaviour labeled schizophrenic represents a special strategy which a person invents in order to live in an unlivable situation. Such a person writes Capra, “finds himself facing a situation within his family that seems to put him into an untenable position, a situation in which he ‘can’t win,’ no matter what he does,” writes Capra. He says that when these situations occur repeatedly the double-bind structure may become a habitual expectation and this is likely to generate schizophrenic experiences and behavior. This does not mean that everyone becomes schizophrenic in such a situation, writes Capra, and that what exactly makes one person psychotic while another remains normal under the same external circumstances is a complex question, likely to involve biochemical and genetic factors that are not yet well understood. Capra articulates the thought of R. D. Laing on the area. He points out that Laing says that the strategy designed by a so-called schizophrenic can often be recognised as an appropriate response to severe social stress, representing theperson’s desperate efforts to maintain his integrity in the face ifparadoxical and contradictory pressures. This observation is extended by Laing to an eloquent critique of society as a whole,in which he sees the conditions of alienation, of being asleep,unconscious, “out of one’s mind”, as the condition of the normalperson. Capra says that such “normally” alienated men andwomen are taken to be sane simply because they act more or lesslike anyone else whereas other forms of alienation, which are outof step with the prevailing one, are labeled psychotic by the“normal” majority.

Capra says that in our culture the criteria used to define mental health – sense of identity, image, recognition of time and space, perception of the environment – require that a person’s perceptions and views be compatible with the Cartesian-Newtonian framework. 

He, says, the Cartesian world view is not merely the principle frame of reference but is regarded as the only accurate description of reality. Capra says that a person functioning exclusively in the Cartesian mode may be free from manifest symptoms but cannot be considered mentally healthy.

Consciousness Creates Matter: The Revolutionary Link Between New Physics and Ancient Healing

Because of the New Idealism many new branches of philosophy have been developed, as has already been discussed in some detail. The relationship between medicine and the New Idealism is particularly exciting because it is certainly an area where philosophy is very much an applied art. In the section titled “Health, psychology and the New Idealism” just mentioned I mainly examined the psychological health aspects of the New Idealism. However, the area of generalised medicine should certainly not be overlooked.

In that section I touched on very briefly on the philosophies of medicine of the East, as practised throughout India and China. But what must be pointed out is that the New Physics actually verifies much of what alternative medicine has been philosophically saying for many years.

A great deal of Western medicine is deeply rooted in the Newtonian Cartesian tradition and is thus based on a science that has been well and truly superseded. Many medical practitioners fail to realise the full significance of the New Physics. For example, the treatment of cancer is still seen in Newtonian terms. Oncologists tend to use Cartesian Newtonian treatments is a cancer has become secondary -they surgically remove the particular area that has cancer. If a leg is cancerous, they chop off the leg. This, of course, is not consistent with the New Physics because quantum theory clearly shows that a system of energy is connected throughout and that a disorder cannot be the product of one localised situation. This type of medicine is extremely reductionist and obviously very dangerous.

The amazing aspect of the claim by the New Physicists is that when they say that Consciousness is producing reality, or matter, it is very much in agreement with some of the ancient medical models. The well-known Australian healer Ian Gawler says that many people fall short of grasping the implications of Einstein’s famous equation, E=mc(2). E stands for energy, m for mass, and c for the speed of light. Gawler says that the equation is saying that mass is a product of energy and light which is as esoteric a statement as formulated by any ancient sage.

But Gawler says that this is the most remarkable thing of all. He says that as the modern physicists probe deeper into the nature of matter, they are forced to look at energy and to seek to understand it. If all matter is made of energy, why does one block of energy come together to build a rock, another a tree, another a human, asks Gawler.

He says the physicists such as Fritjof Capra and David Bohm are prepared to ask the most vital question, “Why?” and are forced to introduce the concept of Consciousness. Gawler agrees with them when they say that consciousness produces energy which, in turn, is interpreted by our five senses as the thing we call matter.

“What a concept. Consciousness produces energy which produces matter. Thought precedes form. It leaves me concluding that my physical form is the result of the sum total of my consciousness I must presume, therefore, that I and all those around me are allessentially reflections of our overall consciousness. Further, givenour highly ordered world, I must presume an all-pervadingconsciousness to provide the basic framework in which it allhappens,” writes Gawler.

The Seven Levels of Consciousness and Energy Bodies

Gawler writes that if people examine Eastern thought and metaphysics, there is a recurring model which both makes sense of the phenomena and provides a framework in which to operate. He points out that most major civilizations have had a tradition of esoteric science in their culture and that because it was esoteric, it was hidden from the mainstream of the people but used by those initiated into its secrets in a very practical way.

Gawler says that in the esoteric lore of the Ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Greeks, the Indians of North America and the Incas of the South American continent, the Polynesian Kahunas and Filipino healers, the Vedic seers of India, the early Christians, and more recently, the medieval alchemists and mystics of Europe, there is this reoccurring vision of humanity. It is esoteric in nature but still used in that very practical way. All these people say the physical body as being the end result of a series of inter-related and interdependent subtle levels of consciousness, according to Gawler.

Gawler then outlines his perspective on history with what he concludes is the central element of his healing and medical philosophy. He says that these old philosophies saw humanity as basically being the sum total of seven levels of consciousness and that to each level there was assigned a form of an energy body. Only the physical body has the energy which is dense enough to register immediately with humanity’s five senses and thus with the direct perception of another person. Gawler then goes on to stress that the other energy bodies can only be deduced by inference or perceived directly by clairvoyant or extra-sensory perception. Then, if we allow for our “astral level” which he relates to the motions, we come to know ourselves.

Many healers, according to Gawler, particularly New Age philosophical healers, base their diagnosis on perception of the subtle energy of the health aura. 

The seven levels of consciousness are given various names. There are various kingdoms with the Mineral Kingdom in the physical level. The Vegetable Kingdom is mainly in the Physical Kingdom, but peaks into the Emotional level. The animal Kingdom, says Gawler, is strongly involved with the physical and emotional levels and also has activity in the Mental sphere. Humans are active on the physical and mental levels and also has activity in the Mental sphere.

Part of this philosophy stresses that the mind acts as the fulcrum between physical and spiritual humanity and that intellect transmuted into intuition to bridge the gap. The purpose of our lives is to make that leap and our goal is to be freed of the limitations of personality, which is part of our lower self, before we can “soar free as spiritual beings”.

This relates directly to healing, as Gawler points out, because consciousness impinges on physical health. This is centred on seven chakras. A chakra is a Sanskit word used to describe the concentration of this subtle energy which is said to be located in the seven different regions of the spine and head. Gawler points out that each chakra is a reflection of one level of consciousness and, in turn, relates most directly to one particular endocrine gland. This suggests that the physical body is the end result of formative energies coming from the various forms of consciousness while the body interacts with its own immediate physical body.

“Disease, then, can be due then to purely physical causes, as in the case of a true accident, or, more commonly, is due to aberrations in the energy flows. Such aberrations reflect disharmony in the local areas of the patient’s attention. Many people are now focused primarily in the emotional sphere, while a growing number are centred in the mental. This fact is recognised by the growing attention being paid to psychosomatic diseases and the role of tension and anxiety in the production of disease,” writes Gawler.

“So just how do we set about hearing a diseased Body? If disharmony is the root cause, obviously anything that recreates harmony will have a healing effect. If there is a gross disease, however, the symptoms may be so severe and so physical, that it may not be possible for those involved to normalise the situation using only the energies available through esoteric avenues,” writes Gawler.

Super Energy, Alternative Medicine and Applied Idealism

Gawler’s seven levels of consciousness as expressed in the energy bodies of humans fits in very nicely with David Ash’s conception of super energy. Also, this concept is widely held in virtually all esoteric cultures and religions and especially those people who follow the New Age.

As discussed earlier in my articles from the book the concept of super energy virtually verifies the energy body which surrounds a human. Ash and Hewitt say that to western medical science, the principlesunderlying complementary therapies are often baffling and thatmany doctors feel a deep sense of frustration at the unverifiabilityof alternative medicine because they think that medicine is anempirically-based practice.

Virtually all alternative medicine talk of an “energy” body, surrounding and permeating the physical body. Some of them refer to an “etheric” body, others call it a “subtle” or “sensitive” body. 

Ash and Hewitt say that many of the otherwise incomprehensible and sometimes bizarre treatments in alternative medicine claim to operate on this energy body. The energy body is said to act as a blueprint for the physical form, influencing its processes and functions. Alternative practitioners claim that if the energy body is treated, the physical body will heal itself.

Acupuncture says the energy body has definite flow lines called meridians. These meridians act like streams, connecting the pools of energy deep within the body to the peripheral areas of the skin. An acupuncturist treats the organs through the meridians.

An acupuncturist stimulates or sedates the flow of energy in the meridian according to the diagnosis of the energy state of the organ concerned. This is done by inserting needles into the appropriate meridians at strategic points. In this way acupuncture seeks to harmonise and balance the energy body, encouraging the physical body to heal itself.

Likewise, reflexology is based on the principle that blocks in the energy body can be released by massaging the soles of the feet while homoeopathy regards illness as an imbalance in the underlying energy pattern or vital force of a person. Alternative practitioners are generally united in the belief that some sort of subtle energy exists which has a profound effect upon the physical body.

Ash and Hewitt claim that the concept of super-energy removes the stumbling block of an intangible life field. “It points to the possibility of forms of energy existing beyond the physical world. It also explains how such a life energy field could permeate and interpenetrate a physical body. A field of super energy could ‘coincide’ with a physical body because there is no space-time separation between energy and super energy,” they write.

Ash and Hewitt claim that super energy has been described in classical India and China. There, it was the traditional belief that the natural environment, including the air we breathe and the food we eat, was charged with life energy — called Prana in India and Chi in China.

Basically, what is also being described here is what called be termed “Applied Idealism” – or rather, applied philosophy. For most of the 20th century philosophers have tended to downplay their profession but the New Idealism actually clearly leads the way for philosophers to enter the medical field and make an active contribution.

Integral Meditation: Proof That Thought Directly Controls Matter

One very practical area with the New Idealism is in the area of meditation, I have personally experimented with most forms of meditation and have mastered the art of many of them. In fact, I used meditation to overcome two severe illnesses. To me, this is the New Idealism in action. One particular meditation technique I use has confirmed to me that there are certainly many different levels of consciousness. But one of the most amazing aspects of this particular type of meditation that I use is the verification of philosophical Idealism. This particular technique, called Integral meditation, starts with a simple exercise called the Progressive Muscle Relaxation Technique (PNR technique). With this technique you progressively relax your muscles from your feet up to your head. But this is only done for the first 10 days. During this time you tense your muscles and then relax them progressively. However, after 10 days a person no longer needs to physically relax the muscles but can simply mentally relax them – or rather a wave of relaxation over their muscles. And this is the most amazing aspect of this technique. That is, by simply imagining relaxing the muscles, it will happen. And this is the New Idealism in action. It is also the very heart of mind/body medicine, and an aspect that is seldom promoted.

Integral meditation clearly proves that the power of human thought alone has an affect on other levels of matter. This is an extraordinary claim but, I feel, is the basis of a new medicine, a medicine that needs to be explained philosophically. This is an extremely exciting time for medicine because as the old Newtonian/Cartesian concepts are discarded, a much more holistic understanding and philosophy is being introduced. But it must be stressed that all of this clearly needs to be elaborated and explained. I strongly feel that if patients have a clear understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of this new medical system, then results would surely result. Already, the technique of integral meditation is being used extensively with success with advanced cancer patients as well as those suffering from heart disease and mental illness. It is now also being used by immune diseases such as AIDS with some encouraging results.

Thus, at the very heart of the New Idealism lies a very practical philosophy, a philosophy that empowers individuals on a massive scale. The notion that thought creates matter is revolutionary but the medical system must start incorporating it. Both contemporary and esoteric science supports the New Idealism but a massive education program needs to be developed to implement the philosophical understanding of this new paradigm.

The New Idealism thus opens up a realistic scientific method for what alternative medicine has been advocating now for many years. Of course, apart from those alternative regimes that have already been mentioned, there are many other areas that would fall under these labels. Biofeedback, metabolic therapy plus a host of visualization techniques would also be included.

Deepak Chopra on Quantum Healing and Self-Enclosed Consciousness

But where the New Idealism cuts deeply into philosophical terrain, and particularly into the nature of what I regard as the cutting edge of thinking in medical science in the world, is in the area of mind/body medicine. One extremely well-known mind/body medical practitioner Deepak Chopra, claims that healing is the ability of one mode of consciousness (the mind) to spontaneously correct the mistakes in another mode of consciousness which he calls the body but insists that the process is a completely self – enclosed process.

He says that contrary to the germ theory of disease, which tries to tell us that the war was started “out there” be they invaders of every kind — bacteria, viruses, carcinogens – which are lying in wait to attack us, the real conflict is being waged “in here” or inside the body. This goes right to the heart of western medicine and is quite a revolutionary claim, and a claim that most western medical practitioners simply cannot accept because their training in Newtonian science.

Chopra says that it is only when the immune system collapses, as in the case of AIDS, do we realise that our skin, lungs, mucus linings, intestines, and may other organs havelearned to co-exist with outside organisms in a delicate balance. The pneumonia that an AIDS patient typically catches is caused by a variety of Pneumocystis that is present in everyone’s lungs all the time. The AIDS virus activates the disease from the inside by demolishing one part of the immune system (the helper T cells), thus breaking apart the network of information that holds us together.

There is a network, says Chopra, of information that holds our bodies together. But he says that the network does not stop with us and that the simplistic idea that germs are our deadly enemy is a half-truth, because germs are part of the network too. The whole living world is bound up in DNA, which has evolved along the channel of bacteria, along another as plants and animals, and along still another as humanity. Chopra says that the environment “out there” co-operates with the one “in here” like two polarities, in one sense totally opposed but in another totally complementary. He says that if a person looks at reality from the viewpoint of all DNA, not just ours, then there is an entire global information network that has to be kept alive and healthy.

Chopra says that viruses are capable of mutating very quickly and that is why a shot that immunizes a person from flu will usually not be effective the following year and that the flu virus would have mutated somewhere around the world into a completely different strain. Chopra says that some researchers have speculated that the reason why viruses mutate so rapidly is that life itself is changing, thus carrying to all parts of the globe the news that life is changing, Getting the flu, then, according to Chopra, is like getting a news update and that a person’s own DNA learns about alterations in the world’s DNA that are changing it, and a person’s DNA then meets the challenge, notpassively but actively and that it must prove its viability bysurviving the virus.

As the immune system rushes to meet the invader, as they engage in battle, it is molecule against molecule and the whole operation is timed to the split second and leaves no room for error. Chopra says that the macrophages rush to discover the identity of this new life form, probe it for vital weaknesses, and then mobilize the genetic material in their own DNA that will collapse the molecules of the cirrus, rendering them harmless.

Chopra says that at the same time, the immune cells also destroy any of a person cells that have played host to the invader and these infected host cells have not yet died from the flu. They are engorged with living viruses that pose a threat after the immune cells have wiped out all the flu that is flowing through the bloodstream. To kill an infected host cell, certain immune cells, latch onto it from the outside and puncture holes in the cell wall. Like a deflating tyre, the host cells spills out its liquid content, collapses onto an empty bag and dies.

However the host cell is not eliminated because its DNA is actually dismantled by other signals from the attacking immune cells. Chopra believes that this is an absolutely fascinating aspect of the entire process. He says that what is really happening is that one bit of a person’s DNA (immune cell) is dismantling another bit of DNA (the host cell), which in fact is just a copy of itself. The only difference between the two is that the second bit of DNA, in the host cell, has made the mistake of co-operating with the flu virus and that no one knows why this occurs. The virus is no match for the cell, being thousands of times smaller and less complex. “You would think that such mistakes show the imperfection of the body’s intelligence, but that is too superficial. He says what is actually happening here is an exquisite example of quantum healing at work; in fact, the idea that the war is going on is just another half-truth, for when one bit of DNA dismantles another, we are witnessing a totally self-enclosed” writes Chopra.

He says that every part of a disease reaction from the scavenger cells that first meet the invader, to the host cells that take it in, to the macrophages, killer T-cell, helper T-cells, B-cells, and so on, are all the same DNA expressing its various abilities. In other words, the DNA has decided to stage for its own benefit a drama in which every part is played by itself, says Chopra.

He then asks why should DNA put on one mask to succumb to the flu virus and other to rush in and destroy it. He says that no-one has answered this profound question, but it must have its logic in the whole scheme of life, the larger drama enacted by all the DNA in the world. Chopra speculates that humanity is watching DNA enrich life by adding so many variations as can possibly exist on one planet.

According to Chopra, nothing that happens to DNA is lost. It all stays within the self-enclosed system. Once the flu virus is defeated, the DNA records the encounter by producing new anti-bodies and specialized memory cells that float around in the lymph system and bloodstream for years afterwards; adding to immense storehouse of information that DNA has been accumulating since life began and this is how DNA makes a person a player on the world scene. Chopra uses an example that if he looks out his window, he can see a multilane highway with cars rushing by and he says that this entire spectacle is the play of DNA.

It has been projected from a molecule whose responsibility is to unfold new life as a whole. It has been estimated that all the separated DNA of every person who has ever lived would fit comfortably in a teaspoon, and yet it is the tightly wound DNA in even a single cell nucleus of a person’s body were uncoiled and the pieces laid end to end, they would stretch out to five feet.

Chopra says that this means the genetic thread contained in the body’s trillion cells is 50 billion miles long which is enough to reach the moon and back 100,000 times. He cites that from the Indian Vedas, the ancient text of India, that the universe’s intelligence extends “from smaller than the smallest to larger than the largest” and that DNA is the physical proof of it. This intelligence, of course, clearly demonstrates that the New Idealism reaches into the heart of the biochemical physical world.

This intelligence that Chopra writes about is the consciousness or thought aspect of the universe. It could also be seen as the Consciousness or thought aspect of matter, particularly living matter.

On this basis, Chopra says that it is wrong to think that conflict is the norm and that, in general, a state of peace exists between a person’s DNA and the other DNA “out there”. Every time a person actually has to fight off a disease by getting sick, there are hundreds of times when a person’s body has warded off sickness, without any overt symptoms it is only when there is a distortion “in here” that the immune system loses its ability to silently defend, heal, and remember.

Chopra says that humans tend to forget that peace is the norm and that the rise of stress-related disorders, depression, anxiety, Chronic fatigue is a sign of the times. The hectic pace of work and life in general has accustomed people to turmoil. “By now, people are thoroughly indoctrinated by the idea that a certain degree of internal conflict is normal. The war, it seems, was started by us, and it is taking its toll in a frighteningly ordinary way,” says Chopra.

Every day, says Chopra, a physician in practice sees a patient who has undergone some devastating cancer treatment that has been declared a success because the cancer cells are now gone, disregarding the weakening of the entire body, the looming danger of recurrent cancer caused by the treatment itself, and the state of lasting fear and depression that so often comes with the cure and that to live in constant fear, even without cancer, is not a good state of health and well being.

The underlying philosophy in cancer treatment, says Chopra, is that the mind will just have to stand by while the body endures devastation.

In other words, an open clash is actually encouraged in the mind-body system. Chopra says that this simply cannot be healing or good medicine. He says that the clash between mind and body the patient is fighting on both sides.

Chopra believes that the vital issue is not how to win the war but how to keep peace in the first place. He says the West has not arrived at this insight, or comprehended that the physical manifestation of a disease is a phantom. The cancer cells that patients dread and the physician’s battle against are just such phantoms and they will come and go raising hopes and despair, while the real culprit, the persistent memory that creates the cancer cell, goes undetected. Chopra says that the Indian medicine of Ayurveda gives people the means to go directly to the level of consciousness that exercises this memory.

“We ask for heroism from patients at a time when they have little of it to give, or else we treat them as statistics, turning survival into a game of numbers. Ayurveda tells us to place the responsibility for disease at a deeper level of consciousness, where a potential cure could be found,” says Chopra.

To say that a patient’s awareness is responsible for their cancer, says Chopra, is very troublesome to many people and that Ayurveda does not agree that there is a so-called cancer personality, nor does it accept that superficial emotions, styles of behaviour, and attitudes cause cancer. He says that some researchers are convinced that patients who react with helplessness and depression to their cancer are more likely to die from the disease than those patients who have a strong component in their personalities called the will to live.

A person afflicted with cancer, says Chopra, goes through cycles of emotion and their will to live is susceptible to wild swings from one extreme to the other. Chopra goes on to say that it is absolutely normal to be too busy to be sick, for that is exactly the kind of awareness that the immune system thrives on. When a person is just as they are and not a “cancer patient” then the complicated chain of the immune response, with its hundreds of its precisely timed operations, goes to work with a vengeance, writes Chopra.

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First published in 2002, The New Idealism has appeared in multiple international print editions and is now available in digital format through the author and at CrystalWind.ca.

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