Who Bolsters You?
Who bolsters you? Are you one of the ninety-seven who fail, or the three who succeed? . . . The cart before the horse is neither beautiful nor useful.
– Henry David Thoreau
My pursuit of a comprehensive theory of health and disease took a long time. Did this theory emerge all at once? No, it did not happen that way at all. It came into being a little at a time, over many years. The theory is a product of reading countless articles and books, thousands of outdoors walks, long sessions of meditation, deep thought and prayer, and discussion with many people – including medical colleagues, scientists, and patients.
When I began college in 1970, the theory was only a vague idea. I saw a single explanation of both health and disease. As I collected articles from newspapers, magazines, and scientific journals, each was a piece to the puzzle and contained ideas. Soon these ideas were cross-connecting and creating bridges, one to another. This went on through college, medical school, hospital training, and over forty years of medical practice. I now store these articles and notes in multiple file cabinets, coordinated by a computer database. The ideas have solidified at this point and this book catalogues the result of all this study.
Go East, Young Man
During my quest for knowledge, I mainly read Western textbooks and medical journals. That was driven by the demands of college, medical school, and practicing medicine. My pursuit of comprehensive literacy also included the literature of the East. I concentrated on works that obviously apply to medicine. My studies have included what we in the West call Yoga and related disciplines. My interest was to find what is useful to promote health. Finally, I have included many spiritual readings, from the Bible to the Vedas to the Tao te Ching to modern writers of many faiths.
As a physician trained in the Western scientific tradition, I had to stretch my conceptual ability to learn Eastern ideas. There really is a Western and Eastern way of looking at life, the universe, and how it all works. Applying a spiritual understanding to medicine - what is to many a strictly cold, logical, and scientific subject - is equally challenging. Many of you will find yourselves scratching your heads and wondering what I am talking about while you read this book. Please bear with me; it will all come together. Your efforts will be well rewarded.
My quest for comprehensive literacy taught me a lot about Eastern traditions, and – sometimes unexpectedly - I also learned more about Western traditions in the process. We know a subject much better when we compare and contrast differing viewpoints. That is why I learned a lot about Western thought by studying Eastern ideas. Eventually, my quest taught me the philosophical unity of Eastern and Western thought. Many people quote Rudyard Kipling, saying "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet." I do not agree. There is more alike than different in Western science and ancient Eastern philosophy.
Unification of Western and Eastern thought will be helpful to both cultures. Western thought has solved many practical problems, but it often fails to provide inner peace for the individual. Eastern thought has solved the problem of inner peace for the individual, but often lacks practical success. It is as though each culture has gifts the other needs. If we can all simply listen and learn from each other, I believe medical care will improve enormously.
Finally, medicine is sorely in need of a renewed moral compass. Between the pressures of managed care, government regulation, and a medical system that relies more and more on technology, medicine has never had its compassion stretched so thin. Renewed attention to the spiritual basis of health and healing will vastly improve medical practice. All health professionals need to remember and practice what medicine is all about: love and compassion for others. Stay with me as we consider pulling all these ideas together.