by Charles Barnard
“May the force be with you.” For all the countless Star Wars fans these words have had a subtle influence on their world view. Here is a description of “The Force” as described by Yoda: “[M]y ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force flow around you. Here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, yes, even between the land and the ship.” Hollywood has become enamored with eastern philosophical teachings. Popular culture and education are two of the most powerful forces shaping an individual’s worldview and eastern teachings are increasingly finding their way into those two institutions. Your world view is essentially the beliefs and values that drive your actions at the most unconscious level. They will impact your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
There are seven or eight major world views depending on whether you separate agnosticism from atheism. Regardless, these worldviews answer four foundational questions upon which our systems of values and beliefs emanate. The questions regard origin, purpose, morality, and eternity. How did I come to be? What am I here for? How do I know what is right and wrong? What happens when I die? How you answer those questions shapes your attitude toward living and dying. We do have answers to those questions.
When you answer the question of origin, you also end up addressing the other three questions. If you believe humans are created versus just a product of evolution, your attitude toward living and how you face death will likely be different from a person who believes we are a product of natural laws that govern the universe. Those beliefs will influence how you answer the question of purpose, morality, and eternity. They also begin to influence your understanding of mind-body-spirit and the interconnectedness or lack thereof between those three concepts.
A person raised in Eastern philosophical traditions such as Buddhism would likely have a different take on the notion of the force than would a Christian. If you listen to guided meditations from these eastern traditions you will often hear metaphoric language related to your connectedness to the universe and the energy that is in us and surrounds us. This philosophy is infused in the introduction to The Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Christian meditation would more likely be focused on “listening” for God, being quiet before the lord, or focusing on God’s word.
Each tradition understands the human body in different ways. Western medicine has long been focused on the measurable biochemical composition of the body and has produced amazing medicines and surgical procedures for healing broken bodies. Eastern healing practices have long focused on “natural” remedies and utilizing the mind to bring in balance the energy systems that have been thrown out of balance. There are far more similarities than many Christians, in particular, care to admit between eastern and western traditions including this idea of “the force.”
In the beginning
Was there a beginning? Astronomers tell us there was a beginning. Biologists tell us there was a beginning. Some worldviews have argued that the universe is eternal, or at least the energy that binds everything together was eternal. The major monotheistic religions teach that there was a beginning and God is eternal. The preciseness of the laws that govern the operation of the universe point to a mind behind the cause. The complexity of even the simplest living cell also points to a mind behind the origin of life. The evidence for a beginning to all things seems to be overwhelming.
There is just one chance in 1076 for “a random chain of amino acids [to] have the special physical properties needed to fold into a stable structure that’s suitable for a particular function.” That is an astronomically small chance. If these amino acids could try a different combination every nanosecond (billionth of a second) and began that process when scientists estimate life began on earth 3.7 billion years ago they would have only gotten through 1.688322 x 1026 combinations. In the scenario just described the amino acids were purposefully trying different combinations to get one that worked. That process is not random. It is akin to you or I going through all the possible combinations to a highly complex padlock. We are not simply randomly choosing numbers. It presupposes a mind.
Even if the process of creating a stable structure out of a chain of amino acids that had a special function denied all odds and got it right in one of the first attempts, you would need to replicate that feat over and over and over for all the different proteins within a single cell. We haven’t even addressed the mutations required to create different cells that would join together to create different functions within more complex life forms. Evolution has no logical or rational explanation for the origin of the information needed to make life possible. Yet, very intelligent scientists want us to believe that through this magical process of natural selection new proteins, cells, parts, and systems can all randomly occur to create the variety of life we see around us. They want you to believe humans, all life, evolved from a single celled organism in only 3.7 billion years. Why do people choose to believe all plants, animals, birds, fish, insects and we humans could possibly have evolved from a single celled organism, especially given the mathematical improbability shown by the complexity of creating just one working protein?
The claim of the major monotheistic religions, in particular Judaism and Christianity, of which over 65% of Americans claim to be, is all things, and all life was created. It was designed and created. Specifically, Christianity claims all things were made by the word. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.” The word is Jesus Christ. In the book of Genesis it says man was made in the image of God. That should have a profound impact on how you look at humanity.
If you look at a computer generated image of the big bang shown on the NASA website, you will notice that there is no thing outside the boundaries of the big bang. All of time, space, and matter begin with the big bang. Outside of that were the laws that acted on and act within the universe yet they predated the universe. They are non-material and eternal. They presuppose a mind. They presuppose a law giver. They presuppose God.
Precision indicates a mind. When there are such precise physical laws needed throughout the universe to allow the universe to exist that presupposes a mind. When the preciseness of many factors coalesce into one planet to create a habit perfect for life to flourish that presuppose purpose and a mind. Knowing indicates a mind. Within every cell there are molecular “machines” that know they are to decode DNA. These molecules not only know what they are supposed to do they also know how to do it. There is a mind at work. Cells are listening in and communicating instantly with other cells through the entire body. All of this presupposes a mind inherent throughout the entire life system. Traditionally, we had no problem referring to this mind as God.
The Mind
How do we define mind? The dictionary definition is the mind is “the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.” The Unifying Theory of Psychology (UTP) has been trying to better conceptualize this idea of the mind. It has embraced the computational theory of the mind which provided a huge breakthrough, because “it allows us, for the first time, to conceptually separate the mind from the brain-body. How? Because we can now conceive of “the mind” as the flow of information through the nervous system, and this flow of information can be conceptually separated from the biophysical matter that makes up the nervous system.”[1] The mind then is an information and communication system. Information is only information when the meaning of that “information” can be communicated to and understood by a receiving entity.
There is evidence of a mind operating throughout the universe. The existence of physical laws that govern the operation and stability of the universe is evidence of a mind in action. Laws presuppose a law giver. These laws predate the universe, acted on the creation of the universe, and act within the universe. The fine-tuning of these laws, the precision required to sustain – to create – the order we find is indicative of a mind. Indeed, “Almost everything about the basic structure of the universe — for example, the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial distribution of matter and energy — is balanced on a razor’s edge for life to occur.”[2] These laws are information and the essentials of matter, time, space, and energy respond to the information embedded in these laws – a mind permeates the universe.
Living things exhibit a “mind” because they have cells that receive and respond to information. Animals to a certain extent have exhibited a mind as they respond to their environment through their senses and respond. Humans though have a mind that is far greater than any other life form we have found anywhere. A mind exists within every living cell. Every cell requires “machines” to decode information and build proteins that are essential for the operation of every cell. These machines “know” they are supposed to decode the information in the DNA molecules – among other information – and they know how to decode the information. A mind permeates every cell in every living thing.
Within humans we often refer to two “minds.” We refer to the conscious mind which is where our ability to reason and make decisions – to think, create, and solve problems – originates. There are parts of our brain that are responsible for these different conscious functions.
The unconscious mind is primarily responsible for maintaining the proper functioning of our body’s systems. It is also the place of dreams and connects two other minds with our consciousness. One of those other minds we often refer to as intuition and is literally located in our gut – gut instincts.[3] The other “mind” is our heart and our emotions. It is the source of our emotional intelligence.[4]
There are many people who say it is impossible to “prove” the existence of God. Many philosophers and scientists, including Christians, say you cannot prove the existence of God. Is that true? How do they mean prove? In math, we learn mathematical “proofs.” One such proof is if A=B and B=C then A=C. If a person wants to mathematically “prove” the existence of the Christian God that person would need to be able to define that God they want to prove exists. To know who this Christian God is we would have to turn to the bible because that is the source to defining God for Christians. It doesn’t matter if a person doesn’t believe in the bible, understanding who the Christian God is depends on the bible. The bible says God is love. A simple proof then of the existence of the Christian God would look like this: Love exists, God is Love, therefor God exists. Another would look like this: Light exists, God is Light, therefor God exists.
Another argument for the existence of God is the idea that the evidence indicates a mind exists throughout every aspect of the known universe. A mind appears to be omnipresent – it is everywhere. A mind that is behind all the laws that make the universe possible for life and is behind the creation of life – the information that makes life possible could be said to know everything or be omniscient. A mind that controls all the laws and processes of life could be considered to have unlimited power or able to do anything. In other words this mind would be omnipotent. A mind that is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent has also been called God throughout the history of the Jewish and later Christian traditions.
The Human Body
You have one chance in 1077 to get something right or “death” is the result. Seems highly implausible that life will happen, doesn’t it. According to experiments done by molecular biologist Douglas Axe, the idea that a new functioning protein can evolve from genetic mutations is essentially mathematically impossible. He writes, “assuming a particular new capability that can be achieved with a new protein fold would benefit an organism, and that a genetic mistake in that organism has produced a gene sequence that differs substantially from what existed before, this fraction is the probability that the new gene happens to encode a new protein that performs the desirable new function. Using the results of my experiments on the penicillin-resistance enzyme, I estimated this probability to be in the ballpark of:
1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.”[5] To put that number into perspective, if these amino acids tried one combination every nanosecond (billionth of a second) and started that process when scientists say life began – 3.7 billion years ago, they would have only gotten through 1.866382 x 1026 combinations. They wouldn’t have even gotten through half the possible combinations yet. Highly implausible that what we observe in our own bodies is the product of evolution through natural selection.
Given the information provided in my last article, Mastering Your Mindset: Health, Healing, and Disease 002, along with the staggering improbability of natural selection to explain the “evolution” of life from single celled organisms to human beings, it seems far more reasonable to believe that the human body was designed. That belief has enormous implications when it comes to your well-being, the onset of “dis-ease”, and healing. According to the Judeo-Christian teachings, humans were made in the image of God. If that is true, it shouldn’t seem far-fetched to imagine that God also created communication systems within the body and gave us different “minds” that allow for communication between mind, body, and spirit.
Let me introduce an idea to you that is symbolic in nature. The mind-body connection is becoming well-documented in the medical or scientific literature. If we consider the idea that mind is simply a reference to the God of the bible and we presuppose for a moment that God’s son became flesh – became “the body” – we now have a symbolic as well as historical reference to the mind-body connection from a Christian symbolic perspective.
God not only has designed a mind-body connection, his son fulfilled that connection, experienced it in actuality, when he became human flesh. He became the body. If we now consider the mind-body-spirit, the spirit becomes a reference to first, the breath of life from God and second, the holy spirit for those who have professed their faith in Jesus and received the holy spirit. Outside the religious aspect of that, understanding the importance of the breath and establishing healthy breathing practice and its implications for maintaining health and fighting disease becomes important.
How does disease happen? The explanation can come from a western medical or philosophical perspective, an eastern medical or philosophical perspective, and a theological perspective. The western medical approach has traditionally been about understanding how viruses, bacteria, trauma, and other factors that occur within or to the body impact the operation of the entire system. Because of this perspective, we have been able to make amazing advances in medicine, surgical techniques, and machinery or equipment to help a patient fight disease or overcome trauma.
Chinese and Indian medicine are two of the primary traditions in eastern medicine and they both are concerned with balancing different systems. The Indian system of medicine known as Ayurveda is concerned with balancing the different chakras that comprise the human system. Ayurveda was made popular in this country by Deepak Chopra among others. Chinese medicine is also concerned with balance, and they focus on energy flow throughout the body. The energy is how communication happens between the systems and if there are blockages to that flow of energy disease can result. At the risk of being overly simplistic, in both of these systems if our energy or our chakras are out of sync, our immune system won’t function properly and disease results.
Preventative medicine considers what we can do to optimize our body’s immune system, so it is fully capable of fighting off disease. While that is certainly an approach each person would be wise to consider and look at, the great advances made by western medicine have had a profound impact on prolonging life through surgical care and medicines that fight viruses and bacteria that have commonly killed millions should not be ignored when trying to heal from disease or in preventing disease. Think of the impact of vaccinations for diseases like smallpox, and the measles.
Looking at lifestyle choices and preventative care, there are three (or four) general areas one can focus on. Nutrition is obviously one such area. Properly fueling the body influences the energy flow and provides necessary nutrients for every cell of the body. There are volumes of books you can read on nutrition, but they can be summed up in just three key principles.
Principle one is do not overeat. Overeating has been associated with health risks such as the storage of excess body fat, disrupting the hunger regulation system, increased risk for disease, and impaired brain function. The adage everything in moderation certainly can be applied to this principle.
Principle two is the less processed the food the more nutrient rich it is. Eating whole foods provides nutrients in their most natural state and most readily accessible to be used by the body. The greater a portion of your diet that is made up of fresh foods the better for your body’s systems.
Principle number three is to practice mindful eating. Learn to listen to your body. Not everyone’s digestive system works the same. Some foods may cause you discomfort but for someone else they create no problems. Learning to be aware of the impact of various foods on your energy level and digestion can help improve your short and long-term health.
Beyond nutrition, exercise is vital. Exercise also impacts the flow of energy in your system and improves the functioning of every system in your body. We are learning so much on the impact of exercise on the brain [I recommend reading Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain by John J. Ratey, MD]. Fitness should be a goal for all of us. Like nutrition there are some basic principles for exercise that can shape how you choose to exercise.
Principle number one is to move through a full range of motion. There are seven basic movement patterns the human body does and ideally you would like to be able to move through those movements with a comfortable full range of motion. Those patterns are pulling, pushing, squatting, lunging, hinging, rotating, and your gait or striding. You want to work those movement patterns.
Principle number two is you want to maximize your cardiovascular systems ability to move oxygen through your system. There are numerous ways to improve your cardiovascular health beginning with simple activities like walking.
Principle number three is to maintain, or improve your strength. The ability to move weight through a full range of motion is important to a well-functioning body. It becomes especially important as we age.
Principle four is to maintain or improve your flexibility. Your flexibility is crucial for being able to stay active as you age and still minimize the risk of injury.
Principle number five is to work your balance. Our balance decreases with age but with a proper exercise program can be maintained or improved.
The next lifestyle choice(s) and the one in my professional opinion is the most overlooked and yet, vitally important is training your mindset. It really is all about caring for your spirit. Part of that is learning to control and harness your breathing. Breath-work could be considered a separate principle for caring for your body and I wouldn’t argue against that, but it is so connected to spiritual practices and your spirit which I will include it the next section.
The Human Spirit and Spirituality
The human spirit is something we write about, talk about, but do we really understand it? A person’s spirit is tied up in their personality and we have many tools available to help identify personality types. Understanding personality would be one way we try to understand human spirit, but it is so much more than that.
The human spirit is where our emotions, values, beliefs, and attitude reside. It is where our metaprograms and memories and all the factors that go into making our personality reside. It is where dreams, thoughts, ideas manifest themselves. It is where intuition begins. It is where the power of prayer and faith reside. It is the mind that makes them tangible but it is the spiritual realm where they begin. It is in this realm, where our well-being is ultimately controlled. The mind-body-spirit working together and spirit connecting us with the mind behind it all.
To review, we have a conscious mind, unconscious mind, intuitive mind, and heart mind. The human spirit connects or communicates between these minds and the mind of… God(?). According to teachings of NLP, there are several prime directives of the unconscious mind. They include:
- Managing emotions
- Storing memories
- Organizing memories
- Repressing memories with unresolved negative emotion
- Presenting repressed memories for lessons to be learned.
- Keeping emotions repressed for protection
- Running the body’s systems
- Maintaining the well-being of the body and your mental well-being
- Controlling your conscience – it is highly moral, maintains integrity with the values and beliefs you have developed.
- Serving is its ultimate purpose, needs clear orders to follow
As you ponder these prime directives, you can begin to see how the mind can direct healing or be a catalyst for disease. When we have internal conflicts from unresolved emotions, or between what we think we believe and really believe, or what we value and what we are actually experiencing, we are taxing our unconscious mind’s ability to maintain our well-being. Notice how memories play into the job of the unconscious mind.
As mentioned in a previous article, when we experience significant emotional experiences (SEE) it actually causes lesions on our brain that can show up on a CT-scan. The lesions interfere with the flow of energy and communication within our system. It can lead to cancer. If we do not feed our minds and our bodies with positive energy through nutrition, thoughts, emotions, breathing, we become susceptible to disease.
Our spirit being the “force” that communicates between all the minds including the “mind of God,” we need to understand the importance of prayer. Prayer is more than simply talking to God. According to biblical teachings and Christian tradition, we are to worship God in the spirit and in truth. In John 4:24, it is written, “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” What does it mean to be in the spirit?
From many spiritual traditions, including many Christian traditions, being in the spirit is a process of meditative thinking and breathing. There are far too many scriptural reference about the importance of prayer in scripture for me to list them here, but there is one scripture that has deep meaning when it comes to healing. Psalm 55:22 says, “Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.” That is exactly what we do when we release stored negative emotions, limiting decisions and beliefs. We show you how to “cast your cares on the LORD.”
Probably all of us know of someone who died far too young because of a disease. We can probably imagine or know for certain that people prayed for healing. I have on a number of occasions and the person still died. When my grandfather had a stroke and my prayer for complete healing went unanswered and my grandfather remained partially paralyzed, I begin to turn away from my Christian upbringing. I was only 11 at the time. For many, they claim those “unanswered” prayers are either evidence that God doesn’t exist or that he doesn’t interfere in the affairs of man. All of this begs the question, how does faith and healing come into play?
Faith is in part a manifestation of our beliefs about what is true and what is possible. Placeboes work because people believe – they have faith in their doctor or medicine or science – that what they are being given will do what they have been told it will do. Their body responds. Faith is the agent of miracles. There is a two volume scholarly work on miracles by Craig S. Keener entitled Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts, 2 Vols. The conclusion is miracles do happen, which really begs another very difficult question, “Why would God perform a miracle in some situations and not others?” Or, similarly, “why do some people overcome disease and survive while others don’t?” I don’t have the answers but I can still surmise.
First, it is important to note something that is written in the New Testament. If we look at two different scriptures we might have some evidence for what happens in this spiritual realm of healing. The first scriptural reference is from Luke 4: 22-24.
22 All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
23 Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’”
24 “Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.
The second reference is Matthew 13:57-58.
57 And they took offense at him.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town and in his own home.”
58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
These two versus indicate that miracles require faith from whoever is to receive the miracle. They need to believe a miracle is possible. It is also possible that they need to believe they are worthy of receiving a miracle. Couldn’t we also assume that beyond a miracle, simply maximizing the healing potential of the human body’s systems would require faith – faith that we are capable of healing, faith in our doctors, faith in medicine, faith in God – or believing we are worthy of being healed or wanting to be healed. Isn’t it possible that sometimes people may not be ready to “turn things over to God?”
One final idea to ponder concerns this power of belief. Using NLP or TLT techniques we can change someone’s beliefs. The results can obviously be quite profound. When I have helped students, athletes, or others change their beliefs, they have been able to improve their learning, athletic performance, let go of their phobias and a host of other benefits. The theoretical framework for this work is based on the idea that for your brain to recognize the difference between a belief and a doubt, you must code it. You can change that code. There is something else though that is at work besides simply changing your code which goes beyond the psychological process. It is deeper and more profound. This “something”, I believe, is spiritual in nature.
You can convince someone, get them to believe they can walk on burning coals without being burned and that can happen. I have walked on burning coals three different times. Contrarily, I have yet to find anyone who can change their belief and walk on water. We do have a historical record that two people did – Jesus and Peter. If you think about the Star Wars teachings of the Force we see Jedi’s being able to move objects with “their mind”. They learn to control “the Force.” From a Christian perspective, the problem with that teaching is the Jedi leaves God out of the picture. The Jedis’ faith is in their ability to control energy. Jesus, though, said this was possible. In Matthew 17:20 it is written, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” With faith [in God], you can control “the force.”
To conclude, our well-being is dependent on our ability to manage our mind, body, and spirit. It means training our faith, turning things over to God, managing our emotions and attitude, properly caring for the body by feeding it, exercising it, developing our balance, and maintaining our flexibility. We must pay attention to all three domains. We cannot know for certain all the factors that will go into the healing from dis-ease.
“We can predict that a certain percentage of elderly people (over the age of 75) with several comorbidities are likely to succumb to a respiratory virus such as Covid, but we cannot predict who and when. Some people who seem like prime candidates for mortality may survive while others who seem healthier may succumb.”[6]
To repeat, from a Christian metaphorical or symbolic view, we need God (mind), the son (body – the word became flesh), and the holy spirit dwelling in us to master our well-being and maximize our life span, which by the way science says is roughly 120 years[7] and so does the bible (Genesis 6:3, 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal[b]; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”). Of course, when we are sick we should also seek out the best medical care available to complement the mind, body, spirit work you do aside from that specific medical care. To conclude, developing rituals (habits) in your life that bring the mind, body, and spirit together is the master key to mastering your mindset and mastering your life, which is a lifelong process that has greater value the younger we start.
[1] Henriques, Gregg, Henriques Ph.D. “What Is the Mind? Understanding Mind and
Consciousness via the Unified Theory.” Psychology Today, 22 Dec. 2011,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/theory-knowledge/201112/what-is-the-mind.
Accessed 20 June 2022.
[2] Collins, Robin. “The Fine-Tuning Design Argument a Scientific Argument for the
Existence of God.” Discovery Institute, 1 Sept. 1998, http://www.discovery.org/a/
91/. Accessed 20 June 2022.
[3] “The Brain-Gut Connection.” Johns Hopkins Medicine, Johns Hopkins University,
www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/the-brain-gut-connection.
Accessed 20 June 2022.
[4] Soosalu, Grant, et al. “Head, Heart, and Gut in Decision Making: Development of
a Multiple Brain Preference Questionnaire.” SAGE Open, vol. 9, no. 1, Jan.
2019, p. 215824401983743, https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019837439.
[5] Axe, Douglas, PhD. “Can New Proteins Evolve?” Evolution News and Science Today,
Discovery Institute, 8 Oct. 2021, evolutionnews.org/2021/10/
can-new-proteins-evolve/. Accessed 21 June 2022.
[6] Koops, Roger. “Did Covid Vaccines Save Tens of Millions of Lives?” Brownstone
Institute, 24 June 2022, brownstone.org/articles/
did-covid-vaccines-save-tens-of-millions-of-lives/
?utm_medium=onesignal&utm_source=push. Accessed 24 June 2022.
[7] Eisenstein, Michael. “Does the Human Lifespan Have a Limit?” Nature, vol. 601,
no. 7893, 19 Jan. 2022, pp. S2-S4, https://doi.org/10.1038/
d41586-022-00070-1
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