deepak chopra quantum healing

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PRAISE FOR

QUANTUM HEALlNG

"DRAWING ON BOTH MODERN SCIENCE

AND ANCIENT WISDOM, HERE IS A

MODEL OF HEALTH Al\'D ILLNESS THAT

CAN STAND THE TEST OF SCIENTIFIC

SCRCTINY BECAUSE OF ONE SIMPLE FACT:

IT WORKS."-larry Dossey, M.D., authorof

Space, Time and Medicine "A BEAUTIFULLY BAlANCED W'EB OF

DRAt\fATIC E.x:AlVIPlES AND REASONED SPECUlATION."-CraigA.lambert, Ph.D.,

Harvard Magazine "DAZZLING." - The Washington Post

"HIS CASE HISTORIES ... TAKE THE OlD 'MIND-BODY' CONTROVERSY TO NEW

lEVELS OF COMPlEXITY AND FASCINATION."

-San Francisco Chronicle and Examner "ILlUMINATING AND INSPIRING."

-East West "THIS BOOK IS A]EWEL. DEEPAK CHOPRA

WRITES WITH WARMTH AND HUMANITY

ABOUT A SUB]ECT THAT TOUCHES US

ALL."-F. David Peat, author of

Synchronic~v "BRILLIANT AND ENTERTAINING."

- The London Daly Telegraph "THIS BOOK IS WRITTEN WITH

THE HEARTIMIND OF AN ARTIST, THE

PRECISION OF A SCIENTIST,

THE COURAGE OF AN EXPLORER."

-Laura Huxley, author of The Child ofYour Dreams

HA PROFOUND INVESTIGATION

OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND HEAlTH."

-Yogajoumal

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r i

I

QUANTUM

HEALING

, l.

I

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Trained in India and the United States, Dr. Deepak Chopra is a practicing endocrinologist and former chicf of staff of New England Memorial Hospital in Sroneham, Massachusens. He is executive direcror of the Sharp HealthCare Institute for Human Potential and MindiBody Medicine in San Diego, California. His other books are Cnating Healfh (a selection o Prevention Book Club), Returr 01 the Rhi (a selection of rhe Guild), Hea/th, Unconditional

and the nadona! bestseller Body. Time/ess Mind. His wriring has been pub!ished in twenry-our foreign countries, and he kerures wide!y in the United Srares, Europe, India, Japan, and Russia.

QUANTUM

HEALING

Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine

by

DEEPAK CHOPRA, M.D.

A IANT;un

flROf PAP'lIIACK

,

BANTAM BOOKS

NEW YORK' TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

In atder ro ensure the privaey of the memioned in chis book j cheir names, circumstances, and other deta!:) have been changed.

QUAt-:TUM EXPLORNG TH FRONTIERS MlND:BDY ;;fEDICINE

li Bamam Book

Bamatn hardc(}1.Jer edit;on Muy 1989

Bantam trade edition / ] tlnE 1990

Bantam Netl' AgE and the d,'1TIv',ul1,'inE "th,

Al! n:.r11ifd, 1Y89 Deepak Ch,p"a, MD,

CfJ1)et' cOp;'1'ight 1990 by Om P!Ui One Studitl.

lillth,," ,ohata 1990 Daig/"

Cwer fin 1990 by Molano,

Book de.signed MJNo Pror}uaiot1 Set"t'lceJ, Inr,

No part oj th may te or trammitted

in any j6rm aY by atly tJli?'fiJ, or mechanical.

any injormatio"fl

Bantam BUjJu,

Jm!"ocopy"',~. recordi7Jg. Oy sJitem. u'ithollt perminion irJ

the pub/isher,

Library o Congress Cataloging-in-Publlcation Data

exploring che fronriers of mind/body medicine! by Deepak Chopr.

p, cm, Bbliography: p,

Includes index,

ISBN 0-~ 5 3-34869-8

L Holistc medicine, 2. Mnd and body, 3, Psychology.

1. tide.

1989

88-7761 CIP

Pb/ished Jimultanelj/(.d) Ji the Unted States and Canada

Bdntam Bookl ar~ Bantam Book,. a oj Bamam DfJltbledt1-)i De// PubliJbing Grollp, llt(, tr traderllrk" crJJ1JjJJjng ti the "Bantam B'){Jkj" and the por/raya! rooster, RegfJtmd ill U,S, Patcnl and TradrtJark Office and in fJther counfries. Marra Registrada. Bailtam 1540 Br(jdu'ay, Neu.: }'rk, Neu' York lO03(,

PRfNTED C:-'ITED STATES o:: AMERlCA

BVG 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31

Contents

A Personal Introduction 1

PART 1: HIDDEN PHYSIOLOGY

1. After the Miracle 9

2. The Body Has a Mind of lts Own 19

3. The Sculpture or the River? 35

4. Messengers from Inner Space 53

I 5. Ghosts of Memory 73 6. The Quantum Mechanical Human Body 91

7. Nowhere and Everywhere 111

8. Silent Witness 127

9. The Mystery of the Gap 147

PART II: BODY OF BLISS

10. In the Rishi's World 163

11. Birth of a Disease 183

12. "What You See, You Become" 201

13. Body of Bliss 221

14. The End of the War

Bibliography 257

Index 259

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Acknowledgments To Gautama, Mallika, and Rita for their unconditional love and acceptance of all 1 do.

To Carla Linton for her dedication to create a better world. To Muriel Nellis, who inspired my confidence as a writer from the very

beginning. To Toni Burbank, whose editing brought clariry ro my thinking and

improved every chapter of this book. And especially ro Huntley Dent-our deep friendship, the insights we

shared together, and his literary guidance were all evolutionary experiences for me.

Preface to the New Edition

Quantum Healing s a most mportant book to me, and the appearance of this new edition is especially gratifying for a number of reasons. The new edition has come about, after aH, only because more and more people are eager to discover the principIes that underlie physical reality and that create our everyday environmenr~in particular the "environmenr" of our own bodies. Quantum Healing provides an historical overview of how these principIes have come to be understood by both Westem science and by Ayurveda, the ancienr life science of India. Perhaps even more important, the book looks forward ro offer a glimpse of how insights from each of these traditions can come together to bendit everyone's well-being. I'm proud that earlier editions of Quantum Healing have helped ro create awareness of mind-body medicine, and I'm very pleased that this new edition is now available in response ro the growing interest in mind-body perspectives on human health.

Prom a personal standpoint, the new edition provides an opportunity to show how my own views have evolved in a number of areas. Change is a defining characteristic of the universe, which, needless ro say, includes people, ideas, and books. What has not changed~indeed, 1 am more firm in this than ever before-is my belief that consciousness creates reality . . . that expectation decisively influences outcome . . . and that awareness, attenrion, and intention should be as much a part of health care as drugs, radiaron, and surgery.

There are heartening signs that Western medicine, after years of resistance, is beginning to accept and incorporate these ideas. In my view this change is coming about because many people are no longer comfortable with a purely materialist interpretation of health and illness. Patients are influencing their physicians ro become more familiar with mind-body concepts, and physicians in tum are seeing the benefits that these approaches can bring to their patienrs. 1 believe this is one of the most remarkable and positive developments in contemporary medicine.

1 am confidenr that you, as a reader of this book, will find a great deal of illuminating information. But information is only one aspect of Quantum Healing. My greater hope s that you will also find inspiration~to look with wonder at the universe that is around you and withn you, and ro realize that you are central to its creaton, perhaps more so than you ever dreamed.

A Personal Introduction

"1 have a Chinese patient who is in the terminal stages of cancer in the nasal cavity. His face has been affected, and he is in pain most of the time. But he is also a doctor. 1 think he should hear this."

1 nodded from the other side of the desk. lt was a late October day in Tokyo in 1987. 1 was paying a visit to a Japanese cancer specialist who might help me in testing a new theory. It had to do with one of medicine's great mysteries, the healing process. At that stage 1 had not yet hit upon the name "quantum healing," but that was what we had been discussing for more than an hour.

The two of us got up and headed toward the wards. As we walked, 1 caught glimpses of perfectly tended Zen gardens that the hospital had installed outside. Nearby, the children were asleep in their ward, so we walked quietly for a momento At the private rooms, the Japanese doctor stopped, found the right door, and let me go in first.

"Dr. Liang," he said, "do you have a few minutes?" The room was in shadow. A man in his mid-forties, abour my age, was lying in bed. He turned his head wearily as we walked in. The three of us had several things in common-we were all from the

East and had left home ro train in advanced Western medicine. Between us we had practiced Out specializations for fifty years. Bur the man in the bed was the only one who would be dead in a month. A Taiwanese cardiologist, he had been diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer less than ayear before. Now large bandages came up almost to his eyes. It was a

1

QUANTUM HEALING

difficult moment, meeting him. As 1 said hello, 1 didn't lower my gaze, but Dr. Liang lowered his.

"We've come to talk a little," the Japanese doctor murmured. "Are you too tired?"

The man in the bed made a polite gesture, and we pulled up chairs. 1 began to sketch in the main ideas 1 had already told my host. In essence, 1 believed that healing is not primarily a physical process but a mental one. When we saw a bone fracture mend or a malignant tumor regress, we were conditioned as doctors to look at the physical mechanism first and foremost. But the physical mechanism is like a screen. Behind it, 1 said, is something much more abstract, a form of know-how that cannot be seen or touched.