Ilchi Lee Healing Society Blog

A collection from Ilchi Lee’s Book

The ability to manage stress is the holy grail of brain management. Every other attempt to develop and use your brain well can be thwarted if you do not gain some level of control over your stress response. Unmanaged, habitual stress reactions interrupt the learning process, contribute dramatically to brain aging, and are at the root of numerous chronic disease conditions.

First of all, though, you should know that stress is not all bad. It is this process that allows us to respond quickly and effectively in emergency situations. When managed appropriately, the stress response helps stimulate the brain, improving mood and encouraging creative problem solving. Researchers have found that minor amounts of stress, such as that experienced during basic life and occupational challenges, actually improve immune function, while extreme or prolonged stress has the opposite effect.

Continual, prolonged stress response is highly destructive to the brain as well as other organs of the body. The main stress-response hormone, cortisol, can and does kill brain cells, especially in the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory formation. Many serious brain-related problems, including attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s have been clearly linked to the destructive nature of prolonged exposure to stress hormones.

The stress response is created in the sympathetic nervous system, which sends messages from the brain to the rest of the body, alerting it to the presence of danger. Essentially, it is designed to redirect all energy toward the crisis at hand. Under the influence of stress hormones, the performance of many organs throughout the body is diminished while heart rate increases and blood flow is redirected to the muscles for a rapid fight-or-flight response.

Fortunately, the brain wants to find a state of homeo-stasis, to achieve balance between excitement and tranquility. This is where the parasympathetic nervous system kicks in. The parasympathetic nervous system returns the organs to their original functionality, slows the heart rate, and returns blood circulation to normal.

But what if the stressors never diminish and you find yourself in a constant state of stress? You will likely end up with one of the many stress-related physical and psychological problems that are epidemic to our society.

So it is in your best interest to do everything you can to reduce your stress response. How can you do this? Read on. In the remainder of this chapter, you will find information and exercises that will help you break the vicious cycle of stress response in your life.

Just because you have access to a lot of information does not ensure that you are the master of that information. What really matters is not how much information you access, but whether or not you are able to judge if it is important to you. Without this discerning ability, you will never be able to become a master of information. You will live out your life helplessly caught in the flood of information that inundates us every day

But you can become the master of information. You have the ability to select, alter, and delete the information inside your own brain. You can transform or upgrade the information. Through Brain Respiration, you will examine all information from a new point of view. You will be able to escape ingrained preconcep­tions, prejudices, and habits that you didn’t even realize you were holding onto. You will learn how to edit and delete information according to your personal needs and will. You will learn to choose, process, and freely utilize information.

The essence of “Respiration,” in any of its multiple senses, is exchange or transaction. Spiritual Respiration requires you to exchange information with your own soul. Spiritual Respiration is actually a conversation with your own soul. Brain Respiration is a process whereby, through energy and spiritual respiration, you seek to throw off the yoke of old, ingrained habits by com­municating directly with your True Self. Once you experience the reality of your own soul, you will no longer be a slave to information but become its master, creating your own path instead of walking only where others tell you to go.

We refer to the pure state of our original soul as the True Self, and the field planted with trees of prejudice and preconception can be called the False Self. Most people in this world, having rarely had the chance to consciously experience their True Self, live out their whole lives believing that they are their False Self.

This is akin to a piece of land thinking it is merely the trees and bushes that are planted on it, when it is so much more than that. Because they live in a world of misconception about their own reality, most people hold misconceptions about others. This leads to a world filled with conflict based on mutual misconception about one another. Who are we? We forget that we are the masters of who we are becoming. In a word, we can choose to become whoever we desire to be. Telic information is not us hit ours.

Another reason why Brain Respiration puts such an emphasis on the brain is that the soul, the essence of our existence, resides in the brain. The soul is the pure essence of the information that makes us who we are. Our soul defines our divine consciousness. Our soul gives true meaning to our life, imbuing it with a pur­pose and a goal.

Since the seat of the soul is in the brain, the quickest way to a spiritual awakening is through an intimate conversation with your own brain. You cannot meet your soul through language or intel­lect. The quickest way to meet with your soul is through energy, the universal language of life.

Through Brain Respiration, you feel your soul and learn to communicate with it through the energy. This energy is available to anybody. You need only awaken the subtle senses you already possess.

In order to meet your soul, you must first overcome some obstacles that lie scattered across the road. When we are born, our consciousness is a blank page, a ‘tabula rasa.’ Almost immediately, information from various sources begins to infiltrate the fertile and empty land of consciousness. With time, the original land of pure consciousness is planted with informational trees of prejudice and preconception that begin to obscure the land.

Brain Respiration does not demand expert anatomical or physiological knowledge of the human brain. Rather, Brain Respiration focuses on in the experiential approach for the mastership over one’s brain. However, since Brain Respiration is a scientific method based on various anatomical and biological aspects of the brain, it is helpful to have a passing knowledge of the human brain. To maximize the benefits of Brain Respiration, it is essential to become friends with your own brain. This is easier when you know what your friend looks like.

Of all the animals on Earth, the human being has the highest ratio of weight of the brain to total body weight. Although the average human brain (l,350g) weighs less than that of a whale (8,000g) or an elephant (5,000g), it is 1/40 of our total body YS”eight. The brain of a whale or elephant is only 1/1200 of its total body weight. The brain of an average primate is only 1/100 ot its total body weight. Although the entire brain has the same consistency of a totu-like substance, it consists of three lavers

Which reflect different evolutionary phases from reptile to primate and, thereby, have relatively differentiated functions respectively? The brain is protected from shock by a skull and also by being suspended in a liquid environment.

From Ilchi Lee’s book

If we use the computer as an analogy, hardware is the physical body, and software, that controls and functions through the hardware, is the spiritual body. However, we cannot use a computer with only hardware and software. We need something else, that is, the electricity that connects the hardware and software, and enables them to work through each other. Electricity is comparable to the energy body.

We can observe the physical body with our five senses of touch, smell, sight, hearing, and taste. We cannot “touch” the second body, or energy body, but we can feel it. When our body and mind are in a relaxed state, and our mind is alert, we can palpably feel the web of energy throughout our body. This web of energy is woven throughout the physical body and can be photographed by a special technique known as Kirlian photography.  People with developed perceptual ability can observe this energy with the naked eye.

The majority of us think that we are defined by our physical bodies. In reality, our physical, energy, and spiritual bodies combine to form a multi-dimensional organic bond of life. Energy acts as a bridge that connects the physical and the spiritual bodies. The spiritual body is the master of both the energy and physical bodies.

It is not too great a leap to suppose that brain-body communication could be improved throughout your body, says Ilchi Lee, if vibrations were applied to the entire body, as in Brain Wave Vibration. It seems that we are returning to an understanding that our ancestors understood instinctively.

Ilchi Lee continues “I first experienced the power of vibration through my own physical healing. A few years ago, I took a bad fall from a horse and seriously injured my spine. The doctors told me not to move, to just quietly rest in bed. This did not sit well with me because I knew that the energy could not move properly in my body if I were to just lie there completely motionless.” Ilchi Lee also says “So I decided to make subtle shaking movements with my spine and eventually with the rest of my body. This kept my energy moving, and my recovery was far faster than anyone had expected.

You can learn Brain Wave Vibration created by Ilchi Lee at a local Dahn Yoga Center or you can contact the International Brain Education Association (IBREA).

Bradford Keeny has traveled the world seeking understanding of primitive healing customs. His conclusion, like Ilchi Lee’s, is that healing can be found through vibration, what he refers to as “shaking medicine.”

Ilchi Lee suggests that

Energy is the ultimate reality of the universe. From the smallest grain of sand to the largest star… everything in the cosmos is in a state of constant vibration. Even the things that appear to be solid are a temporary coalescence of energy into form. At the most basic level, the mountains, the oceans, and everything in between consist of energy.

This world of energy, often known as ‘Ki in Asia. Is currently being observed by modern scientific techniques. Although it will take some time to fully “prove” the existence of Ki energy and present this to the public, there is no need for us to wait to utilize the energy that we so obviously feel.

At any time, and in any place, anyone can utilize the power of Ki energy. Only proper concentration and heightened sensitivity are required. All human beings are born with a natural ability’ to feel Ki energy. We have merely lost this ability due to lack of awareness and lack of practice. Sensitivity to Ki energy is sensitivity to life itself.

You can go without food for a week or more, but you will probably die if you stop breathing for even five minutes. The cessation of breath signifies the absence of life. Breath is life itself, in a sense. Yet, we continue to seek the truth of life elsewhere. I have discovered the reality of life to be in the breath. Enlightenment lies within the breath. I have worked for the last twenty’ years to communicate the simple truth that life, enlightenment, and truth are all contained in a single breath.

Why then, do I emphasize ‘brain respiration’ or ‘brain breathing‘? It is because use of the brain is the only way that humans are able to perceive, process, comprehend, and ultimately create the reality in which we live. The brain is the key to creating a better life for the individual, and a brighter world for humanity as a whole. Nothing a human being does is done without the brain. A person’s fate is decided by what type of information lies within his or her brain. The fate of an organization rests in what type of information governs the operating principles of that organization. That is how important the brain is.