Homeopathy and Self-Awakening

“Organon §253: … When there is an ever-so-slight beginning of improvement, the patient will demonstrate a greater degree of comfort, increasing composure, freedom of spirit, increased courage – a kind of returning naturalness.…”[1]

The very first sign of a healing response evoked by a simillimum is, according to Hahnemann, a ‘returning to naturalness’. We can all confirm this from experience. In our patients, we may observe a decrease in suffering even despite an initial aggravation of the symptoms.

How can it be that a patient feels more ‘comfortable’, is more ‘composed’, experiences increased ‘freedom of spirit’ and ‘courage’ while the symptoms intensify? Is there a place, an inner state that transcends suffering? It is as if all around the winds are still blowing fiercely but the patient finds himself in the eye of the hurricane and from this position witnesses how the storm initially increases and then subsides. Isn't this an amazing phenomenon?

Hahnemann calls this ‘a kind of returning naturalness’. I suggest drop ‘kind of’. It is a return to the natural state. If we look at the state of humanity, we can see that the natural state is not the norm. The normal state is far removed from our true nature. From the above we know that this natural state can be experienced even in the middle of symptoms. We can observe a person suffering from symptoms, or someone who enjoys the stillness of his natural state despite those same symptoms. In between these two different states lies the action of the remedy.

Once this natural state has been reached the healing process is only a matter of time. On a spiritual and energetic level healing is immediate. To seep through all the layers of form—mental, emotional and physical—and thus remove the signs and symptoms of the diseased state, takes some time. So, all we need to do is wait and trust the natural process of healing.

Suffering is based on identification. Identification with the story of a person. Identification with the body, with thoughts, emotions and sensations, a diagnosis or a disease. An illusionary, deluded state.

If as an exercise we drop for just a moment, past and future, all of our stories, our thoughts and emotions, feelings and sensations, what remains as our experience? What remains is a sense of presence, awareness, stillness that is our natural state, the Self.

The simillimum is capable of waking us up from the deluded state, to break the spell of identification, of ego and to restore our natural state. From identification with the person and its subsequent suffering, we wake up as the tranquillity of our true Self. The signs and symptoms we had were actually there to bring this awakening about. The disease is the cure. With the blessing of a homeopathic simillimum, this cure, the purpose of the disease, is brought about in a ‘rapid, gentle and permanent’ manner.

Cure is then not just the restoration of health in terms of becoming free from signs and symptoms, but more deeply the awakening to one's true Self. This, I believe, is the higher purpose of homeopathy—to wake up humanity to its natural state. Changing the ‘normal state’ of identification with the walking story of a person at war with himself and the world and longing for peace, to the ‘natural state’ of recognizing one's Self as being that very peace. This is the end of suffering.

This issue is published shortly before Christmas. Händel's Messiah comes to mind. ‘How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things’. What a blessing Samuel Hahnemann brought to this world!

A Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!

• Reference

• 1 Hahnemann S. Organon of the Medical Art. 6th ed. Edited and annotated by Wenda Brewster O'Reilly. Birdcage Books. Redmond; 1996