What Do We Mean by “Consciousness-based Healthcare?”

“BodyTalk describes itself as a consciousness-based healthcare system.”

This is the very first sentence in the BodyTalk Fundamentals textbook.

It’s a phrase many of us have heard, used, and taught for years. But I wonder how often we actually stop to consider what we mean by it.

What do we mean by Consciousness, exactly?

The following two quotes appear at the end of chapter one of the BodyTalk Fundamentals textbook:

“Consciousness is the ground substance of manifestation.” — Amit Goswami

“Consciousness is all there is.” — Ramesh Balsekar

Although we discuss consciousness in more depth in (Mod 3) Principles of Consciousness, I think it’s important at the very beginning of one’s journey with BodyTalk—whether as a client or a practitioner—to take the time to reflect upon what both of these statements are actually saying.

The word consciousness lends itself to a lot of confusion, because it has so many different connotations. We hear people using consciousness to mean awareness, thought, mindfulness, psychology, or even something associated with the functioning of the brain. But that doesn't really seem to be what these statements are pointing to.

If Consciousness is, in fact, the ground substance of manifestation, then whatever appears as manifestation—the physical body, thoughts, emotions, beliefs, symptoms, energy systems, practitioner, client, formulas, techniques, sessions, health, and even the models we use to understand all of these—cannot ultimately be separate from that ground.

And then we’re told, even more simply, that Consciousness is all there is.

So if that’s the case, then it doesn’t make sense to imagine Consciousness as something that exists on one level or plane of existence and then acts upon something else called matter, the body, the environment or the world.

There can't be Consciousness—and then everything else.

Everything else would itself be an expression of Consciousness.

If Consciousness is all there is, is it something that a client or practitioner—or a plant or animal—can have, own, or possess? 

Can Consciousness itself be raised or increased?

Is Consciousness a thing that can be sensed or observed? 

And if Consciousness is all there is, is there anywhere—or anything—it is not?

Of course, we still make distinctions. A heart is not a liver. A thought is not a bone. The practitioner is not the client. Those distinctions are useful and necessary.

But distinction doesn’t mean separation.

And that brings me back to the phrase: consciousness-based healthcare.

Maybe before we ask what all of this means for the body and for healthcare, we first need to be clear about what we mean when we describe BodyTalk as a consciousness-based healthcare system.

Are we using the word consciousness simply to refer to awareness, thought, belief, or some aspect of mind? Or are we using it in the much more fundamental sense suggested by the two statements: as the ground substance of manifestation, and as all there is?

If it is the latter—and I propose it is—then another question naturally follows:

What would it mean to take these two statements seriously?

Not simply as ideas we learned in a BodyTalk class and then repeat, but as the foundation of a system we practice—and perhaps even as something that has implications for the way we live.

I encourage you to make your own exploration.