Ilchi Lee Blog

In a day, we breathe in and out countless times. We cannot exist without this cycle of in and out. Despite our differences in race and culture, we can be sure about one thing. Human life, culture and everything else are maintained because of the existence of breath. We are One through breath, if nothing else. We breathe the same sky-in through our noses, and with our mouths we eat the same fruit of the Earth. All of our lives are drawn from the same sky and the same earth. We are an artistic expression created by the joyful union of heaven and earth.

Unfortunately, we are living today without this conscious realization of our common roots. We are still endlessly repeating the mistakes of the past, carelessly disregarding and stepping on other life because of our perceived differences, and because of our ever-present fear of losing in the endless game of competition that we have made of life.

We are breathing at this moment and will do so to the end of our lives. Feel your breath, gentle and calm. Breathe in slowly, and breathe out… just as slowly. Deeply. Inhale until your lungs are filled to their capacity, full to the brim with fresh air. What then? What do you have to do next to complete your breathing cycle? Exhale, of course. In order to complete the cycle of breathing, and live, you have to exhale every time you inhale.

Breath is life. When the cycle of inhaling and exhaling ends, life ends. A new life first begins with breath.

Our lives are analogous to the process of breathing. We inhale in life, growing and maturing, and then we begin to slowly exhale, getting older, eventually returning to where we started. Beginning and end are not separate, but one. Life’s indescribable beauty and sacredness arise out of this Oneness. All of life is a dance to this endless cycle of breathing.

I don’t want to overemphasize enlightenment. What would 1 achieve by emphasizing enlightenment to those who already have it? The important thing is for us to believe in ourselves. It is for us to express that belief through our healing actions, eventually changing society and the world. This is the highest evidence of enlightenment there is. Because enlightenment is a deeply personal and abstract concept, how else would you prove your enlightenment except through healing actions?

We have come to the Earth to perfect and complete the journey of our souls. The only way to do that is by healing, in every sense of the word. To heal, we need to awaken to the reservoir of enlightenment within us, and use this enlightenment to guide us in making choices.

Prof Ilchi Lee tells that I believe that we need at least 100 million healers in this world within ten years. No, we need them in even less time than that. These 100 million healers will constitute a critical mass that will change the destiny of the Earth. In contrast to the acts of killing that we are witnessing everyday, we will engage in acts of healing, acting to uplift our collective human consciousness… until we realize one day, that we are indeed living in Heaven on Earth. Healing, this is the only way to peace and the only evidence of enlightenment.

Healing is expression of an Earth-Human and of his or her commitment to actualize the enlightenment within. When enough of us open our eyes to the truth of healing, then healing will not be relegated to the scrap heap of history as just another fad. It will give birth to a world wide cultural phenomenon that will heal our society and the Earth. Healing is a gift given to those who have chosen enlightenment in their lives.

During a recent lecture someone asked me, his face hard set with doubt, “Are you really enlightened?” I answered him with a question, “Do you know what enlightenment is?” He said no. Then Ilchi Lee told him. “If you don’t know what enlightenment is. you would neither believe me if I were to tell you that I am enlightened, nor if I told you that I am, in fact, not enlightened.” He pressed on, again with an expression of someone reluc tantly mining for the truth, “Then, what was it that you were enlightened to?” Laughing, I answered him, “I was enlightened to the fact that there is nothing to be enlightened about.”

The cry for enlightenment and salvation has been heard throughout human history. Yet what good is enlightenment or salvation if they don’t bring about lasting peace, health, and happiness for the whole of humanity? This age requires a Truth that will lead to enlightenment and salvation that can be shared by all, and not be confined by the limitations of religious dogma and national boundaries. Our age demands that we think and take action for ourselves. We can no longer afford to wait for fruitless preaching of mythical wise men.

For thousands of years, humanity has espoused countless truths. However, these truths have remained dormant, underutilized and unexplored for their real world possibilities. Actualization of the truth should be our ultimate goal. For what good is truth if it cannot be communicated to others in order to bring about constructive change in society? Thus far we have been caught up a feel good fantasy about the pursuit of truth, becoming experts in linguistic obfuscation and Monday morning quarterbacking of truth instead of its master. Even if some individuals succeed in achieving a certain level of awareness that can be termed enlightenment, what good is it if it is limited to just that one individual? Should he or she be content to remain in the throes of sanctimonious self-congratulation while the world is falling apart around them? Just as truth is useless if it cannot be communicated, enlightenment is worthless if it cannot be shared with many, many others.

Extract from Ilchi Lee’s book

To heal humanity and the Earth there must be a world wide, socio-cultural movement that goes beyond the sphere of individual intentions and good deeds. Earth-Humans must be the driving force behind this movement. This is our Vision. We must join with many others on this path… for our Vision will require the gifts of many. We must overcome prejudice, and work with people from all cultural, national, and social backgrounds to make our Vision a reality. Earth-Humans will be the leaders of the long overdue movement to establish lasting peace on Earth.

Healing Society Movement, or the Earth-Human Movement, is a socio-cultural movement based upon our collective realization of our enlightenment, expressing it in terms of our love for the earth and the humanity and realizing health for the community and the society. Health does not refer to the physical health alone, but to the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health - when all these four dimensions of health are achieved can we say that we are healthy. I started this movement twenty years ago in a small, local park, teaching Brain Respiration calisthenics to one person - now it is being taught in over 3,000 place in Korea, in addition to centers in the USA, Europe, and Japan. However, my original aim remains true: to heal this society and the world.

There are many aspects to healing. On the level of the individual, healing means to recover lost physical and mental health. This is to facilitate free and unimpeded flow of life energy to the body, and to restore original brightness and purity to the soul by nurturing it with hope and courage. Healing society means that after individuals attain health and enlightenment, they help each other on the journey of completion of the soul.

Healing the Earth means to establish equitable and lasting peace, for benefit of all people of the world and for Earth herself.

Ilchi Lee thinks that an important part of healing society is to heal the family, for families make up the smallest and yet the most essential unit of society. Healthy families are necessary to the health of society, and humanity. Parents must assume responsibility for health of the family. They must help children understand who they are and to find their purpose in life. Parents must convey to children, their inalienable right to enlightenment. Parents who are Earth-Humans will teach them what it truly means to be a citizen of the Earth.

Parents must be healers for the family. I am not speaking merely about healing physical ailments, but the caring and accepting attitude of love. All that is required to be a healer is to facilitate a deep level of trust among family members. When we communicate trust in the world, peace will be possible. Conflict in the world today is fundamentally due to the lack of trust.

Parents also have responsibility to make the family a joyful unit. To stay together, a family must play together. Without a playful atmosphere, there can be little communication between parents and children. We must be able to play well not only with each other but also in society, and in nature. Healing is creating an atmosphere in which to play well, for when we are having fun, we do not fight.

With Brain Mastery, you can break free from the unrealized goals of your past. You become a new person with new perspectives and a new ability to harness the creative and reasoning powers of your brain. Free from past fears, prejudices and preconceptions, you can create a new future and do after seventy the things that you wanted to do at thirty-five. Have you read about those men and women in their seventies and beyond who are climbing the Himalayas, winning literary awards, and starting world-changing charities? There’s nothing in them that is not in you. You cannot go back and rewrite chapter one, but you can start now to make a fantastic finale.

Through the continual, lifelong practice of Brain Mastering, you will truly become master of your brain. This means building a lifestyle centered in part on the four previous stages of BEST. You will continue to engage in Brain Sensitizing, Versatilizing, Refreshing and Integrating. As you do, over time you will continue to create new neural pathways that will help you discover new abilities and new ways of thinking. In short, vou will find new solutions to the problems of living.

This new lifestyle can truly lead to a new life! For example, it you were not previously interested in writing, but then in your brain education journey you discover an urge to write your memoirs, you might find yourself in, writers’ workshops, meeting other writers, and engaging your creativity to the fullest. Who knows, you could be a published writer for the first time in your seventies. The important thing is that you tried something new.

Brain Mastering makes maturity what it should be: a prime time of life when you are free of the constraints of work and children and are free to pursue a rich, rewarding existence. So many older adults miss out on this time because they cling to old grudges or let their minds become frail and halting, but that is a fate to which no one need be consigned. Science is showing us that our minds, emotions, and attitudes affect how long and how well we live as much as, or more than, what we eat or how much we exercise. A positive, hopeful, curious mind is a resource for exploring all the wonders that later life has to offer: Want to travel? Go back to school and get your master’s degree? Start a company? Volunteer? Learn to meditate? Do it. When you are master of your brain, you are master of your life.

You might also inspire others. Not all people who reach maturity will hear of BEST on their own. Some short-sighted people might even consider it New Age mumbo-jumbo. We know the truth: You must grow older, but you don’t have to grow old. You can just grow—in sagacity, purpose, joy, and energy. By pursuing your Brain Mastering lifestyle, you may well motivate others to do the same. You may change one life or a dozen.

This story is universal. By opening their minds and seeking beyond themselves, wanderers come to a wider wisdom, a larger view not only of the world but of themselves. They learn to give and to be enlarged by the act of giving. Others rnav scoff and misunderstand their intentions, but in the end, they are transformed.

This is the essence of your journey. As someone who has lived five, six, seven decades or more, you have probably found that you were expected to adhere to a set of predetermined ideas. But all the while, you have wondered if there was a way you could escape the limitations of your thought habits and become a larger person with greater vision.

There is. It’s Brain Mastering, in which the skills and concepts you have learned throughout the first four stages of BEST come together as a single unified discipline.

A Spiritual Quest

BEST is a spiritual quest—a quest to become a person of greater enlightenment as you make the transition into the mature years of your life. You have plenty of goals: to heal from the traumas of the past, to find peace, to develop a healthier body, and even to discover a new purpose for your life. Brain Mastering is discovering the life you want to live and developing a mental discipline that allows you to turn your brain into a tool to create that life. It is a continual process of improving your brain to become a better human being.

Essayist Sidney Smith said, “Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” Many of us struggle with regrets about the things we have not done in our lives. These regrets become more acute and painful as we age, like a disease that eats away at the peace and serenity of many older people, turning what should be a time of exploration, vitality, and joy into a shadowy country of unfulfilled promises and resentment.

We conclude with a look at Brain Mastering, the collected disciplines of BEST, which, when practiced as a lifestyle, will give you greater control over your brain and a greater ability to achieve cherished goals. But first, a brief story…

In the ancient Native American tale of Jumping Mouse, a mouse once lived with other mice in their village, and he spent all his time as other mice did: gathering seeds, moving pebbles, and running about. But all the time he heard a strange roaring sound. When he mentioned it to the other mice, they scoffed at him. But eventually, Jumping Mouse had to find out what the roaring sound was. He met Raccoon, who took him to the Great River. where he met Brother Frog. Frog told him that if he wanted medicine of his own, he should jump as high as he could. Jumping Mouse jumped and saw the sacred mountains, and that is how he pot his name.

Once he had seen the mountains, Jumping Mouse went back to his people to tell them about his vision. But they would not listen to him. They could not see through his eyes. They could only perceive what others before them had perceived. So Jumping Mouse set off alone to find the sacred mountains. Jumping Mouse gave his eyes to other animals in order that they should see, which left him blind. With their help, he continued his quest. Finally, he reached the summit of the sacred mountain and found the great lake where all the world is reflected. Left alone with only his sense of touch, Jumping Mouse was content, knowing the great Eagle would finally get him. An eagle swooped down, he heard a rush of wings, and everything went black.

Suddenly, Jumping Mouse awoke and realized he could see colors. A voice asked him if he wanted medicine, and he said yes. The voice told him to jump as high as he could. The wind caught him and took him high into the air, where he could see Buffalo and Raccoon and the medicine lake and the sacred mountain. He saw his friend Frog by the lake and called down to him, “Hello, Brother Frog.” The frog called back, “Hello, Brother Eagle!”