Written by Alejandro Cohen (Seiki Shiatsu teacher in Chile)

 

“The road upward and the road downward are one and the same”
Lao Tse

 

The day’s work has come to an end. I watch the twilight from the window of my clinic. One more of the many coloured twilights reflected in the Andes Mountains, slowly fading, vanishing. Light and Shadow. the Miracle of Nature. I think of the many twilights I have observed for years from this same spot, some accompanied with rain beating my window, others with clouds casting a shadow on the room, others with wild clouds moving in the sky. Rain. Lightning. Year after year I am a witness and a participant of this cycle and each twilight mobilizes my emotions in a different way. Because I am part of Nature – which is change and constant transformation – and because at the same time I am part of it, I simultaneously follow the same path of my changes and transformations. The miracle of harmony.

The Symptom/Illness. Illness is the loss of this harmony. Separation from Nature, or the disorder from an order until now in balance. The loss of harmony originates from the CONSCIOUSNESS (or even further back) at the information level, and in the body is only SHOWN. The material body is the scenery where the images of conscience are visible. Consequently, if a person suffers from an unbalance in his conscience, it will manifest in his body in the form of a symptom. Therefore, our objective is to go after the CAUSE and not the effect (conscience and not physical manifestation). The reestablishment of balance on behalf of the patient is a PROCESS; go after the cause/conscience. It is not by trying to fight the illness but to transmute it, enlarging the conscience, enlarging the conscious modifying the NEGATIVE patterns by PROACTIVE ones. The symptom is a signal, a sign of an anomaly that entreats us to investigate. Now, from the holistic point of view, illness is produced starting from the fixation of a disorder. In other words, when a disorder looses the capacity to change, to transform, the live body looses the capacity to perform its healthy vital functions (Mind/Body/Spirit, as a united WHOLE). Oriental medicine does not attack the symptoms directly because the symptoms are considered part of the process of self healing through natural paths of the body. The origin of the illness is not the form in which the disorder manifests itself, but the situation in which the disorder gets blocked.

Clinic. The sessions, one after the other, express human suffering. Each patient is a part of the suffering of humanity. Migraines, tendinitis, pain through the whole body (fibromyalgia) muscular pains, anguish, panic, (of all sorts) depression (of all sorts), illnesses related with the uterus (interminable list), tinnitus (sounds in the ear, an unbearable variety) prostate cancer… And so the list continues and adds so many other illnesses of “unknown origin” on behalf of the scientific medicine.

Beginning the Process of Change/Transmutation. It is 10 in the morning. The doorbell rings and I open the door. In front of me is a person whom until yesterday was an ailing voice on the phone. The patient lies on the tatami (mat on the floor) and I next to him … “Shiatsu is the expression of the heart” the words of sensei Tzvika Calisar vibrate in my mind. Very well; we now come together with the patient heart to heart. The press over a specific area of the patient’s body starts, the connection is kept, without allowing the ego to interfere (uuuff … what work!!!!) advancing without loosing the connection ….. Just heart to heart, I repeat to myself. The recipient/patient blinks in spite of having his eyes closed, suddenly a gesture (a sign that “something” is happening to him), so one asks about it. He replies that something “strange” like a current is running through his body and comes out by the tip of his fingers, or by his belly bottom, or the eyes or… Suddenly he slightly shakes; an image has surfaced followed by an emotion, and now, his tears flow and so many times, in similar situations, a torrent. The session advances. “Heart, heart, don’t think” in my mind pound the words and the figure of Calisar. SEIKI is synonym of HEART in Seiki Shiatsu. The communion of Nature with that portion of love that every human being contains, like a pristine ocean, infinite, deeper than human ailment; our own source feeds us of healthy life. And that is our goal: from my own Seiki, unite with the recipient/patient to go and meet its source of love which renews and purifies it, deeper than its suffering, deeper, and from the basis of love, ascend towards healing. Seiki, which transcends human ailment. The first session has ended and the patient feels relieved, his body lighter and his mind clearer … A smile emerges from within, a smile which as a whole, is his soul that is grateful for having listened to his cry for help. The transformation process has been initiated, recovery…. Until the next session, until transmuting the negative circle (reactive) to positive (proactive) in its totality. The amount of sessions depends on the severity of the symptom.

¿Trapped without exit? ¿Where am I? ¿Why? The Genesis. Human beings are contradictory in their creation. We are memory and emotion. During the course of our lives, we reproduce routes, routes which were created since our birth by those who told us what to do, what to say and think; as is expected, with time not all coincides with what we were told, and, well, the problems start from there, our conflicts. And so, the different connections/routes are reproduced. Negative circuits (also called traumas) and positive ones that are recreated at every instance of our existence.
The first lights of the windows of the adjacent buildings light up like fireflies. Figure and ground in constant change and transformation. The sun which until now had stained the sky with its red glow, now parts with a farewell bow looks for rest. The light looks for rest and in the buildings the fireflies take their place. The cycle continues.
Take over my recovery. And what about Free Will?, that portion of liberty, of choice, of election, of personal decision? On the one hand the contradiction and its counterpart, free will. Interesting game of opposites. As we discussed, the unbalance is created at the conscience level (trauma/fixation) and free will corresponds to here and now, the capacity to decide and change. If the pain, the suffering expressed as a symptom is a cry for help which manifests itself at the physical level, if I understand it as such, then I can undertake the road towards my healing. Asking for help, being assisted, undertaking the hard task of eliminating those negative circuits and “reprogramming oneself”. Become what I want to be. It reminds me of the path the silkworm, which undergoes a long trajectory of darkness and humidity under the earth, reaching the light, to finally rise towards space transformed into a butterfly. I ignore whether it is easy or difficult, the only thing that is clear is whether I do it or not… Perseverance, faith in oneself, and persistence are the tools with which I count to initiate the transmutation. The internal demons resist, revolutionize, and refuse to evacuate a space which for years has dominated my inner self controlling my behavior and reactions, those undesirables.
Night is entering in the midst of this peace in which I find myself. Darkness, stars twinkling in space and inside, the fireflies which light the windows of the buildings now multiplied. Shadow and light. Human beings grouped in those lighted Windows and I fantasize, what are they doing? What are they talking about? … Suddenly, untimely, the siren of an ambulance breaks this harmony. My heart beats accelerate and in the fraction of a second, my thoughts jump and suddenly I connect with the pain … “someone is suffering at this moment” I say to myself.

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Healer? Saviour? Saint? No, none of this!!!!! Every human being is a healer. Every human being is love and of course, its counterpart: hatred, or whatever you wish to call it. The simple equation of the opposites that in Eastern philosophy is determined as Ying – Yang. The Opposites’ Law which complement themselves, the attraction of the poles unfailingly united: Light/shadow, love/hate night/day Up/down, healthy/ill war/peace, poverty/wealth, and so on … a divine engineering of intertwines; one contains the part of the other forming one Unity which in turn is part of a Whole. Live with love is an option, I’d say, an opportunity. To execute a skill, whatever it may be, is possible to carry out in a loving way. The attitude with which we carry out our daily actions is what determines the beginning of our behaviours. Opening our eyes upon waking up… with love, maintain that feeling throughout the day to day living – with – the love, it is my decision; that is, a stage of Seiki. A sincere hug, from the heart, is healing. Caress our loved ones is healing, putting oneself in the shoes of the other, especially, when he needs help, is healing at a distance, not wishing harm to those who have been aggressive to us, (because that is his conflict) is giving the aggressor the opportunity to modify his behaviour. The origin of the illness is blockage, accumulated anger, sustained repression, inconsolable grief, resentment… Fixations, negative patterns throughout our existence we repeat and encourage according to our experiences. Image/emotion are reproduced instantaneously. With no time nor space. All the information is kept in our unconscious, it is enough to press the trigger and there it is – now they appear!! If for example, in my childhood I learned to receive love by means of violence, that “fixation” will accompany me for the rest of my life. I will look out for violent relationships to feel loved. Until I decide responsibly to modify the circuit or simply give up. Someone said “if you are not in command of your life, the worse part in you will do it”.

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Intending the heart. Schools and methods to learn the skill of healing are varied. They compose a variety starting from the traditional schools, without contravening the classical rules, up to those found by Internet. From receiving personalized messages from divinity, up to following instructions in a manual step by step. I think the choice of this skill is related to the needs of the person. There are those who in the hurry to learn an easy and fast “technique” to obtain immediate economical benefit; because it is the latest fashion; to cover up time of unemployment until finding a job; because “each time I place my hands on someone the pain disappears”. That is, the needs. No judgement. The heart, the heart.!!!” Without heart it is not likely that any healing method can reach the suffering soul with the purpose of re-establishing it.
Advice. Difficult times. Complicated humans, stressed, depressed. A humanity which at each instant is weakened, blinded by control and power. Also the opposite. Human groups scattered around the world doing their work of healing, with love and gratitude. The Law of the Opposites. …

My acknowledgements. To sensei Tzvika Calisar for his devotion and commitment to Seiki Shiatsu, an example for his pupils, where I include myself. Years of patience and humour, teaching. His constant dedication to researching and improving the method with the purpose of alleviating the sick with therapies more and more effective.
To my patients. Thanks to each one of them, because with discipline, perseverance, work and faith in themselves they were able to eliminate the addiction to pharmaceuticals and the demons which existed in their inner selves. I learn so much from them.

To my pupils, of course, because we for years continued to work with love. Today, many of them are practicing in their own clinics and week after week we continue the path learned from master to master. Also to the apprentices, I observe them with admiration for their efforts to overcome and conceal the pains in the knees, the difficulties in relaxing the body, and understanding that the Universe, like the human body is a group of united elements which function all together, related in perfect harmony. Something resembling a symphony composed by musicians, instruments, scores, a director, when they are in unison we close our eyes… we transcend towards the mystery, towards the sublime… this is when you find yourself so near the Creator. To work, to contribute with our service to the community with the purpose of alleviating and making this world a place to live in a better manner.

How much time has elapsed, one hour? A lifetime? Life encapsulated in a minute? A second? Humanity in my life? I do not know… We are memories and emotion; we are navigators of space in which reality and illusion are a transposition of images, a vortex of emotions that many times I ignore whether it really happened once…
It is time to say goodbye. For the last time I look through my window towards the sky, that dark space now covered with white shiny spots. I see the fireflies that light the windows and it is not the same as a minute ago, a minute? It seems alike, but not equal as before. Constant change and transformation. I close my clinic, I get on my bike and I ride through the winds pedalling, pedalling until I feel that I am alive… once more.
Thank you.

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Testimonies:

"I tried to commit suicide three times and Seiki Shiatsu healed me”
(Newspaper)
This is what Yeni Gallardo lived through, after an almost miraculous recovery, she was saved after a lifetime of serious depressions, thanks to the attention she received at the South La Granja Health Polyclinic, and this testimony was delivered voluntarily to Alejandro Cohen of Seiki Shiatsu School Chile.
“Today I am recovering my life, I feel capable that I can take decisions on my own… I no longer have doubts; I am no one’s shadow. I can handle my daughter by myself. I do not depend on anyone any more".
Name: O.L.
The sessions I have received from Seiki Shiatsu to date have allowed me to gradually recover important physical and spiritual wellbeing and harmony.
The integral focus, the delicacy and deep respect that I felt in the treatment at each Seiki Shiatsu session have allowed me to apprehend new aspects of my organism, and become aware of new applications and perceptions of what is convenient and healthy to continuously improve the quality of my life.
Name: D.H
I never thought I would obtain results from this therapy so soon. When I started my body was hurting and my legs could hardly walk normally; I looked like a 90 year old lady. With this therapy I have greatly changed, my body feels younger and my legs have improved noticeably enabling me to walk without difficulty. Seiki Shiatsu is for me a necessity that my body needs to function.
Name: P.C.
During 45 years I was at the head of a company.
At 59 I retired with a 92% disability. My problems started years ago with sleep apnoea, and in spite of using CIPAP, it produced chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, severe depression, memory problems and understanding. The brain tests resulted in ischemia and lack of brain irrigation. For years I have taken an arsenal of remedies. I felt tired, overwhelmed, without a desire to live. …In October 2006 I started my therapy with Alejandro. I followed his instructions step by step and he accompanied me in the process of recovery. Today my condition is as follows: I have recovered the wish to live, and I have projects to carry out * The tests show my brain with better irrigation * Little by little I have been able to drive my car again (for years I could not) * I do not use remedies to sleep, nor muscle relaxants, nor for fibromyalgia. I had been taking 12 tablets every day, aside from the cortisone injections * I perform permanent exercises to activate memory and concentration.
Name: I.C.
Before, there was a heaviness in body and soul, physical mobility was limited, going to the psychiatrist for years was not enough, it was necessary to look for another alternative, by all means more natural… and after, after a few sessions of Seiki shiatsu, not only did my physical mobility improve but my spirit woke up again.