private health care : practical working definition of health exists in actual homeopathic practice than George Vithoulkas' "freedom from limitations." In so many situations on a day to day basis practitioners make real choices in terms of remedy selection, prognosis and evaluation based on its simple guide-line-"Is it a limitation?" But despite the relative efficacy of this heuristic, homeopathy has not gone far enough in articulating a definition of health.
I hope we can gain significant benefits both for our science and our practice from opening up an inquiry into what exactly we mean by the term "health." Health is freedom from pain in the physical body, having attained a state of well-being.
Health on the emotional plane is freedom from passion, having as a result a dynamic state of serenity and calm. Health is freedom from selfishness in the mental sphere, having as a result total unification with Truth.
This Vithoulkas definition is paramount in the dominant forms of classical homeopathy practiced here in America. Including the mental, emotional, and physical together in a working definition is the outstanding characteristic of this definition. The essence of its message is well-being physically, serenity and calmness emotionally, and unification with the truth mentally. Clearly, there is room for more development in this paradigm.
In India there are five recognized medical systems; Homeopathy, Allopathy, Ayur Veda, Urani and Siddha. The last three traditional systems represent the ancient Vedic, the Greco-Persian and South Indian Drividian lineages. Even in a populated and poor country like India the government and private foundations offer all these services for free or at minimal cost. We can only pray that such an enlightened healthcare system could happen in the USA. What is happening in the USA is shameful.
India is a great place to study Homeopathy because you are exposed to the most virulent acute diseases as well as the most degenerative chronic conditions. In India we see everything from meningitis, malaria and cholera to hydrocephalus, diabetes, cancer, TB and madness. Homeopathy is considered a front-line medicine, not a fringe system to allopathy. Homeopaths have their own schools, boards, government hospitals and rural clinics which can be found even in some remote places. There is also a strong lay movement which follows the lead of the medical officers.
afford most homeopaths. Primarily the fault can be found in the entire delivery of healthcare in our country, but homeopaths still have the responsibility to deal with inaccessibility in their personal practice. When contrasted to India, where many doctors may volunteer one day a week each at a free clinic, (only people who cannot afford care use this resource), homeopaths in our country are far from available.
Value is also mistakenly distorted in our culture.
People spend more money on food, recreation, vacation, or useless objects of consumption rather then on a few visits to a life-changing homeopath. The cultural attitude is such that a valued resource cannot be shared equally among community members. Our distortion of value imposes itself on the homeopathic profession. Even our own homeopathic community cannot determine how to share its resources. How will the public ever learn to recognize our resources if we cannot share them ourselves?
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