Dear colleagues and friends,
first of all I would like to thank the Congress organisers for having invited me as speaker and giving me the opportunity to represent Italy in the Flower Therapy world.
The topic I will present is very much in line with the theme of this year's congress: the use of Flower Therapy with our patients.
I will tell you how in the last year I have integrated Flower Therapy with a new element: the Oneness Blessing.
My very first idea was talking to you without preparing a speech, because when you personally live such a strong experience it is easy to express what you feel. However due to the language barrier and the time schedule I decided to write and read my paper in Spanish, also a good way of helping me to keep my enthusiasm under control.
I will tell you how, together with my husband, I came to know about the Oneness Blessing and the consequent visit to India to fully experience with an open heart what turned out to be the most wonderful journey of our life. I will describe the extremely strong connection between the teachings of Edward Bach and those of the Oneness University, my experience and the effect the Oneness Blessing energy has had on me at an emotional and physical level.
Then I'll talk about my return to Italy, my recovery from a syndrome which according to everyone can be rarely treated and with great difficulty, the impact on everyday life and our transformation, the transfer of the Oneness Blessing from me to my friends and patients. The unlimited revelation of the inner world of those who experience the Oneness Blessing, an extremely intelligent Energy that continues to modify and leave a strong and indelible mark in the heart of those who receive it regularly.
I will then conclude with the results I have personally seen on patients, with the aim of illustrating the true and valid support of the Oneness Blessing as powerful accelerator of flower remedies, and element of help in spiritual, psychological and physical healing of a patient.
We first learnt about this Energy a year ago through friends who had lived the experience of going to the Oneness University in Southern India.
They transferred the energy to us and almost immediately we perceived something very particular and unique in our mind and body, something never experienced before, which went beyond the phases of deep silence and peace, experimented in many years of Transcendental Meditation.
We were so strongly drawn towards this new experience that in January 2007 we went to the Oneness University in India for the 21 day process, a spiritual path, a journey, a true process of inner awakening through the teachings of young guides of unlimited vision, and through the contact with human beings that experience very high states of consciousness.
Together with our group from Italy there were people from all over the world and as of today 6000 people have taken part in the 21 day process.
I will try to briefly illustrate what a Oneness Blessing is because today I wish to concentrate on the effects and on my experience as Flower Therapist now that I can transfer the Oneness Blessing to people who come to me for therapy with Flower Essences.
Oneness Blessing literally means "transfer of energy", understood as a divine programme to remove all the filters that exist between us and reality. Reality in simple terms is joy, peace and love. I would describe it as the Intelligent Energy of Nature. The energy is transferred by placing for a short time your hands on the head of the receiver, thus conveying this energy which has the purpose, in time, to lead to a state of oneness. This energy descends through the crown chakra (certain areas of the brain are deactivated and others are stimulated) starting a process in which the biological circuits of the brain and the nervous system are reorganised and the Kundalini channels are reactivated. As you know the chakras have different roles and are connected to the physical and subtle body; a way to reorganise the physical and subtle body is to work on the "pranamayakosa", where the chakras are.
I would just like to say that the Oneness Blessing is in no way related to other different energies that you may have often heard about.
The effects of the Oneness Blessing can be scientifically measured, however paradoxically it is hard to explain what it is.
The effect produced is the start of a neurobiological process that slows down the activity of the parietal lobes of the brain - responsible for the sense of separation within ourselves and with what surrounds us - and helps to change the way in which we perceive ourselves and the world. Once the neurobiological change triggered by the Oneness Blessing is complete, sensory perceptions are freed from any mental interference. When our senses are no longer distracted by the mind's interpretations we can perceive things clearly, and this comes along with spontaneous feelings of joy, inner calm and sense of oneness with all things surrounding us.
On a spiritual level, when we receive a Oneness Blessing it is like the doors open to grace and we start to feel and experience it in a concrete and direct way. It is like establishing a connection with the Transcendent, God, Divine energy of nature or however we wish to call it.
After receiving a Oneness Blessing many people fall into a state of deep silence often accompanied by experiences of ecstasy, expansion of the state of consciousness, absence of thoughts; other feel their heart opening, or a deep feeling of joy or a sense of peace while others feel a lot of love for their family. Different physiological and emotional changes start taking place as the "separate self" dissolves, and in this process of dissolution of the sense of separation everyone starts to perceive feelings of Oneness which grow deeper and deeper, experimenting the feeling of Union with Creation and God and the end of all inner conflicts.
Experiences may vary from one person to another but they all have one thing in common: what you receive from a Oneness Blessing is what you need in that moment. The Oneness Blessing can be described as intelligent and it arrives exactly how you want it or rather how you need it.
We could not resist reading everything we could find about this mysterious Oneness Blessing on internet especially after having experienced it a few times.
The phenomenon started at the end of the eighties in the South of India when Amma and Bhagavan, two teachers recognised as Avatars, founded their own school called Jeevashram, today's Oneness University. Suddenly, in July 1989, some young students started to experience high states of consciousness thanks to an energy which they saw and which entered into them in the shape of a golden sphere. These young people today are awakened and their life is dedicated to the transfer of this powerful energy.
As of today, Amma and Bhagavan have taught about 200 youngsters who after a decade of peregrinations in India giving the Oneness Blessing to millions of people and awaked thousands of them, have taken on the mission to teach and prepare others to carry out this task to favour a rapid diffusion of the experience worldwide.
In 2003 the Oneness University opened the courses to prepare Oneness Blessing Givers to all countries in the world. Since then thousands of seekers and spiritual representatives from all faiths have come to the University.
Every month, about 170 dasas at the Oneness University look after the people arriving from all parts of the planet, whatever credo they belong to.
The process offered is an effective "workshop" for spiritual seekers, for those who have worked on themselves for many years with psychotherapy or meditation but also for those who have never done anything at all. The process includes a series of theory lessons, meditation practices, visualisations and breathing techniques, and also a special meditation with guides who are in a particularly high state of consciousness. Throughout the process the guides give Oneness Blessings. This long course requires personal introspection, it makes you become aware of different aspects concerning you, it helps you to recognise yourself and accept yourself, "cleaning" the relationship you have with yourself and with others.
It was not easy to experience and go through the strong emotions and feelings we had to face with: we contacted our "dark areas" recognising and accepting them; we experienced and managed suffering, expectations, projections and masks. Once aware of our selfish nature and all the wrong done to others, as well to ourselves, we were ready to move on, to the more pure state of Self, to discover (or rediscover) our relationship with the Divine, which we were invited to contact in the form we preferred - it could be a presence, voice, light or image.
As we went on in our process I had the feeling that it wasn't a temporary experience but a reality that was becoming more and more part of me in an intimate and connected way, coherent with everything that surrounded me, my friends on this journey, and the entire Universe.
However, the process was also difficult. I had to overcome painful mountains, the feeling I would like to convey to you is that of being thrown into a washing machine: all your deepest and most rooted emotions washed and rinsed by the water, by tears, expressing pain and wounds which had never healed or even unknown. I was thrown from one part of my body to another, stripped of all masks and complications.
It was like delving into the deepest and darkest part of you, "into the dark night of the soul" as they described it, and we perceived it. That is how it was for me too, like a stormy sea. And when the washing energy gently stopped there was only calm and great silence. I could fully perceive what I had often felt in my life and described as tranquillity and harmony. Anyway I was feeling something much stronger: it was the complete and full union between Soul, Mind and Body.
That was probably the moment in which a Light pervaded me, that was probably "the moment" in which my illness disappeared.
I kept remembering the pages, the writings of Edward Bach (which we all know very well) stating that happiness comes to us when we are in harmony with our spiritual self, and: "the closer the union the more intense the joy" .
Bach reminds us that " .in the physical body, disease is the result of the resistance of the personality to the guidance of the soul. When we forget the divinity within us (we each have a Divine mission in this world), and our souls use our minds and bodies as instruments to do this work: when all three are working in unison, the result is perfect health and perfect happiness".
Bach's words from the book "Free thyself", which I have read over and over again, kept ringing in my ears, saying that we are children of the Creator and as such we are divine. Our souls will guide us if only we will listen our own soul, if we will be true to our own Divinity, our soul alone is responsible for our good. Our reputation is in His keeping. We can rest assured that there is only one sin: not obeying the dictates of our own Divinity.
The guides kept repeating we must understand that Love and Unity are the greatest foundations of our creation, as Edward bach wrote.
I was fully immersed in that absolutely unique atmosphere, in a whirlwind of words of Universal Love towards ourselves and others and at the same time I could feel the Oneness Blessing working on every single cell of mine.
I had the feeling that Bach had foreseen all this and the awakening I saw around me was proof of this. Back in 1930, Bach in his book "Heal thyself" was sure that "disease would be conquered by faith and spiritual means, the quest after the ancient teachings and wisdom of the East" thus changing method to "a science founded upon the realities of Truth and governed by the same Divine laws which rule our very natures".
He also added that "healing will pass from the domain of physical methods of treating the physical body to that of spiritual and mental healing, which by bringing about harmony between the Soul and mind will eradicate the very basic cause of disease".
I must admit that despite my profound knowledge of Dr. Bach's convictions and beliefs, only when I was in that atmosphere did I clearly and intensely perceived the meaning he gave to the role of doctors : "to open the eyes of a sufferer and enlighten him on the reason of his being, and to inspire hope, comfort and faith which will enable him to conquer his illness and to administer such remedies as will help the physical body to gain strength and assist the mind to become calm, widen its outlook and strive towards perfection, thus bringing peace and harmony to the whole personality"
The circle was complete. Could it be that on my return my work as Flower Therapist was to have this role, that is, to help a patient to contact his Divine in the same way as we were so wonderfully perceiving it in that moment? I was deeply moved, full of joy and gratitude for such an opportunity to contact that world.
I have no time here to describe and tell you how often in those days of teachings my mind went to the single remedies of Edward Bach: each lesson or topic taught to us by the guides could have had the name of a Flower, it was extraordinary! A friend of mine, who is a Flower Therapist, told me that now the Flowers are "like small Oneness Blessing creatures, connected at a certain level of the universe, and thanks to the pureness of their information, in their message they can reorganise some of our vibrations, specific emotions which are more or less deeply within us to make them become part of universal harmony".
We returned home with these great teachings and experiences; I felt as if I was totally protected, inside a compact sphere, and with this feeling I returned to my everyday life in Rome.
During our stay in India I did not realise that something had abandoned me, I can't say whether it did so suddenly or gradually, but on my return I realised that the aches and pains I had felt for the last 4 years gone.
I suffered from fibromyalgy, and before that I was diagnosed chronic fatigue syndrome. All this made my life difficult: the pain never abandoned me, I only felt a slight relief when resting for a long time in very hot water. Some of my colleagues and friends present here today knew about my illness and with their help, experience and support I looked for a solution to this invalidity which was wearing me out. I lived, worked, rejoiced in the happy moments always accompanied by this presence within me, dotted around in my muscles from head to toe. My body burned, my shoulders felt as if they had been bitten by a dog that wouldn't let go.
Fibromyalgia is a difficult syndrome to diagnose at the beginning; it is a complex and chronic disease.
I started to have problems sleeping, paresthesias in the hands, strong pain in my shoulder blades and harms, stiff joints and spine, frequent muscular tensive pain, exaggerated tiredness, difficulty in concentrating, mood swings for no particular reason, dry eyes and anxiety.
As we all know, there is a test carried out by rheumatologists to confirm the diagnosis and it involves finger pressure applied to 18 specific points of the body which are the trigger points for fibromyalgy.
The rheumatologist told me that I would have had to live with this syndrome for all my life. He gave me some practical advice and a therapy mainly involving antidepressants, medicines to help me to sleep and pain killers when the pain was unbearable. It was terrible: I used to study and read everything written in Italy and abroad on this syndrome; I did not follow the pharmacological therapy, but I was taking Flowers, homeopathic remedies, having long periods of acupuncture, osteopathy and so on. Everything helped, but not enough.
The etiopathogenesis has not yet been clearly identified the causes: some say that there may be something wrong with the muscles of a fibromyalgic patient, however there is no inflammation or nervous lesion, others say that it may be a stress induced syndrome; muscular, endocrine, genetic and neurological factors are all certainly involved. Some doctors believe that the pain modulation system, that involves both the central and peripheral nervous system, may be compromised.
Just imagine how I felt when I realised that all those symptoms had disappeared, it was like a dream and I was frightened of waking up one morning in the same conditions as before. I would also like to add that all the problems related to my intestine had miraculously gone. A year has passed and I can confirm that my body is much stronger still functioning well, without those problems, in harmony.
And now the most important part for you, the effects that the Oneness Blessing has had on those who have received it and on patients treated with Flower Therapy.
And to end, the experiences of my colleague Flower Therapists who have come in contact with the Oneness Blessing.
My husband and I started to give Oneness Blessings in a very discreet and gradual way: this was another important initiation for us because those who experienced this energy felt what we had felt: a great inner silence, a sense of union, love and peace.
Some people did not feel anything, but once they had received a few other Oneness Blessings they started to feel the interior process of subtle change. However, as many of us have experienced, you do not only come into contact with the positive parts of your personality and live experiences of joy. The parts you do not like also emerge (for example something negative like an unresolved problem) and our resistance to see these parts of us, and accept them, causes suffering.
For this reason, every time an uncomfortable feeling arises when receiving a Oneness Blessing it is necessary to look and find what we resist to understand, what we are running away from, and we will be automatically helped without effort in this process. Once again I found some coincidences between the work of Bach Flowers to enter in contact with our darkest sides and the work of the Oneness Blessing: both help us go beyond the hidden parts of our personality.
The changes experienced by who has received a Oneness Blessing from us are perceivable at work, in family relationships, in the relationship with a partner, in the physical body and emotional state. Everyone feels more relaxed, and quality of sleep improves. People start to have the feeling that they began a journey that will do them good, as if they can "feel" something moving inside, running smoothly, the body and mind start to move and in the right way.
As I mentioned earlier, I felt there was a really close connection between Oneness Blessing and Bach Flowers, so I felt ready to experiment it on my patients.
I heard from many international psychotherapists that the Oneness Blessing was an accelerator in all senses.
I started with some patients, first by talking to them about it and giving them something to read about it, but in a limited way. I was and still am convinced that it is essential to experience it: some patients were positive about it and asked to anticipate the next appointment to receive a Oneness Blessing again, others were not sure what was happening (or if anything was happening) but they wanted to experience it.
I noticed that many of them perceived the same sensations as others who had entered in contact with this energy. The most common sensations are: feeling a throb in your heart, a fluttering which is not tachycardia, it is like the flutter of large butterfly wings, moments of indescribable joy, detachment from things and problems which tormented their minds, feeling of harmony between religions, attenuation of inner conflicts and family conflicts.
From a therapeutic point of view it has been very interesting for me to notice how patients achieve an inner calm, that allows them to savour the fading away of incessant mental noise. As Eckhart Tolle has superbly described in his book "The power of now", ".The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive ... It uses you. This is the disease. You believe that you are your mind. This is the delusion. The instrument has taken you over". Tolle insists a lot on the torturer in the mind that attacks, taking away vital energy and causing suffering, unhappiness and diseases. By freeing ourselves of the power of the mind we can start our journey towards being free from suffering, interior and exterior conflicts and realise that the word "enlightenment" does not evoke, as Tolle reminds us, a superhuman deed but "is simply the natural state of union with our Self, with life in its manifest aspect, with the world and one's deepest self and with life that is not manifest".
When, for example, among other symptoms there is also mental chatter, the Oneness Blessing can be used as valid support in the treatments thanks to that particular quality of silence it can generate.
Another frequent improvement, which has accelerated other therapies has been the one related to fear and panic attacks. Patients have frequently experienced the feeling of being protected and stronger: in a way that is real for them, but very hard to describe.
One of my patients, with whom I have been working for a few months, has noticed an extraordinary improvement as regards her claustrophobia, from which she has been suffering for a long time and which limits her in every day life. She goes to work by bus and when it stops because of the traffic, she used to panic, feel faint and her heartbeat would increase. Since she has received the Oneness Blessing she feels a serene sense of immobility, that Amma and Bhagavan are next to her and very often she does not even notice that the bus has started moving again.
I would like to add that the Oneness Blessing has also changed me in that sense: it is as if it is easier to accept situations both in personal and professional life, perhaps there is less fear because you feel protected in every moment and I must admit it is an amazing feeling.
Another aspect of me, which has been drastically reduced, is the part of me that was influenced and conditioned by external factors and people, which could result in a type of dependency. That part, which took away my energy (and gave me the feeling of being subjugated), in part also by my fibromyalgy.
The same thing has happened as regards that exaggerated feeling of super efficiency: the worry of disappointing others, the physical and mental overload and very intense pain. Bach Flowers Remedies have helped me a lot in this sense, but the Oneness Blessing has given the final nudge.
In this sense I feel very close to the words of Neale Walsch, author of the trilogy "Conversations with God", that say that only when you require no approval from outside than can experience " yourself". Or when he reminds us that if all you desired is what your soul desired, everything would be very simple. Today, as I try to listen to the part of me that is pure spirit, like my true feelings, all my decisions are simpler and I hope they will bring joyous results and that life will become an instrument of immense gratitude.
With other patients the Oneness Blessing has accelerated the awareness some of personal problems, and awareness of being able to change structured attitudes, an inelastic mind and ancient anger.
Whoever would like to know more about this, I will be available later, unfortunately time is my enemy, and I've got to conclude.
I would like to say just a few words on the sensations perceived by the Flower Therapists who have willingly accepted to receive the Oneness Blessing.
They have all experienced the refinement of their capacity to perceive the patient and find easier to know which Flowers to prescribe; a colleague told me that her intuitive and rational part is so immediate that the treatment writes itself and the results arrive, using Flowers, words and actions. Entering in contact with this energy has made her more empathic towards patients, thus involving an exchange of energy and compassion.
Another colleague told me that since she has been regularly receiving Oneness Blessings from us everything in her life runs more smoothly in her spiritual journey, and inner growth. She was already aware that a process of awakening had started within her, but now it was rapidly accelerating. She compares her change to a flower that blossoms, and now she is convinced that the Flower Essences prescribed, and prepared by a Oneness Blessing Giver (or in any case by a person who has started the awakening process), are even more powerful, more targeted and when necessary gentler.
A colleague once expressed gratitude and told me: "Bach Flowers and the Oneness Blessing are apparently two separate roads, however they actually compenetrate perfectly: Nature and Divine". Since the Oneness Blessing has entered her life, her head has started to function, and something else has stopped functioning. It is as if one day a gnome electrician had cut the wires in short circuit, replaced others worn and obsolete, and at the same time added the earth or neutral wire. On an emotional level different emotions like sadness, anger, deep suffering, fear, joy and happiness without reason have been set free. On a sentimental level she has understood Love in the sense of giving yourself. On a physical level she has experienced the release of chronic tensions she was unaware of. The strongholds of her conscious convictions have fallen like "leaves from a tree", leaving only the will to let go and a deep silence. In the relationship with others everything has changed, and this also with people that go to her for Flower Therapy.
Dear friends and colleagues the studies I have carried out in this last year, related to Flower Therapy and natural treatments, have taken on a different shape, and thanks to the Oneness Blessing I have re-read various texts with different eyes, such as the three volumes by Douglas Baker on Esoteric Healing. The author describes forms of healing where energies with strong vibrations can recharge the channels of the astral and ethereal body of a patient. In these pages the author underlines the importance of the attitude of the healer filled by a deep feeling of Love when the mental attitude to create is an attitude of Union, union with all living things, including the patient and healer.
Edward Bach's message is: recognise that all things are United and recognise that health, like life, belongs to God and God only; that a therapist is an instrument of the Divine Plan to help who is suffering to return on the path of Divine Law.
Concepts that my colleague Eduardo Grecco (Mexico) superbly recalls in his book "Hecho y proceso diagnóstico en Terapia Floral" where he focuses on that bond of love and relationship necessary in a therapeutic meeting, to channel the healing power of Remedies. I always liked his way of considering a therapy session as a relationship, with the need to establish a close contact with the patient, in order to create an empathic comprehension on which the Flowers can work.
I believe that there is a moment in the evolution of all souls in which the most important thing becomes no longer the mere survival of the physical body, but the growth of the spirit, no longer the attachment to earthly success, but the need to discover one's Self. This is why I felt it was important to tell you about my experience, an experience which has changed my way of looking at life, and my relationship with the people and things around me.
Thanks for listening.