We have a natural healing ability and sense of balance within us. They’ve been given to us from the beginning—like water and air. When we recover these qualities, we’ll succeed at taking care of our bodies and at looking after nature.
Our bodies have a natural healing ability for restoring our balance and harmony, but we can’t avoid disease if we live in ways that suppress this power. Nature also has a fantastic capacity for purifying itself.
Water Up, Fire Down energy circulation is an important part of this balancing power. It’s as necessary within ecosystems as it is within the human body. With Water Up, Fire Down, warm energy flows downward and cool energy flows upward; you could also say that fire flows down and water flows up.
Although in a natural state, rain falls to the ground, and water flows down from high places to low places, and you see that both fire and smoke rise upward, the opposite movement coexists within a healthy living organism. Think about trees. Their roots suck up the energy of water from the ground (water up). The leaves receive the energy of fire sent down by the sun (fire down). Trees produce leaves and flowers and bear fruit this way through water-fire circulation.
Hot, light things rising and heavy, cold things sinking creates the cosmic order and provides stability to everything in existence. Conversely, cold things rising and hot things sinking creates change and provides dynamism. Countless possibilities are conceived and actualized through creation and change within a framework of predictable natural laws
All organisms are healthy when the energies of water and fire achieve good harmony in their bodies, and their life force weakens when this balance is broken. Just as we experience physical sickness and emotional discomfort when we have reversed water-fire flow, nature suffers when its circulation is disrupted and its balance broken, for nature is a living organism, too.
Just as humans experience physical sickness and emotional discomfort when our energy is imbalanced, nature suffers when its circulation is disrupted and its balance broken, for nature is a living organism, too. Click To TweetWe’re Putting Too Much Stress on the Earth
Humanity has been disrupting this balance, injuring nature in profound ways without respite. Under this onslaught, it doesn’t get a chance to heal the injuries we have inflicted upon it. The earth, like many people, is suffering burnout because of its chronic reversed water-fire circulation.
One symptom of the earth’s reversed water-fire energy flow is global warming, which shows that the planet’s harmonious temperature balance is breaking. The earth has accumulated an incredible amount of stress from global warming, including expanding desertification, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and abnormal climate events. The pain the earth is suffering because of human greed is boomeranging back to us. When climate change causes frequent extreme weather events—including wildfires, droughts, and flooding—wild animals lose their habitat and move into places where humans live or breed livestock. The potential for human viral infection increases as a result.
As more and more people lose their sense of harmony and balance because of extreme stress and materialistic lives, our species’ reversed water-fire flow is becoming more severe with time. Our reversed energy state is perfectly reflected in all areas of human life. First of all, personal relationships are shaken. If your chest and head are flooded with heat, that fire energy is bound to spread to others, unknown to you, through your attitude, words, or deeds. Consequently, a vicious cycle develops, in which people inflict wounds on each other, creating a reversed water-fire flow where people routinely steal the energy of others and have their own energy stolen. Imagine people with reversed water-fire flow, their heads hot and bellies cold, struggling for each other’s energy.
This human energy state is reflected, unaltered, in people’s attitude toward the global environment. They don’t know how to care for their planet because their own energy is unstable. They’re in pain, so they make the earth suffer, too. The results of our actions in dealing with others and the planetary environment—both of which arise out of our energy state—come back to haunt us. It is obvious that the earth’s reversed water-fire energy flow will continue intensifying if humanity doesn’t change its ways. Unless the water-fire flow of humanity is restored, the water-fire balance of the planet will disappear forever.
If the Planet Hurts, So Do We
Just as we can live in a state of water-fire energy balance, taking care of our bodies naturally, each of us can become caretakers for the planet, ensuring that the earth has good water-fire energy flow. Such a balance cannot come from environmental policymakers alone. The actions and energy balance of all of us perpetuate this problem, so the solution also needs to come from all of us.
We can live without a country, religion, or ideology. But we cannot exist if our environment is sick, and we’re unable to breathe the air, drink the water, or eat the food it provides. When nature gets sick, humans also get sick. If the water-fire energy balance of nature is broken, preventing water and air from circulating as they should, human water-fire energy circulation can’t be adequately maintained, either. However, if we each recover our sense for achieving harmony and balance, we can also improve the planet’s health.
The natural environment is being ruined now because our will to control ourselves has weakened. When we lose our sense of balance, we search endlessly for novel and more potent stimuli to keep us endlessly entertained and distracted from our situation. We use more energy and resources, and create more waste in the process. In our present way of life, our drive for individual satisfaction creates the earth’s stress. The natural healing ability and sense of balance within us are not man-made. They’ve been given to us from the beginning of our lives—like water and air. When we recover these qualities, hidden within everyone, we will succeed at taking care of our bodies and at looking after nature.
All of the work I’ve done and the programs I’ve created have been for the purpose of helping us recover our natural healing ability and sense of achieving balance.
Editor’s Note:
Learn more from Ilchi Lee’s book, Water Up Fire Down: An Energy Principles for Creating Calmness, Clarity, and a Lifetime of Health or take classes in Ilchi Lee’s Brain Education method at Body & Brain Yoga Tai Chi centers. Find a center in the United States at bodynbrain.com.
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