by Jenny Ellis, Esoteric Practitioner, Brisbane
As someone who grew up without the influence of organised religion and in a largely atheist household, I had no meaningful experiences I would ever have called religious. I did however have a great deal of experience with what I might have once called healing, being involved in and passionate about health and fitness most of my younger life and studying natural medicine for several years. To link the words religion and healing at the time however, could not have been more absurd in my view, and so to come to a point today where I now link healing and religion inextricably reflects a significant shift in my understanding.
When we think of healing, I dare say for most the word has lost its real meaning in everyday life and would be considered synonymous with the current dictionary offerings of: alleviating, palliating, easing, helping, softening, lessening, mitigating, attenuating, allaying and so on.
Historically in many cultures religion and healing have actually shared a close relationship. Shamans and priests held the power to ‘heal’ the sick through restoring the relationship of the individual with the unseen dimensions. A disturbance in this relationship was seen, and still is, amongst some religious enthusiasts as a valid cause of illness.
This understanding, particularly in the face of our adoption of evidence-based medicine, has for many taken a radical turn away from these historic origins.
Today an apparent relationship between religion and healing would appear to exist primarily amongst those who remain religious enthusiasts or within cultures where this relationship with the unseen dimensions remain an intrinsic part of daily life.
What does it mean to heal?
So what does it mean to ‘heal’ really? And what is the relationship we have with this in everyday life?
What does it actually mean to be ‘religious’?
And what then is the real relationship between the meanings of these two words?
The true meaning of the word healing appears to be of Germanic origins. From the German heilen and Dutch helen which in translation means ‘to make whole’. From these come the old English word heilen: which is ‘to cure, save, make whole, sound and well’.
This begs a further question then as to what does it actually mean to ‘make whole’? Is that merely the alleviation of symptoms and discomforts, as our current thesaurus synonyms would suggest, as well as what the majority of our current health-care system is geared towards? Or is there more to us than meets the eye, so to speak, and are we in fact not capturing what it means to ‘be whole’ in our current paradigms?
What is true religion?
And then what is true religion? From its history, we know it is a word derived from the Latin word ‘religio’, which means to ‘re-read, re-trace, re-consider diligently the connection or relationship with God’. However, there is no question that our current understanding and use of that word has strayed far from these origins.
From this meaning, it appears a distinctly personal relationship is referred to and not one necessarily fostered by or belonging to an institution, an organised religious movement, a building or a designated individual. It is, by this inference, a personal relationship that refers to that which re-unites us with our essence, or in other words, reunites us with the divinity we are.
There is a very apparent parallel to be understood when it comes to healing.
The entire movement of ‘holistic medicine’ over the past 30 years has rested on the fact there is more to us than a physical body. Naturopathy and Chinese Medicine in particular are two prime examples. They rest their tenets and approach on the body being influenced by not just a myriad of external influences but also by emotions, mental activity and what is loosely referred to as ‘stress’. There is no question these are valid observations, as most of us would acknowledge these things in life can affect our sense of wellbeing and vitality and life is made up of all these.
What does it mean to make ‘whole’?
These approaches however, while perhaps taking into consideration a greater acknowledgement of a ‘whole’, would still appear to be leaving us way short of the mark, if in fact we are also in some way to re-unite with a divine aspect within, in order to ‘make us whole’, as true healing requires.
To make whole, means to restore something that is fundamentally complete, intact, everything it was in its origins. And if we are from divinity, then this implies that to be ‘complete’ or ‘whole’ means also to be re-united with that part of us. No wow factor, no hail-Mary’s necessary, simply a restoration of a completeness that would have us feel utterly and completely normal, albeit a new-normal you might say, for in this ‘whole’ state we would also be fully aware of the fact of our divine essence, as well as our physicality, emotionality and our mental aspects.
The connection between healing and religion in that sense becomes very clear but there is an even more decided reason for these words to be so intrinsically linked.
What I have discovered in working with Universal Medicine Therapies and applying the teachings of the Ancient Wisdom, is that it is the divine essence that IS the very life-giving principle responsible for instigating healing within the body. Restore our connection and relationship to it, and we will also restore the body’s enormous capacity to rebalance and heal, thus supporting and sustaining our vitality and function.
What is the ‘healing principle’?
The ‘healing principle’ within the body is something wondrous and constant – just watch the miraculous healing unfold when our skin is broken, something occurring on a micro-level we observe and for the most part, take for granted every day.
This ever-present healing aspect is captured at a physical level by the concept of homeostasis: the body’s unceasing movement towards healing itself, rebalancing. It is us and our moment-by-moment choices that create the obstacles to this natural and unceasing movement towards healing.
We have a world constantly searching for meaning in life with a growing sense of urgency. We have every possible institution and industry on earth to support seeking this way or that – we have many billions of people involved in organised religion and religious movements, subscribing to various systems of belief, paths of spiritualism and schools of philosophy – and yet unrest, disharmony and dis-ease are increasingly prevalent the world over.
It follows that if religion, in its truest sense, is synonymous with true healing, then what humanity is historically and presently engaging in on the whole cannot be true religion and our efforts to heal cannot be true healing either. The two cannot exist in isolation to one another, regardless of what we call it, when one is truly healing, one must be in true religion at the same time.
Separation from Essence = dis-ease
The ultimate relationship between religion and healing is reflected in one word: essence. If the human essence is in fact divinity, then any disconnection from or discordance with that essence, is basically us not living or being what or who we truly are, complete and united. From this perspective, it’s then easy to understand how that disconnect or discord would underlie all dis-ease and disharmony within the body.
And so, it is through religion we heal and through healing we find religion, in the truest meaning of these words.
Read more:
Medicine and Serge Benhayon 
What you have written makes sense to me
“a personal relationship that refers to that which re-unites us with our essence, or in other words, reunites us with the divinity we are.”
We have lost our ‘at one-ment’ with God and because of this we then live in the unsettlement of life. I feel this unsettlement then manifests as a dis-ease in our bodies which leads to the disease. I read recently that the old word religion meant to have a relationship with God as opposed to going through a intermediary and this makes sense to me as God is all around us, the very air we breathe, so how can someone else tell us what God is or is not when we have a direct relationship with Him.
I am sure that many of us do not like to contemplate the fact that we are living in a way that is not whole, that there is an enormous and grand part of ourselves that we are in denial of, but if we were to honestly ask ourselves about why life plays out in the way that it does, with illness, disease, crime, corruption and a whole lot more, not just by looking out and blaming the rest of society, but by asking honestly how we as individuals contribute to all of the above and why, then it is very clear that we are living in a way that is fragmented and thus sullied then the whole is something that we actively search for and in this search, with genuine intention, we encounter true healing, whether we recognise it as such or not.
‘If the human essence is in fact divinity, then any disconnection from or discordance with that essence, is basically us not living or being what or who we truly are, complete and united. From this perspective, it’s then easy to understand how that disconnect or discord would underlie all dis-ease and disharmony within the body.’ This is such s simple philosophy, and some may say too simple, but once we are open to it it makes an awful lot of sense.
Jenny, how our bodies heal is absolutely spectacular, at that micro level, unseen by the naked eye. But if we ponder on the moment of how it heals, it is no different to servicing a car to keep it going lovingly. Neglect it and it will let you down.
The body can be fixed or patched together with surgery or medicine to a certain point, it also requires the beholder of the body to be part of the healing too, in other words to be responsible and maintain it too.
To truly heal begins with a true relationship with the body and when we have this relationship with the body, we form a connection, a connection that is beautiful to be with. And when we are connected, we see healing from a different perspective and accept it for what it is and then we play our part in it.
‘and so to come to a point today where I now link healing and religion inextricably reflects a significant shift in my understanding.’ This is key, in that we don’t just take it for face value of what someone has said or go with knowledge we have been told but instead it comes from within and with our own understanding.
Jenny I really feel this needs to go into a book, it’s such a stunning piece of writing and explores so clearly the truth about the foundation of a truly vital, healthy, and joyous life – something we all deserve to be aware of. Your words about “to make whole” really resonated with me, and how with religion it’s something we simply return to by restoring our connection to our divine selves. There is something about the word “wholeness” that is so very beautiful, it’s something that is already complete, untainted, unbroken, and is in its full integrity. And that is who we are in our essence.
Melinda, this “wholeness” is not only important but feels an integral part of our being living in separation. So it’s a no wonder we are at unease with ourselves when we are parted. It kind of feels like that jigsaw puzzle missing a piece, it isn’t complete until that missing piece is found and when we put it together and it can then be compete. Then it looks and feels different, no different to where we are in life.
“If the human essence is in fact divinity, then any disconnection from or discordance with that essence, is basically us not living or being what or who we truly are, complete and united. From this perspective, it’s then easy to understand how that disconnect or discord would underlie all dis-ease and disharmony within the body.” Wow , what an amazing summary of your article. Beautifully expressed, thankyou.
“What does it mean to make ‘whole’?” – this is a great question that exposes the fact of how we have been compensating the obvious un-whole-ness that we sense. And when we understand that the word ‘religion’ in truth means to re-connect, re-bound, it just reveals the true nature of the grandness that we are and how we have been avoiding that, and how the true healing is in the reverse of this obvious bastardisation that we have allowed to be manufactured eons ago.
If we don’t consider if the meaning of a word has been changed we are at the mercy of those who are clever with words. Not having considered myself clever with words I was less than discerning for much of my life. It is time to be wise and not take words at face value.
It is a great point Jenny makes here about the exposure of the word religion and its true meaning. It takes me back a long, long time ago where I am at one with the word and my connection to God long before any institutionalised religion was formed to come full circle to welcome and embrace once again its true meaning and living in connection to God, everyone and everything on this plane of life.
“If the human essence is in fact divinity, then any disconnection from or discordance with that essence, is basically us not living or being what or who we truly are, complete and united. From this perspective, it’s then easy to understand how that disconnect or discord would underlie all dis-ease and disharmony within the body.” I agree wholeheartedly from my own experience of returning to my essence. What I would add to the conversation is that our disconnect to and discord with our essence doesn’t just affect the body, it actually affects the whole of society – the way we are with each other and with life in general. True healing and religion are not just for an individuals wellbeing, but to restore wholeness to communities.
Religion in its truest sense will always be synonymous with true healing.
Yes this gives a ‘whole’ new meaning to the term ‘holistic medicine’.
I also would not have normally put religion and healing together but I can see how they are intimately linked after reading this blog and how in a way they cannot be separated.
Then origin of healing … to make whole… how true this is now as to what is needed for humanity … and this is precisely what Universal Medicine offers.
This is very beautiful. After reading this it’s just impossible to imagine how one can be without the other. Many years ago ‘healing’ for me was almost synonymous with curing or improving. It did have a whiff of something beyond the physical about that word, but that is where I dumped anything that I could not quite understand or explain, but that is exactly where the truth of us in essence unites these two words – healing and religion – and explains the unexplainable.
“it is through religion we heal and through healing we find religion,” Beautiful. To reconnect to our essence of who we are is healing and in healing the separation from who we are we find our reconnection to our essence.
We all know innately inside us somehow that the choices we make are hugely powerful – and that if we truly want things to change then they will. It’s this internal knowing of our godliness and living in accordance to this, that is religion to me
Yes, we do indeed all know, we just give our power away to the belief that change is hard or that change is scary. But we have walked away from embracing who we are and what we bring and the outplay of that is there in the statistics for illness and disease – that is the scariest bit to me.
To truly heal is to become whole in body, mind, and Soul and yes, “so it is through religion we heal and through healing we find religion” there can be no other way.
True religion ‘ a personal relationship that refers to that which re-unites us with our essence, or in other words, reunites us with the divinity we are.’ When I read these words I understand the importance of living my essence and returning to being who I truly am, because without it I live in disharmony which opens the door to illness and disease.
The more we connect to the divineness within ourselves the road to healing is offered in abundance.
A fabulous article and what really stood out for me today was the word ‘Restoration’, they way it was written and the way it felt, I felt inspired, supported in my return to who I am in essence. To restore ourselves offers the truth that we do not need to look for solutions and fixes, we instead allow ourselves to surrender to a return, what is already known.’
Yes.. restoration makes me think of meticulously restoring a precious work of art to its original glory. The same is true of our bodies and ourselves: we are already glorious, but sometimes we get lost in the world and forget that, and need to do some meticulous and loving work on ourselves to feel and emanate that beauty again.
Restoring the whole is a matter of reconnection back to the inner heart as disconnection from self and others is the modern dis-ease.
“And so, it is through religion we heal and through healing we find religion, in the truest meaning of these words.” In the past I would never have associated these two words, but having a true and deep understanding of the meaning of each one thanks to Serge Benhayon, the above statement now makes complete sense to me.
‘So what does it mean to ‘heal’ really? And what is the relationship we have with this in everyday life?’ Great question. Emphasising the word ‘really’ I would hand on heart signpost anyone to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for they are the true deal when it comes to living, understanding and teaching about this ✨
So true, Vicky. Nowhere else have I come across any organisation that takes every single aspect of a person and supports them to heal energetically, emotionally and physically.
Returning to truth, to God, to Love, to knowing you are divine. Whatever we want to call it, the fact is, this is one journey we are all on whether we choose to accept it or not. It works better when it’s embraced!
This simple truth that we are Divine in our essence – just by accepting this truth makes absolute sense of everything in life and beyond. The fact that we have been denying this truth all along, the fact that illness and disease keep increasing as we think we are ‘advancing’, the fact that our body constantly works to keep us alive and bring back homeostasis when it is off, and accepting that we are Divine in our essence and start having a relationship with that part, that is religion.
Your blog demonstrates how there is an immutable relationship between healing, religion, philosophy, medicine, science and the human body, which further suggests that the way we live has a lot to do with the All – that is everything is related to everything, from thoughts, to actions, to behaviours and movement.
My feeling upon reading this is that we still need to claim the truth of the word Religion, and in this claiming lay a path for humanity to walk upon to return to the true nature of our being.
Running the body ragged and then expecting it to deliver top results is arrogant and irresponsible. Common sense tells us that the way we treat the body will determine how well it will be and how well it will perform for us.