My journey of coming to integrative holistic understanding of plants – how it all began?

“Plants have long been primary teachers for those who travel deep into the heart of the world, for those who seek the soul teaching that only the wild can bring.”

Stephen Harrod Buhner

Since the beginning of time, every small plant has traveled with the humans and evolved aside human beings, the unmoving trees and shrubs have always intrigued mankind, plants have become a quintessential part of human life. They have served as food, shelter, clothing, worshiped as gods, and mainly as a healing agent and as homeopathic remedies.

For me the journey of understanding plants in depth started while assisting Dr. Rajan Sankaran for his books An Insight into Plants Vol I, II in 2002; it initiated the process of understanding the plants at the whole level. While working on these two volumes he would ask me to study the sensation of each remedy and its family from various sources of materia medica old and new, repertory and provings, in this way the habit of looking at the remedy from various angles started to grow in me.

After completing my work Dr. Sankaran wrote for me, “May you grow like a plant on good soil and good atmosphere and to come to your full potential”

After this work, for 16 years I was developing the pioneering concept of case witnessing process. To begin with, the concept of understanding of holistic level developed, then integrative holistic concept followed by the multidimensional approach in the case witnessing process evolved.

In 2016 while I was recovering from a major illness, while a lot of new ideas and theories about plants were coming up, few of my close colleagues and students were facing difficulty in understanding this new concept which prompted me to look into understanding plants again. I realized that many of these new ideas were based on an individual understanding of a particular theme which lacked a cohesive idea.

I have been a firm believer in the universal law of generalization, that which is true for one part of the system has to be true for the other part of the system as well, then the integrative holistic multidimensional approach which was true for case taking had to be true for plant kingdom as well, isn’t it?

Thus began my search into knowing a particular remedy from all aspects, I began understanding the classification of plants, understanding the orders, families, tribes and then finding out all about the common remedies to the uncommon remedies. From nature, chemistry, modern medicine research, mythology, materia medica, provings, repertory, gradually I could see a common thread in most of these aspects and came to a holistic understanding of the remedy, thus began my journey into plants.

During another seminar at the 30th year of School of Homeopathy – Misha Norland (Mani Norland) in Strout, Jeremy Sherr and Frans Vermeulen and me were present, after our presentations all three of us were out for a walk when Frans Vermeulen expressed his appreciation for the integrative holistic approach in Homoeopathy that I had spoken about, he also mentioned that he wished to apply this concept in understanding materia medica too, and like understanding the individualistic expression at a holistic level in the patient, if we could understand individualistic expression at a holistic level in the remedy it would give great clarity in the understanding of materia medica. He also said that he would rewrite Prisma and Synoptic Materia Medica if possible from this perspective, he has also released this year editions of Prisma and Synoptic Materia Medica which have holistic symptoms in them

This was a huge push for me to take up this mammoth task of understanding the plant kingdom and thus spoke the plants to me…!

 

Five points of reading Remedy from MM/Repertory/Proving/Source at Whole Level…to find out...

    1. What is common between mind, physical general and physical particular – from materia medicas like Phatak and Clarke
    2. What is the common sensation running at the physical general as well as physical particular level? – referring books, for example, Bogers Synoptic Key
    3. What are the leading and the core symptoms of the remedy? – Allens Key Notes, Morrisons Desktop Guide
    4. Single Remedy Symptoms/ Rubrics – Lippes Red line symptoms, Homeopathic Software Repertories like Mac Repertory and Reference works
    5. What is the common expression running between all the components of the mind like thoughts, perception, emotions, fears, and dreams? – various Thematic Materia Medicas, Reference Works, Provings

As I started reading this way from different sources, the understanding became integrative, holistic and multidimensional  of the tribe, subfamily, family, higher order, class and each individual remedies in the plant kingdom

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