First of a two-part interview
Stephen Co’s miraculous ascension into the world as one of its foremost energy healers began with a loss of patience. His wife had fallen and broken her hip, and doctors told her it would be at least three months before she could put any weight on it. He and his wife were frustrated with the prognosis.
He told the doctor, “That’s way too long,” and he began looking for other options. By chance, someone mentioned Pranic Healing, but the engineer by trade – and Southern Baptist by faith – was hesitant.
“I took the class and I started working on her, and within two and a half weeks, she could walk,” Stephen Co said in a telephone interview with The Edge. “I was just baffled. She could walk. And then every time we went to the doctor, they said the bone was healing faster than they had ever seen before. They didn’t know why. I was not about to tell them about the healing, because they would think I was crazy.
“After about five weeks, I remember my wife ran across the room, and that was the end of me doubting. At that time, I was very skeptical, emotionally and mentally and spiritually. I was not open to it at all, but I followed the protocol, step by step.”
That was the beginning of Stephen Co’s transformation from engineer to energy healing teacher. His healing teacher, Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, the world’s foremost authority and founder of Pranic Healing®, inspired him to leave the Philippines, where had been living, and go to the United States to teach what he had learned. The rest is history. Stephen is now referred worldwide as Master Co, and he has spoken to thousands of people and has trained many in the art of Pranic Healing, including doctors, nurses and those who already practice other forms of integrative healing. He and Dr. Eric Robins wrote the book, Your Hands Can Heal You.
“What I want to get across is, if I can do this – having been emotionally, mentally and spiritually not open to it, open to just helping people – I think anybody can learn this.”
Master Co returns to the Twin Cities to teach classes on Pranic Healing on March 23 and 24, and a weekend intensive healing seminar on April 17-18.
He spoke with The Edge to explain that the so-called “miracles” of Pranic Healing are actually the result of subtle laws of energy, nature’s response to the conscious direction of our life force energy (chi or prana) in a form of healing that has evolved in the East for thousands of years. He says all human beings are born with the incredible power to consciously, purposefully direct their life force energy, and that he trains and empowers people to tap into their own latent ability.
Let’s start with the very foundation of what you do, and I think that’s the understanding that all life is energy.
Every particle of existence is made of energy, and this energy has different vibrations. In the Hindu tradition, it is called prana. The Chinese call it chi, and the Japanese call it ki. Different cultures have their own name for it, but essentially what I do is called Pranic healing. It was developed by my teacher, Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, into a very simple, but systematized healing modality that I can teach anyone in a very short time – how to harness this life force to heal themselves, their loved ones, and make their life better.
How does Pranic healing work?
First you have to understand that the energetic anatomy – which consists of the chakras (the energy centers) the meridians and the aura – are mediums for this prana to go into the physical body. When people are sick, different parts of this energy anatomy are blocked, the flow is not there and the physical organs are not getting the fresh energy they need for the body to repair itself. People can get this fresh energy from the food, from the air, from the ground.
When a person comes in for healing, the first thing we do is we scan to feel the different imbalances of energy. Then we begin cleansing. We spend about 50 to 75 percent of the healing session cleansing and removing blockages of energy. Most of the time, for back pain, headaches, something like an upset stomach, that cleansing alone gives the person so much relief that they think they are already improving, but that is just part of it.
After a thorough cleansing, the healer does deep breathing and meditation to bring energy into the system and project it to the client. We call this energizing. And then we stabilize the energy so it does not leak out. What people do not realize is that when you give energy to the client, the body can only absorb so much energy in a short amount of time. A lot of energy is waiting to go in. We tell people after a session not to shower for 12 to 24 hours to give that energy time to be absorbed. We also stabilize the energy using the color blue, and then we teach the client some forms of self-healing and meditation. We want to make sure each client goes home with certain skills to help speed up the healing.
In a very simplistic way, people can get a sense of what you do by looking at the body as just a vessel for energy, and that this energy is always moving in and out of the body, but sometimes that movement of energy becomes blocked.
Absolutely. This life force is not ours. It is in the universe. As you said, you are a vessel, or you are a machine, that pumps the energy in, pumps the energy out. As long as that energy is flowing freely, the body has good health.
What mechanism pumps the energy in and out of the body?
The mechanism behind it is the chakras, energy centers that act like spinning wheels. Just imagine they are propellers that spin in both directions. When they spin clockwise, looking at them from the front of the body, they are absorbing this prana, or life force energy. When they are spinning counter-clockwise, they are releasing this life force energy.
When you go to an acupuncturist, the way they pull the needle is based on this very simple principle. If they want to put energy into your body, they pull the needle clockwise. If they want to take the energy out – if you have too much energy or a blockage – they pull it counterclockwise, because all the acupuncture points are the locations of chakras. Chakras are distributed all over your body. Traditionally, it is known that there are seven major chakras, but actually there are 11 major chakras and hundreds of smaller ones.
My teacher noticed that every ailment actually has a unique set of energy centers that malfunction. A person who has asthma, compared to somebody who has menstrual cramps, will have a different set of chakras affected, because a different set of physical organs are affected. The reason anybody can learn this is because as long as you can follow a recipe, you can heal with Pranic Healing. By following the given steps for a given ailment, you give the body the ability to release the blockages, and you give the body the ability to absorb the life force it needs. The body now has fuel to repair itself.
Is Pranic healing ideal for some health conditions and not as effective for others? How does it work on chronic conditions?
I remember when Dr. Eric Robins, co-author of the book, Your Hands Can Heal You, told me that as a medical doctor, his definition of a chronic condition is when body is not healing itself. No matter how many drugs you use or how much surgery you do, you are just doing a bandage job, because the body is not repairing itself. Chronic cases respond very well to Pranic Healing, because after you remove the blockages and you give the body enough energy, the body can now go back to its restorative mode. For example, we notice asthma and respiratory illness respond very quickly. Something else that responds very well is back pain, because it is not always physical. Often it is due to anger and resentment. These negative emotions block the flow of life force energy. If you clean these blockages, most people will feel an instant relief. In general, all ailments are due to some form of energetic imbalance that has manifested, so we do our best.
How involved is the training to learn Pranic Healing?
It depends on how far you want to take it. For most people who want to work on back pain, headache and common ailments, those who want to learn how to work on people with anger and resentment, the first level class is enough. Then, for people who want to learn more, want to really get into it, there is an advanced class where you start using colors.
This involves matching the color – or the frequency – with what the body needs to repair itself. For example, if somebody has menstrual cramps or somebody has constipation, the body is lacking what is called orange prana, or orange energy, in the lower part of the body. In the first level class, we give this client white light. White light is like going to a general practitioner. The body will simply extract the orange energy from the white to do what it needs to. The body will get the energy it needs. Advanced classes are like going to a specialist. We know what color the body needs, so we give it to the body directly, and the healing time is usually cut in half.
We also offer more advanced class for those who want to go into phobias and addictions, in the pranic psychotherapy classes. Depending on how far you want to take it, the teachings are there.
For those people who are not able to come and see you, what can you recommend that they do each day to help balance and cleanse their energy field?
We encourage everyone to come to the introductory class, and we will show them, step by step, how to do this themselves. In addition to that, on our website [Yourhandscanhealyou.com] we also have a free, self-healing meditation CD in MP3 form that you can download. We call it the “One Finger Healing Technique” – press play, do the meditation. The meditation includes breathing exercises to purify the chakras. If you do it every day, or even three times a week, it helps you to remove anger, remove negativity, activate your heart and allow your crown chakra to bring down more spiritual energy. That alone keeps you strong and keeps you energetically clean.
And for those who cannot come to the class for whatever reason, they can read the book and join our e-mail list. We send out videos for group meditations. We do self-cleansing, guiding them through it step by step. In this day and age, with the information flowing as it is, nobody really has an excuse not to have access to any of these teachings.
What is the biggest message you want to share with the public?
Everybody has the ability to heal. All you have to do is to have the heart to help yourself and help other people.
Please see Master Stephen Co’s website at Yourhandscanhealyou.com for articles, news, videos online and details of his events.
Stephen Cho used impatience to empower himself, rather than to let it have power OVER him. Bravo!
Learned Pranic healing and tested it on my grandmother in Iran who was diagnosed very late with lung cancer. After 3 months of applying Pranic Healing, the cyst was gone, and she stopped taking pills. Doctor called it a miracle. She is happily healthy now. I am more than happy than her.