Habitation is the process of coming home, of residing in integrity,, of owning all one's parts, of becoming indigenous and intact. As such it is the end of alienation, fragmentation, corruption, separateness, and diaspora.

Similarly habilitation means to make able, healthy, or fit while rehabilitate means to restore health, fitness, function, or ability where there exists dysfunction. Yoga's basic premise is that mankind has become dissuaded, distracted, alienated and separated from his true Self through the processes of negative conditioning, institutionalized ignorance which have created negative patterns of affliction and negative karma. The process of yoga is meant to remediate these corruptive tendencies and thus restore harmony, wholeness, balance, wellness, fitness, and integrity.

A vital part of this process of rehabitation and rehabilitation according to hatha yoga is detoxification and purification of the body, the mind, emotions and energy channels. Much more can be found on the http://www.,Rainbowbody.com/HeartMind website on these topics, but here we will focus on the obvious use of yoga in modern substance abuse, the so called "detox" and "rehab" programs. Yoga has been scorned and ignored in professional circles in the past because of the common but unfortunate association with being a religion. It is also ignored because the very people who run these programs, themselves are very much nature and body negative -- they are dealing with substance abuse out of fear, contraction, and the use of guarded will power rather than out of love, openness, trust and self confidence. The latter is the "magic" hurdle -- the land of milk and honey. .

It is not the intention here to prove that many types of yoga are neither anti-Christian nor is yoga a religion in itself. This has been proven elsewhere (although some religious forms of yoga do exist, it can be said definitively that yoga as a universal teaching is not the property of any one country, religion, race, or province. Another reason yoga techniques are assiduously avoided is because they contradict the conventional (and dysfunctional) wisdom i.e., the status quo "authorities" are in denial about their extremely high recidivism rate (read failure) and react defensively and in a self-serving manner. However yoga processes are a time proven very powerful and effective remediation that effect positively rehabilitation, rehabitation, and detoxification.

Detoxification and Wholism

Detoxification and purification are essential therapies in all indigenous and wholistic body/mind healing systems. These systems can not be easily brushed aside as merely new age fads by advocates of modern medicine, because most have stood the test of thousands of years (as compared to a few hundred years of allopathic/symptomatic medicine. Likewise none of these ancient wholistic detoxification therapies carry with it even a small fraction of iatrogenic deaths and serious injuries undenied by the more popular modern allopathic medical approaches. 

When one studies ancient Greek, Egyptian, Cnidian, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Tibetan, Ayurvedic, Native, Pacific Islands , and other "traditional" indigenous/wholistic medical systems that have survived into the 20th century, one finds many common threads. Essential and integral to all of them are detoxification and purification. Especially today witnessing the trigonometric increase in air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, electromagnetic pollution, food pollution, drug (through medicine) pollution, and the like accompanied by the influx of new and increasingly complex artificial chemicals into our bodies, the ancient purification therapies take on an even more important role than ever before. Indeed the environment modern man inhabits is very much more toxic than ever before, yet modern medicine not only is mute on this subject, but actually adds to the problem many times over because their many therapies themselves are toxic causing liver, kidney, and nervous system degeneration and "too often" death.

Ancient and yogic therapies not only offer techniques of fasting, herbs, sweating, exercise, breathing, meditation, hydrotherapy, colonic irrigation, and other similar physical detoxification/mental procedures, but they almost all aim at opening up one's energy channels, increasing one's instinct, intuition, inner wisdom, self awareness, authentic self esteem, self identification, and general feeling of intactness and well being. Not only is the body and nervous system detoxed, but also stress is reduced while the vagaries and disturbances (called vrttis in Sanskrit) of the mind and toxic thought are identified and discarded. What is left is a healthy, happy, creative, empowered, self motivated, and energized organism.

So why is it that modern drug and alcohol detox programs and substance abuse programs avoid yoga as the plague? The answer is simple. It is for the same reason why these programs are so notoriously dysfunctional and unsuccessful. 

Their failure rate is so high because they are in classic denial. It does not help to be self serving and self sanctioned at the same time. If they are the self appointed "experts" and authorities on the subject, then nobody else's opinion counts much (especially those who contradict conventional authority (wisdom). Thus so called conventional wisdom, never gets questioned while those who do criticize it (the emperor after all is wearing no clothes) become ridiculed, marginalized, and demeaned. If that doesn't work and they persist or pose a "threat", then they become demonized and dehumanized. Again here we bear witness to classical dysfunctional denial. While those and their families who want a second chance at life, have no where to turn except "more of the same" self justifying and defensive institutionalized denial, dysfunction, and empire building.

What to do

Granted much of this malaise is due to the fact that the medical colleges, FDA, medical licensing, and hospitals are controlled by the pharmaceutical/petrochemical industry which dictates methadone maintenance as the protocol of choice. So if you do not give out methadone, if you do not prescribe "standard" accepted treatment, if you contradict authority, then you will be labeled as a quack and perhaps persecuted if not prosecuted especially if you claim that your method is therapeutic or functional (read truly rehabilitative). Certainly if the program is called, yoga, you will not receive any state, federal, or local funding, yet let us look at a model of what an authentic program which is dedicated toward self empowerment, rather than toward co-dependence to external structures (and further addiction) may look like.

Although some programs "believe" in structure to such an extant that many resemble a jail where the the doctrine is thick and everyone is pressured to tow a politically correct line or suffer severe peer punishment, such structures fail miserably because the client becomes addicted/dependent upon the structural supports. What is necessary for success in rehabitation is to rather reverse that direction, i.e., to eventually free the client from dependence upon these external institutional walls (either physically or psychically). Only then will the client be able to self activate his/her own therapeutics, i.e., maintain.

Residential or Day Care?
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Thus a common and often fatal mistake of many so called substance "abuse" programs is that they create a strong external structure in a residential setting, but at a severe price. Although a clearly defined therapeutic structure is valuable at first, the individual then has trouble "integrating" when they leave the program. A catch 22 arises when the word gets out that most clients fail in reintegration/rehabitation, then those going through the existing program have less faith in the program. Although these institutions attempt at remediating this syndrome, they fail at an extremely high and unacceptable rate, that does not validate their dysfunctional approach.

An obvious reason for failure is that such systems based on "external" structure and external authority ALWAYS fail, because they ALWAYS disempower the client, This problem is widespread, iatrogenic, and in denial. Rather a functional program needs to base the structure on re-inhabiting internal order, internal structure, inner authority, and inner wisdom, i.e., indigenous/endogenous space. Only then will all symptoms of lack of self confidence and self esteem vanish. A functional program has to go far beyond the present plethora of positive thinking, affirmation, rhetoric, ideology, mind tripping, and "belief" and institute a program that promotes genuine self confidence and self worth through actually grounding the client into a meaningful way of life that they can feel in their body to their toes -- something they can take with them the rest of their lives because they have been turned on to who they are in a functional relationship with life. In this context, programs that are based on inhibition and restraint and even those which are based on raising self esteem pale when compared to moving the client closer to the empowering functionality of ALL OUR RELATIONS.

At first the incoming client may well benefit from a residential care because it is easier to give up one's old way to a "new" way in the new setting; however, surrender to the new way must be integrated as a "self" surrender -- surrender to the transpersonal Self which resides in all of us. If this is not the over all self empowering context in which any enduring therapeutic is presented then one's rehabilitation will fall apart as soon as the external order/structure is removed. Currently, this "surrendering to a higher power or higher potential within is most often given slightly more than lip service. However for any lasting therapeutic CHANGE to occur, humility is absolutely necessary. Learning requires change and when the change is located in one's own behavior, the appropriate attitude is not guilt, regret, self recrimination, shame, but affirmation of something new -- a new identity. This is not at all different from "turning over a new leaf", allowing for a rebirth or reincarnation. So first there has to be simple but complete renunciation as a rejection of the old without guilt or blame. This simply requires humility, like "I went down this road, and it was a dead end, so I turned around and went back to the crossroads, and now I am here -- now I am present and ready. Now I am not only ready, but enthusiastic to find out the new nondependent"Self " that is out there. Here one is in a receptive and in the absolutely prerequisite learning modality.

On the other hand it is not therapeutic to simply give clients more things to do, or a long list of things not to do; rather the real task is in opening them up in wanting to learn-- in surrendering to that which is transpersonal and greater than the self as separate from the whole. One must be willing to change and this means be willing to give up some core beliefs about self and the world -- false assumptions, delusion, illusions and be able to embrace all our relations as all our relatives. This can not simply be a leap of faith, but rather a functional program must maintain its therapeutic integrity by focusing on a gradual awakening of the innate "self" -- of Self knowledge on the most intimate of terms. For this there is no adequate substitute.

For some people a daytime nonresidential system may be better integrated, but if the residential system is wholistic and integrative as above, it need not add to the preexisting dysfunction. In fact residential retreats combined with independent living scenarios can work well together if both are focused on affirming the indigenous sacred reality -- the innate wisdom, implicate order, self confidence, self empowerment, create evolution and so forth, rather than conformity to external standards.. 

In general the therapeutics will be aimed at repatterning a toxic, self abusive, and dysfunctional dynamic into a one which affirms, acknowledges, honors, and upholds the evolutionary life force living within oneself -- who owns it and can become responsible for it, who is brought into touch with it, who can become one's own doctor and guide and with that act as a guidepost for others. Here there can be no external betrayal, but only self betrayal. Success is obtained when the blockages to the emotional, energetic, physical and mental pathways which had become armored, contracted upon,, hardened, and rigidified are melted down, cleaned out and opened up; so that the natural creative evolutionary energies flow unimpeded -- as a self inspiring and regenerating fount. When this is brought about the addiction or dependence upon the therapy and therapist is over. 

A Model

Below then is a sketch of what such a program would look like. It is not to be taken as an exclusive model, but one of many such possibilities which incorporate some of the following vital principles. One such obvious  model is to have each individual subject treated by a facilitator along with a council of various health counselors in a wholistic framework. Therapists would include specialists in diet and fasting, sweating, traditional purification techniques including herbs and acupuncture, exercise and movement (such as chi gong and yoga), meditation, life style, vocation/right livelihood, creativity, body psychotherapy, chiropractic and/or osteopathy, massage, somatics, vision quests, prayer, dance/dance therapy, gardening, music therapy, nature walks, and other similar synergistic wholistic therapeutics.

The food would be organic and light. The environment would be peaceful, clean, and rural. Hatha yoga, Chi Gong, meditation, specialized and powerful breathing techniques, stress reduction methods, and other such "self" disciplines which the client can bring home with them should be taught in the very beginning. Functional vocational counseling according to yogic principles of "right livelihood" is also an essential ingredient, because much stress, dissociation, and compensatory desires for over indulgence and neurotic self gratification is the result of a job which is demeaning, alienating, abusive, exploitive, and/or unhealthy.

The alternatives away from "normal" wage slavery should be thoroughly explored through intelligent and self actualizing counseling which merges life positive, healing, and creative alternative business opportunities and non adversarial cooperative non-exploitive enterprises, while refusing to serve as agents for corporate robots. 

After the client is prepared to be functional through effective rehabitation and rehabilitation and is deemed "able" to engage "everyday life" with one's new life affirming, nature positive and body positive perspective; then outside trips (away from the residential care context) would be mutually synergistic (as opposed to diverting). Some clients would benefit right from the start to live in a so called "half way house" where only a limited amount of "structure" is maintained, while others may be eligible for only day care services. In any case, customizable suitable vocational counseling and living arrangements is an essential ingredient for eventual successful stress free integration and resolution. 

After the above is achieved, the client can then join the so called "outpatient" program (or rather "positive life style club") in the form of taking "vacations", workshops, personal retreats and so forth at the rural center facility and/or connect after work and on weekends at the urban center for supportive activities (emphasizing that all such supportive activities be aimed at self empowerment thus avoiding any further addiction to the program itself).

Beyond Detoxification, Purification, and Re-Habilitation

Any "successful" addiction counseling program must go beyond merely the negative or "escape from" fear based context, but live in the light of affirming a positive creative and healthy life style. The words, detox, purify, rehabilitation connote the existence of a struggle or transition state away from a corruptive or unsatisfactory state and hence with that, it also still affirms the very corruptive remnants of from which one desires to become liberated. In other words a successful program must have the courage to affirm the perspective, context, or rather "reality" of what daily life may look like with the past addictions not only no longer prevalent but also no longer present. Without that "perspective" most rehab systems fail -- they are inadequate, incomplete, and hence an extremely high rate of recidivism occurs.

Again a political/social problem arises, because life style and "belief" is political and often religious. So programs in attempting to satisfy the status quo politicians and priests often water down, demean, or dis-empower their programs to a point that the needs of the client are severely undermined (replaced by institutional needs). Indeed the status quo system which funds and licenses rehab programs would object to most of the above.

But since there are so many that are suffering, it is time to put out the clarion call that the past institutionalized ways of dealing with "addiction" and dysfunction are themselves dysfunctional. In fact we must go beyond and let go of escapism, denial, repression, purification, and detoxification as at best symptomatic and temporary "solutions". Rather we must embrace the well known everyday integration of kinesthetic and energetic balancing, of breath work, of healing energies, life positive life styles, self empowerment, harmlessness, creative consciousness, and creativity if we are to succeed in eliminating the cycle of self abuse, self violence, addiction, slavery, and dysfunction, It is my firm belief that all dysfunctional people can be re-patterned and reinstated into the body (to re-inhabit the body) and come to creative life affirming loving terms with life and nature. An essential part of the training must be to discover the nature inside of us, our true and essential nature, our true Self and this can happen authentically only in the context of all our relations as we consciously inhabit the planet by consciously and with activate genuine natural curiosity inhabit and honor the body as the essential vehicle. 

By the investigation and acceptance of this implicate and innate inner order, wisdom and inherent structure within ourselves and all living beings -- within all of creation, we get to know who we really are -- Authentic Self and as such authentic presence comes home (into our lives). We come home only then and only then does all neuroses and addiction  end. This home is Etonoha and is the path of the ongwhehonwhe (real or authentic people). It is the birthright of all humans who have courage and inspiration still alive in them. This is what we call becoming indigenous. This is habitation.

The problems above are finally remediated when integration is complete in all our relationships. When we stay in our heart and in this sense never leave home when interacting with All Our Relations as kin -- as Self. When we are immersed in this organic whole, then we are able to effectively "handle" any and all situations as they arise--as everything forms an organic whole or great circle. This is where we are coming from AND where we are heading -- Sacred Presence.

Ho!

Many more details can be gleaned easily from other pages here at

The main portal  http://www.Rainbowbody.net

The Yoga Portal http://www.HeartMind.com

Yoga Purification Portal  (Hatha Yoga Kriya Page)

Tapas and Addiction

Denial, Dysfunction, Character Armoring, Trauma, and Delusion in Modern America: An in-depth articulation of the symptomatic mechanisms of post traumatic stress, guilt, and denial and how that in turn becomes manure for mass hysteria, demagoguery, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism utilizing viewpoint of trauma healing from a body based (body psychotherapy) perspective..

Trauma Remediation Links to many healing modalities that are designed to remediate the negative effects of past trauma

Ongwhehonwhe: The Way of the Real People