May/June 2002 Featured Stories
Cosmic Freedom Qigong

by Miriam Knight interviews Dr. Chok C. Hiew

Dr. Chok C. Hiew
It was on a trip to his native Malaysia that Dr. Chok Hiew, a Canadian psychologist, met Master Yap, the person who would finally give him the tools he needed to help the children he had been working with in war torn countries. Dr. Hiew was part of an international team of mental health professionals focused on a humanitarian mission to Kosovo to work with local doctors and teachers, helping children suffering from stress and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of atrocities committed against them and their families.

Master Yap had always been interested in the Martial Arts. When he discovered that he could heal by transmitting energy, he left accountancy and became an extraordinary healer. He manifested electrical phenomena-sparks flying off him, appliances turning off - but he soon lost his health. He was close to dying when he went back to meditation and had the experience of connecting with the light within and all the information about Cosmic Freedom Qigong (CFQ) poured out of him in one night. Since then he has healed himself and many others. Master Yap was helping children with Downs Syndrome (in 3 sessions!) when Dr. Hiew invited him to Canada in 1994.

Dr. Hiew had also been working with the street children of SE Asia - many rescued from the sex trade, severely traumatized and infected with HIV. Initially he used conventional therapies, and it was not until he connected with CFQ that he found a technique that could really help.

CFQ integrates psychology and science, mind and body. The conventional biomedical model of healing is inadequate, looking as it does at the disparate parts. It was only in 1991 that the relationship between emotions on physical effects was finally accepted as a key contributor of illness. “Life is so simple! We don’t have to improve on natural processes,” Dr Hiew declares. “Healing in order to be effective must be simple.” The essence of CFQ is a complete letting go process that eliminates the fundamental cause of illness--stuck, negative energy--and enables us to use the pure universal energy we are born with to heal ourselves.

How do we become ill in the first place? The price we pay for living is that we have to use this body and this mind; and in the process, there is an accumulation of wear and tear from the stresses of living and we end up with blocked and debased energy. Think of a pool of water. If it is stagnant it becomes foul and smelly; it needs to move to stay pure. Energy is the same - if the flow stops it becomes debased.

To counteract this we need life force that we accumulate from nature to keep our bodies alive and functioning. The down side is that we also absorb negative energy forces that cause blockages, so that the positive energy flow - Qi- that sustains and nourishes us is blocked. Very emotional or traumatic experiences cause an upsurge in the absorption of negative energy and barriers to the continued healthy flow of chi from the outside.

Energetically it looks like a dark cloud. It is called mano consciousness and in Chinese it is called Wu Ming - an energetic cloud of traumatizing memories, fears and conflict experiences beyond the reach of the brain. It is these powerful energy forces that cause physical disease, aging. It inhibits the normal physiological functioning of all the vital organs, because it is a actually a physical force; it is energy that pushes against the cells so the cells literally suffocate because of the compression and the twisting and misalignment. Blood flow may be affected causing heart disease; or the body’s normal clearing out of the debris of dead cells - the immune function - may be impaired.

Psychologically, our emotions become unbalanced, inharmonious, conflicted; our bodies are tense, then we draw in negative energy. We are cut off from that that luminous spiritual body, that God Seed within, that nurtures us, and we are not able to experience the peace, joy and harmony- that would be the kind of consciousness that would draw in pure energy.

The Eastern conception of who we are is more elaborate than the Western concept of the five senses and the mind. The sixth level is mental awareness, including the unconscious, which is like a black box. There are a lot of things that are suppressed and become part of our deep psyche. They are stored at the 7th or Spirit level; this is an altered state where you have the residues of deep conflict and trauma, such as in PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) that are stored in the form of energy memories not accessible by the mind. These are the kind of memories deep within our consciousness that never go away, but have the tendency to surge out and have a physical effect on the brain. So you may have flashbacks and re-live traumas, shifting the mind into a negative altered state.

Beyond the 7th is the deepest part of our consciousness. That is called the Alaya consciousness. It is the transition between our energy and physical bodies. Alaya means “storehouse” or “granary”. It holds the seeds of everything that we have thought or felt or done. It is these energy forces, now in the form of karmic seeds that will become future events in our physical reality based on all our actions, thoughts and emotions.

Deep in the Alaya storehouse is Pure Consciousness- the divine spark; our true instinct which is boundless love. This is just one of the countless seeds in the Alaya, but that is the part that does the healing. We have to clear away all the blockages in the body and in the mind so that pure consciousness can expand and fill us with love and joy and peace. That is the only thing that can cleanse our Karma.

Because the Karma is focused on more egocentric things, the “I wants.” Karmic energy is what keeps us alive, but also what makes us cling onto the memories and emotions that we experience. The downside is that we create all these blockages and there is no longer a healthy flow of Qi; the result is pain, illness and suffering. If we want to access and use the seed of light within us, we need to clear a path, and that is where CFQ can help.

CFQ is an acronym from the original Chinese ‘Chaoyi Fanhuan Qigong’ that was translated to Cosmic Freedom Qigong. Rooted in traditional Chinese medicine, it is a way of cleansing the body, mind and spirit. It uses two techniques: meridian exercises and meditation. Combined, they can undo what the body has accumulated in life. They help you access Metta - the source of boundless love - which is the only way we can get rid of these impurities.

The meditation is difficult, because it makes you deal with your karma. What comes up is the Wu Min, all your past failings, which you try to work through, systematically over time. It is not an easy task to remember all those painful things throughout your life that you have shut away. The meditation stirs up Wu Min and you need to move to release the stress and tension. You allow those movements to happen rather than trying to suppress them, unlike in traditional meditation.

A quicker way to clear these blockages is through a 7-step program of energy cleansing movements that flush out the trapped debased energy. They quickly undo the tension and trauma accumulated in the physical and energy bodies, and harmonize the body’s systems.

CFQ is a different way of conceptualizing health. The usual way of healing is to add things. You assume that something is missing so you supply, drugs, supplements or herbs. CFQ says we are born with basic health, and it is because of the wear and tear of living that everything is clogged up. To revive the machine, you just need to get rid of the “sludge.” If we can simply let go, release the tension, our natural resilience will take over.

Dr. Hiew will be teaching a 3-day seminar on Cosmic Freedom Qigong June 29, 30 and July 1 at the StillMeadow Community in Clackamas, OR. For information call Alternatives, Ideas for Healthy Living at 503-925-1924 or email Alternat@teleport.com

Chok C. Hiew holds a PhD from the University of Colorado and is currently professor of psychology at the University of New Brunswick, Canada. He is the author of “The Tao of Healing” and “Energy Meditation” as well as many academic publications reflecting his long-term aspiration to build bridges between science and intuition. Email: hiew@unb.ca Website: www3.nbnet.nb.ca/cfq