This is a test. Grab a pencil and paper. Write 50 words or less describing why you are here on this Earth, what the purpose is for your life. Take all the time you need to answer. We'll get back to this later.

Nowadays, you are constantly bombarded with information. That's why this era is known as the Information Age. But is the information accurate and is the information useful? To know that, you must constantly re-examine the data and the underlying assumptions. In the last few days, I have read two articles that question fundamental scientific beliefs which were "known" for a long time but which are now (suddenly!) believed to be wrong. But this is nothing new. Ptolemy, the great scientist of ancient Egypt, believed the universe rotated around the earth and this belief was held as true for literally thousands of years. Recently scientists have decided that Ptolemy's other discoveries may even be based on fraudulent manipulation of data. Have you ever learned that something you "knew" was true, was in fact wrong? This has happened to every one of us, of course, even so-called "experts." We've all been in that delightful state of self-deprecating illusion characterized by the statement, "I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken."

When we use the word healing, many of us immediately conjure a mental image of doctors and hospitals. But a quick trip through the dictionary tells a different tale. The root of the word heal is an Old English word "hal" which means "entire" or "whole." When we look up the word "whole" Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary (www.webster.com) comes up with, among other things, "WHOLE, ENTIRE, TOTAL, ALL mean including everything or everyone without exception. WHOLE implies that nothing has been omitted, ignored, abated, or taken away." So the root of healing is "whole." And to be whole means one includes everything and everyone without exception. Hold that thought.

According to the Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions, karma is force generated by the total effect of a person's actions and conduct during the successive lifetimes of the person's existence. Karma is believed to determine the person's destiny. Overcoming one's karma is considered to be a prime goal in each lifetime. Karma for many people means the same things as destiny.

If you could explore the roots of your own karma, would you be willing to do it? Well, you can explore them, so get ready.

I have gone through several evolutionary stages in my personal healing. When I first became concerned with the concept of self-care, I was primarily interested in healing at the level of "trying not to be sick." Over time, I realized that this view was leading me away from one thing as opposed to towards some other thing. So I changed my personal definition of healing so that my goal was to move towards wellness. (Remember that wellness is based on well, which the dictionary claims means healthy, which is based on the root word "heal" which actually derives its true meaning from the Old English word that means "whole.") At that time, I still thought that healing primarily had to do with one's physical condition.

Over time, as I practiced yoga and studied various philosophies and ways of being, I integrated many of these concepts into my idea of healing. Through yoga and qi gong I had a direct experience of integration in my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual aspects. I learned that one's physical condition is part of "everything and everyone without exception," so I paid attention to that. I learned that a sound mind in a sound body was a timeless axiom and so I've worked on my mind. Aware of my spiritual side, I've worked on that. And somewhere in there I became acutely aware of the true meaning of the word "healing" as given above. You cannot be healed until you have integrated every part of yourself, until you have included everything and everyone. This leads to the study of consciousness as defined by various Eastern traditions.

You must include the "everything and everyone" formula into your life to achieve your own healing. Expect it to be an ongoing journey.

All of this is foreshadowed by Einstein's famous formula E=mc2, which is his Special Theory of Relativity. That formula says that there is only one thing: Energy. And that matter and light are the same stuff. they are simply moving at different speeds. If everything is Energy, then what gives energy different forms? What makes this part of the universal Energy me, what makes it you? The answer, which also comes from the realm of quantum physics, is that consciousness causes the form. For more on this, see Amit Goswami's book "The Self-Aware Universe."

So what does this all mean to you? This: You are a conscious being, manifesting yourself in spiritual, mental, emotional and physical bodies that are constructions of energy, which is organized by your consciousness.

Often, you (and all of us) manipulate energy according to instructions in your consciousness that come from the past - even from past lives. This is karma. Somebody once said that God is too clever to bother maintaining the records of each person's karma. Instead, God shrewdly stored those records inside the spirit of the person whose karma it is. As you become more conscious, you are more and more able to release the karma that you yourself are the keeper of.

The journey of healing is one of becoming whole. To be whole means to include everything and everyone without exception.

Now that you realize that healing is not about getting rid of or preventing cancer or AIDS or the common cold, as you understand healing, wholeness and consciousness are inseparable, and that everything is energy, you can begin to achieve the goals of healing, of becoming conscious and of overcoming negative karma. If you integrate the message of the quantum physicists and the swamis, you come up with the same thing: You must expand your consciousness to achieve healing.

So what about the Information Age? You live in a time when everybody knows what's best for you. Experts tell you that they hold the key to your healing. The fact is that the information you really need you carry inside you. You already know what you need to know, you only have to become conscious of it. For you to accept the big-picture implications about self-healing means you must accept that you must fully integrate everything about yourself in order to achieve wholeness. This means that in order to achieve your purpose in this lifetime, you must be willing to question the fundamental truths of our time. You must be willing to step outside the boundaries of what your friends, family, doctors and other authority figures tell us are the limits of what we can know, who we can be and what we can achieve.

Here is a simple example about questioning information and its sources: Somebody once said "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, margarita in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "Woo hoo, what a ride!" Think about this statement for a second. How does it make you feel? Do you feel a certain sympatico for it? Do you react with repugnance for this idea or does it make you wish you were living your life that way?

It's easy to fall for the swashbuckling romanticism in this declaration, but a brief look reveals multiple levels of meaning. For instance, you probably take good care of your car with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved automobile. This doesn't seem to detract from the joy of owning and operating the car but instead seems to enhance it. Most of us would be horrified if we arrived at the end of a car ride, or even a long series of car rides, by skidding in sideways, with our cars thoroughly used up, totally worn out and having to get out of the car proclaiming "woo-hoo what a ride." And of course you might not want to be getting out of your car with a margarita in one hand. When you think about it this way, you likely realize consciously that you deserve as much care as your car and, god willing, you should last longer. Now, look again to see whether you did in fact have any fondness for the swashbuckling romantic aspect of that statement. If you did, that could indicate a fundamental belief you hold about how much your body deserves to be treated well. As conscious beings, created and manifested by consciousness, such beliefs are messages that we use to create our reality.

In addition to examining your own beliefs, triple-check the beliefs of the so-called experts who are giving you advice about how you heal yourself. Look at and listen to their words to see if they are giving you conflictive messages that undermine your personal power or if they are helping you empower yourself. Anybody who tells you that you can't heal yourself is automatically in the "undermine" class.

At EMC², the Energetic Matrix Celebration of Consciousness, we provide The AIM Program, a spiritual technology that helps you heal yourself. Using principles of energy and consciousness, this technique can accelerate your personal healing. We believe that, as a being of energy, you are affected by what we call "energetic imbalances" which create problems in how you manifest your reality. Many energetic imbalances start at the karma level. In fact, we believe that all subsequent energetic imbalances, i.e. the ones you acquire hereditarily and actively in this lifetime, are attracted by and a result of the energetic imbalances you have at the karma level. The AIM Program helps you become conscious of and remove these energetic imbalances, karmic, hereditary and active, so that you can create the life you want.

So how are you doing on that test? Let me suggest that if you are still alive, you haven't finished the test. You have a lifetime to come up with an answer, you don't have to hand in your results and everybody gets an "A."