Dr. Ong is trained in Western medicine but he was also curious about the wellness principles our ancestors used to regain and maintain health, so in 2004, he delved into principles that were utilized before 'medicine' was the way we understand it to be today. Western medicine, after all, is quite a new 'invention' and many generations before us were able to regain and maintain health long before needles, vaccines, plastic surgery and other techniques were ever developed.

Western medicine works under the assumption that illnesses are mainly quantifiable, observable, and able to be reproduced and physically manipulated.

What about an illness that cannot be observed physically or be physically manipulated? What happens if we cannot place an illness into quantifiable form and observe what kind of illness it is, where it comes from, what it is doing in and to the body and mind? Many doctors have trouble, even today, in actually figuring these things out, no matter how high-tech their equipment and how intensive their medical knowledge. In some cases, western tradition in medicine is simply powerless to solve certain health problems.

Here's where Dr. Tim Ong decided to learn more. His curiosity and search for answers led him toward the ancient, non-medical traditions. In these, Dr. Ong found some powerful answers.

Dr. Tim Ong decided in late 2004 to find out more about health and wellness, based on new principles:

The new assumptions were:

1. We are, in fact, spiritual beings and not just physical bodies.

2. Our spiritual nature is perfect.

3. The perfect, pure state that we should be experiencing, which displays outwardly as 'good health,' has been tainted and polluted by bad habits, negative mental imprints (our past negative experiences), and negative patterns of thought that we currently hold.

4. Illness and disease is an outward reflection of our disrupted natural state of being.

5. To heal, we must seek and regain the true nature that we each have within, purifying ourselves to get back to the healthful, perfect state that we are meant to live in.

These are some simple concepts that a majority of people do say they believe in, however, many people are hampered by not knowing the route to take in order to put these principles into action.

Dr. Ong hypothesised that, although most people believe in the above concepts, a large portion of these do not act to realize their spiritual nature and health potential because of 2 basic things:

1. Lack of faith in positive principles

2. Laziness (if we are able to, first, realize the value of these principles)

In becoming healthy, according to the aforementioned principles, a re-training of our minds is necessary. In this, it is easier for people to adhere to almost anything else except establishing where we will place faith in the re-working of the concepts in our minds. It is also very easy to STOP the process of working on the development of our minds, our adherence to the faith we have in ourselves. We may easily become lazy about our purpose once we encounter any difficulties whatsoever in our re-training process.

Dr. Ong's route of experimentation:

Deciding that negative imprintations and unwholesome matter that is received in life (an array of negative forces in life that we can't necessarily control - violence on TV, negative life events, the actions and speech of others, unexpected physical injury, accidents, etc), Tim Ong decided upon some direct ways to influence and improve the imprintation that occurs in life.

By this, he deemed that two things need be asserted in his experiment in order to overcome and change negative, unwholesome imprinting:

1. Self Awareness

Identify who you really are and identify the negative issues that impact your whole being. You cannot change what you cannot see, touch or interact with.

2. Letting go

Letting go of the false imprinting, misconceptions, false data, and realizing that these things do not have to be the structures that you build your life upon. They are like 'faulty' base material and therefore, anything built upon these will eventually crumble to the ground - like a sidewalk that is directly placed onto the ground instead into a re-inforced, prepared structure designed for the weight and breadth of the sidewalk

To deal with the activities necessary for promoting a return to 'natural' and 'perfection,' The two fundamental actions of becoming aware of self and of letting go were applied.

The methods for Self-Awareness (training the mind to observe correctly, perceive of details and consider input correctly)

* Mindfulness - this requires being thoughtful of every perception that occurs, being conscious of our thoughts, feelings (both physical and emotional), and also, of our actions.

In Letting go, once we do incorporate mindfulness and a high degree of self-awareness into our lives, we must:

* Drop the garbage in our lives and stop clinging to it as if it is something valuable to hang on to.

People will often hang on to garbage just to feel the feeling of grasping onto something. Garbage is real, so it can be clutched, however, most of us clutch at the wrong aspects of life just to 'have something.'

Garbage can be:

* harmful memories of childhood...we may clutch at these, holding on, for fear that without these, we will not have any link to or memory of childhood once we let go of these. In reality, we probably have both hands full of the garbage memories when some good memories are waiting to be picked up and held onto with both hands, instead!

* current toxic relationships...we may grasp these in both fists, hanging on tightly, in order to just have a relationship present in our lives. If we are maintaining our hold and attachment to a toxic relationship, we will not be able to draw in, touch, and hold the very healthy relationships that are available to us.

* old emotions - even current emotions...we may grasp on to emotions to 'validify' or 'verify' that some past good or bad things has happened...we choose to hang on. Emotions, contrary to popular belief, are not FORCED UPON US. They are intricate decisions of our minds...(which can become more noticeable once we learn better self-awareness skills)...dependant on what we believe and dependent on what we perceive of as truths.

If we perceive of the world as an overwhelming, frightening, harsh place, then - in turn - most of our emotions will be decided in our minds (without our conscious assistance) UNTIL we become self-aware and CHANGE how we filter our emotions. Without doing this, we will continue to feel 'victimized, frightened, powerless,' hanging on to these feelings - IN REACTION to our environment. We truly CAN filter our emotions and start selecting the ones that bring health of the body and mind, positive experiences, etc.

Though we do not control what emotions other people will display in our lives, we can definitely control what emotions we choose to hang onto in our lives.

People with a very low level of 'self-awareness' usually believe that emotions 'just happen' and cannot be changed. These people are at the mercy of whatever the mind decides to project WITHOUT being informed by self-aware truths.

The mind will function, the subconscious will function, without too much of our input - however - we can INFORM THE MIND BETTER and have better understandings of our world, including how we react to the world, and this can greatly improve our emotional stability - thus improving all aspects of health.

Health starts with our minds...

Or, as Dr. Tim Ong has said in his book, "From Fear To Love," by applying self-awareness techiniques and utilizing the power of letting go, "You will begin to understand love and fear, and how your ego often misleads you."

It appears that when one is very self-aware, one can examine the world AND the self in ways that are more appropriate to well-being. With the tool of self-awareness and the skill to use it well, one can filter out negative, misunderstood and harmful events, perceptions and general elements in life. Though someone may not always (or hardly ever) control what he or she comes into contact with in life, a healthy perception can be placed around events, people, emotions, so that a person is not negatively impacted for an entire lifetime by these things.

When negative things occur, the tool of self-awareness can identify the unwanted and hamful things so that we can apply the 2nd most valuable action in our lifes - that of LETTING GO of things that do not serve to bring us in balance with our 'nature' and with 'perfection.'