This article was published in the Beacon (Issue July-September 2022)
Choa Kok Sui, known to his students as Grand Master Choa Kok Sui, or simply Master Choa is the modern founder of pranic healing. He was born on August 15 1952, to a wealthy family, of Chinese origin, in the Philippine city of Cebu, His father was a member of a protestant church while his mother was a Buddhist – a devotee of Buddha Quang Yang. From a very young age he had a deep interest in esoteric topics and spent much of his childhood studying spiritual and occult books. He devoured texts like the Bhagavad-Gita, the Alice Bailey Books, the Astara Teachings and many more. His studies of the hidden worlds were given credence by what he
observed in the visible world around him each day in his native country.
The Philippines, perhaps owing to its geographical location, contains multitudes of spiritual traditions and practices. As a young boy Master Choa would see people attending all sorts of healers, to help alivieate their ailments. Traditional and shamanic healers, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and others, using an array of different techniques, were providing relief for suffering people. Yet none of these seemingly miraculous interventions was being studied by scientists. For a curious, mind such as the young Choa Kok Sui, this was odd and it became the springboard for his life’s work – a work that would lead to an in-depth study of the energy anatomy; its interaction with the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual self; and the codifying of this knowledge into a powerful, easy to learn healing system.
The work began in earnest for the young Choa when he entered university to study chemical engineering. It was here that he began to seek out others who had knowledge of the inner worlds and who could help him to navigate them. One of the earliest such encounters was with Mang Dabon a powerful healer and clairvoyant who would become his first spiritual guide. Mang Dabon (Mang meaning master) was both a devout Catholic and an expert in the Kabbalah. He also possessed a practical knowledge of the inner worlds and could leave his body at will. With these unique skills he and others would help Master Choa develop and refine an understanding of the structure of prana and divine energy so that they could be
safely used by ordinary people to heal a vast range of conditions.
Because the techniques used in pranic healing were arrived at through experiment Master Choa is often referred to as a spiritual scientist. Master Choa would practice the projection of various qualities and quantities of energy and Mang Dabon would observe their effect and then he would adjust the technique and try again. In order to validate Mang Dabon’s assessment Master Choa would carry out the same experiment with Mike Nator – known as Mang Mike – another advanced clairvoyant who also lived in the Phillippines. Thus they worked for years, gradually re-discovering an ancient technique which utilizes the chakras to convert white prana into coloured prana, much like a prism is used to disperse sunlight into its seven
constituent colours.
In the beginning their focus was on white prana. They discovered that by channelling this freely available abundant source of energy through ones own energy body and directing it at the patient it was possible to heal illness and relieve pain. Many years later one of Master Choa’s earliest students, Stephen Co, would write a book called Your Hands Can Heal You, because this is literally what they had discovered. As time went on, they began to work more with colour prana. They realised that colour pranas were vastly more potent than white prana and could bring about rapid changes in the physical body.
Indeed, the necessity of projecting only pastel colours and diluting them with white prana became clear to them when Master Choa’s body, which was used as the subject of the early experiments, began to deteriorate. One of Master Choa’s many great sacrifices in bringing forward these teachings was his health, which suffered greatly from the experiments with colour prana. There are pictures of him at the age of thirty where he looks to be well into his fifties, such was the toll that coloured pranas took on his body. This learning allowed them to develop techniques for safely projecting coloured Prana.
After many years of experiment Master Choa published his findings in a book called The Ancient Art and Science of Pranic Healing. As well as outlining a context for energy healing, this book contains a ‘cook book’ approach for healing. It gives students simple guidance on how to absorb and project energy; how to clean and energise the energy centres or chakras; and it provides a series of protocols for various common ailments. The protocols are the recipe for healing, they provide the healer with the steps and sequence in which the chakras should be healed to get the
best outcome for each particular ailment.
The work of Master Choa applies a practice to theories that have developed in the western world since the publication of Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine. It provides a very firm foundation to the practice of energy healing from which a scientific study can someday begin. While many will deride it as pseudo science a large proportion of senior pranic healers and teachers are engineers and medical scientists. There is a logic to the teachings that is as attractive to the scientist as it is to the mystic.
From the publication of the first book in 1987 the practice of modern pranic healing began to take off. Hundreds and then thousands of people began attending courses and taking up the practice. Master Choa travelled extensively to spread the teachings and gathered around him a group of devoted students whom he gave in depth teachings on pranic healing, spirituality and other deeply esoteric subjects. So successful were the outcomes reported by the initial students that The Ancient Art
and Science of Pranic Healing was soon renamed Miracles through Pranic Healing.
The work continued and over the next several years Master Choa published
Advanced Pranic Healing, which teaches the use of colour prana; and Pranic Psychotherapy which teaches how to utilize divine energy in the treatment of psychological ailments. These three books and the two-day courses that teach the techniques are the bedrock of the pranic healing system. Master Choa went on to write several other books on energy techniques and the chakras, on the nature of the Soul, as well as a number of short sutra books to guide spiritual aspirants on the path. His great skill lay in his ability synthesize and simplify profound spiritual teachings and present them in an immensely readable form. The sentences in his books are short and concise, whilst being remarkably detailed. He was greatly aided in this work by his spiritual consort and partner Charlotte Anderson, who helped him compile and edit many of the books.
Although there is little publicly available information on his private life, we know that he balanced his work as a spiritual teacher with the pragmatism of one who must live in the world. He was a chemical engineer who, along with establishing a foundation for the spreading of pranic healing also ran a number of successful businesses which were not associated with spirituality. He was married and raised a family and later in life he divorced, evidently marrying again a short time before his passing. Yet his ordinariness belied the extraordinary task that was his fate to complete.
In describing their work Master Choa. Mang Mike and Mang Dabon explained that they were part of a spiritual mission emanating from the great teacher Mahagarugi Mei Ling also known as Buddha Padmasambaba, who Master Choa referred to as his Sat Guru – a Sanskrit term meaning enlightened teacher. The teachings they developed were in fact transmitted to them by the Sat Guru.
The clairvoyants, Mang Mike and Mang Dabon, helped Master Choa identify the Sat Guru and aided and advised him in developing his connection to the Master Teacher, so that the teachings could be transmitted accurately. They had incarnated together for this purpose. One of the principle reasons for the work, according to Master Choa, was to demonstrate through acts of healing, the existence of the subtle bodies and to show their relationship to the physical body. This would then help people to shift their consciousness towards accepting the existence of a higher power.
The work this group of individuals undertook was exceptionally difficult and took a toll on each of them. When it was complete Master Choa left his body in March 2007. The powerful legacy he has left behind is now practiced by thousands of people throughout the world. Groups and organisations have sprung up in over 120 countries. The spiritual system he developed called Arhatic Yoga is also very popular among students. Pranic healing is not immune from the effects of glamour, politics, group think and other problems that affect groups and organisations, especially now as we stand at the confluence of piscean and aquarian consciousness. Despite this
though, mighty works of service are being carried out by many thousands of pranic healing practitioners and volunteers throughout the world.
Master Choa always advised his students to focus on the teachings, to use
discernment and not to follow anything or anyone blindly. His approach was always scientific. But as the first title of his first book alluded to, he knew that the artist and the scientist must be entwined. In this way he was a truly aquarian spirit and his great works can play an invaluable part in our efforts to build the aquarian age.
