Do You Believe in Bacteria? The Limits of Science and the Importance of Keeping an Open Mind

Today, I'll use a historical example to show that science can never know everything and why it is so important to keep an open mind.

Hello, my name is Karolina and welcome to my podcast Heal Yourself. In this podcast, I will share my personal healing journey, along with the experiences I've gained as a guide in helping others heal their body and soul. And I hope that these insights will empower you to embark on your own path to self-healing.

Today, I'll use a historical example to show that science can never know everything and why it is so important to keep an open mind. I will start with the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian doctor who lived in the first half of the 19th century. Only 200 years ago, but the story that I'm about to tell you really sounds like it comes from medieval times.

At that time, around 20% of all new mothers died during childbirth from a mysterious illness called childbed fever. Dr. Semmelweis decided to find out why so many women were dying. After observing the conditions in the delivery room, he came up with the idea that the doctors who, before coming to the delivery room, spent their time dissecting dead bodies, must have carried some kind of invisible organisms on their hands to the delivery room, thereby infecting the mothers and causing their deaths.

And so he came up with a really, at that time, crazy suggestion that doctors, after working with dead bodies, should wash their hands before going to deliver babies. After implementing this rule in one hospital, the percentage of new mothers dying from childbed fever dropped from 20% to only 1%. For Dr. Ignaz, this was proof that his idea was correct and that all doctors should be washing their hands.

But as I said before, at that time it really was a crazy idea. When he presented this idea, he was not kindly accepted. The scientific community of that time actually completely dismissed his idea because—what a nonsense! How could something invisible, something we cannot even see or touch, be responsible for killing people? That's completely crazy!

Obviously, at that time, we didn't have the technology to see bacteria and microorganisms. So science did not accept such a concept, because it couldn't be measured or proven by direct observation. As a result, doctors did not start washing their hands, and thousands of women continued dying until about 100 years later, when we finally invented the technology to study things we cannot see with the naked eye. Dr. Ignaz was then proven right.

Looking back at this story from our perspective, with all our knowledge and understanding of bacteria, we might wonder how they could have been so ignorant to dismiss something so clear. Today, we wash our hands multiple times a day, let alone before delivering babies! It's so well accepted now that we don't even have to think about it. But this story beautifully shows how science, at any point in its history—including today—has limitations.

It's important to stay critical because many supposed claims can be disproven by science. But for other things that are not disproven yet also cannot be proven, we should keep an open mind. Otherwise, we might behave like those who didn't believe in washing hands, because how could invisible organisms, which for them and for science didn't exist, cause any harm?

I am a very rational person. For most of my life, I only accepted and followed phenomena that were scientifically proven. Even in yoga and meditation, I would only teach what was already proven by science. Things like prana and chakras seemed to me like fairy tales, because there was no scientific proof for them, so I saw them as nonsense.

The first time someone challenged this worldview for me was when I met my master, Guruji. He saw that I was very rational and that I didn’t take seriously many of the things he was teaching us because they weren't based in science. I kept asking questions—how is this possible? Where is the scientific proof for this? How does this work in normal life?

One day, he asked me, “Do you believe in the universe, that it is infinite and so immense that we might never be able to see its entire scale?”

I said, “Yes, of course,” because that idea is accepted by science. If there were an end, there would have to be something after it, and then something after that end, so the universe must be infinite. Even though it's impossible for us to fully understand infinity, it's accepted by science, so it was accepted by me.

Then he asked, “If you believe something can be so huge that we might never develop technology to see its entirety, why is it impossible for you to believe that something could be so tiny that we haven't yet developed technology to see it, even though it still exists?”

In this case, he was referring to prana—the life force in your body, the energy that sustains life. In Chinese medicine, it’s called qi. Prana is really the basis of yoga, Chinese medicine, and Ayurveda. Modern science disregards prana because no one has ever seen it. According to yoga, no one has ever seen it because prana particles are much smaller than atoms—so small that we haven’t yet developed technology to observe them.

That question made me think for the first time whether I might be limiting myself from seeing the truth and the entirety of existence by keeping my head stuck in this “science box.” There's even a term for this—“science blindness”—meaning that for all the science, you don’t see beyond it.

The moment when I was really forced to open my mind and leave this rigidity behind was when I was diagnosed with my illness. I decided to follow my intuition, which at that time was something I wasn’t familiar with. But for some reason, in that moment, its voice was stronger than my rational mind. I decided not to follow the doctors' advice and tried to find healing within myself.

I had no choice because there was no scientific study that would prove that if I meditated for a few months and imagined my tumor shrinking, it would actually shrink. Obviously, I didn’t find a study like that. But at the same time, I was still reading scientific studies, and even in those, I found things that could support this idea—not proving it directly, but providing enough of a foundation for me to believe it might work.

I believe the real strength lies not in being extreme and saying, “Western medicine is all wrong; we must go back to ancient practices,” but rather in combining both. If it weren’t for modern science and medicine, I would probably be dead by now—many times over. And probably many of you listening would be too. The use of antibiotics, for instance, is a miracle. It's helped me countless times and works so fast! When I get an ear infection, for example, I don’t sit and meditate on it, hoping my body will kill the bacteria. I go to a doctor, get a prescription for antibiotics, and in a few days, the infection is gone.

But at the same time, I don’t leave everything to medicine. I take responsibility for my own health and understand that there are things I can do myself. There are tools within my own body, ways I can support my own healing mechanisms by providing the right environment.

There are ancient medical systems like yoga, Ayurveda, and Chinese medicine that don’t have firm scientific proof for everything they stand for, but they've been tested for thousands of years. Millions of people have benefited from these practices. So, I believe in using everything available to me—Western medicine, ancient practices, and my own body and mind.

As I mentioned before, the flow of energy or life force is central to many ancient practices. In Chinese medicine, acupuncture and acupressure are based on the flow of qi in meridians. In yoga, prana flows through the nadis. To help you learn how to direct the flow of prana energy in your own body, today’s exercise will be a pranayama exercise. It’s not breath work, as many believe, but rather directing and leading the flow of prana in our system.

Go to the description of today’s episode and listen to this beautiful, relaxing pranayama exercise that will help relieve stress and unblock any tension or blockages in your energetic system.

I’ll close today with a quote from The Molecules of Emotion by the amazing Dr. Candace Pert, who was the first scientist to prove that emotions are not just a mental construct, but real physiological phenomena influencing every part of our body. In her book, she says, “Unless we can measure something, science won’t concede it exists, which is why science refuses to deal with such non-things as emotions, the mind, the soul, and the spirit.”

Thank you so much for being here with me today. I really enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoyed it as well. If you found it fun, entertaining, educational, or interesting in any way, I’d be really, really grateful if you could share it publicly or with someone you know it could be useful for. It would really help me a lot. Thank you for all your reactions and messages. I appreciate every single one. You are amazing. Thank you for all your support.

Have a wonderful rest of your day, and I’m really looking forward to seeing you again very, very soon. Take care, and lots of love!