Cheating LIfe Cheerfully

One of our senior Fathers had been ill for quite sometime now; he was admitted to a nursing home, initially diagnosed Malaria, but later the physicians changed their opinion saying it could be thyphoid! The man who was known as a soft-spoken all these years, suddenly became over talkative. He spoke profusely and did not feel tired of talking for a long time. He would talk for about an hour and at the end of which would say that he was talking too much those days, and yet would not stop talking. He repeated many of the stories he had been obsering from the first day in the nursing home.

The physicians who were treating him were not surprised that he was finding it hard to cope with the nursing home routine; he did not like the food given in there, and so the sisters living close to our house, decided to offer him lunch every day, something what he liked a lot. Our college too prepared something for his breakfast and got it reached for him. At 85, it is normal that the senior citizens ask for a little more attention than they would otherwise ask for. He had a steady stream of guests and visitors, walking into his room in the nursing home, and he had to repeat all the stories to all of them, everytime they turned up.

Even at this age, he had a strong will power and stamina to accept it with a cheer, and tried to enjoy the days he stayed in the nursing home, sometimes the saline given round the clock. He had a fondness for a young caregiver (nurse), who took liberty to look after him with felial love and devotion. But he was not in favor with the senior caregiver, who deprived him of the pillow during the first three days, without consulting with the physician attending on him, and he could not forgive her for that. But he got along cheerfully with the younger nurse, and even spoke quite high of her.

Everytime I visited him in the nursing home or in the college, where he is now, he would make it a point to repeat again and again that he was definitely making a great progress. At one time, he even said that his hearing had improved after the stay in the nursing home, and his appetite too had improved. He surely plans to live upto the age of 95, and I would not be surprised if he really makes it, because he has the will power to live, with great cheerfulness. He is quite disciplined, and has his daily routine, which include an hour of evening walk in the nearby garden, meals at the appointed time, water 8 glasses at stipulated hours, and his diet is also quite constant.

If there is anyone who has zest for life, he is surely one such. Today as I walked into his room, he was on the internet, sending mails to his family back in Belgium about his health. After several days, he was back to emails, and he was quite happy to say hello to his nieces and nephews, who might have been worried what had happened to him. He has very little grudges, though he is not altogether free from prejudices, but knows how to occupy his time. He looks much better than what he was before the attack of fever some three weeks ago. I only wish I be like him, when I reach 85!

Return to Nature

Technology of medicine has improved so much today that it is very difficult to find a 'normal' person. Even the people who go to the doctor, come home with a host of ailments, which they had never thought of! What is so tragic is that being so very healthy and normal is also considered a major ailment, if not wholly physical, but psychological. There are tests for every imaginable thing, and it is so very easy for the doctors to prescribe half a dozen tests, in order to decipher what could have gone wrong; but gone are the days when the physicians would hold the hand of the patients and would be able to diagnose the disease. But that age seems to have gone.

Unfortunately health care has become a thriving business, where every vulnerable person is a serious casualty; the innocent and illiterate are the most vulnerable groups, who could be taken for a royal ride for the greedy physicians. It is no wonder that many senior people do not like to visit physicians, because of the fear that they would find some ailment or other, and prescribe tests and medicine, which may run into a thousand rupees. I wonder what sort of medicine my grand parents resorted to, and they all lived happily without running to the physicicans to extend their life span.

My maternal grand mother lived beyond 80 years, and I was not sure if she suffered from any major sickness; she never went to get her eyes checked, though after she reached the age of 70, her eye sight weakened, and still she was happy with the poor eye sight, and died so. But today we are forced to make regular medical checkups with physicians from a relatively young age. I tend to believe that this is an epoch of ailments, and according to medical fraternity, there is not a single normal person, and they are included in the list. But the way health care technology is forging ahead that it is bound to wreck the weak and the otherwise healthy.

I had been having slight pain on my left shoulder for quite sometime now, and when I consulted an orthopaedic, he asked me to take an X-ray of the shoulder, and do two blood tests, including one on the sugar. He said that he would be able to decipher what could be the possible problem with my shoulder, only after seeing the X-ray and the blood reports. The consultation fees (rupees 300 for about 5 minutes), and the other tests have cost a lot, and when I go to him again to show the reports, he would again charge me for consultation. I wonder what a poor man or woman would do in such a situation? How many people in today's world can afford such a kind of treatment?

Country medicine is an art which is neglected and forgotten; herbal medicine has long been considered a superstition, and physicians with high-flown degrees do not consider the herbal medicine as a healthy and positive practice. But it is time that we go back to our traditional medical practices; we need to get our grand parents who knew how to find an affordable and even free of cost medicare facilities, which can keep us hale and hearty for many years. There is nothing missing in nature's bounty, which cannot bring healing to any kind of disease or ailment, even if it is the worst kind of diseases the humanity has encountered. All that we need to do is to return to nature, and she will not let us down, for sure!

A Weighty Matter

Observing the different kinds of people who frequent airports and who hang around the domestic and international terminals is quite an interesting phenomenon. It is quite amazing to notice that most of the people who frequent air trips are generally large in size, both men and women, and if I were to make an approximate proportion of oversized men and women who emerge out of the glass gates, it would be about 50 per cent. From among the rest of the 50 per cent, about 25 per cent could be categorised as the undersized, and only about 25 could be termed optimum size according to their height. Naturally we have devised a formula of optimum body mass in proportionate to the height, and that is how many of us could be fooled by these calculations, while we ourselves may feel that we are not enjoying the comfortable weight, and that we have to either shed weight or gain some, and that takes much of our time and energy.

I leave it to psychologist and dieticians to tell us how we gather more body mass than we should have; and slimming and trimming industry is the next boom that our metros witness, and there is suddenly a mad rush to keep ourselves trim and fit. There are all sorts of gadgets and machines available to bring us to the natural body mass that we should have otherwise, and we need to empty our coffers, besides shedding the extra fat, and the extra inches that we may have been walking with. Some of us even become so very comfortable being obese and extra large in size that they don’t consider it a problem, and they may even feel good about it.

I know my mind is quick in arriving at some mad conclusions, and I am sure there may be some who may vehemently oppose such conclusions. Nevertheless let me state just a couple of them, in order to wet the appetite of a few who might want a taste of my conclusions. After being born and brought up in a village for about 20 years, I realise that very few, if not none, are over-sized; out of one hundred you may be lucky to find one or two persons who could be called obese. In fact such a concept did not exist then, and there the matters of comparison was often between the moderately sized and the undersized. People by and large were and enjoy good health, and there are very little chances for one to indulge in overeating and let the fat spread all around the weistline, and present a different look. In the city, the situation is quite different; the ratio that I had mentioned above could be close to truth. One might whisper that it all depends on the life-style of the families. Even the children who go to school gain excessive body weight already at an early age. But beyond the life-style theorem, there is a fact that one person’s gaining excessive weight implies another person’s losing that much weight.

I don’t plead that someone should buy my conclusion, especially the above one, namely one person’s excessive body weight implies another person’s under weight. My conclusion, if we may call it so, is based on the notion that the universe we live maintains certain amount of balance, equinomity, and often it is disturbed by one of the most notorious of species, the homo sapiens sapiens. And we are the cause of so much of imbalance all around us. In fact, the imbalance in our universe that is brought about by human beings is just an indication of the imbalance and degradation that had befallen us, and now it is too late for us to escape from it. What can I do to maintain my body fit, so that I don’t become a prey to the modern ailments! One can notice that many of the diseases that we bother about so much were non-existent some years ago. So, where do I stand, and how do I keep myself fit for the world?

Today I will take a few minutes for myself and think about my body weight; do I feel I am over-weight or under-weight, or just the optimum weight. However here I would make a little correction to what the physician or therapist or even a dietician may say about the weight. What is most important is that one feels comfortable about it, and feels at ease to carryout one’s works. Do I feel at ease with my body mass? If I feel so, then I don’t need to worry too much about what the therapists may say. It is the law of the universe that some trees grow a little taller and bigger than others, and one cannot complain about the other. I also today realise that I don’t need to exert myself very much in order to maintain a healthy body, and mind. Let me return to my sources, and just be what a villager would normally be, and I will start noticing something beautiful happening in my body and in my society at large.

Harken the Physician (M3)

Often in life we are aware of the ailments that drown us, and we may even be aware of the remedies that can bring our health to perfection once again, but the problem is invariably taking recourse to the treatment, which involves medicines. There are a large section of people, especially those who live in far-flung villages of a nation, where people believe in the miraculous power of medicine that they will not be healed until they are administered medicines. So the local physicians have devised a method of helping them heal themselves. There were people who gave them vitamin tablets for most of their psychosomatic illnesses, and sure enough they got well soon. Those who believed that they cannot get well without an injection, were given an injection containing nothing but sterilized water. So, we may ask ourselves what caused healing of these people, the medicine given them or they themselves? Sure it was they themselves who have cured themselves. The second question that we may ask is : were they sick at all?

Carrying an unwanted bitter memory is an illness that can be equated to cancer; just like cancerous cells keep spreading gradually, so also a painful memory can slowly eat up one’s life spirit and energy, and ultimately can even throw him/her to the throws of death. We have seen that often in life, we carry with us memories that cannot be easily gotten rid of; they are like our shadows which walk with us until we breathe our last. But if we are frightened of shadows, there is a way – to hide in darkness, so that we do not allow shadows to stand before or after us. The second alternative is to avoid the source of light and remain in a bigger shade, like the shade of a tree or a building. In the latter case, our mighty little shadow may be absorbed by the mighty shadow.

Let us consider the second solution to avoid con/care-frontation with our shadows – remember that I am using the shadows to refer to our painful memories! There is so much similar between our shadows and painful memories; both can be frightening and intimidating, and they can throw us into nightmares and sleepless nights. We could pause for a while and just close our eyes and briefly recollect the painful memory that we have gone through. The greater shadow that can possibly give us some consolation is what could have taken place, beyond what had actually happened. In other words, we have been spared from the worst; worse things could have happened! Just think of it and see in the mind, what worse thing could have happened to me; I have lost something substantial, but all is not lost! I still have myself to put back the things that I have lost.

Another great shadow that can make my shadow negligible is to think of persons who have gone through similar painful experiences in life, or even worse situations; if they were able to get back to life, can I not overcome this comparatively smaller mess? Often the memories appear mighty big, because we look at them in isolation, and not in comparison with those of others. Most of the time we would realize that our experience had been far simpler and less painful than others; in many cases we have been spared from the most horrendous experiences, and should I not be grateful to God for this kindness?

So let me close my eyes for a while and recollect in my mind the persons who have suffered for more loss and pain than I have gone through; what is my suffering and pain in comparison with these people who have lost something that can never be repaired! If I have lost one leg in an accident, let me think of a person who has lost both the legs; should I not be grateful to my stars for sparing me one leg at least, so that I can still walk on the face of the earth? If I keep doing this exercise, it will not take me too long to realize that I cannot complain about my little pain or suffering, while there are people who had suffered more loss and pain, and have been able to revert back to life, like a spring that shoots back to its natural stage, after being left. Let me see my painful memory and the corresponding incidents that had caused in relation to and comparisons with more painful memories of other people, whom I know. There I can see a silver line shining brightly!

Physician, heal thyself! (M1)

The present-day physicians will pounce on Jesus, if they were told this apparent naïve statement, because it is a known fact in medical circles that self-medication is dangerous, even if it is meant for the physicians themselves. But let us not blame Jesus for this naïve statement, because Jesus is merely quoting the Jewish sacred scriptures. You may blame me, for here I am going to propose a psycho-spiritual method of healing one’s past painful memories. There are no dearths for the different ways and means to get rid of one’s painful memories and start life anew; there are psychological procedures which help a person to heal the wounds gradually through a process of recognizing and embracing the shadows. We shall however start a process of psycho-spiritual healing of these wounds, which might be causing us dearly. But before we embark on that journey, let us realize that the resources for healing of our wounds are there in us all the time. We only need to know how to harness these resources for our inner healing.

There is so much of power and energy all around us that we seldom take note of this fact; there is energy in different forms and shapes, often without form and shape. But there is greater amount of energy that is flowing through our veins, through our mental rays, if I may coin a phrase to mean the invisible rays that flow from one mind to another, through a non-verbal communication; call it telepathy or bi-location, it is possible for human beings to transcend the physical body using the powers that lie dormant in our bodies and make use of them to enter deeper into the psyche of the universe. You may not have much to disagree with me regarding this point, because there are instances when we see for ourselves how the body organizes its cells, its resistance power to heal itself of ailments that normally attack us. There are virus attacks, and complications in the organization of our body parts, and slowly the body adjusts itself and brings into healing. Is it not a wonderful thing that we can be fully healed of stomach aches, headaches, and even some major kind of sicknesses without taking recourse to medicine?

Unfortunately there are no do-it-yourself guides or tutorials as to how we can make use of the powers and energy zones that are available in our bodies, in order to overcome our painful memories. There is no super computer on earth which is as flexible and supple as the worst of human bodies; for while the body is able to carry out mechanical jobs, it also adjusts its mechanism in order to make the best out of the body. Today is the time for me to recognize the energy zones in my body, so that at will I may be able to take recourse to it. But the bad news is no one can tell me for sure where my energy zone is; is it the brain or the heart? Or is it the hands or the feet? And another thing to remember is what is the energy zone for one may not be the same for another. It is for me to realize where it exists in me. The bestseller The Secret has shown us that our body is able to cure itself of cancer, and that too within a short period. It may sound miraculous, but it is a miracle that we too can experience.

The energy zones that reside in me is something very unique to me; I can neither qualify it nor quantify it, because it is beyond my grasp. According to Kundalini yoga, there are energy zones in each of us, and that particular part is supposed to be somewhere near the forehead. We would not enter into a debate as to whether it is scientifically true or not; nor can we deny the ancient wisdom altogether. It would be a futile effort to spend our time and energy on the common energy zone in all of us. We may start with the assumption that this zone may vary from person to person, according to one’s own psyche, formation and upbringing. If it corresponds to each of our nature and behavioral pattern is another area we will look into at the end of the exercise.

Today I would like to take a few minutes to spend in silence. I will find a quiet place anywhere within my reach, in order to enter into inner silence. Surely exterior silence will help me to enter into interior stillness too. After sitting comfortably with my back straight, I will become conscious of my breathing… cool air entering into my nostrils, filling my diaphragm, and warm air coming out. Let me breathe in till my lungs are full, and breathe out slowly and steadily. Let me experience the chest heaving and falling back in place as I breathe in and out. Let it go on for a few minutes. Then let me go to each part of my body, starting from the head down to the toes, relaxing each of the tensed up part. I may tighten up that part and loosen it and experience the part relaxed. When I have covered all the parts, I will realize that my whole body is relaxed. Let me feel life energy flowing through each part of my body; if it helps, I may think of the energy flowing as if it were lightning rays… as it flows it also revitalizes each of the part. Let me remain in that state for a few minutes. This experience is sure to open the floodgates of energy within me, and make it accessible to me, whenever I am in need of it.