Saturday, January 31, 2015

DISEASE - CURE ( Death of Disease - 3)

Miracle Cure.

Excerpts from Book: Death of Disease.


The book discusses the merits and demerits of the yet another method of cure viz. 'Miracle Cure'. Miracle cure have been experienced and reported in different context. In these chapter the miracle cure is at the place 'Lourdes in Southern France.' This place and miracle cure is taken for deliberation and thorough analysis. Because this has been subjected to scientific tests to a fair degree. This place also can be ranked as a place of genuine miracle cure center for over centuries.

Right from 1886 onwards medical authorities have supervised these miracles. Those who supervised stood above any suspicion and the list includes great authorities in the medical fields of those times. In 1953 alone, 1500 doctors from all over the world took part in the examination of the miracle.

The Medical Bureau collected a record of 1200 cases of complete inexplicable cures, yet another 4000 nearly genuine complete cure cases. If the strict medical restrictions as to what constitutes a complete cure are relaxed, the number of cures would reach 10,000. True, as compared to millions who visited Lourdes, the figure looks insignificant. But four significant points further prove the value of Lourdes.

The doctors who argue that Lourdes cures depend upon 'Unknown Natural Forces' wonder and confuse on the uncertainty of such cures. In the cases of some people cure takes place at the bath, in the case of others at the procession. Intense pain precedes some cures, while others come about with no pain at all. The patient feels only a sudden sense of ineffable (inexpressible) well being.

To enumerate the points about Lourdes miracles.

- For over a hundred years, cures have been continuously reported.
- They receive supervision from top medical authorities who hail from various countries and who belong to diverse religious faiths.
- Water at the grotto (cave) reveals no uncommon medical properties.
- A record of over few thousand cures certified after extremely rigorous medical tests with all modern equipment’s proves that 'miracle cure' does occur and constitutes a distinct class amongst several cure media.
- Cure of very young children proves that we commit a fallacy (false notion) in ascribing (assign) the cure to psychological factors entirely.
- The extreme variability suddenness, unpredictability prove that we cannot invoke (pray for) 'Unknown Natural Laws' to explain Lourdes cures.


An Italian woman who suffered from severe hypertension was cured after visiting Lourdes in 1989, the 69th such miracle to take place at the fabled French shrine, a Catholic official said Sunday.
Giovanni Giudici, bishop of Pavia, where Danila Castelli lives, recognized the event as a miracle last month, but flooding at the religious site in south-western France prevented the Lourdes sanctuary from publishing the news earlier.

Born in January 1946, Castelli started suffering from "spontaneous and serious hypertensive crises" - sudden, brutal rises in blood pressure - aged 34, according to the Lourdes website. Tests detected several problems, including a tumor that secretes high amounts of catecholamine - hormones such as adrenalin or dopamine - in her urogenital system. She was operated on several times without any success, the site says.

"In May 1989, during a pilgrimage to Lourdes, Danila gets out of the baths where she had been submerged and she feels an extraordinary feeling of well being," the site said. Several months later, she reported her apparent cure to the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations. After five meetings between 1989 and 2010, the office concluded that "Mrs. Castelli was cured, in a complete and lasting way, from the date of her pilgrimage to Lourdes -- 21 years ago -- of the syndrome she had suffered and without any relation to the treatments and the surgeries she underwent."

The case was passed on to the Lourdes International Medical Committee, which counts some 20 doctors and which certified that the way she healed remains "unexplained according to current scientific knowledge".

Comments by  Swami Vijnananand (S. V.) on miracle cures.


I (S.V.) do not feel the case is that hopeless. People will continue to get cured, as they were being treated before. The essential need is to understand the phenomenon of such cures in its proper perspective.  The chaos exists because of our contradictions, when we attempt to explain miracles by 'Unknown Natural Laws'. This is a contradiction because we have all along presumption in the universality of natural laws.

Therefore, the way out of chaos lies in direction of going deeper and to dive down to genuine fundamentals in the sea of pseudo-scientific concepts and search for the basic natural laws of disease and cure. We should either call all cures in the dispensaries as 'miracles' or turn miracles at Lourdes and other places – as taking place by some 'natural law', which should be made known. It would be a bitter pill for practitioners of all pathies to allow all their cures to be called miracles. We therefore, hope that in mere self-protection, they would join our search for an 'all covering natural laws' that explains disease and makes the myths of miracle an outcast (deleted from the main course).

First and foremost is that –

The idea of all enveloping medicine has to be abandoned.

The observation of Dr. Clark – Kennedy are important – "No two people, however – although identical twins may come very near to it, are the same".

The medicine should suit individual (The patient should be treated and not the disease).

(To be continued)


Vijay R. Joshi.



Thursday, January 29, 2015

DISEASE - CURE ( Death of Disease - 2)

Main Methods of Treatment


This book (Death of Disease, written by Swami Vijnananand,( S. V.) in chapters 4 to 8 briefly discusses some of the major treatment methods giving their history, concepts, broad shortcomings or objections as well as limitations. Excerpts follow.

Evaluation of Allaopth


1.  Here we proceed to analyze the claims of allopath. This is the first major system of modern treatment of disease. We shall strictly adhere to reason and quote authorities from their own group.

2. Hippocrates (the founder) laid down three principles which form the corner stones of science of modern medicine.

 a) There is no authority except facts
 b) Strict observation alone leads one to facts
 c) Conclusions are to be established only from facts

In practice, however, no one ever adhered to these principles.

2.1 Experts considered that the ultimate solution was in their hands and maintained so. (Ego of the experts). Pasteur propounded that bacteria will be conquered in the case of every disease, leading to eliminate of all disease. This continues to remain an unfulfilled dream.

2.2 Naming new disorders keeps allopath busy, while every problem connected with cause remained unsolved. A common man remains helpless when doctors name disorders differently, at intervals. For interval of time, the cause of disease according to doctors lay in susceptibility, then it is shifted to inheritance.

2.3 Effective drugs are few, rest are mainly directed at symptoms. According to Dr. A Hutchnecker, out of thousand drugs in pharmacopeia, only a few drugs contribute towards cure of specific disease.

2.4 Surgery is (often) misused in practical life. Authority like Donald Cooley (besides Bernard Shaw) suggests that kidney stones tend to grow more after the operations. Dr. Graefenberg wrote in 1929 – "Many an appendix has been sacrificed to a harmless …… pain, If the pain happened to be in the left lower quadrant, the left adnexa (ovary) were doomed ……. Back pains were at once associated with displacement of the Uterus".

2.5 Drugs old or new, after passage of time prove worthless. Even apparently harmless therapy leads to undesirable reactions.

After decades of X-Rays treatment, the multitude of dangers of X-Rays attracts the scientists' attention. The dangers of radiation are becoming more and more apparent. The disadvantage of chemotherapy, as now revealed, shock us.

"To begin with, the antibiotics shift the balance of body in favor of the patient but, as treatment is continued, it may shift back in favor of organism." – The comments from scientists.

2.6 Many allopathic practices now accepted as erroneous and given up. This has cost humanity thousands of lives.

2.7 Theoretically, modern medicines does consider factors mental or emotional. But one fails to trace a method in allopath wherewith the problems of stress, the original cause of disease is faced. Except possibly occasional lectures to patients to forget stress. Doctors (tend to often) ignore the mind factor in practice, while advocating in theory the essential need of taking it in to account.

3. The claim is not that these points make a full case against allopath. The list of un-solved riddles, as admitted by allopath itself and partly mental (in the book) establish the limitation of allopath.

4. Although, allopath’s bright side too exists.

For instance, of all methods of cure, allopath alone stands very open, frank and unpretentious. In no other schools of Medicine, the top-heads of the world so readily admit the failure of their system.

In many instances, the world knows about the failures of modern medicine through their inventors or their immediate followers themselves. Such frankness hardly comes across where truth about the other cults get placed in the dock.

Another noteworthy fact about allopath is worth mentioning. If experiments prove that standards set forth by its logic are reached, then discoveries receive acceptance even when they come forth from non-medical persons. As we know Pasteur was not a medical authority in the real sense of the term.

5. These highlights of allopath have acquired for the system a supreme honor and confidence, in contrast to the position of other cults.

But there are shortcomings too!

6. Shortcomings


 a) Its non-consideration of and failure to treat psyche in all its aspects. Some experts feel that treatment of psyche continues constitutes a specialized area reserved for psychologists, psychiatrists.  Psychiatrists themselves hold conflicting views on problems of psyche and the allopath’s wisdom in living mind to them, this has brought grief to allopath in every respect.
 b) The second great handicap of allopath lies in the fact that its followers have not the same sense of scientific detachment of their masters that resulted in highest respect for the allopath’s. Therefore, its high value gets completely diluted when we turn to a representative of allopath of our street corner or neighborhood, who undertakes to relieve us of any agony.

Evaluation of Four Other Systems

The discussion in the book also deals with the analysis of other four pathies namely homeopathy, naturopathy, osteopathy, and psycho-therapy.
The details can be seen from the Chapter.

Conclusion


Innumerable objections and very powerful ones can be shown for the theory and practice for each cult. This is again not to totally deny the utility of these pathies, but only to show certain limitations to which each cure system is exposed.

The Incompleteness of Every System


Do we mean that all methods are absolutely wrong? No! We are talking only about limitations.

The afflicted (depressed), nervous patient often forgets the ills done to him by several practitioners (may be from diverse pathies) and he propagates the name of his successful doctor. Thereafter all systems of cure go unquestioned amongst their respective followers – for patients may shift their camps, but they never give-up the faith that someone else will certainly cure them. They feel justified in their faith, when they meet their reliever in the form of some white-dressed doctor. The poor patients never know that so great an authority as Dr. H.W. Haggard, M.D. recorded the verdict that "Ninety percent of diseases are curable without medicine".

The truth remains unpalatable to doctors and therefore, they often oppose it on quite untenable (unsound) grounds in private. Yet every patient in his heart of heart fully endorses the extent of his own suffering at the hands of various pathies.

To sum up – All prevailing therapies thrive on a few grains of truth and the rest are merely experimental speculations.


( to be continued)



Vijay R. Joshi.


Sunday, January 25, 2015

DISEASE CURE (Death Of Disease - 1)

Excerpts from book:  Death of Disease


I (Swami Vijnananand - S.V.-) hasten to assure my readers that:

- My arguments will be careful, accurate and strictly logical. If, after that, the logical presentation results in some entirely new findings, then, the world has necessarily to make room for it.

- Not the disease, but the patient should be treated.

- Survival of civilization must ultimately depend not on advance of science but on spread of morality.

- I have no quarrel with Doctors. However, truth must be unreservedly faced. It is for the reader to decide whether to live in chaos or leave it for better health in a New Way.

Interesting Riddle of Food


Admittedly many human ailments spring from an insufficient attention to nourishment. Scientists insist on intake of flawlessly correct diet. Yet they don't formulate any criteria for checking this correctness.

Dr. Anthony Barnett, Lecturer in Zoology in Glasgow University
"It must be admitted that standard vary (what should be the intake in forms of calories or vitamins for health) and that there is even now no final agreement on the necessary amount of certain essentials. We know that nobody can do without vitamin C, for instance, but we cannot lay down precisely, with reasonable certainty, the minimum any person or even any class of persons, must have it (vitamin C), in order to avoid all ill effects. "One difficulty is that individuals almost certainly vary genetically in their vitamin needs. Tooth decay is unquestionably influenced by diet, but one child may have excellent teeth, another on the same diet may have extensive decay.

As far recommendations of proper diet for health is concerned, such simple problem also confuses the scientists. (In scientific recommendations). The twists and turns are many. All mere generalization and no medical expert has been able to offer correct guidance (on diet). Goodness, nourishing qualities, taste and other factors differ with every individual and render the doctor's teaching mere theoretical nonsense.

Doctor's Dilemma: The doctors are not aware of the limitations of their knowledge.


Three main obstacles stand in the way of doctors to understand the new conception of disease and its cure. Their 'Knowledge' takes the first rank, their 'ego' second and third comes their 'need of self-preservation'.

1.  Bernard Shaw compared Registered Medical Practitioners with a commoner who challenges to a cat to keep clean while simultaneously throwing a bucket of mud on it.

Einstein remarked about himself – 'The secret is, I know how little I know of this vast Universe'.

The doctors are not aware of the limitations of their knowledge.

I (S.V.) have myself defended medical knowledge on the ground of its possessing scientific qualities, as medical authorities show clearly readiness to analyze their own results and discard them if found useless. Yet in practice (at the level of normal medical practitioners in society) such scientific attitude seems very much watered down (weakened).

A Nobel Prize winner shows keen awareness that modern medicine is unable to cope up squarely with all ills right from simple cold. He knows well, for instance, that the primary problem of finding a cure for cold demands the solution of diverse problems. This is because colds are due to various microbes. Research on cold has been hampered by the fact that common laboratory animals are immune from attacks of cold, except perhaps the expensive chimpanzees.

A famous book 'Patients and Doctors' (Page 76) rightly indicates that all that the medical man does when he stimulates the action of complementary organs is to render assistance to her (Nature).

Three main obstacles stand in the way of doctors to understand the new conception of disease and its cure. Their 'Knowledge' takes the first rank, their 'ego' second and third comes their 'need of self-preservation'.

a)  The medical practitioners seem incapable of thinking in terms other than those taught in the curriculum. Doctor feels content with the knowledge gained during a few years in a limited field and he believes in its perfection and presses others to count upon it.

b) The second dilemma is ego, which results from the natural corollary of his first dilemma, 'Knowledge'.

c) The third dilemma is the sense of self-preservation. If he agrees with and puts into practice the contents of the quotes of Einstein, Holmes, Paget or Carrel, he deprives himself of his bread.

I (S.V.) feel that, medical practitioners are neither better nor worse than other members of the society, in which they live. Their defects are noticed prominently by others because they happen to be educated (and also belonging to a conventionally respected profession).

Disease Unknown


That section of the medical world, which show clearly interest in the science of medicine shows full consciousness of the shortcomings of modern medicine.

I (S.V.) honor medical science to some extent because of their frank admission. The difficulty still remains that these frank admissions continue isolated, being found only at the top level. They never permeate to the lower ranks.


Vijay R. Joshi.


Thursday, January 22, 2015

DIS-EASE AND CURE


Swami Vijnananand (S. V.) had said:
“It is the non-matter that matters most”!

In the blogs to follow, we shall see the views expressed by S. V. on the “Cure of Human Disease”.


He has dealt the vital aspect of disease cure emphasizing the role of mind in a unique way. Besides other references, the books given below cover these views.

Death of Disease.Cure without Medicine.Cure Yourself.


These views were published in 1960s, which was before about 50 years, no due cognition was taken then. Now in the 1st/2nd decade of 21st century, the science thinkers seem to appreciate the role of mind in the health treatment.

Science has to take cognition of MIND (Which is non-matter).


In his book “SPONTANEOUS EVOLUTION” Bruce Lipton says that the conventional science for its own courageous quest for the Truth has to disapprove its dogma which says “matter only matters”.

What really matters? To quote Einstein: The field is the only reality. The field is the other name of cosmic energy, energy filled in the Universe. The energy which enables the human life is also a part of the field. This energy is usually called soul energy or mind.

Bruce Lipton elaborates the benefits achieved by acceptance of MIND by science as follows:

1.    Once for all we can end the useless arguments between science and religion.
2.    By acknowledging the power of invisible fields, we open-up an entirely new field of enquiry and challenge science to explore what it has previously ignored.
3.    We can realize that humanity is operating on unified field of dreams and we can rejoice that the field is a playing field  not a battle field.

"Mind over Medicine". A recent book by Lissa Rankin, M.D.


Lissa explains, our minds can make us sick and they can make us well. Our feelings and beliefs impact our every cell. How we speak to ourselves matters. Whether or not we feel and express love affects our well-being. That very notion empowers me. It fills me with hope and curiosity. She explains, using some of the latest scientific research.

With this insightful book, Dr. Lissa Rankin reintroduces us to a spring of ancient intelligence that shows the power you have over your own health. She carries the torch passed down to her by some of the greatest mind-body healers of our time. Folks like Bernie Seigel, Dean Ornish, Deepak Chopra, Candace Pert, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and count- less other pioneers before her. Quite simply, Lissa is the leading voice of the next generation of medical trailblazers and innovators who marry hard evidence with heart.

With this review of latest Research the Mind- Brain relationship, the conventional science also is seen taking new mode accepting the mind’s role in directing brain.

Volunteering Reduces Risk of Hypertension in Older Adults


June 13, 2013 — It turns out that helping others can also help you protect yourself from high blood pressure. New research from Carnegie Mellon University shows that older adults who volunteer for at least 200 hours per year decrease their risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure, by 40 percent. The study, published by the American Psychological Association's Psychology and Aging journal, suggests that volunteer work may be an effective non-pharmaceutical option to help prevent the condition. Hypertension affects an estimated 65 million Americans and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. (Ref. Science News)

Humans Are Happier When They Do the Right Thing; It Also Helps Them Overcome Difficulties


June 12, 2013 — Communities that stick together and do good for others cope better with crises and are happier for it, according to a new study by John Helliwell, from the University of British Columbia in Canada, and colleagues. Their work suggests that part of the reason for this greater resilience is the fact that humans are more than simply social beings, they are so-called 'pro-social' beings. In other words, they get happiness not just from doing things with others, but from doing things both with and for others. The paper is published online in Springer's Journal of Happiness Studies.. . (Ref. Science News)

Brain Can Be Trained in Compassion, Study Shows


May 22, 2013 — So far, little was scientifically known about the human potential to cultivate compassion -- the emotional state of caring for people who are suffering in a way that motivates altruistic behavior. A new study by researchers at the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the Waisman Center of the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows that adults can be trained to be more compassionate. The report, published Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, investigates whether training adults in compassion can result in greater altruistic behavior and related changes in neural systems underlying compassion. (Ref. Science News)

The role of mind training


Dr. Richard Davidson is a leading scientist in the field of brain plasticity and has demonstrated that by intervention of proper nurturing strategies at home, school and other effective media in the child environment and by imparting the training of contemporary practices; the skills of emotional intelligence can be effectively imparted. He is one of the leading scientists working for this cause on the platform of Mind and Life Institute. In one of his presentations (Google lecture 2009) the future role of MIND training is elaborated in his vision as follows: -

By year 2050

1.  Mental exercise will be accepted and practiced in the same way as physical exercise.
2.    We will have science of virtual qualities.
3.    We will incorporate mind back into medicine and better understand how brain can modulate peripheral biology. Biology in the way; that affects health.
4.    We will develop a secular approach to provide method and practice for contemplative traditions to :
5.    Teach teachers and children ways to better regulate emotions and attention and cultivate qualities like kindness and compassion.
6.    Transform corrections so that forgiveness can be cultivated in victims and emotion regulation and stress reduction in offenders.
7.    Increase awareness of our interdependence upon others and upon the planet and be more responsible care takers of our precious environment.
8.    Promote their wider spread adaptation into the major institutes of our culture. This will help to restore civility, humility, gratitude and other virtues in our culture.

The book “Train your Mind change your Brain” (Sharon Begley) is a detailed account of many aspects in this area. The maternal state of mind during prenatal stages plays a pivotal role whereas paternal care, too, matters. The spirit of three years, lives with us until 100 years, they say. Hence, prenatal and early childhood years can really shape our mind.

We shall see in details the treatment given by S. V. to this vital issue in the blogs to follow.


Vijay R. Joshi.