Recently, a very close friend of mine has been diagnosed with liver cancer. Time and again his doctors are asking him the same kind of questions: Is he a drunkard? A chain smoker? Does he eat a lot of spicy meat? But I know that this friend has been a complete teetotaler and vegetarian throughout his life. He had no cancer-inducing habits at all.
Having lived mostly in oxygen-filled Himalayan landscapes and given to regular mountain-climbing, he was least likely to be touched by the fatal illness. Contrarily, I have seen many drunkards and smokers living long and healthy lives.
It may be possible to deploy statistics to demonstrate that the incidence of cancer is greater among drunkards and smokers. But I do not think that one can establish a cause and effect relationship. There are more illnesses and cures in heaven and earth than present-day medical science knows of. I have seen one great surgeon killed by cancer in spite of expert treatment. I have seen a tertiary case of pancreatic cancer cured over the last 18 years through ‘unscientific treatments’ like auto-urine therapy. Rationalists may scoff at it. But, in healing, the tree is known by its fruit.
The statistically demonstrated triumphs of allopathic treatment notwithstanding, both the origins and cures of illnesses never cease to surprise us. I have been a witness to many such surprise healings. A poor old man was struck with severe diabetes and was healed completely with auto-urine therapy. Another chronic diabetic was healed by the simple treatment of eating every morning two ladyfingers soaked in water overnight. Neither of them took any medication or followed any dietary rules.
It is for reasons such as these that what are now called alternative or non-conventional therapies are becoming popular. Reiki, yoga, pranic healing, flower therapy, incense therapy, etc are making the rounds. It is true that some practitioners of these therapies make very tall claims. As someone deeply interested in several kinds of therapies in a practical way, I do not buy such exaggerated claims. No form of therapy is a cure-all. Also, not every form works for everybody.
Let me narrate my own experiments with healing myself and others. The only thing I remember about my childhood is being in a clinic or hospital. At 17, I became a victim of double pneumonia which soon paved the way for advanced pleurisy. The treatment lasted nine months. It was then that I decided to take charge of my health. I took to yoga practice in a rigorous way.
Within a year, I was cured of all illnesses that haunted me since childhood. I started enjoying excellent physical health. Over the next couple of decades, I hardly fell ill. But I was struck by illnesses related to the stomach. Health is not a purely physical matter. When the body becomes completely healthy the mind becomes imbalanced due to the enormous physical energy unless the mind knows how to handle this additional energy supply. The imbalance later manifests itself in bodily terms in unexpected ways. Around 40, I became a victim of sciatica.
An ardent practitioner of yoga, I should not have got it. Yoga was no help. Neither was allopathy or physiotherapy. After acute physical discomfort for long months, I discovered reiki. I was healed within 10 days. The disease has not returned.
Inspired by my personal experience, I decided to become a reiki healer myself. Since then, I have taught and administered reiki to a large number of people. Given the condition that any healing works on the basis of sincerity of practice, I have had more than 70 per cent success in my healing work. At the same time, it does not always work. I used it to try and heal a student in an advanced stage of cancer. I could not save her. But thanks to reiki, she died a painless death.