Non-Medical Healing Practices - need be revived By: Prof.S. Ranjan Mohapatra

January 8 2004--Healing of various ailments has remained and will remain a major area of concern for the society. However, the health seeking behaviour of the society changes over time along with the change in the level of knowledge & awareness and treatment methods about various ailments, physical, emotional and spiritual.

There is no doubt about the fact that Indian Science and technology was at its peak in the ancient times, might it be for war or aviation or healthcare. The story of Lord Ram & Sita along with the companions flying from Lanka (modern Sri Lanka) to India is confirmed by the research findings published in the famous book titled, Bermuda Triangle. The same book also confirms the technology used for designing the Brahmastra in the Mahabharat was not much different from the modern day atomic and nuclear warheads. The texts of Charaka & Sushruta, clearly speaks of the level of advancement the medical science had made in those pre-medieval days.

In spite of the above advancements in medical science, India still had other Non-medical Healing Practices (NHP) like Yoga, Tantra, Astrology, Palmistry, Numerology, Vastu etc. It is clear from the above that Indian society believed in a holistic approach to healthcare, which included, Physical Health, Emotional Health and Spiritual Health. It is an established fact that any attempt to heal the ailment relating to any one of the above three aspects of Health, will not be effective and sustainable, for the obvious fact that the health of all the three aspects are inter-connected. An emotionally sick person develops physical sickness and a physically sick person spoils his emotional and spiritual health.

Here lies the reason for the failures of modern medical science in not satisfying all the health related problems of the human being in the modern era, inducing man to look for emotional and spiritual healing beyond the modern medical world of Allopathic. The effort of Medical Science to develop Mental Healthcare Systems to focus on the emotional health of the patients has not been effective in wining the confidence of the masses. The focus of Government of India on this is evident from the fact that barely 1 % of total health budget is allocated for Mental Health services, compared to 10 to 20 % in developed countries. There are just 3 psychiatrists in India per million people, in comparison to 100 in Australia. Against this, the present estimated number of people in need of metal health services is a huge 25 million.

In addition to the above, there lies the list of health problems like Asthma, Blood Sugar, Blood Cancer etc, whose effective cure in Medical Science is not yet available.

The facts presented above confirm the holistic approach of Indian Society to Healthcare since ages, where modern surgery co-exited with Yoga, Tantra, Astrology, palmistry and other spiritual healing practices etc. There was no competition among the practitioners of medical science like Charak-Sushruta, practitioner of Tantra, Gorakh Nath, and other such practitioners.

Then, why is the misgiving of the society today, at least in the sections of the media about the traditional healing practices other than allopathic medicine system, primarily for Tantra? Tantra is only one of the ancient healing practices along with Yoga, Vastu, Palmistry, Astrology etc. Yoga got recognized and respected in India only after Indian Yoga teachers made name, fame and money in the west. Till that time Yoga was a taboo.

It was the case of Palmistry and Numerology, though an Indian Science by origin, it got its universal acceptance only after Cheiro, took it from India and practiced in the west and published a literature in English. He has acknowledged that an Indian teacher in a small village in India taught the original science to him. Till, then the science was a taboo in India. The spirituality, which is the essence of Indian nationhood is less respected and appreciated within India than outside. Even after President of India has advised the countrymen to rise above religion and respect spirituality and Sri Sri Ravisankar has addressed UN Assembly on spirituality as a spiritual ambassador of the nation. We still have people in India to not develop an urge to know what is the spirituality of this great country, what are the spiritual healing practices, what is Tantra, which is so often being pictured as a black magic.

As a Researcher, Management Consultant and Trainer, I am confident that, once a person tries to gather knowledge about the Black Magic, he will be soon realize how much of the magic is black and how much is white. If Tantra can be called black magic, why can't we call Allopathic science as a killer, when a large number of persons are killed on the Operation Table due to negligence, for stealing human organs for sale, due to incompetence ö wrong diagnosis by the doctor, wrong treatment by a quack, who practices without a degree in remote rural areas, even in interior pockets of Delhi, as shown in TV channels frequently.

If a Government regulatory bodies have failed to regulate and control the unqualified doctors from practicing a recognized practice like Allopathy and cheating the poor, innocent patients, how one can expect that the science like Tantra, which has no Government recognition as a healing practice like Allopathic, can control the unqualified practitioners from practicing and cheating the public?

Every Science has the possibility of being used and misused, like that of a knife, which can be used by a doctor to conduct an operation to save life and by a butcher for taking life. Thus, it is not the knife to be blamed, but the motivation of the user, using the knife. Like, no one can guarantee that a doctor cannot kill a patient for some consideration; no one can guarantee that a Tantrik won't use his powers for damaging a human being for money. Thus, for controlling misuse of Tantarik knowledge, what is required is more research, knowledge dissemination about the subject, developing regulatory mechanism for all the various Non-Medical Spiritual Healing Practices stated above.

Against this background the criticism of Tanta by a section of media, calling it a medieval practice, gives lot of pain to any person with a scientific bent of mind.

I have a simple question for the reader. Will a Blind Man be permitted to claim that there is only one colour in the world, which is black and anybody claiming that there are many other colours like yellow, red, blue etc are mad? Obviously not.

But, if at all a blind man attempts to do that, is there any effective method of proving to the blind man, that there are many colours like yellow, red, blue etc. Unfortunately, not.

Here lies the crux of the story of duality of a section of Indian Elite, about the ancient Indian Healing Practice including Tantra, Mantra & Yantra. The duality is about the fact that the very people, who speak about the Indian Healing Practice including Tantra, being medieval, they keep on applying Tantaric practices in secret.

The section of Indian elite, who tends to refuse the relevance of Tantarik tradition as a healing practice without any effort to study and gather adequate knowledge before accepting or rejecting, can be safely said to be blind to the facts. And no blind man has a right to make any claims about the presence or absence of colours.

As per a basic scientific approach to life and any subject of study or knowledge, it is essential that the basic facts be studied, even if the facts are related to intangibles and more difficult than the study of tangibles. When, a common man with relatively low level of intellectual capacity can study the tangibles, the study of any intangible subject needs more intellectual capacity, power to visualize etc. For example, it is easy to study the physical sickness than the study of mental sickness.

How many of the people, who believe that Tantra, mantra, Yantra etc is derogatory, negative etc, have come to this conclusion after adequate study on their own? Is it five percent, 10 percent or more? An average reader can safely conclude that the perception and belief about Tantra etc is based on HEARSAY and not RESEARCH.

As a Management Consultant, dealing in Management Science, the foundations of which is based on logic and scientific enquiry, I can safely state that no one has a right to either accept or dismiss the existence or non-existence of a science, a body of knowledge, before the required research to collect relevant facts.

In this context, the article of Mr. Amulya Ganguli in the Hindustan Times (dated 17th November, 2003) seems to have missed the point. May be with an effort of running down a political party, he has involved the minister, Dr. Sanjay Paswan, who has come out in open with a personal mission to propagate Tantra-Mantra & Yantra as an ancient, spiritual healing practice and give it its due.

May be Mr. Ganguli has tried to used Tantra as an instrument to attack a person and through him a political party. But, it need not be forgotten that a person and his belief can be independent of a "position" that a person holds- a Minister in the present case, until the person does not declare his belief as his official statement and it can not be associated with a political party, until it is declared as a stated policy through an official statement of the party. Irrespective of the purpose of Mr. Ganguly, a veteran media personality, the criticism of Tantra without adequate research on the subject but with a superficial understanding based on common perception, only does disservice to the hidden treasure of ancient Indian knowledge system, which the President, Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam has respects "Traditional Knowledge" as a core strength in his VISION FOR A DEVELOPED INDIA.

To conclude, I may say that it is high time for India to know itself, the strengths of its ancient knowledge and wisdom and stop running after the acceptance of the west, even after being accepted by the west in its totality. Presently, the west is looking up to the east, specifically India, primarily for its spiritual and intellectual powers. Thus, there is a need for India to look in to its back yard and assess the value of the treasure, revive then by giving recognition, sponsoring research, training and promote them for the global audience, rather than let it be plundered by an westerner like Palmistry or numerology, which are being projected as sciences of the West .Let the same not happen to Tantra.

(The Author is a management consultant and management trainer, who heads, VISION Consulting and VISION Foundation for Development Management.)







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