Article by Dawna Jones, www.fromInsightToAction.com

Ashok Puri: Transcript of Conversation Feb.6th, 2010

For about two years I was having trouble seeing. During that time it was diagnosed as cataracts. My doctor told me they weren’t ripe yet. After four years, I was having real problems reading; I couldn’t see ‘h’ s. So they did the operation for cataracts and nothing changed. I was sent to a specialist who explained that the blood vessels in the retina were leaking fluid in the macular area which was making my eyesight blur. The disease is called Idiopathic Parafovial Tenalgiectasia - stage II, leaking of unwanted blood vessels for which there is no treatment in the allopathic system as yet.

The liquid had been flowing onto the fovia area around the macula and have damaged it a little. Once the macular area fills with fluid, you go blind. There was no way of knowing how far back it had been leaking so some damage had been done. It could have been from birth, 5 months or 5 years.

I got very scared. The first few weeks I felt panicky about the prospect of going blind. Then after that I started to get used to the idea. I went to several more doctors to get second and third opinions and was told the same thing.

Then I started to explore options. There was an off the table injection which was not approved by the FDA in the U.S. which had its risks. It could make you go blind right away. I checked with others who had tried this option which cost 300$ per injection. It wasn’t covered by medical. I spoke to several people who had tried this; some said nothing happened, others noticed minor improvement and others had their condition deteriorate.

I travelled to India and tried a bunch of things but nothing worked. Finally I was referred to Sreedhareeyam..... which is an Ayurvedic eye clinic near the city of Cochin in the Southern state of Kerala, India. www.sreedhareeyam.com. Ayurveda as a medical practice has been around for f over 2000 years. Conventional medicine, or allopathic, has been around for about150- 200 years.

The doctor I consulted with at the clinic, told me that they could do something about the leakage but not about the damage in the macula, done already. The state that the clinic is located in, is producing the world’s largest number of spices.

The origins of the clinic are told through a story of a Brahimin priest/self made natural healer who lived in a village. People would go for miles and miles to be healed by him. One night he had a dream. In his dream he was guided to the jungle where he was guided to a book which contained specific instructions on eye treatments. He began following the instructions in this book giving eye treatments. One day a sheik came with his two sons who were blind. He cured them both. The sheik gave him a blank check to create a clinic. They did not accept the blank check but did accept the amount of money it would take to set up and operate the clinic. There is a temple in the center of the property. The clinic conducts research all related to the eyes. Those who provide treatment are all Ayurvedic doctors who have trained for five years and with many years of experience. The family of the priest all works there. When I left Canada for India, my eyesight was 20/50 and 20/70. I stayed there for three weeks

When you walk onto the property you feel the high energy and happy, positive energy. Immediately you feel upgraded. There is a sense of magic in the air. 95% of the people who go there have been rejected by conventional medicine. It is their spiritual approach to the healing that change my view.

The doctors all surrender themselves and their knowledge to the divine guidance of the Kali goddess. In India, there are 84 million deities you may choose to worship, not just one. Every day the doctors would go to the temple to pray and then do their work. When I arrived, I was taken to the temple where I was prayed for before my treatment. They told me, ‘we are treating your eyes, but that is not what happens. It is Kali who cures; the doctors are the medium.

At the conclusion of the three weeks they told me,’ We have done our job, it is all up to her. We will keep praying for you.’ I returned to Canada and went back to my regular doctor who put me through a whole series of tests with and without my glasses. All the time, he was saying ‘whoa’ and other expressions and I began to become anxious about what he was discovering. Finally, he turned to me and said, “What did you do? Your eyesight is 20/20. Why are you wearing these glasses?” He confirmed that the leakage had stopped.

I never believed in any of this but now that I have experienced it by going to the temple first it changed my thinking about faith. I came to the conclusion that faith is as important as treating the physical. There are yogis who go to the jails and teach yoga to the criminals changing lives. You can go to the larger hospitals and have the option of getting treated with any or all of these sciences- allopathic, Ayurvedic and homeopathy. The doctors, in some of the hospitals, work together in a complementary way to balance your treatment. If the drugs have side effects, and they all do, the Ayurvedic practitioner will support the body using herbs. They work together to support you in your healing.

This is not about religion. Ayurveda is a lifestyle based on science. Most of the religions make people surrender their strengths within to a higher power rather than accepting the challenge placed before them to ascend to a higher level. In actuality the energy within can and have the strength of converting fear into a higher level of personal power.”

From their web site:

Science and technology are moving at a revolutionary phase. Yet as per statistics one person is losing his eyesight every five seconds. One million people in the world are blind... And a million more people are becoming blind... Lifestyle changes, pollution etc are affecting the eyes, deteriorating our vision, causing early blindness.

Ayur means life and Veda means knowledge. Ayurveda is not just a science. It is a way of life, a religion and a wonderful healing process that heals and treats not just the symptoms but the patient too eradicating the root cause of all doshas or ailments. The aim and vision of Sreedhareeyam is thus to spread and impart the knowledge and wisdom of the ancient science, to enhance the vision, relieve and heal humanity suffering and groping in the dark due to blindness and eye ailments.