I agree that this conversation thread has been very interesting and helpful. We are indebted to Gruffy for being flexible about sharing his personal story. When his message went through in spite of his efforts to prevent it, he was flexible enough to assume that was the way it was supposed to be. I think that is a very healthy attitude.
For me, working on my attitude and state of consciousness is a very important area of alternative glaucoma treatment. I find Louise Hay's work interesting and compatible with my understanding of Ayurveda. Louise Hay says that every illness is a manifestion of unresolved emotional thoughts and experiences. She stated, "for every effect in our lives, there is a thought pattern that precedes and maintains it. Our consistent thinking patterns create our experiences. Therefore, by changing our thinking patterns, we can change our experiences."
Ayurveda says that our consciousness creates our physical body. I believe the key to any glaucoma cure starts at the level of our consciousness, which gives rise to our thoughts and emotions. Certainly, thinking positive thoughts and managing our emotions is a good skill to develop. However, the level of thinking is more superficial than the level of emotions and there are levels of our being deeper than emotions. Getting in touch with the deepest levels of our consciousness and resolving imbalances at that level seems to be what is required for a glaucoma cure, in my opinion.
I described my own
glaucoma cure plan in an article on my blog called "Embrace Evolve Exceed To Overcome Glaucoma". Louise Hay mentions that glaucoma can be related to the following unresolved emotions and experiences:stony unforgiveness; pressure from longstanding hurts; overwhelmed by it all. I did some Ayurvedic-oriented physiological research and I believe that bias and extreme opinionatedness might also be issues for some people with glaucoma. I think those traits apply to me more than unforgiveness. So far I haven't found unforgiveness to be a key issue for me, although maybe that means I haven't dug deeply enough. However, I saw that one part of the brain that is pathologically involved in glaucoma is the part that is connected with bias from an Ayurveda perspective and when I asked everyone who knows me well if they thought I was biased, every single person said yes. I was quite surprised because I pride myself on not being biased, but the verdict was delivered and I realized I needed to work on the attitude/emotion of bias.
We tend to seek solutions to our health problems in pills, potions, powders, procedures, etc. All of those things can help, but for a chronic condition like glaucoma, we have to look at deeper lifestyle factors and deeper emotional issues.
When we can fundamentally change ourselves at the deepest level, we can cure our glaucoma. Change at that level -- our deepest level of consciousness which underlies our emotions -- will absolutely alter the deepest levels of our physiology.
Scientists have been looking for specific genes that cause glaucoma. Many glaucoma patients are hoping for a genetic-level "cure" for glaucoma. What the latest scientific research is showing is that in complex diseases (such as glaucoma, AMD, etc.), the presence of a specific genetic variant does not guarantee development of the disease (nor does the absence of that specific variant guarantee protection). Persons with risk genotypes can dramatically reduce risk (probably even to a level below the general population risk) through diet and lifestyle. Science is just seeing the tip of the iceberg so far when it comes to genetics. The interaction among factors is immense and mind-boggling. The genotypes that increase risk for glaucoma could certainly also confer benefits or advantages to those persons in other areas of their being. And on a spiritual level, the programmed glaucoma risk could be part of the lessons we are supposed to learn in this lifetime. Ayurveda says that our DNA holds memories of past lives and that no part of the DNA is "junk" or non-functional. Messing with our physiology on that level via genetic treatments for diseases like glaucoma is inviting serious potentially irreversible side effects that go much deeper than the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs.
However, the expression of our genes is something we can influence with our lifestyle and our emotional state. Without artificially altering our genetic sequence via gene therapy, we can alter our gene expression through deep work on our consciousness. (Actually, even thoughts and emotions can alter how our genes are expressed.) That's the way to a glaucoma cure. Pills, potions, powders and procedures (including surgery) are merely helpful adjuncts (and they are not always helpful, so care is required in their use).
Dr. Ritch said he defines a glaucoma cure when "it goes away and never comes back, like an unwanted house guest." I have to add that it cannot come back in another form or with another name either. A real cure requires that the unwanted house guest never sends back surrogates. Too often, a "cure" is actually only a suppression. What was once disease A goes away and comes back as disease B. The way to ensure that doesn't happen is to resolve the lifestyle, emotional and deep-seated consciousness factors that lead to the appearance of the disease in the first place.
(NOTE: when I talk about consciousness, I am talking about the most fundamental level of our being. The way to get in touch with that level, to bring the "subconscious" into the consciousness, is through a traditional and formal medition practice.)
I absolutely believe I can cure my glaucoma - but even if I don't, glaucoma is helping me become a better person at a fundamental level. In that sense, glaucoma is helping me fulfill my life's purpose and I am thankful for it. (I'm not so thankful that I want to keep it around however! For me, it's like an "interesting" visitor who was education for one visit but who will never get invited back because their visit wasn't all that pleasant.)
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