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Bharat Savur

Did you know that staring at the sun de-stresses the mind and helps maintain a disease-free body? And now this has NASA's endorsement!

Hira Ratan Manek (HRM) is making waves at NASA. The moon-rakers are eyeing this sun-gazer with reverence. Last June, a jaunty Manek strode into the NASA Headquarters claiming he'd eaten nothing except sunlight for the past eight years. He then spent 130 days with the NASA scientists. His only meal in those four months: staring at the sun without winking for an hour every evening... with the sunlight washed down with glasses of water.

Applauding this solar-diet as `The HRM Phenomenon', NASA wants this modern-day, enlightened Icarus to devise diet techniques for space-explorers without getting their wings scorched. For, according to Manek, the sun has a special energy that de-stresses the mind and maintains a disease-free body.

Solar medicine? Why not? Sun-ripened foods and, in fact, the sun itself could be a logical evolutionary move.

The Complete Guide to Your Emotions And Your Health reports an unusual case: "A little girl is losing her sight. Blood tumours growing in her eye relentlessly push the eye forward. Surgery has been tried three times without success. Finally, her doctor prescribes better nutrition, healing visualisations, relaxing colours of green and blue indoors, and spending several hours a day in natural sunlight. In a few months, her tumours are gone and her vision is normal."

Endocrinologists believe that sunlight enters the brain via the eyes and stimulates the pineal gland. This activated gland suppresses the hibernation-hormone melatonin and keeps the body "on orange alert".

In some mystical way, sunlight also boosts the body's immune system. Could be that its `essential full-spectrum wavelength' promotes hormonal harmony, conclude mystified experts. Further, radiological researchers reckon that the ultraviolet rays enhance calcium absorption in the elderly, relieve headaches, fatigue, and even benefit newborns suffering from jaundice.

Hey! Hold it! Isn't there a dark side to sunlight too? Many people develop a photosensitive skin between age 40 and 55 and the slightest exposure to sunlight brings out a red, itchy inflammation on their skin. Some others develop pigmentation-dark spots on the cheeks and are advised by doctors to keep out of the sun.

However, naturopaths say the problem is not the sunlight but our own body. Normally, the skin produces the pigment melanin that screens and filters UV rays. It surfaces to give our skin a gentle tan. But, gradually, the skin stops producing melanin and disarms itself where it can no longer face natural healing sunlight.

So what exactly is the skin saying at this time?

It is signalling hopelessness: `If my armour is of no use, why hold on to it?' Indeed, the sense of defeat must be intense for it to penetrate through our three skin layers. In the personal unconscious, says psychiatrist and radical healer Dr R. Ballantyne, are destructive beliefs and assumptions that paralyse and frighten us away from spontaneous joy. Don't ignore them, but transmute them, he urges.

Many of us walk in the shadows of the past and present-continuous aching abuses, pinpricking guilt, smarting stresses. The sense of unresolved issues, not living up to our values erodes our spirit. Here, the Dr Wayne Dyer technique helps: Realise that you cannot try, you can only do. `Try' means struggle. For example, try to pick up your pen. You'll realise you either pick it up or you don't. Trying to pick up your pen amounts to not picking it up. The buzzword is: do.

Do air your reservations and fears. Do make restitution. Dare to bare your honesty, dishonesty, hypocrisy, vulnerability and prejudices. Be open. Openness creates empathy. You see yourself connected to everyone via a full spectrum wavelength represented and manifested by sunlight. Refuse to put others above, below or behind you. See them as you.

When we comprehend this process clearly, we come into our own, into the essence of our spirit, back into our skin, out in the sun. This transmutes our shadow from drawing us into a dark disheartened fate onto an upward energy-pattern that faces and draws its strength from our lit-up liberated senses.

A photosensitive skin exhibits acute inner defencelessness. A pigmented skin exhibits acute inner defensiveness with the melanin forming dark protective spots on the skin. Essentially, both represent destabilised goals and guidelines.

That's why, counsellors of yore like Pathanjali advised re-establishing clear goals and guidelines to literally rediscover our place in the sun. Long-term life-goals of getting fitter, healthier and improving self-worth, were acted out physically through the suryanamaskar. So were guidelines of incorporating an honest, humble attitude symbolised through salutation and worshipful postures. The entire gamut of movements was an exercise in internalising a holistic outlook through the domino-effect of body-mind-spirit.

"Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy... " sang John Denver. Perhaps that is the message beamed out by Manek — just relax in the gentle evening smile of the sun, and allow the power of the sun to work magic on your body... and ease the stings on the spirit.

The writer is co-author of the book `Fitness for Life'.

Response can be sent to life@thehindu.co.in

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