IT'S not every day you find yourself in a conversation about Pranic healing and clearing your mind and body to radiate positive vibes.
Last week, Dr Hazel Wardha, an academic and co-founder of the Pranic healing Fondation of Australia appeared as a guest speaker at a workshop on this healing process and its benefits at the Patel Samaj Hall in Toorak, Suva.
Speaking to The Fiji Times recently, Dr Wardha shared her experiences leading up to her involvement with Pranic healing — the clearing up of blockages in the human energy body and re-energising with prana, Sanskrit for 'vital life'.
It's a whole new dimension of spirituality and openness to explore the energies and possibilities of self-healing outside the normal methods of treatment.
Dr Wardha, originally from India, spent 18 years teaching at the University of Delhi before moving to Australia where she completed her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in English Literature from Monash University in Melbourne.
This was after completing original research at King's College in Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Her passion for healing people had been instilled from an early age but her father's words that women (doctors) should not find themselves getting up in the middle of the night to rush to the hospital for emergencies, forced her to find a healing practice of another kind.
And she found it when she was going through a very hard time in her life — losing her 26-year-old son.
"In 1996, our son, a chiropractor drowned accidently, and that crushed me. It took me a long time to deal with this. Then someone introduced me to Pranic healing after visiting India. I met the founder, Grand Master Choa (Kok Sui). He was a scientist and spiritual being. With just one treatment, I bounced back to life," said the certified Chinese medical acupuncturist.
"And because it had such a tremendous impact on me, I studied with Master Choa and became his inner disciple. He gave me the responsibility to spread Pranic healing in Australia, the UK, Fiji, New Zealand and Japan.
"We ran similar clinics in Lautoka, Nadi and Suva, doing a lot of free treatment with day-to-day ailments."
The director of the Ashish Institute for Inner Studies in Australia is also the founder of the Pranic Education Institute of Australia and the Grand Master Pranic healing Association of Australia teaching basic, advanced, Pranic psycholotherapy, Pranic crystal healing, psychic self-defence and meditations to attain "oneness with the higher self" and become beings of "love and light".
She travelled to the Philippines to train at the Institute for Inner Studies established by the Grand Master himself.
Dr Wardha described the practice of Arhatic yoga, designed by Master Choa, as a way to give the individual a practical focus on personal development while enhancing one's own personal power and drive to better the world — combining five major yoga doctrines into one format.
"Last year, I contacted Dr Arcady Petrov, a leading scientist in Russia because I heard about his cell regeneration methodology which pushes the body to perform. I invited him to Australia as a guest speaker and he came over in February this year," she said.
"We trained people to use their consciousness and mind to overcome life's problems — life's events can be really damaging in relationship problems.
"If your consciousness is clear and pure, the body stays healthy and events around you harmonise too, within yourself.
"The mind uses only the left-brain logic but the right (side of the) brain is linked to the soul. When you activate the right (side of the) brain, you bring energy of soul into you, and that's the light from the creator.
"We work through this method, helping people to reconnect with that light. If more people bring that light, you're able to heal at a deep level.
"Many people suffer trauma in their lives and when you have so much subconscious trauma, your perceptions get clouded so you don't see yourself as you really are or the world as it really is."
Pranic healing, she says, would teach people how to use their consciousness and mind to control their body. She also noted the evolution of technology and spiritual enhancement through Dr Petrov's work with cell regeneration liking it to the natural concept of Pranic healing and its benefits.
Although the four-day workshop carries a $400 fee per participant, Dr Wardha says the knowledge gained was invaluable.
"The world is not going to end but the old patterns of thinking will. People will be forced to look at where they're going. We will be pushed to open our hearts and share in the suffering of other people. If all of us think that way, the earth has to evolve as the whole universe," she said.
Dr Wardha also manages a homoeopathic acupuncture and Pranic healing centre in Victoria and has published a book called Homoeopathy: Do it Yourself — a modern and easy-to-use guide for everyone. She will leave the country on August 14 after a second workshop from August 11-12.