Power of faith and belief
WHEN I pray daily, I make sure to appeal to a higher power to make sick people better. The other day, I wondered whether doctors pray for the healing of their patients.
Will an oncologist say: “Dear God, I have done all I can for Patient X but the cancer has spread too far. I now leave her in your hands.”
My pondering about doctors’ views on religion was prompted by several doctors I know, recently losing their loved ones to illness.
How does the leading cardiologist reconcile with the loss of a mother to heart disease? How does the brilliant oncologist deal with the loss of a daughter to leukaemia? How does the renowned urologist resolve the loss of a father to failed kidneys? Are there feelings of failure, self-doubt, sadness and powerlessness?
Do doctors grieve when their patients die? Or does the professional taboo, which considers it shameful, unprofessional and a sign of weakness to grieve, cause doctors to act unaffected?
Most doctors I know do believe in the existence of God, although not very strongly. They’re not deeply religious but they’re not outright atheists either.
There can be a good explanation for the way many doctors view God. Religion was created to help its followers have faith. People are taught to believe that there is always a silver lining in a dark sky.
Doctors on the other hand see life and death on a routine basis and it has, not surprisingly, hardened their outlook on life. If God is supposed to do what is best, doctors who witness so much suffering cannot easily come to terms with the existence of a divine power.
I feel that after seeing the amount of suffering that exists in the world, the horrible diseases, the cruelty of death and how fragile life is, some doctors start questioning their faith in God and become non-believers. Yet there are many talented medical professionals who allow space for religion in their lives.
I know an accomplished retired Durban surgeon, who ends his telephone conversations with “Om Sai Ram” – in reverential reference to Sathya Sai Baba, the late Indian spiritual leader and philanthropist.
For decades since their founding, the Durban-based Hindu organisations, Divine Life Centre and Ramakrishna Mission, have had many doctors who were ardent devotees. In fact, the founder of the former movement, Swami Sivananda, was a successful physician before he swopped his career for that of a yogi and sage.
There are many Christian doctors who seek to glorify and serve God in their spare time.
Despite the medical school certificate on the wall, many Muslim doctors are devout and have not forsaken the Qur’an.
So what part does God play in the life of a sick person?
It all depends on faith. Initially one will have faith in the abilities of the doctor. There is an old Indian saying that “the doctor is the second God”.
Ancient Hindu scriptures have a phrase “Vaidyo Narayanao Harih” which translates as “Doctor is Narayana Himself”. Children in India were taught to recite this mantra before taking medicine. Expanded, the slogan means: “When the body is decrepit and ridden with disease, the medicine given by the doctor is as remedial and sacred as the waters of the river Ganga and the doctor is equal to Lord Narayana who destroys the diseases.”
When medicine fails, one then puts one’s faith in God. There is another expression which goes thus: “Doctors treat but God heals.”
The common man’s perspective of God is a force that can do and undo anything, for whom nothing is impossible and who is the final decision maker.
When people begin to fear death during a health crisis, they begin to think of God. Prayer facilities for patients, staff, doctors and the public of all faiths are available at most large private hospitals. Separate Muslim prayer rooms for men and women (jamaat khana) are also available at many hospitals.
I have heard many accounts of sick people being healed when there was no more that doctors could do for them.
Many of them attributed their “miraculous recovery” to faith healers, such as church pastors and temple priests, who asked them to believe in Christ or to perform religious rituals.
What these former patients failed to realise is that they themselves were responsible for being restored to health. It was positive thinking that caused their bodies to repair.
Your mind is a very powerful thing. It is said that man gradually grows into the likeness of that which he thinks of the most. The energies of the mind are constantly creating – and what they create is just like the thoughts we think. If you harbour pleasant thoughts, you will be in a happy mood. Grim, dark thoughts will leave you feeling glum and gloomy.
Every physical condition and every mental state is fashioned after our thoughts.
The thought has creative energy which acts both in the mind and in the body. In the body these energies constitute the vital forces and the nerve forces of the human system, while in the mind they constitute all those energies or powers employed in thought, feeling or mental action.
Thus, if there is anything wrong in the subjective states of the mind, these forces will convey those wrong conditions to the body.
The cells of the body are built up by these energies. Therefore, the quality as well as the structures of the cells must correspond with the nature of the creative energies at the time.
These energies build cells just like the patterns before them, and the patterns are formed by the subjective conceptions.
When that part of the subjective mind, that governs cell structures in the body, becomes imbued with a more perfect idea of construction, the creative energies will build more perfect cells.
If you seriously begin willing your body to heal, the creative energies will start working to satisfy that mental command.
Whether you’re trying physical therapy for a bad knee or you’re seeing a chiropractor for pain in your back, your belief that those treatments will work may be more effective than the treatment themselves.
When we hold an idea in the mind for a long time, that idea will become a predominating idea – it will become larger and stronger than the other ideas and will consequently be selected as a model by the creative energies. One study by psychology academics found that people who imagined themselves working out were able to gain 25% more muscle strength.
If you mentally will the diseased cells in your body to be replaced by healthy cells, the creative energies will satisfy this desire.
It is no miracle but the patient’s faith in the process of healing that makes him or her better.
To conclude, I offer this story, which is apparently true, of a Greek war veteran.
He was living in the United States when he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and told he had only nine months to live. He was offered aggressive treatment, but after nine doctors apparently assured him that it wouldn’t save his life, he decided to save his money, decline treatment, and move with his wife back to his native Ikaria, a Greek island where he could be buried with his ancestors in a graveyard overlooking the Aegean Sea. He and his wife moved into a small house on a vineyard with his elderly parents, where he reconnected with his faith and started going to his old church. When his friends got wind of the fact that Stamatis was back home, they showed up with bottles of wine, books and board games to entertain him and keep him company.
He planted vegetables in a garden, basked in sunshine, savoured the salty air, and relished in his love for his wife.
Six months passed, and not only did he not die, he was actually feeling better than ever. He started working in the untended vineyard during the day, making himself useful and, in the evenings, he’d play dominos with friends. He took a lot of naps, rarely looked at a watch and spent a lot of time outdoors.
At one point, 25 years after his diagnosis, Stamatis went back to the US to ask his doctors what had happened. Apparently, the doctors were all dead. Stamatis finally died – aged 102.
The connection between mind and body is close, powerful and a valuable tool in taking control of your life and ambitions. After all, didn’t somebody once say “the mind can move mountains”?