June-Mandala
Soulful cultivation
With the advent of organic farming, suddenly a spurt can be witnessed in highly educated people leaving their cushy jobs and embracing agriculture. Because of them, new, more efficient and cost-effective methods of farming are rapidly entering the agricultural scene both in India and abroad. CV Prakash, a retired Navy personnel is passionate about making soilless cultivation, popular in India.
Based in Dharwad, he left the Indian Navy prematurely in 1997 and started his own consulting business in Australia. One day a company that was interested in importing a soilless medium named cocopeat (a multipurpose growing medium made of coconut husk) from Sri Lanka reached out to him. The company wanted him to find cocopeat manufacturers in India with whom they could collaborate to meet the demand of its customers for cocopeat. Presented with an opportunity that he could not miss; he burnt the midnight oil to know all about the cocopeat industry. In 48 hours, he had shortlisted 23 companies who could be prospective joint venture partners. Three weeks later, he was in India and found not just one, but three excellent partners.
His turning point, however, came when he met an Australian company’s chairman and saw two greenhouses growing flower and vegetable crops using cocopeat. At that very moment, he dropped all ideas of being a general consultant and decided to learn the science of soilless cultivation.
After working and learning under his guru, he returned to his motherland to pioneer the concept of soilless cultivation in 2008. “When plants grow just in water it is called hydroponics and when they grown in solid medium like cocopeat it is referred to as media culture,” he says.
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil by adding mineral nutrient solutions to a water solvent.
His vision is to teach people how to grow their own pesticide free nutritious vegetables and herbs, which will eventually lead to a healthy and happy planet.
His student, Manisha Sebastian from Bangalore says, “Plants can be taken to their genetic best thus mitigating the problem of shrinking agricultural land due to steep rise in urbanisation. All one needs is sunlight and clean water. I would recommend people to do a basic training workshop in simplified hydroponics and then set up a small garden of 100 to 200 sq ft”.
Hydroponics consumes much lesser water than traditional agriculture and can designed to beat the challenge of impending water shortage.
Says Prakash, “Find your passion, live your passion. You won’t ever go wrong.”
When the Manipadma bloomed
March 23, 2019, saw the birth of the Manipadma Foundation, a corporate style organisation that aims to wipe out human suffering from the face of the earth. Founded by Manish Paliwal, about three hundred attendees comprising corporate professionals, television producers, directors, film actors, astrologers, software engineers, and sports personalities had gathered to celebrate the event at hotel Orchid, Mumbai.
Manish Paliwal, Founder of Manipadma, said, “Our main task is to help people find their life purpose and then support the person to reach their supreme self. That’s the only way you can create a happy family, and happy society.”
Darryl D’souza, Co-founder, Manipadma Foundation, explained how the foundation intended to achieve the stated goal. “To help individual and society, in general, we are coming out with 300 hundred world-class programmes, out of which only three are paid and the rest are completely free. No other organisation or foundation is doing this.”
Manish spoke about how his mother’s suicide due to depression made him promise to himself that he would do something for the suffering humanity. He added that it took years of contemplation, hard-work and research before the foundation saw the light of the day.
“Manipadma is the only foundation in the world that will remove human suffering from the root. Humanity is suffering! Despite the honest efforts of many spiritual and religious leaders, government organisations and NGOs, engaged in evolving human life, there is still no peace. The problems of humanity are not reducing. In fact, newer problems keep springing up.” said Paliwal.
He said that since long society has been developing solutions to reduce human suffering but most of us don’t get any support during traumatic times as we don’t get access to help. “The problems pile up and suffering turns into crisis resulting in unhappy and unfulfilled individuals who can never contribute towards the wellbeing of society. Thus, society too suffers as a result,” he explained.
The Manipadma Human Development Foundation aims to be the missing solution for all of humanity for 2500 years to come. According to the founders, Manipadma identifies problems at their root and resolves them through preventive and curative solutions and services that are permanent in nature.
NAET—A pain-free panacea
An allergy can be a source of acute suffering for an individual. Its symptoms can range from coughing, sneezing, skin rashes, and diarrhoea to swelling, fatigue, and fever. In some cases, allergy can be life-threatening too.
Technically, an allergy is a damaging immune response of the body to a particular substance. But right after encountering the source of the allergy, all we do is to avoid the allergen (the substance causing the allergic reaction). We deny the fact that untreated allergies are often the cause of common or chronic illnesses, which, when left untreated, can become serious or critical.
To treat such diseases, Dr Devi S. Nambudripad, licenced acupuncturist, MD, PhD (acupressure), discovered NAET (Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Techniques) in 1983 and began an extensive research programme for a new, effective approach to the diagnosis and elimination of allergies. Her knowledge of Eastern and Western medicine gave her the ability to develop this unique treatment.
Dr Sister Naina, SND (Sisters of Notre Dame), who came across this therapy while researching on the possibility of eliminating allergies in children with autism, got herself directly trained under Dr Devi S. Nambudripad. Talking about the effect of allergy on a person, she said, “The allergen is viewed as a threat by the brain of the person. So, when our body comes in contact with an allergen, it causes blockages in the energy pathways called meridians, disrupting the normal flow of energy through the body’s electrical circuits. These energy blockages cause interference in the communication between the brain and the body that happens through the nervous system. This unleashes a chain of events that can develop into an allergic response.”
Explaining the procedure of this therapy, Sister Naina said, “NAET is a synthesis of various medical disciplines such as allopathy, acupuncture, chiropractic, kinesiology, and nutrition.” The NAET treatment stimulates pressure points along the spine, from the neck to the sacrum, while the patient is holding an allergen. After the treatment, a strong MRT (Muscle Response Testing) procedure is done, which indicates that the allergy has been removed. Specific acupressure points are then massaged, or acupuncture needles may be inserted for 20 minutes to stabilise the treatment. Then the patient is asked to avoid the substance completely for 25 hours for best results. Allergens are treated and cleared one at a time in a specific sequence,” she added.
Sister Naina has been practising NAET since 2003 very successfully at her clinic at Koramangala in Bangalore. Through NAET, people have been treated successfully for conditions like arthritis, asthma, depression, migraine, thyroid problems, autism, etc. So why wait for the allergies to play with your well-being when NAET can treat them all?