Yes, you can!
By Shivi Verma
July 2014
Cancer can be cured if you are willing to try a combination of therapies, work on your mind, adopt an optimisticattitude, and have faith in the Divine, says Shivi Verma
 A graphic representation of how the cancer cell forms and mutates |
I used to admire a tall and dusky woman who I met every day on my suburban train commute. Many times we exchanged smiles and pleasantries. Suddenly, she stopped coming. On enquiring I discovered that she was in hospital and was being treated for cancer. She succumbed to the disease a few months later. I still miss her prominent presence at the station, and find it unbelievable that someone so young, attractive and healthy looking could pass away so abruptly.
This seems to be a reality that more and more are confronting. Suddenly, unexpectedly, the dreaded disease swoops down and bears away a friend here, a relation there, and often enough, one’s own self, but not before it torments and tortures its prey. If the diagnosis of cancer strikes terror in people’s hearts, no less traumatizing is the mainstream line of treatment: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Add to it the high cost of the treatment, and horrifying side-effects, and patients begin to feel that dying from cancer is a better option than treating it.
Fortunately, there are many alternative techniques and therapies that adopt a strikingly different methodology in treating cancer. Instead of killing the cancer cells (in the process destroying the healthy ones too), these techniques work on detoxifying the body, nourishing it with the right diet, healing the emotions and mind, and finally raising the immunity of the body, thereby empowering it to fight and defeat the cancer cells on its own. Instead of fighting with darkness, these techniques focus on turning on the light.
Perhaps one of the many reasons cancer has come into the world is to show us the limitations of mainstream medicine, and to fastforward the movement of an alternative approach. But the basics first.
What is cancer?
According to the definition provided by the National Cancer Institute, cancer is a term used for diseases in which abnormal cells divide without control, and are able to invade other tissues. Cancer cells can spread to other parts of the body through the blood and lymph systems. Cancer is not just one disease, but many diseases. There are more than 100 different types of cancer. Most cancers are named for the organ or type of cell in which they start – for example, cancer that begins in the colon is called colon cancer; cancer that begins in the melanocytes of the skin is called melanoma. All cancers begin in cells, the body’s basic unit of life. The body is made up of many types of cells. These cells grow and divide in a controlled way to produce more cells as they are needed to keep the body healthy. When cells become old or damaged, they die and are replaced with new cells. However, sometimes this orderly process goes wrong. The genetic material (DNA) of a cell can become damaged or changed, producing mutations that affect normal cell growth and division. When this happens, cells do not die when they should, and new cells form when the body does not need them. The extra cells may form a mass of tissue called a tumor.
Why do people get cancer?
Conventional medical science has emerged with several likely causes for cancer:
Genetics: Some types of cancer run in certain families, hence you may inherit it from your ancestors. But most cancers are not clearly linked to the genes.
Tobacco: Smoking may increase your chances of getting cancer.
Diet and physical activity: Unhealthy diet, eating pesticide- and insecticide-laden food, and lack of physical activity contribute to the risk of contracting cancer.
Sun and UV Exposure: The hole in the ozone layer of the atmosphere has exposed us to the harmful rays of the sun. Rise in skin cancer is attributed to this.
Radiation exposure: Radiation from mobile towers, microwave ovens, mobile handsets, X-rays, gamma rays, Ultra-violet rays, proximity to nuclear sites, and the radiation from cancer treatment too, enhance the risk of cancer and second cancer.
Environmental hazards: High levels of pollution in air, water and soil also increase the risk of cancer. Cancer cells thrive in an environment of low oxygen. And as we inhale less oxygen we create a conducive place for cancer cells to generate and thrive.
Mystifyingly, all these are only probable causes of cancer. Scientists and doctors are still to emerge with a direct and indisputable cause of cancer.
Says Dr Manu Kothari, surgeon and professor of anatomy at KEM hospital, “A cancer cell measures no larger than a normal cell, one hundredth of a millimetre across. This sheer micro-size of a cancer cell accounts for the fact that following the inception of cancer, it will take several years before the cancer bothers its victim, or comes to the attention of the doctors. It can take two to 17 years to cause symptoms, and during this interval there is no instrumental, immunological or biological method to detect it.”
In his book, The Other Face of Cancer, he says, “Your cancer is a cosmic event, fashioned by forces beyond the constraints of space-time, and has an antecedence over all your normal cells. As a cosmic event it is beyond any cause. If it is to occur, it will. If not, nothing can cause it.”
Could Dr Kothari be hinting at causes beyond the material, perhaps lying in the realms of the mind or karma?
Dr Kothari adds, “This is not to say that a cancer patient should not opt for the conventional mode of treatment. Surgery and radiation are capable of eliminating the cancerous cells from the body. But the fear of recurrence is always there since the remaining healthy cells can become cancerous out of their own volition.”
Fortunately, a legion of alternative practitioners actively assert that cancer is curable and one can indeed triumph over it, either with or without the mainstream treatments. They maintain that cancer arises for a reason, and once that reason is addressed, it goes away.
Cancer is curable
Says Mumbai-based Dr Ashish Narayankar, a trained allopath who practises various forms of alternative therapies such as Access Consciousness and tarot, “Cancer is curable. When a doctor tells a patient that he has only a few months to live and that chemo, radiation and surgery cannot help him, it does not mean that the patient cannot be healed. It simply means that this disease has to be addressed through alternative means.”
He adds, “Every disease begins at the cellular level. In medical science we are taught how a virus or bacteria affects the cells. How there are pathological, chemical, and biological changes in a cell, and how finally a disease gets formed. But I view this differently. A stagnant pool of water breeds insects, fungi and viruses but flowing water is free. Similarly, if the body is full of emotional or nutritional toxins, it creates a fertile ground for cancer and similar diseases. Therefore, if a person is willing to address issues lying beyond his apparent physical problem, he can heal from the most difficult cancers.”
Although Dr Narayankar’s explanation does not dispute that unlike most diseases the cause of cancer is still unknown…he does admit that having the will to survive is more powerful than any life-threatening disease.
I recently attended a channelling session centred on cancer that said the same thing. Said the channel, “Any disease reaching a critical mass, be it cancer, diabetes or even the common cold, creates for itself a master energy. This master energy functions like a stern teacher. Sometimes in life you desire a stern teacher. This teacher is balanced, not vicious. It is activated by a call put out by you. When you invite master energy, you activate dormant energy. Simultaneously, you activate higher learning. Many people run away from their power. They don’t want to acknowledge it or use it for their good. Cancer helps them touch their power. When you run away from issues that you need to resolve in your life, you are given the power to analyse the reason and the power to eliminate it through the self. In general, those who are having cancer in 2014 do not value life. They feel useless and feel they have been shoved into this world. Cancer happens to them so that they can appreciate the small things in life.”
Of all diseases, cancer is considered one of the most difficult to heal and its apparent purpose seems to be, to bring a dimensional shift in human consciousness. In the absence of a physical cause, perhaps we can settle for this metaphysical one.
How then are we to make this shift in consciousness? Conversations with healers whose clients have successfully healed from cancer indicate many ways to prevent cancer, stall its recurrence, and even ways to heal from it. Cancer is essentially a disease of the mind hinging on its ability to create; therefore the stronger and more stable our minds, the lesser our chances to get cancer. Secondly, it is wise to combine many healing modalities like yoga, EFT, ACE (Advanced Clearing Energetics), inner child work, meditations, reiki, pranic healing, ayurveda, naturopathy, and homeopathy to clear up physical and emotional toxins and increase the flow of prana in the body. Cancer is directly related with our overall happiness which affects our immunity.
Even Dr Kothari testifies, “When cancer specialists themselves contract this disease, they rarely go for the conventional mode of treatment. They prefer to go for treatments that are not invasive, and to doctors who delay surgery.”
Free yourself of fear
The high prevalence of cancer intensifies the fear of contracting it. Unfortunately, this fear converts into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anita Moorjani, author of Dying to Me writes that she contracted cancer because she had a huge fear of it. One of her relatives developed cancer, and she began to live in the fear of contracting it as well. She read and researched intensely on it, constantly reliving the fear in her mind, until one day her cells began to replicate her belief.
Says Pradeep Pawar, a Kolhapur-based trainer and coach, “We are living in a morphic field where we tend to get influenced by the information in the field. As cancer in the Western world started becoming a matter of concern in society – it became a part of the morphic field. Eventually, a fear psychosis emerged, and this is taking its toll. The suicide cycle among farmers in Vidharbha is another example. Were they never affected by famine earlier? Then why are they committing suicide now? They are doing it unconsciously because they are getting affected by the field.”
Clean up your stored emotions
Suppressing pain and suffering for the fear of losing love and security can also give birth to cancer. We like to spring-clean our homes, but rarely do we care to cleanse our hearts and minds of negative emotions, which is thoughtlessly dumped into our body. The role of the mind in causing cancer has been deeply explored by many great healers like Louise Hay, Martin Brofman, and Brandon Bays who healed themselves of cancer by working on their minds and emotions. Suppressed negative emotions like anger, resentment, frustration, fear, and grief get stored in different parts of the body. They go deep down finding home in healthy cells changing their chemistry and biology, and causing the disarray that eventually leads to cancer.
 Babbu Gill refused surgery and chemo, and flushed out cancer through her own efforts from her body |
One of Pradeep Pawar’s clients went through a relationship crisis. She felt betrayed by her lover, and tried everything to get him back. She fell severely ill after their break-up, and developed uterine cancer. During therapy she was found to be nursing deep resentment, loneliness, and a constant feeling of lack. She did not want to live. Meenal, his assistant, says, “We did tapping, chakra cleansing, and param yoga nidra on her. We helped her change her beliefs about herself at the cellular level. When she started feeling that she did not need to depend on anyone for love and support, her body began to heal. Her recovery process took a year. She is now totally healed of cancer.”
Boost your immunity
 Vijay Bhat worked hard on boosting his immunity and prevented the recurrence of cancer in his body |
Girivihar Cancer Hospital in Vagalhara, Valsad, Gujarat, treats cancer patients on the same premise. Set up in 2008, the healing centre focuses on panchgavya or cowpathy and charge only `1 from its patients. Panchgavya is composed of five substances: cow’s urine, dung, milk, curd and ghee, used either singly or in combination with each other to boost the immunity of the patient. Cow’s urine has many anti-fungal and anti bacterial properties, strengthens the immunity, and increases life force. Says Dr Bharatbhai Devmurari, a resident doctor, “The use of panchgavya arrests the growth of cancer cells and stops it from metastating. We also practise reiki, pranic healing, shirodhara and basti for detoxification of the patient’s internal system. Yoga, meditation, and singing devotional songs too are part of the regimen. All these things increase the life force of the patients.” Anil Ighe’s mother, from Nandgaon, Maharashtra, suffered from cancer of the uterus. When he admitted her to Girivihar Cancer Hospital, her bleeding stopped in three days.
Says Dr. Meenal Parmar, also attached to the hospital, “Cancer is a difficult disease. We do all that we can to give relief to the patient. Through panchgavya we heal the patient at the cellular level.”
Supplements like IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, build up the immune system. They enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like Vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
Change your lifestyle
Cancer is a lifestyle disease. Eating junk food mindlessly, not exercising, bad habits like smoking and chewing tobacco, sleeping late and getting up late, extreme socializing, narrow pursuit of materialism, failing to nourish and energize oneself, living very close to radiation from mobile phones, microwaves, computers, eating carcinogenic food laden with pesticide and insecticide, and increased light exposure, when combined with negative thoughts, and high levels of stress, diminish the body’s capacity to stay healthy. In short, when we take our body’s self-healing capacities for granted, and burden it with toxins from all quarters, it gives up one day.
We may not be able to control exposure to environmental pollutants or electro-magnetic rays, but opting for a healthy, balanced lifestyle is one of our best bets against cancer, or of healing from it. Sangeeta Das was a driven professional living in Bangalore who liked to work hard and party hard. Late night parties, alcohol, meat and tobacco consumption, zero exercise and a mad pursuit after success and money culminated in cervical cancer at the age of 36. Sangeeta left her high pressure job and slowed down. She learnt yoga, turned vegetarian and learnt pranayama. Today, she is on remission after surgery, but cancer has altered her view on life as nothing else has. This apart, strive to adapt the following factors in your life.
Be non-competitive
Competitive living creates stress, and stress if not handled on time, can turn into cancer. Cancer has also been precipitated on a large scale when competition-driven organisations have collapsed under the weight of their practices. Says Meta healer Anu Mehta, “Colon cancer, which is the commonest cancer in the United States, is on rise since 2008, when the global meltdown started. People had no choice but to swallow what had happened, but they could not digest the reality.”
In many cases cancer has compelled people to make a switch towards a holistic career. Lee Majewski, a top ranking official in a corporate firm in Canada, was forced to quit her company after an organisational redesign, and soon afterwards came down with breast cancer. Since Lee had begun to fill her vacant hours with the practise of yoga after her lay-off, it came to her rescue. After her surgery she studied ayurveda, kundalini yoga, meditation, healing mantras, and her cancer went into remission. Lee afterwards moved towards a holistic career which focussed on helping and healing people. Currently, she is heading a cancer detoxification and rejuvenation programme under the aegis of Kaivalyadham, a yogic health centre in Lonavla. “It is fulfilling to see that I can bring positive change in the lives of other cancer survivors,” she says.
Change your diet
The right diet can not only prevent cancer, it can also heal. A detox diet has been a major component of all cancer survivors. Jerroo Mulla, who suffered from uterine cancer, was able to overcome the side effects of radiation and chemotherapy through a diet plan recommended by nutritionist Vijaya Venkat and her daughter Anju Venkat. Jerroo had to eat a single fruit every hour, and a single raw vegetable for lunch and dinner. She also had to have a rainbow of sweet, acidic, watery and sub-acidic fruits. She had to drink plenty of lime water and fresh vegetable juices. She avoided oil, sugar, salt, carbohydrates and included wheat grass, sprouts, raw salads, nuts, dry fruits, nut milks, and pumpkin juice in her diet. She also drank the juice of fresh turmeric to boost immunity. Very soon the results began to show on her health. Says Vijaya, “As her body eliminated the toxin, movement of the nutrition into the cell increased, repair of the cell occurred and balance was restored. Her cramps reduced as soon as she started fruit and discharged the toxin via diarrhea. Her appetite improved, taste returned, and her body felt less tired.”
Dr Pankaj Bhatnagar, a Delhi-based homeopath who has successfully treated cancer in patients through homeopathy, grows his own vegetable and strongly recommends a vegetarian and organic food diet. “Cancer is also caused by oxytocin, a hormone that is extremely inexpensive and is being injected in both animals and plants for producing more food. Therefore, organic food is the best bet against cancer,” he says.
Connect to the Divine
Reconnecting with the Divine is one of the most important aspects of healing from cancer. Anybody who has survived cancer has testified that the Divine has played a major role in their getting better. Materialistic people became spiritual after contracting cancer, and the spiritual ones eliminated a lot of karma, thus accelerating their spiritual growth.
Dr BK Chandrashekhar, formerly with the Air Force, came down with cancer and Hepatitis C in 1998. As he lay withering away in the hospital, he called out deeply to God. One day he saw a huge white light engulf him. The light which came from God told him he contracted cancer because he did not avail of God’s spiritual healing current. This God given spiritual energy enters the soul through the pineal gland, and gets distributed in the body. Due to disturbed thoughts this current does not reach the individual properly causing illness. Based on this knowledge, the Source taught him many meditations which help draw the spiritual current. BK Chandrashekhar calls these methods Psycho-Neurobics. He used the healing current coming from God to heal his cancer. Today, he teaches Psycho-Neurobics to other people as well. Dr Gayatri Bhat of New Delhi suffered from multiple myeloma and bone cancer. She had undergone bone marrow transplantation twice. Many specialised doctors advised her to amputate her legs. In 2004 she happened to meet Dr Chandrashekhar. She was the first one to experience the power of Psycho-Neurobics. She recovered from her illness. She did not get her legs amputated. In this way, cancer has aided evolution. By having to depend on their own self-efforts to eliminate cancer and prevent its recurrence, people have reconnected with Divinity and discovered their true essence. All cancer survivors have made some holistic practice like yoga and meditation an integral part of their healing programme.
Reconnect with nature
While distance from nature invites cancer and other difficult diseases, proximity to it can also heal it. Till your garden, plant bushes and shrubs, grow your own kitchen garden, walk barefoot on the grass, and lounge by the lake. Stamatis Moraitis, a World War II veteran from Greece, had come to live in the US. He married, had three children, and had a good job in manual labour. When he was in his 60s, he felt short of breath at work, and went to the doctor. He was told he had cancer and was given nine months to live. Stamatis went to eight other doctors to confirm the diagnosis. And they all concurred. They offered to give him aggressive treatment but told him his cancer was incurable. Stamatis decided that if he was going to die, he was not going to spend all his money on the treatments, but would rather save it for his wife and children. So he and his wife decided to move back to the little Greek Island Ikaria, where Stamatis grew up. Soon, many of his family members and friends started coming to visit him, bringing food and wine and games. Six months came and went, and Stamatis was feeling better. So he decided to plant a garden. He started eating this home grown food. He was also living near a vineyard that nobody was taking care of, so he started tending the grapes and making wine. He even started building a business in winemaking and exporting. He also reconnected with his church that he walked to each week. Today, Stamatis is 98 years old. He’s cancer-free and he never went through chemotherapy, took drugs or sought any other treatment. He just moved home to Ikaria. About 25 years after his original diagnosis, Stamatis decided to go back to the US, and find those nine doctors who gave him only nine months to live. But he never did get to show them how well he had been doing. That is because all nine doctors were dead.
Published in Heal Yourself: Mind Over Medicine by Lissa Renkin.
Reprogramme your cells and beliefs
Cancer begins at the cellular level. Even after surgery and radiation, adjoining healthy cells can become cancerous on their own. Healers believe that cells carry the memory of cancer and hence in time change their pattern. Therefore the surest way is to reprogramme their structure at source.
Cells also portray our basic beliefs. There are many ways of reprogramming the mind and making it believe differently. Repeating positive affirmations, taking the help of therapies like past-life regression, hypnosis, Access Consciousness, Psyche-K and meditation are all effective. Vijay Bhat, who has now become a healer, teaches a 45-minute cellular healing meditation to reprogramme cellular anomalies and return the cells to healthy equilibrium. This meditation is based on the science of psychoneuroimmunology, and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s Integral Yoga. It involves relaxation, visualisations and affirmations, and also invoking the Divine to change one’s self-defeating beliefs.
Find your purpose in life
When people lead a life designed by others, they betray their inner self. Unheard, our inner self can device devious ways of manifesting its dis-ease through means like cancer. Says Meta healer, Anu Mehta, “A lady client of mine suffered from bilateral breast cancer. Therapy revealed that she was divorced, and the only earning member in the family. She had sent her only son to the boarding school. Her mother suffered from dysthymia, and her unemployed brother suffered from depression. This made her feel that she was responsible for nurturing everybody. Unable to lead her life the way she wanted to, she suffered losses in her business. A sense of unworthiness and the guilt of not being able to provide for everyone, began to corrode her vitals and finally manifested as breast cancer. During counselling she realised that if she lived to make herself happy then she would easily be able to support her family members without feeling burdened. She began responding to treatment after that.”
Choose to live
Healers have come across people who have not wished to heal from cancer simply because its appearance was serving some unfulfilled need in their life. Many times patients have also used it as an escape route to exit from an insufferable life. Says Dr Ashish Narayankar, “Often people are internally not willing to live. In such cases no amount of therapy, or treatment, can help them. There was a woman who was not responding to any treatment at all. On counselling it was discovered that she was trapped in an abusive relationship with her husband of 18 years. She dragged on till she felt that her children were strong enough to take care of themselves, and manifested cancer soon after. She admitted that she wanted to be free of torture, and dying was the best way to release herself.”
Another woman who was not responding to treatment revealed that her family members who used to take her for granted, and never cared to reciprocate her love or service, had begun to give her a lot of care, love and attention after cancer. She feared losing these precious moments after recovering, and hence chose to stay with cancer.
 Dr. Ashish Narayankar: Healing from cancer is possible if people exercise their choice to live, |
One must also factor in the possibility of karma in the role of healing. It may be that some people are meant to heal, and others are not meant to heal, despite their very best efforts. Nevertheless, since effort is all we can control, this is what we must do, for we can never forget that human life is precious, and worth striving for till the last breath.
Finally, as Nilima Bhat, wife of Vijay Bhatt, puts it, “Cancer is nothing but the attempt of the human form to evolve itself and ascend to the next level. Evolution on earth has occurred through mutations. Through mutations new variations enter the species and the species evolve. Although over centuries man has thought himself to be the last rung at the evolutionary summit, he may be mistaken. The cancer cell with its tendency to become immortal is signifying the next leap for man to take in his evolutionary ascension. Nature won’t be satisfied unless it has created the perfect man, a man who will remain a man in his external form, and yet whose consciousness will rise far above the mental.”
This can be true. Anybody who has contracted cancer has not remained the same after tre