Mangalore, Apr. 9 : The eighth of March, 2009 is a special day for the Jews for worshipping the Sun: the day comes once in 29 years.

In their folklore this day has great significance. I am amazed at the significance of these religious festivities in many of the ancient religions and the scientific undertones in them. I get a feeling that religion and God were invoked by wise people in all religions to get better compliance from ordinary people. If the principles are given as suggestions people usually do not comply. When religion is invoked the compliance jumps up significantly. In the Sanatana Dharma, the ageless Indian wisdom, Sun occupies the pride of place. What a coincidence!

Let us look at the science of Sun's activities and the related health benefits to mankind. Professor Neils Finsen of the Caroline Institute in Copenhagen was given the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1903 for showing that sunlight could cure skin tuberculosis. The citation reads: "The treatment of lupus by Finsen''s method is carried out in the following way. Sunlight,.. is concentrated by means of lenses of appropriate composition into a beam from which the heat rays have been as far as possible eliminated; this beam is projected on a small area of affected skin, which has been drained of blood by pressure. The beam of light is applied continuously for one hour. Immediately afterwards the treated area becomes red and a little inflamed. During the next few days, this irritation of the skin increases, and then soon after begins to decrease and it is at this point that healing commences and scar tissue begins to form, which eventually produces a surface almost exactly like normal skin." This was a great step forwards in the treatment of a dreaded disease, tuberculosis.

Prevalence studies of breast cancer in various parts of the USA some years ago showed that those States with plenty of Sunlight had fewer cancers as compared to those with poor sunlight. Sanatoria treatment of tuberculosis was also based on similar ideas of giving the patients good food, rest and plenty of sun light. In fact, exposure to sun daily is a must for one to get enough vitamin D manufactured in the body even in health. Sunlight is also a good germ killer and could be used to clean various house hold materials.

Human cells, as also all other living cells on this planet, get their energy from the Sun. Of the three types of known energies- electromagnetic, nuclear and gravitational- only the first could be used for human treatment without side effects. Sun and lightening together throw a rim of electromagnetic energy around the earth as described by physicist, Schuman. From this ring of energy every human cell gets its energy supply indirectly. Even the plant cells, which manufacture chlorophyll, do get that from the sun. Chlorophyll is the original source of all our food. In disease states the cells, if they are deprived of their blood supply, find it difficult to draw this energy to survive. Under those unlikely events one could harness the energy from the sun using an electromagnetic pulse generator that runs on a battery cell to deliver concentrated energy to the oxygen starved cells of the patient.

This kind of energy medicine is now being practised in many places. Although in its infancy, this promises a better cure to many problems vis-a-vis chemical drugs and surgery under similar circumstances. The latter are unnatural while energy delivered to the cells to make them do their work again is very natural and can never be associated with side effects. Could this be known to our ancestors that started worshipping the sun for the simple reason that the sun provides the vital energy for our very existence?

Most such so called "superstitions" seem to have a very scientific background if one cares to find out. Soorya namaskara in the morning is a healthy practice. Many people keep looking at the rising sun in the morning to get energy directly from the Sun. I have examined one such person who was Sun watching for 2-3 hours every day without any damage to his retina! Energy medicine has come to stay. Thus far we have been only talking about the known energies in this universe which make up just about 5% of the total energy existing here. 30% of the rest is dark matter and 65% is dark energy that can not be measured by our present scientific methods. At the sub-atomic level energy is equal to matter, so called "a-duality." The originator of this word, Hans Peter Duerr, Emeritus President of Max Planck Institute in Munich, thinks that "advaita" is a better word for that!

On the contrary, powerful radio telescopes like the Hubble's in space have been able to detect enormous activity even in the so called vacuum; cosmic soup is the word they use. They could actually see hydrogen atoms moving in and out of the vacuum in space. Scientists have wondered why the galaxies get pushed apart and are also being pulled together. Dark energy makes most of the Laws of physics look like mathematical jugglery and nothing more! How I wish one day man will be able to draw energy from the 95 percent that we are not able to access for common good. There are, however, many methods of healing in many parts of the world harnessing the dark energy in the Universe. Reiki, pranic healing, Qi energy, prayer for healing, praanaayaama, intention therapy developed by William Tiller, a Stanford material scientist, and many other methods of healing are effective when administered by well trained genuine people. There have been scientific attempts to authenticate some of them with success. That is for another day.

Curious are the ways of the world. Babbitt, Charles Lead Beater and Annie Besant had written about this dark energy in a different way. Charles and Annie Besant came to India in search of spirituality. They studied Yoga and in their "siddhi" state they could visualize the atomic structure of nine elements from hydrogen to helium which seems to be the most accurate description even today! Their personal experience was recorded in that seminal book Occult Chemistry published in 1920 by Oxford University Press in Madras. Annie Besant, of course, stayed back in India and the rest is history known to all the readers. This world is a wonderful wonder.

Knowing these things should humble even the most arrogant of scientists who thinks that the world should run according to his/her dictates following the scientific laws! The world has been running for millennia before their science came into being. Let us try and find out how this world runs. That is true science. Who has seen the wind? No one; but, when the trees bend and dance, one feels the wind. Who has seen God? No one to date; but, when one is in a desperate situation, one feels the presence of God. God concept has saved more lives than all the hi-tech stuff put together.

"A great man stands on God. A small man stands on a greater man," said Ralph Waldo Emerson. (ANI)