COVID: A post-mortem and re-birth

The human body is not some isolated thing which will miraculously jumpstart and protect itself after a vaccine of the sort we have today 

By Surya Vishwa 

In a statement issued on 5 June, the World Health Organization (WHO) determined that COVID-19 no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. After deliberations with its experts the WHO maintained that while the global risk assessment remains high, there is evidence of reducing risks to human health from COVID but maintained that SARS-CoV-2 continues to evolve. 

That is what the WHO had to say on the topic of a dubious virus which killed world economies through lockdowns and where fear psychosis sent countries into panic attack ridden inertia. The fear psychosis that gripped people were palpable. Based on actual cases it seemed that those most fearful of the disease and took precautions to an extreme, displaying symptoms of paranoia, ended up getting the disease and even dying.

Some who were wearing masks inside their homes and even inside their cars even when travelling alone were gasping for breath and their immunity compromising came from not breathing properly. For any virus to flush itself from the system one needs fresh air, preferably amongst the best doctors in the world – trees and to breathe in the healing chemicals – the anti bacterial and anti fungal qualities they emit.

It is bad enough that human beings are in general not breathing as we should – to propel this immensely powerful mechanism – this complex engine that is inter-wired with different components towards functional maximisation. But to mask it, with inner and outer stifling could have contributed to increasing the immune deficiencies of our bodies. 

It is well known in both Western and Eastern science based knowledge that fear generated in the mind shuts down the immunity of the human eco-system. With each part of this mechanism being interlinked the kind of fear that was being voiced over the phone with a recording that all of us had to hear if we were generating a call, told us that the COVID-19 virus was very dangerously virulent, that we had to stay at home, wear masks and wash our hands regularly. Sanitiser (made with synthetic chemicals) became the new water and adults and children were using these countless number of times a day. In these modern times where everyone is seemingly (at least on the surface) obsessed with scientific research, we are yet to do a scientific research on what that overdosing of sanitisers, often stuff of cheap quality, where we do not really know what chemicals were used, may have done to our immunity. 

Once carrying a pouch with lime and turmeric, the national natural sanitiser common to especially Sinhala and Tamil culture, I stopped at the door of a bank and used it in front of the security guard who insisted that I use the sanitiser they were about to spray onto my hands. I asked him to call the bank manager. Fearing a scene of sorts he shrugged his shoulders and allowed me to wear out both halves of the lime and the piece of turmeric on my palms. 

Let us now look at all our grand talk about culture and heritage. We want tourists to come here and learn about it. What use is culture and heritage if we do not use its basic intangible elements that are relevant to individual and public health when we need it? We speak of shortage of dollars. How much would we have spent on imports such as sanitisers and masks? Pharmacies were doing well selling imported vitamins, cough syrup and the like. Parallel to this some 60,000 traditional lineage based physicians were struggling to be heard about how this illness is a strain of influenza and that they knew how to treat the basic element of it before the infection got to the lungs.

Traditional physicians contributing during health crisis

Taking the word COVID out of context they were scoffed at and told ‘COVID has no treatment.’ The many traditional physicians who proved treating the disease, some in less than two days, volunteering and providing their medications free to various high level places were not recognised, although what they were doing was an open secret. Hettiarachchi Weda Mahattaya of Wattala, one of the earliest traditional researchers of COVID, sent medications to Italy though his son and recorded speedy recoveries. He tried to speak here and get his voice heard. He could not. 

Traditional physician, Kalutharage Sampath from Panadura cured patients in their 90s without the use of oxygen. Physician Laxman Embuldeniya of Ukuwela, Matale, using the paramparika Sinhala wedakam knowledge developed oral vaccines that recorded recovery within three days and prevention for family members exposed to the virus. He has maintained a log book of case studies with references of the patients. These are just three examples (out of hundreds) of traditional physicians contributing to the nation in times of the health crisis who were neither supported nor hailed for their efforts. They continued as a karmic duty, carrying out their thankless tasks, amidst ridicule and vilification. 

Let us stop for a minute and think. This country is part of a civilisation that is thousands of years old. This means that we did not have global organisations to tell us how to safeguard the health our nation during the times of our kings. Then too viruses did surface in the form of epidemics and pandemics in diverse guises and there were policy methods of combatting them.

The traditional physicians of the Sinhala Wedakama – paramparika wedakama tradition and Ayurveda practitioners are also researchers. Their research base stems from a vast body of knowledge of the past which they use in the present as relevant and they researched into the coronavirus (thus named by humans). It is to be remembered that the virus did not announce its name as ‘corona.’ It was defined so by the WHO as the coronavirus disease and the virus as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The naming was done based on its genetic structure and while it still remains a mystery if this virus was a bio missile of mass destruction of a bio weaponry age as predicted by Bill Gates about a decade earlier and thus created in a lab or if it was transmitted as a natural phenomena of the wildlife environs through a monkey.

Whatever it was, one fact that was told to us, advised by the Western medical science based knowledge is that there was not cure for it – no ‘medicine’ for it and that the only way to recover was by boosting natural immunity. The cures that were designed by the traditional medical system cannot be compared to the definition of medicine as we have in Western science and the traditional medicine focuses primarily on boosting immunity.

However, even with the best of medicines, how can one boost natural immunity when one is fearful and lonely, locked up as in a prison cell in one’s home and made to really feel like a sick person? How can one boost natural immunity when the mind – the main engine that empowers and directs the rest of the anatomy into action is monopolised with thoughts of invasion and with the invaders (the virus).

As a country inhabited by a majority of Buddhists, we should be experts on how the mind is supreme and any illness can be begotten or dispelled with the power of the mind, provided we know how to use it, as per teachings of ancient scientists such as the Buddha. 

Or if we value only modern scientists, then of course we can study authentic experts such as American biologist, Bruce Lipton whose specialisation is on epigenetics. He taught anatomy from 1973 to 1982 at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and was affiliated with St. George’s University School of Medicine as a professor of anatomy. He has explained to many public audiences how thoughts can make cells live, die or regrow. This means that thoughts shape our human biological system as our mind communicates to our anatomy what we want it to communicate. 

His book the Biology of Belief can be read parallel to gathering similar understanding of that subject, such as reading in-depth the mental science of Buddhism. Where the book Biology of Belief is concerned the 10th anniversary edition was published in 2015, with updates of latest scientific discoveries of the past decade. It may provide more understanding of how the mind is interconnected with each cell and nerve of this device called the body.

If this is also not sufficient for someone only believing in Western science to understand diverse phenomena, one can read up on entangled photons which is a much broader quantum physics approach that will educate on the interlinked nature of matter which of course includes and interconnects minds and cells into the larger scheme of existence. The 2022 Nobel prize for physics went to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for pioneering quantum information science and establishing the violation of Bell inequalities for experiments with the interlinked nature of photons which are particles representing quantum light. Human beings are amongst the entities that hold and emit quantum light and are interconnected with the frequencies of other particles and waves. 

Now why is all this said? To make clear that the human body is not some isolated thing which will miraculously jumpstart and protect itself after a vaccine of the sort we have today (which is a form of injecting a segment of the virus for the body’s immunity to deal with, fight and conquer).

A five-year-old being explained this, calmly asked, during the madness of that COVID time when people were forcibly taken into quarantine camps, ‘why a vaccine is needed to be exposed to the disease to fight it when one can remove the mask and fight it by thinking about nice stuff and eating nice stuff.’ Of course this five-year-old’s understanding of the best way to deal with immunity would have been a nice jig in the sun and then a dance in a rain filled water pool followed up by eating a bar of chocolate or ice cream! This by itself is not a bad idea to resurrect one’s cells by increasing dopamine levels in the body which positively manipulates the immunity system.

A COVID national policy we failed in was for promotion of Sri Lanka’s miraculous traditional diet which is probably the kind Hippocrates the father of modern medicine meant when he said ‘let food be thy medicine.’ Rare in the world is a diet of this nature where immunity boosting herbs, spices and vegetables such as turmeric, ginger, onion, garlic, curry leaf, clove, cardamom, pepper, fennel seed and fenugreek are present in one average dish which is by itself a curried pharmacy we eat daily. This Sri Lankan diet which includes at least 4 such curries daily is not to be confused to the Indian diet which is totally different. All of Sri Lanka’s traditional yams, rice, edible leaf varieties (pala warga) and medicinal vegetables (young jackfruit is a case in point), if taken with correct understanding as our ancestors had done. This is the kind of promotion we should have had in our COVID phone message. It is a reasonable hypothesis to conclude that if we had done this and followed up by intelligent and practical action that we could have god rid of this virus within months.  COVID was as we call it traditionally a ‘semprathrishyawa’ – our indigenous physicians pointed this out – that affected immunity more than other strands of respiratory diseases. 

All things are interconnected

All things are interconnected. If we had had a strong understanding of common sense, Buddhism, sensible Western science that was rational beyond the need to sell the hurriedly put together vaccines and had a thorough knowledge of the scientific premise of ancient Ayurveda, Sinhala Wedakama, Unani and Siddha, all of which is fortunately present in this island, we could prevent sickness, fear and death (within reasonable means because the science of Buddhism teaches us that death and decay are normal parts of the karmic cycle). 

Understanding this, the knowledge of the ancients of the land was to treat the earth and humans as interspersed elements and where the cosmic radiation that impacts each plant and branch differently would also be considered in the making and administering medicines using these.Such knowledge were defined, analysed and described in ancient texts such as Ola leaf manuscripts. Today in our Western science obsessed world we lack the knowledge to read, understand and interpret the wealth present in these manuscripts. 

It should be said that Sri Lanka has no right to talk about how proud we should be about heritage and culture until such time that we prove in policy to teach our future generations this knowledge and to resurrect our respect of it.

We pay lip service to words such as national unity, reconciliation and peace without realising that we have to make these aspects work by using what we have within our civilisation. The Sinhala wedakam practice of the Sinhalese, the Siddha of the Tamils of Sri Lanka and the Unani practice of the Muslims of this nation were ignored during a time when all of these were tantamount to goldmines. What did we do instead? We outdid Westerners in derogatory attitude concerning our local medical sciences. We became puppets of parroting that which we did not understand – we failed to respect the WHO while not disrespecting our own medical knowledge base. We failed to see how using this medicinal and diet based traditional knowledge – our intangible heritage would save us dollars (that we spent for vaccines) and would save us the economy where we are now are starved for dollars.

If we had an immunity strengthened population, confident and happy in what they have as a nation to use against a global health threat and utilised this through solid national policy without any imperial hang-ups, we could have prevented the economically suicidal lockdowns. If we proved to ourselves our ‘sanskruthiya’ (culture) by using our intangible heritage of ancient medical science Sri Lanka would have by now become an Eden for medicinal tourism, our way. Our proud collective heritage of Sinhala wedakama, Siddha and Unani could have bought our nation and people together and we could have shown the world that we are formidable in uniting against adversity and that we have activated our medicinal heritage in unison.

We have to here make a point that all our doctors practicing Western medicine are hailing from forefathers who respected, used and understood the philosophical, cosmological and scientific base of our indigenous medicinal science. They would have considered it blasphemy to slight this knowledge – a knowledge which was part of the interweaving understanding that saving a life was a duty, not a money making ‘job’. The duty of a wedamahattaya or a wedanona (a traditional physician) was to heal a patient as soon as possible and not to maintain the disease for economic profit. This is why nittawata suwa kirima (curing completely eliminating recurrence) was the motto of such traditional treatments. 

To end from where we started, the WHO has stated that that the virulent threat of COVID is no more and weeks after we are reporting several cases of this virus.

Should we sit on our haunches and let our ignorance repeat itself or should we learn from our failure?

The WHO has praised the boosting of natural immunity because Western scientists do know what happens when the human body gets overloaded with vaccines – we become immune to vaccines. This is the same as what happens to the soil when it gets used to only synthetic chemical based fertiliser. It ceases to respond to any other way of health maintenance and at some point it dies of overdosing and is no use anymore. 

There is also the unspoken and unverified alleged cases of vaccine related ill health and death. The international media does not talk about it so we do not know much about it.

Why don’t we then follow the WHO advice and boost our natural immunity and contribute to their research by showcasing what happens when we put to full use our entire gamut of indigenous food and medicinal heritage?

If we had done it from 2020 to 2023 we could have saved the billions of rupees we spend on tourism promotion; we could have become a proved credible hub for wellness and thus wellness tourism. 

According to the Ministry of Finance, Sri Lanka has incurred a total of Rs. 117.5 billion in 2020 and Rs. 53.0 billion during Jan-June of 2021 as expenses on the country’s COVID-19 response. All this is money. The amounts a person spends for a hospital ward is from hard-earned money. Less than 100 years ago the ‘hospital culture’ that we have today was an alien custom. Our forefathers ate of an unsullied and non poisoned earth and lived well, worked hard and died not of disease but of old age. Living well into the mid or late nineties was normal. Going to hospital as a ‘sick person’ was abnormal. 

Walking, talking laboratories of non-communicable diseases

Today this has been reversed completely where it is considered normal to be unhealthy – to live as permanent patients with diabetes, hypertension, migraine and heart ailments. Modern human beings are a walking, talking laboratories of non-communicable diseases. During the COVID hysteria insufficient attention was paid to the fact that all those suffering acutely and the deaths which occurred were because of aggravation caused by COVID but that mostly, the actual cause of death was some other disease.

Only a fool will make the same mistake twice. In a country starved of dollars to the extent that we could not afford paper to print bills and exam sheets, we have to think how much our blindness to our medical heritage is going to cost us.

It has cost us more than an arm and a leg. It has cost us lives. It has cost us our own self respect because a nation that ousts and ridicules its own knowledge is indeed a poor country. 

Yet, we cannot continue in this poverty. If we subject our citizens to PCR testing again as we did in a flurry two years ago, it may be likely that many will test positive to COVID. We cannot wait until we are pushed to a point to do this testing again in a rush and then in an equal flurry pay money we do not have on another set of vaccines.

What each citizen could do is:

1.Learn about how the earth, plants and food contribute to immunity.

2. Read Western scientific evidence on above.

3. Read Eastern scientific evidence.

4. Read and understand about the nature of the mind and how the mind can govern the reactions of the body and decide whether or not to become sick. 

5. Get to know practitioners of traditional medicine of the Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim tradition by seeking them out and talking to them.

6. Get to know the theories of Western medical science. 

7. Learn about the plethora of traditional herbs, plants, leafy varieties and indigenous fruits of Sri Lanka that hold medicinal properties.

8. Create informal discussions on above on a weekend with few friends.

9. Learn about herbal alternatives to tea and about traditional beverages such as thambung hodda and kola kenda.

10. Learn about the nutrient value of traditional rice varieties, traditional yams/tubers and the pas kole sambole. 

11. Grow these in pots or in any minute space. Utilise every inch of garden space to grow your immunity. 

12. Learn about mindful and deep breathing techniques to flush out toxins from the body and reboot life energy. 

13. Do something kind and good every day. Read and understand how kindness boosts dopamine levels.

14. Learn, re-learn and decide what you have to unlearn.