CASE HISTORY 10
Name: Nownitlall
DOB: 1937
Sex: Male
Occupation: School teacher
Complaints and duration:
Difficulty in performing simple daily tasks, e.g. walking, climbing staircases etc.
Breathlessness
Palpitation
Past History:
Heavy smoker for since 1961. Some 40 cigarettes daily.
Investigations
1984: X-ray showed patient’s lungs were seriously affected.
Treatment History
He was advised to try to stop or at least reduce cigarettes. But he could not follow the advice because of lack of will power or self control.
His doctor told him his life expectation was at most some 5 years. When he came to the ashram he had been told he had just 6 months more to live.
Prognosis
Very poor. The patient would have succumbed to some complication of his bad lung condition. Most commonly, Chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD), bronchiectasis, heart disease or lung cancer.
DISCUSSION
Nicotine addiction
Cigarette smoking causes nicotine addiction. Nicotine addiction is singularly difficult to fight and surmount. On a conscious level at least 70% of smokers want to stop. Because of its unique structure nicotine addiction is exceptionally difficult to cure.
Nicotine, an external chemical, once introduced into the body crosses into the brain and is able to activate and turn on our mind’s dopamine pathway circuitry. It ‘hijacks’ the brain’s circuits. Continuing use results in the person becoming addicted: the brain is falsely convinced that using more of nicotine was as important as eating food. Nicotine dependency, like alcoholism, is a real mental illness and permanent disease. There is supposed to be no cure in normal circumstances.
Successful recovery isn’t about strength or weakness. It’s about a mental disorder where by chance the dopamine pathway receptors have eight times greater attraction to a nicotine molecule than to the receptor’s own neurotransmitter.
Effects of meditation
Mr Nownitlall came for meditation in 1988. He had been addicted to cigarettes for the past 27 years. He was ailing and in very poor physical condition.
“I was once a heavy smoker. In fact, I started smoking in 1961 and, with the passage of time, I became an inveterate addict to tobacco to such an extent that my daily quota of cigarettes rose up to 40! My health was deteriorating all along.*
Consequently I was advised by my doctor to, at least, reduce the number of cigarettes I was smoking.”*
He was well aware of the deleterious effects of cigarettes on his health. But he did not have the will power or self-control to try even to reduce daily intake. For the past 4 ½ years his condition was diagnosed as serious. His doctor had given him less than one year more to live!
“That was beyond my power, I felt. I knew all along that my lungs were affected because the least physical effort left me panting for breath. I was then 47! The situation was getting beyond my control- what was most unfortunate and deplorable was that I could not make even a semblance of effort to control myself. I felt a defeatist without any will power. I felt ashamed of myself for not possessing even a slight degree of will power to exercise some control on myself. Things went on like this till June 1988” *
He had been to other places seeking a cure for his disease condition, to no avail. He wanted to see if meditation will work in his case.
“The benefit derived from such a meditation is inestimable. The process of purification itself is wonderful. Bad and harmful habits like smoking and drinking drop away of themselves…”*
At initiation he was taught deep yogic breathing and mantra repetition. During the first hour of meditation he started getting special breathing ‘bellows breathing’.
“My breathing grew fast and loud. I felt like exploding.” *
Right from the first moment he felt a change in his being. This first staggering experience was instrumental to make him stop smoking on the spot. That was the last day of his smoking.
“That was a turning point in my life. After only two one-hour sessions of meditation …I felt a new being with a will power and a new joy bubbling inside me. *
“The wonder of wonders is that, through these two hours of meditation…smoking gave me up!”*
He never had a relapse or ever felt the need or crave for a smoke. His health improved considerably. He became completely normal.
“When I come across people who are victims of vices, I feel pity for them, because I cannot forget that I myself was once a slave to tobacco. It is now three years since I gave up smoking…!”**
It is a well-known fact that nicotine addiction is extremely difficult to treat. Nicotine addiction being a physical addiction, the person feels he needs the drug for his body’s proper functioning. The patient had tried for more than 4 years to stop smoking since being diagnosed and warned by doctors, to no avail. Although well aware of the deleterious effects cigarette smoking was having on his health, he could not by himself stop smoking.
To what sorry state I would have been reduced is a question I dare not answer. I shudder to think of the outcome if I had persisted in that vicious habit. How agonizing it was to be helpless in face of a situation which called for tremendous effort and courage – which I could not summon through lack of will-power in spite of the imploration and supplication of my wife and children – for a transformation is known only to myself.”**
“The salvation came when I least expected it. I had reached the limit of endurance. I had been struggling like a drowning man for an anchor all along…”**
Conclusion
Patient had no will power to fight his addiction. He could never follow any treatment because of that. Temptation was stronger. He would have probably died years ago. He was still alive decades after he had been condemned by his doctors, even driving his car.
Only a ‘higher’ power would be able to break this addiction. This was provided by the power of the extra ‘prana’ transmitted by shaktipat and accumulated through siddha meditation. Meditation provided the new ‘addiction’. He used to enjoy his meditation. It was an altogether new experience. It effectively replaced the craving for cigarette. As he himself remarked: “I am now a God-addict”.*
When Yoginiji gave him ‘shaktipat’ his whole system became responsive and he was ‘staggered’ positively. This created modifications in his brain which had been wrongly ‘wired’ by nicotine. Now the positive energy overwhelmed the negative energies created by the wrong wiring of his system. The brain became ‘re-wired’ to respond to the increased ‘prana’, the life force now freely entering his system. The system now responded to this ‘prana’ in a proper way and he was freed from the craving for nicotine.
Deep yogic breathing it was itself a revelation. In addition, the breathing was synchronized with mantra repetition; the rhythmic breathing relaxed the whole system. The whole system was thus harmonized. There was a feeling of utter relaxation. There would thus no longer be any craving for external sources of stress reduction. The body responded to the yogic breathing and meditation. He felt new life coursing in his nerves and system. Continued meditation led to continued intake and accumulation of prana to combat any withdrawal symptoms until the system was completely free from nicotine.
(* Excerpts from Mr Nownitlall’s article in Annual Magazine 1, 1990, page 13-14.)
(** Excerpts from Mr Nownitlall’s article in Annual Magazine 2, 1991, page 55.)