Dr Brian Wells FRCPsych, CEO & International Liaison Psychiatrist at Leading Health Care International (LHCI), London, United Kingdom
[Next speaker is Doctor Brian Wells].
Dr Brian Wells: Her Holiness Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi, Ladies and Gentlemen. Good afternoon. I am a consultant psychiatrist and I work in London. My main work is in the centre for research on drugs and health behaviours and I leave you annual report for your perusal should you so wish.
The main work that we do is a series of international studies in collaboration for drugs and HIV infection. As everybody in the room is aware, India has not escaped the problem with HIV infection. And there is now reasonable evidence for the World Health Organisation to predict that by the year 2000, Asia will have a problem with AIDS that is worse than that of Africa.
This is not a shock tactic, this is projections based upon statistical research. What we do know, about the treatment and prevention of drug abuse is that there is no one single solution. What is effective is a solution that addresses the whole person. For example, we can give methadone to people taking heroin, we can give substitute drugs, but it does not actually address the whole problem. What needs to be addressed is the whole person – and that includes the physical, psychological or emotional aspects. And also the spiritual and social aspects of the individual. There is no one treatment that fulfills that of these different obligations, all of these different criteria.
However, we do know that subjects who enter Sahaja Yoga – and we have had many subjects who have extremely serious drug and alcohol problems including addiction. And as they develop and alter their awareness as a result of the practice of the meditation of Sahaja Yoga, their values change, their physical state changes, their emotional state changes and their need for chemicals that alter the way in which we feel gradually melts away. There is now a significant number of studies and I will not bore you with precise numbers. But some of my colleagues will be presenting hard data of a more technical nature later on.
But out of all of the treatment modalities that I have seen around the world, there is really none that is quite as complete, so complete, affecting the whole person so dramatically as the practice of Sahaja Yoga. Which is not simply a meditation, it is a physiological experience that alters different energies in the body. The practice of Sahaja Yoga restores the body into balance. It restores the physical side of the body, the emotional side of the body and the spiritual side of the body, thus replacing completely the need to take drugs including alcohol.
I should be very happy to answer any questions later on and I know that I have other colleagues who are going to come up and address you. So I should be sitting here and would be very happy to answer any specific questions that you may have. Thank you.
