Our Minds Want to Do Many Things and Want to Be Many People All the Time. See How Paradhya Overcame Pain Caused by That.
For many years, Paradhya led a typical life of a woman in rural India, centered around her family, home, and livelihood. Married at sixteen and living in a joint family, others always saw her as a loving and caring person. She did have her fair share of financial difficulties, especially while raising her children. But rather than being worried or discouraged, Paradhya developed an entrepreneurial attitude—she started her own business. She became a milkmaid and began to sell milk. Not only did this solve her family’s financial problems, but it also served as an inspiration to others. Together with her husband, she then helped other relatives and friends to set up their businesses, by generously offering guidance and financial and moral support.
Always actively engaged in her daily work and responsibilities, Paradhya was happily busy and consumed in running her enterprise. When her brother developed an interest in meditation and wanted to spread the word about the benefits of regular practice, Paradhya showed no interest in it. She felt annoyed at the mention of the topic and asked him not to talk about it during family gatherings. She was content with her life as it was and did not feel anything was missing.
And then one day, unexpectedly, life gave her a hard knock. While in her mid-forties, Paradhya developed two lumps (scrofula—infection of the lymph nodes) on her neck, which were diagnosed as tuberculosis. She underwent rigorous medical treatment. But within a month, as a side-effect of the prescribed medicine, she started losing her eyesight. She was unable to see people clearly at a distance of 3 feet, and an eye test confirmed significant vision loss.
This situation triggered a dangerous whirlpool. Paradhya gradually fell into depression. She feared her health prospects, and she became insecure about her future. Anxious that she might completely lose her eyesight, she feared closing her eyes at night. She developed insomnia, became hopeless, and doubted that she would ever get cured. Although she visited many hospitals in the cities and consulted many doctors, no one was able to treat her, hinting her condition could be psychosomatic.
It was her brother who stepped in again, once all medical efforts had failed. He asked her to try meditation. He persuaded her to speak to people who had overcome their health problems through the power of meditation. Although skeptical at first, having heard so many uplifting experiences from strangers, she was ready to give meditation a try. She joined her first, week-long, guided meditation program in a group.
Meditation requires keeping one’s eyes closed, so once gain Paradhya faced her fear of remaining in darkness. She overcame this fright by focusing on the flute music which was played during the meditation sessions. That way, she managed to move her focus away from negative thoughts, and towards the soothing effect of meditation music. Within a week of practicing meditation and listening to uplifting talks from meditation masters, Paradhya was finally able to experience a state of relaxation and calmness. Her sleep pattern also improved—she was now able to sleep for a few hours at night.
She continued to attend meditation classes and experience-sharing gatherings with groups of people. In doing that, she found inspiration and strength. Within two months, she drastically intensified her meditation. She started meditating for 6–7 hours at home every day. She detached herself from negative thinking and found support in meditative music which played continuously 24/7. By engaging her mind in activities, she refused to let fear in and began to feel much better. She overcame depression and made a strong determination to cure herself. As she rigorously meditated, her eyesight gradually improved.
After her personal healing experience, Paradhya wanted to spread meditation in her village, so that others, too, could solve their problems. She began to actively promote meditation within her community, joining hands with her brother. She conducted weekly meditation classes for a group of 20 people and witnessed their lives transform. She even led a fundraising campaign, which resulted in the construction of a large meditation center in her village, named Vishweshwariah Pyramid. For almost a decade, the center has been providing meditation and guidance to everyone in need of physical, mental, and emotional healing.
Paradhya always took care of others, putting her family first—she was perceived as a kind, loving and caring person. All the while, she seems to have rarely taken a break to check on her well-being. Married young (as a teenager), she led a traditional lifestyle, tending to the needs of her extended family.
Although large families typically provide a better safety net, Paradhya possessed a keen sense of agency—she felt responsible and resourceful. When her family experienced financial problems, she was the one who took the initiative to start a dairy enterprise. She always had a positive spirit, she was actively engaged in work, and she enjoyed being busy.
She rarely slowed down to examine her state of being—her physical, mental, and emotional health, or any personal needs. Her key driver had always been the well-being of others—her children, her joint family, even her relatives, friends, and the village community at large. She kept providing support to everyone in need.
This sense of selflessness and altruism brought much joy and fulfillment to her and others, but it also lacked a vital component. Namely, Paradhya had to learn to start taking care of herself, too, as lovingly as she cared for everyone else. When her brother suggested she try meditation, she immediately dismissed the idea—Who has the time to just sit and meditate, she must have thought (even subconsciously), when there is so much work out there, waiting to be finished. This way, she was self-sabotaging any opportunity to focus on herself.
Her illness—and the critical health complication that followed—served as a wake-up call. When we continue to ignore the needs of our body and insist on maintaining our busy routine, we risk encountering a situation similar to Paradhya’s. We are at risk of developing physical fatigue, our immunity gets compromised, and the first health challenge has the potential to trigger a vicious cycle of further complications.
Psychologists have long warned that people who continuously live in a “give-give-give” mode are prone to experiencing emotional burnout, as well as problems related to their physical health [1]. Paradhya was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Although tuberculosis is contagious, it is not easy to catch [2], and nothing in her immediate surrounding was identified as a primary risk factor for spreading the disease. This is the first indicator of a possibly compromised immune response in her body. Further, Paradhya’s medical treatment had a negative side effect on her eyes. Despite all the pain and suffering it caused her, this situation, too, gave her an amazing opportunity to turn her vision inwardly, to start looking within, and to focus her attention on her inner life. Yet fear overwhelmed her. What if I am unable to see again, she kept thinking. For a long time, her entire focus remained on the outside world.
Kind people often find it difficult to see that self-care is not a sign of selfishness or heartlessness. We need to learn how to care for ourselves while helping or taking care of others. Listening to our bodies, sometimes prioritizing our own needs, and taking breaks from a demanding daily routine are necessary for staying healthy [3]. Self-kindness and self-compassion are prerequisites for a balanced lifestyle. Paradhya understood this the moment she embraced meditation and began spending considerable time healing herself. She learned that to be able to live happily and help others, she must first ensure her well-being [4].
Paradhya’s healing story is truly uplifting, in a way that it reveals our resilience and the power of our will to bounce back. Paradhya was finally willing to be at the receiving end—she accepted the help that came from her vast support network of relatives, friends, and the wider community, in her time of need. And she did not forget to give back, once she completed her healing process — Vishweshwariah Pyramid stands as a testimony to her power to overcome illness and to provide guidance and support to others.
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