While emphasising the need for Indian doctors to resort to meditation to treat their patients with compassion, Dr. Paul Juul from Denmark has said that people should not run after paid meditation classes.

“Spirituality is a free gift that cannot be charged and people who charge for yoga and meditation are not genuine”, the Gastroenterologist said while addressing a group of doctors and medical practitioners on ‘Heartfulness Relaxation and Meditation’, organised by the Yoga and Naturopathy Lifestyle Clinic of Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH).

“The average number of patients per doctor in India is higher compared to Western countries. Hence, doctors and medical practitioners in India need to seek the help of meditation to treat patients with compassion.

Dr. Paul Juul visited India 40 years ago to learn meditation from his guru Kamalesh D. Patel in Chennai. And, this trip has made India one of his favourite destinations, next to Denmark, where he continues to practice meditation so as to treat patients with compassion.

The Dane who was in the city spoke to the Covai Post about the importance of meditation and its effect on medical practice.

“Meditation creates a positive vibe inside a doctor, which is very essential when he / she treats a patient. This vibe would ensure the patient is cured,” he said.

Emphasising the importance of the placebo effect (using chocolates and sugar instead of medicine), Dr. Juul stated that a doctor needed to understand the mind of the patient and a trust should be built between the doctor and the patient, which increased the chances of cure from 20 per cent to 80 per cent.

Apart from creating a positive result in the treatment, he also added that meditation relaxed the mind of the doctor and gave him / her peace to carry out their work happily.

Talking about the emergence of Yoga and meditation in Western countries, Dr. Juul said that it would be more useful to doctors of India where technology was still at a nascent stage.

Commenting on the cropping up of yoga and meditation centres to lure money, he urged people to stay away from such fakes.