Some truths to consider on World Cancer Day – 4 February

• Tomorrow is 4 February. It is Independence Day of Sri Lanka. It is also World Cancer Day.

As we commemorate the concept of independence let us  consider if we are independent of a disease known as a lifestyle curse that robs us of youth, joy, productivity and lifespan.

Can a sick nation be independent? Can a nation dependent on imported synthetic drugs create viable and innovative stimulus to the progress of a nation?

Is building cancer hospitals the solution to cancer?

What have we forgotten in the national level discussions on cancer? Nature. This is what we have forgotten. 

Nature is never diseased except when man interferes. Leave nature to itself and it will thrive.

Nature does not profit by having a segment of its occupants permanently sick. 

Each landmass on planet earth is a mysterious mystique of healing. It is man’s Eden of wellbeing. 

But man, in his ignorance eats of the apple of what he thinks is knowledge and fails to see with clarity the benevolence of hundreds of plant life under his very nose. 

There are those who say they were cured of cancer eating of the land, produce such as manioc, curcumin, ginger, the aatha fruit, paw-paw and leaf as well as grain varieties.  There are other worldwide examples of how being emersed in forests for long periods ‘miraculously’ cured people of life- threatening illnesses. 

This teaches us one thing, we surely will be consumed by the earth one day as fodder, but that we need not expedite the date if we consume until that sure event a plethora of the earth, open in its magnanimity. The earth is magnanimous even to us who treat it cruelly. We pollute it, crucify it with our concrete and yet it nurtures us.

In conversation about cancer with 87 year old ‘youth’ Ranjith Seneviratne and his equally ‘young’ wife Marcia Seneviratne what was explained was that they do not pick and choose when it comes to the produce of the earth.

Ranjit Seneviratne, a marine engineer who invents diverse solutions linked to sustainability and has grown a forest in his small garden in Kollupitiya that sustains him and his family, keeping them above all, free of all sicknesses states: 

“I hardly eat cooked leaves and vegetables. I grow them. I eat them raw. I nurture the soil and consider burning even a single leaf a crime against humanity. I do not have ‘illnesses.’ I do not poison the earth and I do not poison myself. The pristine earth is my vaccine.” 

To those such as Ranjit, Independence Day can be legitimately celebrated. They are independent of brick made hospitals as ancient humans were where the only hospital recognised were constructed by trees, shrubs and vines.

Let us therefore search out books and information that will educate us on how to live a full and holistic life by being free of scourges such as cancer and put to full use our link with the earth we stand upon. Above all let us work with our minds learning as to what could happen when the mind is tampered with, by the pandemic of fear. It is said that at times it is the fear psychosis that is contagious and kills. A mind devoid of fear is well armed and capable of clarity as well as in-depth thinking. Such a mind can lead a human to tangible action. This can be the dividing point between a long and productive life and a slow and painful death. 

(SV)