The unprecedented situation in India today

The explosion in mental health issues in India in the last 20 years is unprecedented in the history of the subcontinent. Today, almost without exception, everyone knows someone – a child, a parent, a friend or a colleague – who faces extreme and existential suffering due to a mental health issue they often suffer about in silence. Depression, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), eating disorders, paranoia etc. Most of these terms are new additions to the language of contemporary India.

According to India’s latest National Mental Health Survey 2015-16, an estimated 150 million people in India suffer from mental health issues. Thats around 11.2 percent of the population.

India has only 3500 psychiatrists and not many more psychologists. One for 3 million people. Most of these professionals, though overworked and well meaning, adopt a western approach which is hardly in tune with Indian conditions nor particularly successful in a large number of cases, because medication is the route taken, rather than holistic prevention or early intervention.

As increasing funds are poured into western psychiatry and psychology models for this modern Indian phenomenon, there is a growing population of medicated individuals, especially amongst the youth and children of urban India. Medicated but not healed.

Independent studies all over the world reveal that medication for most mental health issues are almost always a short term fix but do little to empower individuals to practically identify and permanently resolve the root causes of their Mental health issues in the first place.

Many modern day personal crises arise in the first place because sensitive youth find very few answers to their burning existential questions.

The illumined mad – an older fact

Traditionally Indian society has encouraged spiritual seeking. Often, these pursuits, especially when undertaken without the guidance of a spiritual master have resulted in seekers developing painful physical and emotional experiences, as well as what is known as Theia mania, referring to unconventional, outrageous, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior arising from religious or spiritual pursuits.

These behaviors may seem to be symptoms of mental illness to mainstream society, but are either a form of spiritual experience or of spiritual experience gone awry.

Modern psychology – itself a very young discipline of less than 150 years – has neither the knowledge nor the expertise to deal with such conditions.

There is an astounding rise in Mental Health issues arising from such experiences the world over, and modern psychiatry as well as neurology have no explanations for these mysterious conditions.

Ancient India however has known how to deal with many of these conditions.

Mental Fitness through the PRESENCE Process and PreetiYoga

Through Mental Fitness pan-India PRESENCEHappenings, interactive training sessions are conducted which result in the prevention of commonly experienced depression, anxiety, panic attacks etc.

Also, for those who have undergone inexplicable mental experiences which again modern psychology is unable to explain or treat, the PRESENCEHappenings – through holistic training in chemical-free reconstructive practices – provide for self-healing and social re-integration.

PRESENCEHappenings are programs where attendees immerse themselves in powerful transformational processes which result in their acquiring basic and then advanced skills for lifestyle changes that bring about radical positive change in the physical, the emotional, and the conceptual.

Through this training, attendees learn to adopt a fundamentally new lifestyle that leads to holistic Mental Fitness, eliminating not only many modern mental health issues, but also physical ailments. This new lifestyle opens the floodgates of physical energy, emotional strength, conceptual clarity, and transformative creativity, thereby enabling individuals to navigate their lives with dignity and productivity through healthy relationships, work-life balance, wise parenting, clarity of purpose and a vastly improved ability to make the right decisions.

Mental Fitness Outcomes

1. Individuals learn practical exercises to prevent modern day mental health issues such as depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and actually succeed not only in preventing these conditions but also in curing them. They also learn concretely how to become a source of strength to those who suffer from such conditions.
2. For those already suffering from such mental health issues, practices are taught which are based on ancient knowledge of the human psyche, are far more in tune with the Indian experience, and yet are futuristic in the perception of the challenges contemporary India faces.
3. Individuals succeed in healing themselves and increasingly absorb an understanding of how they can tune in to the truth of their existence, and hence live more joyously and with less suffering.
4. For the hundreds of thousands of those suffering from inexplicable ailments due to spontaneous kundalini awakenings – which modern medicine has little or no knowledge of – including the ‘illumined mad’, the PRESENCEHappenings as well as PreetiYoga practices lead them to an increased awareness of the processes that they are undergoing, and a practical means to heal themselves and re-integrate into society.
5. A growing knowledge base of conditions which are a mystery to psychiatrists as well as neurologists the world over.
6. A growing wisdom base of empirically proven preventive practices and mental fitness activities that have arisen from hands-on experience of 20 years during hundreds of PRESENCEHappenings in India, and around the world.
7. A growing database of individuals who are trained to respond to mental health issues of others through means which are innovative, unconventional and more in tune with Indian conditions and the Indian psyche.