Yoga of Perfect Sight

Myopia and Hypermetropia

It is evident that all persons conscious of imperfect sight have a mental strain. Myopia is caused by a strain or an effort to see distant objects. It can always be produced in the normal eye temporarily by trying to see distant objects. Myopia is never continuous. At frequent intervals, lasting for a fraction of a second or longer, the patient is conscious of flashes of better vision. It is also a fact that when the mind is at rest and the eyes relaxed by the memory of a letter or some other object, the myopia is lessened or disappears. Every myopic person has to maintain a mental strain with all its discomforts, in order to maintain a degree of myopia.

These facts suggest successful methods of treatment. Since mental strain or an effort to see distant objects is the cause of myopia, mental relaxation or rest is followed by benefit. By closing the eyes for five minutes or longer while letting the mind drift from one thought or memory to another, slowly, easily and continuously, rest of mind is obtained, and when the eyes are opened, the vision is usually improved for a short time or for a flash.

Myopic patients can always demonstrate that closing the eyes and covering them with the palm of one hand or with those of both hands for half an hour always improves the distance vision temporarily. They are temporarily cured when their sight becomes normal at some distance; when they read fine print with perfect sight at four inches without glasses, they accommodate to just the same extent as a normal eye does when it reads perfectly at four inches.

Palming can only accomplish relaxation when the patient does not try to see or imagine while palming. Some cases are able to palm more successfully than others. Some people can let their minds drift from one thing to another quite easily. A little girl was greatly benefited when the story of a black ant was told her. The black ant came out of the dark soil and climbed up the stem of a beautiful rose. It was slow work with the ant, but it kept on climbing, going on to the extremity of first one twig and then another, crawling to the extreme tip of every leaf until finally it located the flower. It crawled with great labour over the petals, until it found deep down in the centre of the rose a little white cup filled with honey. The patient could picture the ant carrying off some of the honey, crawling to the top of the flower, and then down back to the stem, finally meeting another ant on the ground. Then the second ant started off on the same journey.

The patient, while palming, listened very attentively to this talk which took about fifteen minutes. When she removed her hands from her closed eyelids, and opened the eyes, the vision was unusually good on the Snellen eye testing card.

The story of the ant, with its successive mental pictures, suggests other stories of other things with other mental pictures, as a boat floating on a river with a varied scenery around. A Mental trip to the seashore is also very restful when one imagines the waves flowing in and out.

When a hypermetropic patient fails to read perfectly at twelve inches or nearer, he usually feels the discomfort of mental strain. The hypermetropic eye can only read fine print perfectly when there is no mental effort. The vision of the hypermetropic eye is improved by the same methods which improve the vision of the myopic eye. Since the cause of hypermetropia is mental effort, its cure is obtained when the mental effort disappears.

In presbyopia the vision for the distance is usually good, while the ability to read at the near point fails. It is said that presbyopia begins soon after the age of forty and then gradually increases. It has been observed by many doctors that presbyopia may begin before the age of forty, or it may not appear until a much later date. I have seen patients over sixty years of age who had normal sight in each eye for the distance, and they could read small print at twelve inches. A popular belief is that presbyopia is due to the hardening of the lens. Dr. Bates has proved with facts that the lens is not a factor in accommodation, and that the cause of presbyopia is a mental strain when trying to see or read at a near point. Presbyopia is cured by practising relaxation methods. Presbyopic patients are greatly benefited when they imagine the white spaces in between the lines of print whiter than the margin of the page. The eyes, when reading perfectly, do not look directly at the letters, but at the white spaces or the halos.