Yoga of Perfect Sight

Sun Treatment and Palming

1) Sun Treatment:—The sun is a wonderful help in relieving all sorts of eye discomforts. Sometimes we get miraculous results. Everyone should do sun treatment.

Method of Sun Treatment:—Sit comfortably facing the sun with closed eyes, and sway the body from side to side gently. One should continue for five to ten minutes. Morning or evening or when the rays of the sun are not keen, is the best time. One should stop sun treatment as soon as the sun causes discomfort. After enjoying the sun, one should come to the shade and wash the eyes with cold water to which 5 to 10 drops of Ophthalmo may be added.

Eye wash is very effective in toning the eyes. It gives relaxation. You may splash cold water on your eyes gently, or fill an eye-bath with cold water and put it against the eye in such a way that the lower margin of the eye-bath touches the lower eyelid, while the upper margin of the eye-bath remains free. Keep the eyes downwards and blink in the water of the eye-bath. Wash each eye for about a minute or two. Fixing the eye-bath against the eye and raising the head are not desirable.

2) Palming:—By palming I mean to close the eyes gently and cover them with the palms of the hands in such a way as to avoid any pressure on the eyeballs. When all the light is shut out by palming, one should experience a perfect dark before the eyes as if one were in a perfectly dark room. If it is not a perfect dark before the eyes during palming and some other colours appear, it indicates that the eyes and mind are under a strain. To relieve this strain imagine something perfectly black or some pleasant object like a flower, a boat floating on the river, clouds moving in the sky, etc. Some persons like to remember familiar things: thus a knife is remembered by a surgeon, dolls by girls, babies by mothers. When the imagination is perfect and corresponds to the reality, one sees a perfect dark before the eyes when they are closed and covered.

Palming may be done for two to five minutes or longer. You may rest the elbows on the table or tuck a cushion below them.

After palming, open the eyes and practise central fixation on the Snellen eye testing chart if your distant sight is defective; and on the reading test type if your near vision is defective. In most of the cases the benefit comes at the first sitting. Continue for some time to make the improvement permanent. For further directions, please read the book Mind and Vision.

White Line:—The white space in between the lines of print is called the white line. Look at the white lines of fine print of the reading test type, 'Fundamentals', of this book or look at the white lines in a sample of fine print. Shift your sight on the white line just below the line of letters, from one end to the other. Blink gently at each line. Make no effort to see the letters. It may be observed that the letters above the white line appear more distinct than before. If the letters are visible, the mind will automatically read them but an effort to look at the letters should not be there.

Practice of white line improves the reading sight and relieves the pain and discomfort of the eye.

Long and Short Swing:—Long swing is a great help to relieve discomforts and enables a person to adopt short swing. Long swing induces good sleep while short swing helps to improve the sight. When the swing is less than an inch, it is called short swing. It may be practised fifty to one hundred times.

Long Swing:—Stand with the feet about 12 inches apart, turn the body to the right—at the same time lifting the heel of the left foot. Do not move the head or eyes or pay any attention to the apparent movement of stationary objects. Now place the left heel on the floor, turn the body to the left, raising the heel of the right foot. Alternate.

Long Swing before bars of a window:—Stand with the feet about one foot apart, move the body like a pendulum to the right while raising the heel of the left foot; then move the body to the left while raising the heel of the right foot. Alternate fifty to one hundred times.

Do not try to fix the gaze on the bars or on the background. Keep the sight shifting along with the movement of the head and blink at each side. Observe that the bars appear to move in the opposite direction.