EDITORIAL Monday, February 19, 2007

Centering for wellness
By Mayette Q. Tabada

“GOING in circles” has come to mean going nowhere.

But at the Ananda Marga Wellness Center, a visitor finds that, in just going around the dome-shaped wellness center, he or she has come to focus on healing and wellness.

Quite appropriately, this discovery comes at the end of a circuitous route that entails a long drive, leaving behind the city, winding down potholed streets and then all-weather trails to reach the Center at N. Alinsug Street, Green View Subdivision in Pagsabungan, Mandaue.

But from the moment one steps out of the automobile and goes unshod into the Center, he is conscious of the eternity of circles: how life is a regeneration from disease, how balance flows from righting priorities, how mindset feeds wellness and back again.

The ring of greenery outside the dome is echoed by the concentric hallways, which the visitor breaks only by opening any of the doors leading to one of the rooms, which can accommodate a maximum of two students at a time.

There are no “patients,” only “students” staying at the Center, points out Dada Dharma. The yoga master for more than 30 years says the change of terminology reflects natural treatment’s shift of focus from dependence on drugs and doctors to the person healing oneself.

Thus, he recommends that a student, wanting not just to correct present imbalances but also to be “healthy forever,” stays at least three weeks at the Center, if possible. The Ananda Marga program of wellness “is a little bit more gradual so that students will be able to continue with every thing they learned (at the Center to be healthy) for the rest of their lives.”

He has had to turn down requests from those interested but only capable of staying for a few hours or a day. Dada Dharma believes busy persons need to get away from their lifestyles, the source of stress and toxins.

With a trained staff, which includes an artist-therapist and a resident consultant, Dr. Romy Paredes, a leading exponent of alternative medical systems, the Center offers a range of natural treatments to treat skin problems, obesity, insomnia, substance addiction, high blood pressure, and other physical and psychological complications.

Dada Dharma says that a wellness program is customized to meet the student’s needs. From the herbal detox to colema, aerobic, art and games therapy, and “nutritious, delicious diet,” he assures that the Center’s regimen is “very gradual so (it is) very safe and maximally meaningful for every individual.”

With Filipinos and foreigners frequenting the Center, this dome-shaped sanctuary has become as universal as wellness. Compared to the other treatment centers he has set up in Taiwan and South Korea, Dada Dharma sees more potentials in the local Center because, as students have attested, the place exudes “strong psychic energy.”

That should be enough motivation to go in circles and end up at the Ananda Marga Wellness Center.