by Asmi Kothari

Chanchal Nikam started a project after her Landmark’s Self-Expression and Leadership Program, named ‘Drushti Holistic Eyesight Improvement Training Program’. Drushti, which means ‘vision’ in Sanskrit, was started to build the awareness regarding the natural ways to improve eyesight and to educate people about vision care. The primary foundation of this program is traditional yoga and the Bates method, which is a self healing system developed by ophthalmologist Dr.William Bates in the early 20th century. By providing natural methods to treat the eyes, he encouraged people to ‘relax’ in his self-published book called ‘Perfect sight without glasses’. It discussed the Bates method in detail which can improve the health of the eyes and decrease dependency on glasses and contacts, by following a series of simple practices, recreated in this program.

Drushti focuses on improving eyesight without surgeries, drugs or special lenses. Chanchal believes, ‘Most people are born with perfect sight and we create our own blur. Stress and tension in our daily lives can affect our vision. By relaxing our eyes we can actually improve our vision.’ Thousands, perhaps millions of people have healed themselves of nearsightedness,  farsightedness, astigmatism, cross eyes, lazy eyes and other conditions by using this method.

The program was started when Chanchal’s sister-in-law and brother-in-law got rid of their spectacles in July 2016. Chanchal decided to take some training and perhaps do some research on this method to design the Drushti program. This program is useful to people from the age of 5 to 70 years. In this program, people learn how to relax the eyes and mind, along with the body and breath; how to balance the brain and eyes, how to map and focus the visual field, how to use eye charts to build vision near and far and lastly, how to clear emotional root causes with hindsight. And when people started practicing the technique everyday to make their eyes healthier and happier; they noticed certain benefits like decreased eyestrain, increased circulation, lymph flow, tear production, physical and mental relaxation and focus, clearer eyesight, restful sleep and confidence.

Approximately 500 people benefited directly or indirectly through this program from problems such as nearsightedness, farsightedness, computer vision syndrome, eye strain, dry eyes, double vision, cataract as well as muscular degeneration. This project is currently running all over the Maharashtra and is anticipated to spread across the entire nation.