By Marzia Rahman

The Society of Hispanic Professional Engineering hosted a Pranic Healing session here at NJIT under renowned Master Marilag Mendoza as well as a nutritional session with GDS’s dietician, Jennifer Bostedo, RDN at NJIT on April 20 at the Campus Center.

This event was held primarily to help students decrease their stress by meditation and energy healing and to help the body by the nutritional session. Health of both the mind and body were considered a main focus.

According to the Pranic Healing website, “Master Marilag is one of 9 senior disciples of Grand Master Choa Kok Sui in the world. She teaches Pranic Healing and Higher Classes such as Arhatic Yoga and Kriyashakti in North and South America, Europe and all over the world. “

Pranic Healing, as explained by Mendoza is a form of energy healing. Healing that requires no physical touch but rather uses the good energy found in the environment. This healing method was developed by Choa Kok Sui. The word “pran” means breath or life in Sanskrit.

Mendoza first explained the sources of stress, manifestations of stress within the body and different types of stress people can feel, especially college students. She said that the Pranic Healing exercises would help lessen stress levels among college students.

The session started off with Mendoza leading some deep breathing exercises, inhalation and exhalations. After a couple of minutes doing this, Mendoza asked if any in the audience felt that their stress had gone down or that they felt more relaxed, and a good number raised their hands.

Then she moved onto some energy healing with the three-fingered technique. Keeping a straight posture, students were instructed to place three fingers from each hand, the index, middle and ring finger, on their solar plexus chakra. Then the same breathing exercises were practiced, except this time, fingers were pointed towards the solar plexus.

The solar plexus is located on the abdomen, underneath the ribcage and above the navel. According to Mendoza, the solar plexus chakra houses all of the unwanted stress in the body. Thus, by pointing the three fingers to the solar plexus and picturing energy from the body travel towards the solar plexus from the fingers, the stress could be eliminated, if not diminished.

The healing session concluded with some more meditation exercises and a prayer.

The second session was quick and was hosted by Jennifer Bostedo, the dietician at GDS. She ran a Nutrition Jeopardy game with the audience. With each question and answer, Bostedo followed up with additional diet and nutritional advice and facts.