In 1983, I [author Dr. Stewart] visited India for the first time. There I had the privilege of working at the Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai, an institution that is the result of the pioneering work of Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy. From that time forward, my life as both a surgeon and a human being was permanently transformed.

After his retirement in 1976 as the chair of the Department of Ophthalmology at the nearby medical school, Dr. V, as he was lovingly called, was moved by a desire to serve his community with a higher standard of ophthalmic care, regardless of caste or capacity to pay. He opened a small eye hospital in a converted house with two operating rooms and twelve beds.

From this humble beginning, and with the help of Dr. V’s dedicated family, the organization has become the world’s largest eye care system. Presently more than 1.5 million patients are cared for and more than 250,000 surgeries are performed annually at five hospitals. What makes this even more remarkable is that approximately two-thirds of the treatments are done on a “free hospital” basis. That is, each patient who is able to pay supports two who cannot. The work is of the highest quality, performed to international standards and accomplished within a balanced budget.

Dr. V, a physically slight man with fingers gnarled from severe inflammatory arthritis that afflicted him from a young age, lived authentically and with a burning passion to fight needless blindness, along with a vision of how to do it. He was a healer of giant proportion, a surgeon who lived fully in the worlds of both science and spirit and a mentor and role model to many. The purpose of his life and the meaning of his existence remain clearly evident in his healing legacy. His life and his work seamlessly integrated deep spiritual practice with compassionate service in the secular world. In the presence of his own illness, he lived a life of health and healing.

At the Aravind Eye Hospital, I discovered a place where science and spirit are yoked in a model that embodies a collaborative healing relationship between scientific expertise and spiritual richness—between medicine and meaning. It is a bridge where the truths of science meet the truths of the sacred, and where the practical, purposeful, and paradoxical come together. Underlying the bustle of busy operating rooms (often with two or three surgeries occurring simultaneously) and the chaos of crowded corridors is a reverence for every being. There the staff exhibits a deep, powerful connection to an unseen inner energy reservoir—a spirit of service and purpose that moves many of them to begin each day in the hospital’s meditation room.

It was on that first trip to India that the seeds of deep medicine were planted. It was there that I saw in practice that health and healing are not just scientific but also spiritual pursuits, where both visible (external) and invisible (inner) worlds play an active, collaborative role.

Adapted from Deep Medicine: Harnessing the Source of Your Healing Power by William B. Stewart, MD.