MUMBAI: Spiritual vision and love can overcome all hurdles, especially that of communication. At India’s first International Deaf Conference for Spiritual Life and Vision, Universal Sanatana Dharma for the Deaf (USDDeaf) showed that how the message of the metaphysical could unite hearing-impaired people belonging to different religions. Held over the weekend at Iskcon at Juhu, USDDeaf concentrated on spreading spiritualism to encourage the challenged people to inspire themselves spiritually.

The conference had 17 eminent speakers-most of them with hearing problems- who were from the fields of Art of Living, yoga and reiki, health and fitness and healing of the deaf, and all tried to lend a new meaning to the word “deafness”. The two-day session included plays performed by the hearing impaired, sign-a-story contests in Indian sign language (ISL), short games and inspiring “darkness to light” stories.

Anantadeva Dasa (alias Ashok Rao) (55), the president, founder and the managing trustee of USDDeaf, is Mumbai University’s first hearing-impaired graduate-he completed his BA in History in 1974. “I was rendered deaf when I was one year old. After I grew up, I summed up the strength to fight the challenge and help others like me achieve in life,” said Dasa, through the sign languages, as interpreted by Mansi Shah.

Dasa continues in sign language, “Although we cannot hear, we are very observant of the life revolving around us and we can communicate the happenings with others who can hear. For many, the hearing aid or cochlear implants might be a possible solution but the stress in using the devices is immense and others cam seldom understand that.”