A talk and an email about the self,
psychological disorder, image making, etc. -- by Reza Ganjavi, Sep 2011
THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD SPEAK TO YOUR DOCTOR AND NOT
TREAT WHAT'S WRITTEN HERE AS MEDICAL ADVICE.
> If human being wanted to stick to your way of doing things, we
would still be in caves
> trying to discover wheels and fire! We do have to
remember things and learn from them!
Excellent point. Basis of science is just that. However we're talking
psychology.
This is the GIST of the issue -- thought being based on
memory was made for technical practical things like going to the moon
or making fire. Not about psychological things. If you just grasp this
you'll live a much happier life. Just a brotherly tip. It's not
something to accept - it's something to see or not see. But the barrier
is that the self is so strong that this becomes very difficult to grasp
because the essence of the self is thought and this insight means
ending of thought - ending of self - psychological death. Ponder on
this please - don't push it aside as BS too quickly. I don't care if
you get it or not - i hope you do because i can see on numerous
occasions misapplied thinking gets you into trouble , isolated you,
gives you pain. See if you can / operate without thinking entering into
every little corner - that is the habit - that is our
education - but to see it means to be free from it - give it
some space - look at it..........
After years of seeing
psychologists and psychiatrists and taking numerous medications, they
do not know what is wrong with him. Their suspicion is that he has a
personality disorder in which he thinks negative thoughts of himself. I
have known him for some time and what I can see is that he is a very
sensitive and highly intelligent person. Society doesn't like sensitive
people - it wants to quash sensitivity and make you conform to
traditions, not ask questions, not challenge the status quo.
His
therapist says when he has negative thoughts he should suppress them.
The drug he takes is like turning off the television. If he doesn’t
take it he has the nightmares he had since childhood come back.
To
suppress and avoid these negative thoughts just means they persist.
Isn’t it better to let them come out, tell the story, be aware without
judging, and let the mind clean itself.
The root of problem here
seems to be thinking too much. That’s what all the specialists
concluded: thinking negative thoughts about oneself, in other words,
unnecessary thinking. When thinking can understand and see its own
limits then it can naturally get quiet instead of being forced by
suppression, medication, or mantras.
He said, what do we do if we are bi-polar – i.e., happy one day, sad
the next day?
We
are humans not a machine that is programmed to be the same way every
time. Isn’t it normal to be happy and sad? Big Pharma has a solution:
if you’re sad, pop a pill. But at what cost? The pills bring
dependence. They alter brain chemistry. It takes a while to be free
from them. If one wants to stop something, e.g. caffeine, it makes
sense to gradually reduce the dosage. (This is not a medical advice and
a doctor should be consulted).
It’s important to approach this
complex problem simply. If I am in this position and my therapist is
saying this nonsense, I quit going to her and if I know I have no
pathological problems I would cut down the medicine and get
free
from it and give time for the body to get used to not having it, and
clean itself, and during this period be ready to tolerate some side
effects. But gradual reduction reduces risks, it’s a controlled
reduction, and on days when he has no obligations he can go 4 days
without it and see and then gain confidence that he can go in society
without it and not get upset at students, etc.
It’s normal that after a big trip one may dream about it --- the brain
empties itself. It’s not an illness.
Good to write dreams upon waking up. Ahalya Chari told me this – I
think maybe K told her this.
It’s
amazing how little is included in our education in dealing with
hardship, in importance of emptying, and tolerance. In this society as
soon as going gets tough the person is given psychiatric medicine.
Some
fears are practical, some in the body, and most, a result of
over-thinking, in the field of time… worry about past or future.
Instead of therapist, maybe it’s good to talk to a good friend
regularly, and/or write. Writing has been my best friend.
He’s
been reading Freedom From The Known. It helps him sometimes, but his
friend said K never had to work for a living (LOL). It’s amazing how
many ways people find to discredit a person in order to discredit the
message. K poses some serious challenges but lazy mind prefer to
discredit the challenger instead. K worked hard all his life. He had
little needs in terms of physical luxuries but royalties from books
etc., went to the foundations, and he stayed with friends etc as he
traveled. In one of the last Ojai talks they asked him about this. Is
it really important? Not a bit in my opinion except if you want to
discredit him, and this is as bad of an excuse as picking on his hair
style (LOL).
His therapist talks about his higher self. But it’s
always the self that’s there. The problem is the self. When in present
and thought is quiet, there is no self and no need for a self. But this
is frightening for a self that wants to continue.
IMAGE MAKING
we
talked further -- much of the pains he experiences are from thinking
what others think of him... is it possible to live without any images
of oneself of one's image of another's image of oneself, etc... -- "can
it? did you get it?"
Find out. I found out yes - and it's
wonderful - it requires understanding what images are made out of ....
thinking .... and thinking understanding its own movement, its own
limitation.........
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