by Reza Ganjavi
A talk and an email about the self, psychological disorder, image making, etc. -- by Reza Ganjavi
THIS IS NOT MEDICAL ADVICE. YOU SHOULD SPEAK TO YOUR DOCTOR AND NOT TREAT WHAT'S WRITTEN HERE AS MEDICAL ADVICE.
> If a 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. The 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 the 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 and 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..........
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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 the 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 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, the 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 are in the body, and most are a result of over-thinking in the field of time… worry about the past or future.
Instead of a 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 a 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 the 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.
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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.........