The root of mental illness is the ego, Satsang is the "cure"

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

 

I am new to this list and have been enjoying the few postings I have seen.

 

I consider mental illness as a complex matter. In my youth my father ran a

locked ward in a psychiatric hospital (and our household as well, not that

different a place actually) and used more or less "conventional"

psychiatric approaches. He helped people become better adjusted human

beings. However, those beings certainy continued to be "mentally ill". And

every single psychiatrist I have ever met never speaks of (or seems to

demonstrate) a Realization prior to mind that is One, Perfect, Whole, Free,

and Happy.

 

There are many ways to "diagnose" mental illness, and there are many

approaches to bring "cure" or well-being to the person that is suffering

some form or other of mental disturbance.

 

And this is good and I honor them all in their place. And there are many

new (and old) and reasonably effective forms of therapy that assist

individuals to greater individuation, socialization, and integration of the

basic human personality. Just as with addicts, there is a healing process

and people can mature and become "better-adjusted". This is also good.

 

One person doing profoundly useful work on "healing mental illness"

(including depression and addiction) is Dr. Gabriel Cousens, holistic

psychiatrist, author of Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow diet,

www.treeofliferejuvenation.com.

 

But even after healing, or some basic human maturity, there is still

"mental illness". There is still suffering, seeking, bewilderment, fear,

and a dualistic perception of existence. "Where there is an other, fear

arises" as the Upanishad points out.

 

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, the Ruchira Buddha points out in His Essay "On

Liberation from ego and egoic Society, or, Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace":

------

"The un-Enlightened (or egocentric) body-mind-self is founded on the

activity of self-contraction. The self-contraction is expressed as the

effective differentiation of the presumed "self" from the Transcendental,

Inherently Spiritual, and Self-Evidently Divine Self-Condition and

Source-Condition, and from every other form of presumed (or, by means of

self-contraction, defined) "not-self". And the self-contraction is,

likewise, expressed (via the self-contraction-definition of "self" as

independent and separative) as the constant concern and search for the

preservation of the (presumed-to-be independent) "self" (or ego-"I"). The

self-based (or self-contracting, and would-be-self-preserving) orientation

toward existence is manifested as the psychology of search and conflict

relative to all that is presumed to be "not-self"--some and all of which is

sometimes desired and sought, and some and all of which is sometimes feared

(or reacted to with the seeking effort of avoidance), and even all of which

is always limited, mortal, passing, inexplicable, and (therefore)

inherently unsatisfactory. Therefore, the psychology of self-contracted

(and, as a result, egocentric) existence is inherently disposed to seek

control and dominance over all that is presumed to be "not-self". For this

reason, individual egocentric lives are a constant expression of heart-felt

(and total psycho-physical) anxiety (and even the primitive ego-moods of

fear, sorrow, anger, and every kind of un-love)--and individual human

actions are, on that primitive basis, always a more or less mechanical (or

uninspected and irresponsible) display of strategic techniques of

self-manipulation (intended to preserve "self") and other-manipulation

(intended to control, or dominate, "not-self"). And the collective (or

group) life of egocentric human beings is, likewise, dominated by the same

exclusiveness, the same emotional base, the same inherent

unsatisfactoriness, and the same motives toward self-preservation, and

toward control of what is "outside"."

 

Avatar Adi Da Samraj, peace.adidam.org

------

>From the point of view of this very humble understanding, I recognize that

I myself am mentally ill. Identified with separate self. Seeking.

Bewildered. Not living Satsang, or Truth, but living separation and

seeking. This is why I am becoming increasingly moved to spiritual life

(not merely thinking about it) and the aspiration to realize more than

wandering in the mind.

 

So, the point I am arguing is that the root of mental illness is altogether

transcendental, at the constantly repeated point of separation and

separateness and contraction from the inherently Love-Blissful Unity with

Whatever and All that presently arises. One can consider healing and growth

from a human point of view which is good, but one must be very clear that

unless one is Most Perfectly God-Realized, one is suffering a very real

form of "mental illness".

 

This is exactly what the great Realizers of Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and

Adidam argue, that one must transcend the separate self (and experience and

"knowledge) utterly in order to be free of the "disturbance" that is the

mind.

>From the point of view of the body and mind, there is separation and

required seeking. From the point of view of Consciousness Itself, there is

literally Only One and Divine Love-Bliss. Therefore, from the point of view

of such Non-Dualistic Realization, all who are living outside of Reality,

Truth, Non-Dual Real-God, Samadhi, or God-Realization are suffering a form

of mental illness, dis-ease, dis-satisfaction, and self-posessed

ego-identification.

 

The ultimate root of mental illness is the same as the ultimate root of

addiction. That is the ego itself. The ego-I, or contracting from

Love-Bliss separate self, is the very activity at the root of all physical,

emotional, mental, spiritual, and life disturbance. The ego-I is the root

cause of all seeking and all suffering and all that is of dualistic

understanding. One can become "sober" from a gross addiction. One can

become "well adjusted" after a period of severe mental illness. But one

will not be free of ego, self, mind, or seeking by such growth.

 

There is no method to obtain "release" from the root egoity at the core of

all mental illness. There is no means other than Satsang. One can eat a

perfect diet, fast, meditate, chant, run, do yoga, read books, have sex

(even tantric sex), see this teacher, visualize, write, go on retreat, make

money, give money, believe, seek, vision quest, travel, take drugs, or do

anything at all for countless years, one will still be living this

contraction, this ego-life, this separateness; unless one is living in

Satsang with the Living Heart.

 

Guru. Satsang. Sadhana. Samadhi. The only alternative to a life of

ego-contraction.

 

Ordinary people can go to other ordinary people for help in becoming a more

"balanced" ordinary person. Ordinary people cannot go to other ordinary

people and transcend the mind. Psychiatrists have their place, my dad is a

good man (and shrink), just not a God-Realizer.

 

For Living Truth, one has to go to One who has Realized the Heart Itself,

one has to go to Satsang with a True Sat-Guru. Words are not enough. The

Living Guru is the Means.

 

------

"The truth of the Self cannot come through one who has not realized that he

is the Self. The intellect cannot reveal the Self, beyond its duality of

subject and object. They who see themselves in all and all in them help

others through spiritual osmosis to realize the Self themselves. This

awakening you have known comes not through logic and scholarship, but from

close association with a realized teacher. "

(Katha Upanishad Part 1, 2:9, p. 85)

------

"The True Realizer is not merely a figure, a symbol, an object, but the

Realization Itself, bodily and altogether. The Realizer is the Means,

therefore, not only bodily but Spiritually, altogether. Everything to be

Realized is there as the Master. Everything that serves Realization is

there active as the Master. Those who are wise, those who are truly

responsive and who find a worthy Master, simply surrender to That One. They

receive everything by Grace. This does not mean that they have no

responsibilities. All kinds of responsibilities are associated with such

surrender, even many technical aspects as the process develops, but the

technicalities are not the Means. You do not Realize by them. You simply

make yourself available to the One Who Is Realization by exercising those

responsibilities.

 

Because you are bound in separateness and helpless in this world, you must

take refuge in That Which is Great and Which Grants you Salvation. That

Divine Reality is the Truth, and It is the Law. You must find this out and

respond. "

 

-Avatar Adi Da Samraj

------

 

So this is all to point out that the separative ego is the root of all

"mental illness". And all "war". And all the rest.

 

And the sadhana of Satsang is alternative to ego and egoic society. The

Guru is the Means.

 

I vote Satsang.