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Of Memory and Desire (Part III)
By Jasjit Purewal - 3:46 PM Thursday 20 July 2006
A comment on my last post about the nature of mind triggered this post. The mind continues to haunt us as the most complex hybrid seat of our being which for all intents and purposes controls us and almost willy-nilly pushes us into the various events and directions we have come to know as our life. It has some really irritating aspects, like compulsive and obsessive sides, which exhaust and debilitate us. It has fears and gnawing doubts, which weaken our resolves and cripple our spirit and courage. Its fantasies and desires often tire and annoy us in their ability to whip up confusion and self-derision. And finally, its power over us seems so total that we are more often than not convinced that we are our mind and it alone is us, i.e there is no escape from the demon which rides us tirelessly.
Wisdom schools and ancient texts also hound this very same mind and tell us to rein it in and kill it and Zen in its inimitable style says simply ‘drop the mind.’ All basically saying two things; one that the mind is the culprit and two that in fact it is separate and hence can not only be controlled but can be totally transformed. But for most of us these questions only become relevant when we have our first glimpse of a self, which is totally distinct and ‘outside’ the ‘mind’.
K has been suffering from what she was told was bi-polar disorder. Not from birth though, the symptoms came up about 10 years ago when she was at college. A bright, athletic and vivacious student she was suddenly crippled by sudden ‘episodes’ when she would enter a different ‘reality’ begin to disconnect from everything around her and become listless and weave fantastical ‘tales’. Her family like all proverbial families sent her first into shock therapy, which nearly broke her spirit and subsequently placed her on life-long mental illness drugs, which in effect made her ‘quiet and calmer’. I met K many years ago and instinctively told her she had no mental illness and the problem lay elsewhere. However, since there were some traces of a family history of depressive illnesses, K was neither convinced by what I said nor could she break out of the fear of really being ‘bi-polar’ and hence met me sporadically and continued a medicated life.
Meanwhile she married a stable man, had children and set up a fairly ‘validated’ life where she was dedicated and scrupulous in providing her children attention, care and wholesome nurturance. The episodes however continued, though less frequent now but this time she became more concerned because she was troubled by what her children had to endure when she became ‘dysfunctional’.
Finally convinced that she needed to do some inner work, K came to see me. K’s constant concern was that whenever she had an ‘episode’ she often found the nature of our hallucinations became very ‘sexual’. Largely she felt she was being abused or was abused as a child. However otherwise she had no memory of any such event. In addressing her fears, we started first with what she saw as a bipolar disorder.
In all of us the karmic pattern of our Yin and Yang is imbalanced. All events/experiences in life then spin out of this basic disparity and in an attempt to help us resolve/balance them. However in some of us, for those very same karmic reasons, the imbalance is acute. K had an acute imbalance. Her Yang was stable, secure, bright and active. Her Yin however was fearful, suppressed, insecure and full of artifice. Interestingly what I saw was that in effect she carried a very powerful and ‘blessed’ Yin at her core from a karmic life of having known great spiritual heights. In fact it had absolutely nothing to do with the life she had carved for herself, her self-perception in this life and especially so her social persona.
Creatively gifted and carrying a huge reservoir of, talent within her Yin she was always being hounded to find a creative vocation and hence not feeling ‘settled’ in any profession she chose. Nevertheless she chose professions as her stable stoic Yang dictated and always ended up quitting, lending to the general feeling that she was unstable and unfocussed. Restlessness therefore came often and regularly as feeling ‘vacuous’ amidst a ‘good’ life. Meanwhile what she perceived as episodes were in fact a state when the power of this core Yin would break through, disorient her, always triggered by a Divine vision (which she was told was a crazy hallucination) and then ending with her feeling it was some sexual experience which had triggered and hounded her.
To place K in the context of how her family contributed to the karma of suppressing this powerful Yin, we find a mother and maternal grandmother who brought a very low self-esteem, intensely suppressed lives, self-doubt and singularly artificial social selves to cope with their life events. Sexually particularly K received numerous messages from her mother, which denigrated and rejected sexual self-expressions.
Needless to say, K’s vibrant creative self surfaced and asserted itself through this very same aspect- i.e. seeking sexual intensity and abandon. The judgemental and fearful social mind however always stepped in and judged it either as abuse or what she saw as ‘intrinsic promiscuity’. However we finally made a breakthrough when K began to recount how she is troubled by her sexual attractions to various men. Even at the time of her wedding (though she had chosen her husband out of love) she felt intensely attracted to another man. She ‘chastised’ herself and promised to be a good wife and set up a ‘stable’ home, exactly like her mum had done by suppressing all her unresolved selves. However K has found herself back in another sexual liason with a man she sees as ‘sensitive, creative, poetic’ and in tune with her creative selves. She struggles and fights with that attraction as the guilt and self-loathing continue to gnaw at her.
And who is this man? None other, than the mirror of the suppressed Yin. Since she refuses to give into the flowering of her untapped Yin, the sexual attractions always mirror ‘desire’ for a man who reflects the ‘needs’ of the eclipsed Yin. Meanwhile her stable, social very Yang mind, derides and mocks her for being inherently ‘immoral and wanton’. This singular fear of not understanding these conflicting sexual selves/desires had left K more confused and struggling than any other part of her. Her masculine mind had sealed her fate by damning her as carrying some deep, dark sexual self and gaining power by ‘being’ the mind, which keeps her on the straight and narrow and away from her ‘straying’ self. Even though this ‘mind’ contains nothing but the artifice of social rules and learnt female patterns/mores from childhood, like most of us K felt ‘safer’ with this mind since it maintains status quo. In any case, without the eye of awareness, self-analysis and the ability to plumb our subtle depths K was trapped, like most of us are.
Drawn recurrently to exploring sexual wisdom and practices she kept slipping and failing to make headway in the face of what she continued to see, firstly as a genetic mental condition and secondly as some dark inner self she needed to suppress. In fact in her modulated life K sees herself as sexually tepid and unexpressive. However she fears going deeper because she judges the self, which desires intensity and ecstasy on what she sees as ‘its own terms’.
This was the first time K clearly saw that the sexual desire was just a mask for the emotional intensity sought by her ‘natural’ yin and the force that it withheld. As soon as we made the connection K saw it in a flash and no single realization stunned her as much as that. It also brought home to her the power of that eclipsed self, which through ‘episodes’ and sexual desire, continues to assert its vibrant presence.
For the first time in her life, K felt relieved at how all her conflicting/multiple/diverse selves emanated from an intrinsic imbalance. She saw the mind(s) that towered and its games of self-manipulation. She also saw the sexual mind as none other than the emotional mind as well as the stubborn scorn of her masculine or ‘social’ mind.
At one stroke, she finally saw how the mind plants fear to keep her wedded to medication and hence keeps the cycle of her spontaneous-self suppressed. Today she is restful from the knowing that no genetic demon holds her mind to ransom. However, she faces the awesome task of finding the courage to kill the social mind whose primary trump card is to keep her masks in place and sustain the legacy of ‘sanctioned’ social roles. For in its absence lie freedom, adventure, infinite potential and creative brilliance…..and yes the death of so many known spaces and selves.
Mind is the key. It is the home of the schism, which we guard and flee in turn. It is where the battle rages, where the demons lie and the victor and the vanquished get decided. It is the battlefield of choice, only after awareness sets the stage. Before that it is the dark forest of our fears and confusions. And after that, seated in its midst, we suddenly understand in a flash the road to Self, essence, Truth and infinity. Nevertheless, a road that still must be walked.
Posted By Jasjit Purewal - 3:46 PM Thursday 20 July 2006
Comments
Hi Kavita
Yes in a sense you are absolutely right. But then we all agree that allopathic medicine in all its forms is location and symptom specific. That is its strength and weakness and perhaps that is why it often yields immediate results. Mental Health continues to be a problematic area more so because even practitioners agree that dealing as it does with emotion/psyche/life expereinces and their perception, it becomes extremely dodgy to try and comprehend the myriad roots.
Ifsha had embarked on a five year long research of mental health issues/practitioners/patients/treatment a long time ago. It had been a pioneering field of work especially looking at women's mental health and treatment. It was a multi-site project and included primamry institutions like Nimhans, Shadra, AIIMS etc and heads of psychiatry were present from all institutions when we presented our findings. It had been one of the most facsinating studies we had done. And everyone (despite intellectual arrogance/resistance) had to concede that there was more that they did not understand than the other way around. Just the mere fact that the American Manual for Mental Disorders is used by psychatrists around the world to diagnose mental ailments with no cultural and of course gender specification was in itself a great issue of debate.
We had also found that sexual 'disorders', child sexual abuse etc had hardly any expertise in mainstream psychiatry/psychology in the curricula. At the time we had managed to form a national committee to come up with an assessment protocol for all government institutions at least which would include violence/sexual abuse etc. However meanwhile we had already started working with alternate healing methods with our clients and started making astonishing breakthroughs. Naturally we moved away from trying to liason with the manistream practitioners in the field then and I guess the protocol never saw the day of light.
So what I share here is the result of a long drawn out qualitative work not to mention a completely alternate perspective. And the greatest strength of this perspective is that it is wholistic, multi-pronged and manages to make the client immediately feel like a participant in his/her well-being. The shifting of responsibility onto them helps them dig deeper and in fact identify what it really is that lies at the source of the 'distress'. It reduces dependency and of course opens up a whole field of possibilities for them to choose from.
:)
Posted by
Jasjit,
I can relate to certain parts of K's experience because till a few months back even I used to get this intense emotional feeling that used to nearly choke me. There was this whole feeling that everything around me is so perfect and yet there is this vacant feeling... the feeling of the absence of something. But there was never this conscious effort to try and seek what it was and instead would just sit and lament on it for a while and wait for the feeling to subside.
But today whenever this feeling arises I sit down and try to consciously seek and concentrate on where the feeling is originating from (a process that you have helped me to identify :) )
And invariably i find that the cause lies in some suppressed desire which wants to break through and let its presence felt to me, to my heart.
Bouts of anxiety, feeling like I'm getting choked, a feeling of butterflies in my stomach, a feeling that my head was jampacked with thoughts... were some of things that I would often experience. But now even in the midst of any crisis my head feels light, i don't get that choking feeling anymore, the fear has gone.
The schism of the mind which used to throw me into anxiety has given way to a more conscious awareness of this schism and the ability to separate arguments and deal with each of them singularly without going into a panic.
We just have to make the heart confront the mind and admit to it its desires, fears etc. Once this is done 60 percent of the battle is won. The rest is a matter of executing our actions towards dealing with the problem.
A brilliant piece woven together with such ease and understanding.
Posted by
Dear Jasjit,
What you say rings true but,even though K might be convinced about her suppressed yin, how does she give it space and let it surface?
Posted by
Hi again Jasjit,
That sounds like an interesting project. Would love to know more about it and your findings.I identify with some of what you have said as i experienced it in my training days when I was in Delhi.
I entirely agree that the mind and "mental health" has no single or easy solution or indeed pathway. I must say however, that most "problems" arise from the way a particlar art/science/skill is practised and interpreted by its proponents than the science itself.The arrogance/resistance that professionals of any field have for alternatives(that you mention) is probably one of the biggest factors that lead to differences between what should be parallel and complementary thought systems. I would think that no one has all the answers to the entire spectrum that the human mind can throw up ...and that is what is so fascinating about how we function and think and feel and be.
The best effort is what we can do , based on personal ,professional experiences and convincing results usually drive us forward....
Hoping to be able to share details re that protocol you've spoken about.I would think that if its the result of this much research it probably needs to see the light of day.Maybe you had the misfortune of being right at the wrong time ?...no offense intended towards the esteemed professionals being referred to.Would you think its worth the effort to revive it?
Kavita
Posted by on July 21, 2006 12:23 PM
Dear Chaitali
the efforts are yours as are the victories and the struggles. You have won every milestone with the dedication you bring to it. So more power to your great will and your lovely heart.
Love & hugs
Posted by
Dear Chipmunk
I just feel there is a longer and more comprehensive question/fear hidden in what you ask me. Why don't you try to express that and perhaps it will give you the answer you seek as well. Just a sugestion :)
love
Posted by
Dear Kavita
the research was published as presented under a fairly popular book we brought out called 'In Search of Her Spirit'. So it is all documented and available should you wish access to a copy. As for the protocol well its like waters which have already flown and you cannot reclaim them anymore. In Ifsha's life journey it was a stage of being and seeded the many pathways we have since taken.
Frankly Kavita we don't find that the mind is all that complex or inscrutable in fact quite the opposite. Man seeks some very basic almost primal things from what we know as 'life'. Childhood is the experience when these needs/desires get expressed and also thwarted/twisted/rejected etc. Love, validation, acceptance are a very basic trio and all that we directly/indirectly 'learn' in seeking these make-up the entirety of a life-response. The mind is the cognition field where we store our specific experiences and our life-events as well as how we emotionally translate them, belong to a subtle matrix of karmic patterns which makes us 'unique'. Everything- sexual, emotional, intellectual, physical, then permeates through this matrix and emerges on the other side as our nature/psyche/personality.
Like I said at the end of my post this in its entirety is the social 'mind' which we need to identify- and we all can. In doing so we access the intrinsice or witnessing awareness within us all. It allows us to 'see' the mind which is 'us' and yet is 'separate'- the one that mystics call illusory or maya. Seeing it clearly creates the first level of 'detachment' from our self-perception of being a victim/suffering/trapped etc. It also empowers us to 'know' that there is more to us than this debilitating 'mind'. Seeking that "self' then is the next level and that indeed done by 'choice'.
Posted by
O.K Jasjit
I simply loved this article and it has made things even clearer- I mean the mind thing that we were talking about. Though I would love to understand more about what you mean by a karmic matrix. So if one wants to resolve the Yin and Yang as they should be how does one do that really? Like what do you have to do?
Love
Posted by
Dear Jasjit,
Thanks for taking the time to say and explain in response to my comment.I shall try and get hold of the book that you have mentioned.
Still chewing on the rest of the post.
Posted by on July 23, 2006 11:16 PM
I have a mental disorder called Bipolar Disorder. I will be starting a class on dealing with Bipolar Disorder, so I may be able to return to part-time work. I believe that a good support network is so important to help cope with this disorder! WBR LeoP
Posted by on March 23, 2007 12:53 PM
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Dear Jasjit,
Thought provoking as an alternative/parallel/complementary to biological and medical models of mental disorders.Here you talk about bipolar disorder. As I see it, medical science advocates that biological imabalances (neurotransmitter ("nt" henceforth)imbalance) "cause" the manifests of what is known as mood disorders. Historically, this is a reverse discovery by serendipity bcoz certain exogenous neurotransmitters ,(read meds)help the manifests of those who are in an "episode".
A complete and entirely explanatory "causative" model in mental disorders is currently difficult to come by.However, it is widely being recognised that this isnt a linear relationship by any means.All life is circular...so our thoughts are connected to mood and to behaviour and all these are based on the substrate of electrical impulses (via neurotransmitter balances)which is energy that is continuously flowing in the smallest components of the human body and indeed in all our reality.
So if we are saying that meds can alter , nt imabalances and therefore the energies flowing inside someone leading to a better mood, different thought patterns and behaviour...it follows that there is a mechanism of the reverse cycle involving the same components with the energy shift being initiated and propagated at a different junction...i.e. thinking differently , or behaving differently or believing differently can induce changes in nt balances and energy shifts...which in some broader sense is what you have outlined..or am i off the mark?
Does that sound like sense to you?...I tend to get carried away and lose track of where i started.Grin...Anyways, as i said thought provoking and am glad i was able to read and share.