Deepak,

We do seem to be on a joy ride,

and the "Brave New World" is just around the corner.

Have we any right to sit here and call ourselves sane?

Who's demeanor is not a mis-?

Do we have a divine right to be happy and content?

Fulfilled and satisfied? Free and easy?

Many people only need a purpose to get up every morning.

We have bills to pay and families to feed.

I don't have time to go in-sane.

Yes, the norm 'normality'..

is there a objective, or subjective,
criteria..?, or, cultural.. his-story-cal..
maybe, it's brainchemistry, karmic,

suicidicy, alcoholism, schizofrenie, paranoia,
depressions, addictions, psycho/neuro-ses, lupus, tumors, borderliners, and so on..
have been some cases, on my off-line, non-legal,
help desk, of my loved ones, journeys,

the truth vs. illusion(s)..

don't believe in psycho/medical fairytales,
but I do in the inner dialogue(s), and magic,
but maybe that's spituality,

Love, Passion,

Interesting post, Deepak.

I wanted to make a comment about talk therapy. I think it's important to make a distinction between talk therapy that focuses heavily on the past as a reason for our problems in the present and therapy that "addresses the issues at hand and resolving them." I'm not saying that there is no value in examining the past, but after a certain point, if possible sooner rather than later, I believe it is so much more helpful to shift the focus to the present. We can look into the past and say, "I feel this way or I am this way because of that, etc., etc." And, there is nothing wrong with making those connections and there is certainly some truth to that perspective. And yet, if that creates within us an inablity to take responsibility for our lives and move forward, then it's worthless. It only keeps us miserable and stuck.

Love, Kristin

ps. I'm one who thought that high cholesterol is the chief cause of premature heart attacks. I hadn't heard it was "unexamined psychological issues." Not to be cynical but I suppose there is more money in telling someone to take medication than to work through their emotional issues. Of course, diet is stressed in regards to high cholesterol so it's not all just about drugs. Maybe it's about finding the easy way out?

I wish we all could be more intimate with our bodies and thus be able to respond more consciously to the messages they were giving us. That would be the best therapy. We wouldn't have to wait until we had the heart attack to address the deep sadness or other unexamined emotions. We could shed our tears and move on.

Love, Kristin

IB is a kind of talk therapy for many commentators, I think. It certainly has been for me anyway. Thanks, Deepak, for this.
I hate to veer off too wildly, but there is some distress happening tonight the universe wants to address.
1. Where the mighty have fallen, the ants move in.
2. This is the first federal election coming up for the Children of 1984.
Thanks again, and good night to all.

That was weird Deepak, I was going to post a comment on the same topic in another thread. Then I decided not to. I did not know about the Hysteria article.

So since the collective mind is wanting.

Here is what I have found to be the cause through my Meta Research. By the way, what your talking about is behind the cause.

But to sum it up, Brain cell death, and the inability or an impaired ability to grow new neural connections. One of the things that led me to this discovery, (hopefully I will get the credit) is that certain antidepressants don't take effect for several weeks through the intended pathway. However they seem to provide benefit in a few days through another pathway. That being something akin to neurogenesis.

What we find in BiPolar conditions is glutamate excitotoxicity killing brain cells.

This means your brain cells get so overstimulated they die. So I am thinking panic attacks come from large scale brain cell death (which may be a very small percentage of the brain itself).

So any way here is the mind body connection and more....

Excitatory Amino Acid (EAA) Neurotoxicity
Glutamic acid and aspartic acid are the two chief EAA neurotransmitters in the human brain. Without them we would be mental vegetables.

Yet under certain conditions, e.g. stroke or traumatic brain injury--excessive amounts of EAAs accumulate in the fluid surrounding brain cells, causing damage and even death to nerve and glial cells through free radical mechanisms.

EAA toxicity is at least partly responsible for the neurotoxicity of the recreational drug Ecstasy or MDMA. Studies over the past 30 years have also shown that excessive dietary intake of EAAs may also damage brain structure/ function, especially in children or EAA sensitive adults.

The two main dietary sources of EAAs are the flavor enhancer MSG (monosodium glutamate) and the artificial sweetener aspartame (Nutrasweet). Also many processed foods (e.g. canned soups, dry roasted spiced peanuts, beef/ chicken bouillon, canned tuna, spices etc.) contain hydrolyzed vegetable protein, yeast extract, soy protein isolate and similar ingredients that are mostly EAAs.

Did you guys catch my other comment where I said to Google Rumsfeld Sweetner ? Amazing how everything is connected.

In studies with various types of nerve cell, as well as oligodendroglial cells (which make up the protective myelin sheaths surrounding many nerves, the so-called white matter of the brain), IDB (Ibedennone) has shown dramatic protective effects against glutamate toxicity.

Lithium protects brain neuron from glutamate excitotoxicity. The lithium neuroprotection against glutamate excitotoxiciy is long-lasting.

Oh one part of the solution I already wrote about here of course. Lithium Orotate no precription required, highly bioavailable. As I explained by simply adding this to the water supply, it is a natural trace mineral, we could eliminate mental illness plaguing the cities.

Note that is Lithium Orotate NOT the toxic levels required, poorly absorbed by the cells, lithium carbonate and lithium citrate by prescription only, that the so called medical doctors prescribe because the awareness has yet the reach them about the best option Lithium Orotate.

There are a couple other ways to stimulate neurogenesis Click my name and I will take you there.

Did you google Rumsfeld Sweetner yet?

One other thing, I have discovered is how to legally stimulate the brains natural production of DMT, also known as the God Molecule.

DMT is Dimethyl Tryptamine = N,N Dimethyl 3-amino-ethyl indole. It is a powerful hallucinogen, the prototype of this class, and chemically related to psilocbin, you know SOMA, the magic mushroom, where the Vedas came from and all the other spirtual stuff.

It is illegal to manufacture it and smoke it as some do, but I think the human brain is grandfathered in as a legal manufacturing facility.

I can't imagine them arresting you for having a manufacturing facility in your head.

I will tell you more later.

"Today, Wal-Mart has become one of the most active corporations in the U.S. At the federal level, Wal-Mart is already the No. 1 corporate political contributor, giving $943,455 in the 2006 election cycle, followed by General Electric's $788,711 and Anheuser Busch's $671,644, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, another nonpartisan watchdog."
http://[delinker]
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15052615/
Not that corporate lobbying is news to anybody, but again I ask: WHO BENEFITS?

'Free' elections . . .

yeah . . .

peace

I spelled Idebenone wrong above this spelling is correct.

That's OK, Richard, I can't add 18 to 84 tonight. Sometimes the squid is only good for a laugh.

Bush, the Pope, Darfur and the Crusades
Ayman al-Zawahri

"Can't you be honest at least once in your life, and admit that you (U.S. president George Bush) are a deceitful liar who intentionally deceived your nation when you drove them to war in Iraq?"

"Bush, you deceitful charlatan, 3 1/2 years have passed since your capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, so how have you found us during this time? Losing and surrendering? Or are we launching attacks with God's help and becoming martyrs?"

"What you have perpetrated against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other Muslim captives in your prisons and the prisons of your slaves in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and elsewhere is not hidden from anyone, and we are a people who do not sleep under oppression and who do not abandon our revenge until our chests have been healed of those who have committed aggression against us,"

"And we, by the grace of Allah, are seeking to exact revenge on behalf of Islam and Muslims from you and your soldiers and allies."

"Your agents in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan have captured thousands of the youth and soldiers of Islam whom you made to taste at your hands and the hands of your agents various types of punishment and torture,"

"This charlatan Benedict brings back to our memories the speech of his predecessor charlatan Urban II in the 11th century ... in which he instigated Europeans to fight Muslims and launch the Crusades because he (Urban) claimed 'atheist Muslims, the enemies of Christ' are attacking the tomb of Jesus Christ, peace be upon him,"

"If Benedict attacked us, we will respond to his insults with good things. We will call upon him and all of the Christians to become Muslims who do not recognize the Trinity or the crucifixion,"

“There is a Crusader plan to send Crusaders forces to Darfur that is about to become a new field of the Crusades war. Oh, nation of Islam, rise up to defend your land from the Crusaders aggression who are coming wearing United Nations masks."

"No one will defend you (Darfur) but a popular holy war."
http://[delinker]news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060930/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_tape

Well, in all honesty, he has a point . . .

Peace

hi all! for those who may be interested here are a few more paragraphs quoted from my book Self Designed Universe related to the above subject of hysteria (and schizophrenia and cancer).

of course i explain everything in terms of the four basic forces or interactions and hysteria and schizophrenia or cancer are no exceptions (these four basic interactions further give rise to what in hindu religion are called four basic chakras - which are really nothing but centers of four basic forces through which we go in quantum jumps as we evolve from childhood to youth to middle age to old age in one life and in fact through many such lives in our whole what i call evolutionary life spanning many such one lives, and represent our eforts at knowing things through senses, feelings, intellect and intelligence or intuition in each life respectively).

Note: the terms mosc, movc and mopc (matter of spiritual category, matter of virtul category and matter of physical category) coind by me may in simple be taken as the soul, mind and body dimensons of the individual as well as cosmic game of life.

quote:

'Advance guards' are those individuals who try to go to the next destination of their evolution without they or the system of which they are as yet a part having first made the quantum jump to that destination; without they or the system having ‘intuited’ its next destination first.

At our levels this explains the diseases of schizophrenia mostly in men and hysteria, likewise, mostly in women. Though the whole species of Homo sapiens is the 'phenotype' of strong interactions at the base, further within it man is the phenotype of the strong interactions (so that man fully develops only in his middle-age when he is further in the era of these very interactions in his individual life-cycle) while the woman is that of the electromagnetic interactions (so that she fully develops in her youth - after childhood but before her middle-age).

Now, Schizophrenic men are the men who have developed fully as men, that is to say as the creatures of strong interactions at their base, that is to say, as the users of reason/intellect, but yet not enough to quantum jump to the era of the next, weak interactions, the era where the intellect will give place to intelligence, to intuition. In other words, they try to reach the weak interactions realm only through intellect, through reason which is not possible, for it is like trying to reach infinity by multiplying 2x2x2.... they need to make a quntum jump. their soul/spirituality needs to intuite their next destination before they/their reason begins to try to go there.

Similarly, hysteric women are those women who have developed fully as women, that is to say, as the creatures of electromagnetic interactions at their base, as the creatures who know things mainly through emotions/feelings but yet not fully enough to quantum jump to the era of strong interactions or intellect. Likewise, they try to go there through emotions alone which is again not possible.

Now, in the process a man’s ‘I’ tries to come from the head region which is the center of strong interactions or of intellect to the (spiritual)heart region which is supposed to be two digits to the right of our physical heart and is the center of weak interactions, and a woman’s ‘I’ tries to reach the head region from the (physical)heart region which in her case is the center of electromagnetic interactions. Both sort of encounter resistance in the throat, one while trying to come down and the other while trying to go up. So in a way the ancient Greeks correctly diagnosed the problem of hysteria in women, for, they symbolized woman’s ‘I’ with uterus (Greek hysteron) and thought its wandering was the cause of hysteria in women. ‘I’ of the woman indeed is wandering in trying to reach its next evolutionary destination which is in the head but in the process gets caught in the throat for only a quantum jump can take it there at first.

Similarly, a man tries to be a sage prematurely, losing his bearings in the strong interactions realm in the process but yet not finding those in the weak interactions realm. An ordinary man and a would-be-sage would both move from the strong interactions realm to the weak interactions realm, from the head/intellect region to the spiritual/heart region, but while the sage reaches there because he has taken a quantum jump first intuiting in the process, finding ‘foothold’ in the process in the weak interactions realm, the ordinary man fails for having already lost his previous foothold in the strong interactions realm but without having a flash of the next one, he loses his direction and does not reach there.

Famous late psychologist R.D.Laing has rightly said as quoted by Fritzof Capra in his book Uncommon Wisdom: ‘Mystics and schizophrenics find themselves in the same ocean, but the mystics swim whereas the schizophrenics drown.’

unquote.

thank you.

and here is a paragraph related to cancer:

this one comes while i am explaning the chracteristics the systems including man, nations and even global culture as a whole will develop as they go through their respective weak interctions phase:

quote

4. Mosc’s disentanglement from strong forces and further entanglement into weak forces, or, weak interactions:

Experience of freedom, tendency ‘to be’ rather than ‘to know,’ tendency to live peacefully and within one’s means and let others live. In a nutshell, to be, to live and let live.

At the species level, these interactions may someday give us the species of superman. Lower down, within the species man, these will give us perhaps to what historians some day would call the Free man (as against the previous Cave man, Nomadic man and Settled man). At our global cultural level these are going to give us our Age of Intelligence, of Intuition, of Freedom (in a way we are already into it). It may also be known variously as the Golden Age, the Age of Wisdom, the Satya Yuga. At our personal levels these interactions, I am sorry to say, give us what we know as our cancer cells. (Having freed themselves from almost all the forces, these cancer cells do not obey the genetic code of a system which veritably is the command of the forces at the base. Since after due time a system begins the next spiral, though qualitatively higher, and restarts its journey through the forces, it can explain what in scientific circles has been called the phenomenon of the Spontaneous Cancer Remission - SCR. Cells in such a scenario, after having once freed themselves from even the weak forces or interactions, again begin to obey the directions of gravity, and that would mean the directions of the genetic code.)

And finally, at the level of genes these interactions push us to its fourth and final nucleotide base, final so far as the spiral under discussion is concerned (refer chart, Fig 15).

unquote

Talk therapy may work in some cases, but what is more effective is a good emotional processing technology. This allows you to bring up, explore, experience and let go of emotional content that is not flowing in a healthy manner.

Meditation can do the same work. In a sense, physical yoga is a preparation for meditation, and meditation is a preparation for encountering the self.

Emotional processing is a device to speed up the process whereby emotional content is brought onto the meditative background, where it can be fully integrated and released.

The mind is a wholistic phenomenon, by which I mean it is a composite. A good analogy is a symphony of music. The mind is analogous to the whole symphony, and thoughts are analogous to individual notes. If you just scatter the individual notes of a symphony, you will simply have random notes. Similarly, if you analyze individual thoughts, you will not see the mind.

It is, of course, possible to exist without thinking - such as deep sleep, or deep meditation. Since the mind is a collective of thoughts, that proves you are not your mind.

Like notes can be organized into melodies, riffs, harmonies, and themes, so thoughts can be grouped in various ways to create belief systems and identities.

But I still maintain the composer has an existence independent of any music he creates (no matter how much he loves his own music), and that we each have an existence independent of our minds (now matter how attached we are to our identities).

When I say we don't have a mind, the correct context is this: I am breaking down the mind by reducing it to individual thoughts. Just as when you look closely into a crowd, you see individuals. The crowd only appears to be one object from a different order of perspective. When you are half a mile away there's a big crowd. When you get close, you see separate people.

Not only that, but each person is in their own separate defined personal space. Each individual in the crowd has clearly defined limits, and there is space between every individual. In fact, a good argument can be made that even though there's a crowd, the large majority of the area the "crowd" is using up is, in fact, empty space.

This should not be news to all the metaphysicians around here.

It is the same with the mind. From one level, the mind seems like a singular, separate object. Closer inspection reveals individual thoughts. Closer inspection still reveals empty space between the thoughts.

So it turns out that our seemingly dense minds are mostly emptiness.

By plunging into that emptiness we can find our true nature.

Not by analyzing the thoughts.

The thoughts can be brought into awareness, isolated, revealed in all their aspects, and when our attention is satisfied with the experience of that particular thought, we move our attention off of it.

The difference between a sage and a schizophrenic is not that one has a crazy mind and the other doesn't. A strong case can be made that all minds are crazy.

The schizophrenic is overidentified with the mind, whereas the sage knows he is not the mind. A schizophrenic becomes completely absorbed by thoughts, whereas for a sage thoughts are things he has, but not who he is.

The mind does not have an ultimate existence.

I am not saying that we don't have an eternal existence. We do. I absolutely believe we have an eternal being.

But our mind is not that being.

I don't know how I can say that any more clearly.

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

Many people are brought up in environments that are very dysfunctional, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually and usually all one can do is "survive" these environments and it is not until you want to live in and make your own envrionment that you find you do not have the tools, mentally, emotionally or spiritually in which to do that, and that is when "talk therapy" is most beneficial and can really help in the integration and union with different parts of one's personality that are at odds with itself and keeping one "stuck" in their past dysfunctional "way of being" and seeing. It is very important to connect the dots of one's mental, emotional, and spiritual "history." The purpose of the therapy is to bring one's personality to the present, to a place where the personality can realize that, yes, in fact, it did survive the dysfunction, and it is free, now, to feel and express itself without fear.

peace ruth

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

I am going off topic, sorry, but I think this is important.

I am reading "Wake-Up-Call, The Political Education of a 9/11 Widow."

I would recommend this book to every American citizen, forget your political afiliation (rep, or dem) and read it as "just" an American. Karen Breitweiser, Lorie, Patty, and Mindy are heroic examples of ordinary citizens speaking TRUTH TO POWER AND EXPECTING ACCOUNTABILITY FROM POWER, WHICH IS OUR RIGHT AS AMERICAN CITIZENS, A RIGHT WE "ALMOST NEVER" EXERCISE.

Do yourself a favor and read a very imformative book!peace ruth

Dear Deepak,

While the theory of the body-mind makes sense to me, I am not sure where mental disease starts. Does it originate from a diseased body or from psychic unintegrated forces, which lead to a diseased body?

It is common sense that a healthy mind should be in a healthy body. People have said that for centuries -- see for example the Latin saying "mens sana in corpore sano".

I find Jung's perspective fascinating: "Psychiatrists are always ready to believe in toxins and the like, and even to explain schizophrenia in these terms, putting next to no emphasis on the psychic contents as such. On the other hand, in psychogenic disturbances (hysteria, obsessional neurosis, etc.) where toxic effects and cell degeneration are out of the question, split-off complexes are to be found similar to those occurring in somnambulistic states. No wonder the primitive sees in these moods a state of possession or sets them down to a loss of soul."

I also like the Ayurvedic perspective that observes how toxins can have adverse effects on the mind, 'clogging the channels' and impeding the communication between the mind and the heart center. This perspective sounds true to me as I have noticed that there is a huge difference between the intelligence of the mind and the so-called intelligence of the heart.

Thank you for another important post.
Love,
Donatella

Dear Ruth,
Thanks for the 'heads up'.
Love,
Donatella

I do agree with Deepak by the way as far as the mind body connection.

I think we can all understand and expereince Hysteria, you just didn't realize it.

I had noticed in my self observation, that when I accidently drop something, fumble, trip, knock a glass over, you know butter fingers it was most always associated with a negative thought at that exact moment, or somthing that consumed my awareness.

Have you ever noticed when people are angry how they mess up and appear even more foolish and then even angrier? Or when performing one gets egotistical and they begin to blunder?

These are all forms of mild hysteria.

When I drop something it is though my muscles just release as if the "exert force command to grip" is turned off or interupted.

By practicing various disciplines I have found these blunders, and moments of "oops" have greatly decreased. Being humble improves performance.

But what is really funny is observing others when they do such things and being aware of where there attention was at the moment.

Knowing they must have engaged a disruptive thought.

So now we can all say when someone knocks over a glass or spills something on those being served, no biggie you must have had a fit of hysteria.

heck, another day, another post, in my
diary,

I don't know where you, all, are at, the moment,
of this, moment, of, sharing,

but,
with the day I've had, and the people, in it,
reminds me, of Gotham's Blog, some time, not long ago, moral dillema's and..
Heck,
At the end of the day,
the only currency that matters,
sure, solidarity, in my book, and the stories, is the value,
but..,
(un)like my former generation..,
is it different world..?
or like these choices..
same pain, same pleasure..
..?
never other then,
love, passion,

Just, before I could, get sued,
drinking with a Catholic priest,
and in the same day, business propositions,
of what my codex would consider..
Cosmic humor,
Love, Passion,

Why am I the only one..;),
like I care, sue me,

anyhow, this is, like my joke, of my incarnation,
you start off, whatever, your karmic...
first, you look up at the legal professions,
then you have, a 'insider view', and that's, funny,
it's all about emotions,

then you look up at...

then you get, a inside, view..

organisation(s), Ego's.., quantum leaps..

then you think, ..
then you ..

Love,
Goodnight, ya all, na zdrowko,

Hi Marek,

I AM somewhere wondering as you.

Hi Deepak,

Great post. I really appreciate your focus on this subject as I think it is the medical issue of out time.

In regards to "talk therapy": I think the greatest value that it has is in the sharing of our "Terrible Secrets". It's been my personal experience that when you share your dark, terrible secrets with another, you discover that they are not so dark and terrible (and now they're not secret either). I have found that when I have revealed these shameful things that they are really sort of funny and small (and not shameful at all...just human). They lose their power to control and patterned behaviors begin to either slip away, or they are just not a big deal anymore.

I agree completely with Kristin on this though: therapy when used to understand and identify past conditioning and thereby take responsiblity for your conditioning is extremely valuable. However, if the focus becomes too much on the past, it becomes easy to blame the past (people and situations)for your current life situation. Then therapy is disempowering because it encourages us to become victims.

For many years I dealt with depression and I can say that it was directly related to my belief at the time that I had no control over what happened to me. In other words, it was due to a "victim" mentality (this was paradoxically something that I loathed in others at the time). Truthfully, you may NOT have control over what happens to you (what relationships end, your financial situation etc.) but you do have control, at least to some degree, of how you choose to perceive these life situations. At the time, I was "diagnosed" by a good, well meaning doctor as having clinical depression. Basically depression that was somehow genetically "hardwired" into my body, like a birthmark and I was proscribed medication. For some reason, the meds just seemed wrong to me and I only took half a pill before deciding to throw them out and focus on meditation, yogasana and eventually some talk therapy. I am pleased to say that I have not been happier in my life. What has happened is that slowly my view of myself as a victim has changed. Occassionally I catch myself slipping into the old viewpoint and patterns, but it is less and less. And when it does happen I am aware of it; I know that it is a pattern, nothing more then old tape and that it is not who I am.

What is most amazing to me is not just that I mentally feel happier, but that physical pain that I thought I would have to deal with forever has virtually disappeared. Old sports injures that seemed permanent (requiring handfulls of drugs to control) don't both me at all. When once I took a dozen Ibuprophen to get up out of bed and a dozen more in the middle of the day to keep moving are gone. I haven't taken any for years. In many ways I feel younger then I did when I was in my 20's (I'm in my forties now).

I guess what I'm saying is that I completely agree with your post and it's great to see that slowly the medical community is beginning to recognize the real value of mind/body medicine.

Thanks again,
Peace,
Scott.

Interesting post Yogi-one.

For me, the main difference between a schizophrenic and a sage is that the sage knows what is going on inside him while the schizophrenic does not.