The dread of the Covid-19 pandemic has engulfed the world today. The line between activities that one considers normal and activities that one finds abnormal are blurred. Mental health has become a new normal. A question that comes up is: Are we normal? What is normal? What is abnormal? What is mind? Are we the mind?
When I think I am the body, when I think I am in the body, my association with the body establishes because of my mind. This association is of thought and the thinker who thinks him to be the body. When I perceive that I am the body, the whole dilemma begins.
To understand this, we have to understand the psychological mind. Psychological mind has not come into existence because Sigmund Freud described it. Psychological mind is part of our biological mind. Psychological mind has been explained to us by Buddha, Mahavira, Krishna, and all enlightened beings much accurately and beyond the description that Freud could fathom it. Buddha has described all forms of consciousness, including super-consciousness (absolute wakefulness). Buddha says that there is no-self-ness (Anatma) that is Anagami (that which will not return). Buddha does not even describe Atma but he says we are no-self-ness which is nothingness which binds us with that-which-is and that-which-is is and you are not. That means the mind is not.
Freud and Jung caught up with the comprehension of the human mind. Buddha is talking about that-which-is by knowing by being that-which-is by being one with that-which-is and there is no division between Buddha and that-which-is. Freud and Jung are themselves in the state of mind and describing the state of mind by calling one state a normal and another abnormal. Mind is an instrument and understanding that instrument will transcend us if we are not mind. Or if we are not beyond mind and we are mind that mind can never transcend mind, and even transcendence, creativity, genius are not normal.
Let’s understand the normal state of being. What we call normal state of being is in fact being in the mind without being mindful of it. When your mind is in control of your being and leading it the way it leads it, we perceive that is normalcy. What Freud perceives normal mental health is that one’s mind should not be abnormal.
Is the normal state of being normal? Or is the normal state of being a disease? Freud calls it normal so he calls abnormal a state that is below normal. So, he goes on studying a state of abnormality so that he could bring it back to what is ‘perceived’ normal. But disease keeps on expanding out of bounds. Abnormal is being treated by psycho-analysis to bring one back to normal. Mind keeps on manifesting new abnormalities that need treatment.
In India we understood this dilemma of mind from ages and therefore, we never gave it such big importance as given by Western cultures. Buddha taught us methods to go beyond mind. When we go on studying mind in the Western Freudian style, we face the same dilemma again to a greater degree.
Psychological mind is the by-product of our biological mind. Every animal, tree or cell has a certain code on it that is the biological mind it has. Psychological mind is created by man in order to survive thousands of years from extinction. Psychological mind is created out of fear. Fear of thousands of years from animals, weathers and extremities of life. Thousands of years of man’s survival from wild animals has bred the psychological mind to beat wild beasts. Later mind bred the society a civil survival trick. Violence continued as the basic tenet of humans even during agricultural societies—man bled millions of men in wars to create divisions of nations, religions, societies, races, classes and so on. Today this fear exists in the human mind that once manifested as a fight or flight mode. It exists today in modern society as boss-employee and so on. Today it does trigger the release of cortisol that it released back then.
In the name of knowledge, competition among man has created a rat race that has bred neurosis and man has forgotten to behave normal. What we call normal is in fact abnormal. Mind is a disease, and normalcy is a disease too. To treat abnormal behaviour, to bring man back into the state of normal again is senseless. In fact, normal or new normal is bringing man back to the state of neurosis again because psychoanalysts also have not understood the mind.
Man has a body that has bred mind. Mind is something that a man has evolved for the survival of the body. Once those needs are over, the mind has engaged itself into desires that have evolved the mind into fear of non-fulfilment of desires in the future. Therefore, a lot of suicides are reported. In fact, no suicide is committed to die. To die one has to be awakened first. When one is awakened one attains the state of no-mind where desires end to exist. Suicides do not happen. Suicides are committed in order to commit violence against one’s body by mind as a reaction to the non-fulfilment of future desires. Suicides happen with a deep desire to live life. When one perceives one would not be able to fulfil desires in the future, one looks at life not worth living because of non-fulfilment of physical, financial, emotional or complex desires. Life can end because the mind cannot perceive fulfilment happening in future. One dies in order to live.
Body is made of elements of earth, which is matter. Body is made of matter. Matter is already dead. It moves because the non-matter incarnates it. To Freud, body is just a body and nothing more than that and there is no non-matter that incarnates it. Therefore, the mind that is bred out of fear by body cannot go beyond body. Therefore, Freud’s mental health studies mental diseases.
We are dying and living simultaneously. Whole life from childhood to old age, the non-matter that is you live, but the matter keeps on dying from childhood. And finally matter dies to return into matter when non-matter disembodies it. It is matter that becomes matter and non-matter has to disembody it.
Mind is past, living is now. Mind cannot live now. So, it creates conflict, desires, anxieties, despair, sufferings. Going beyond the mind is the only way to live in bliss, to be in heaven right here and now. Living in the mind is a disease and what we call normal is in fact living and carrying on with the disease.
Mind is a thought which has been discovered by the mind. Thought is our own energy that is robbed by mind. Our energies could be used to remain blissful, compassionate and fulfilled. Turn inward. Use your energy in the present. What will happen tomorrow will happen and we will face it then. Why face that future now and become miserable now? I am not the body. I am not the mind. I am not the eyes. I am not the ears. I am not that what I see. I am not that what I hear. I am not that what I feel. I am that which incarnates the body. That-which embodies the body. I am part of that-which-is. Only that-which-is is and I am not. I am one with existence. I am the existence. Aham-Braham-asmi (I am that-which-is).
The author is a spiritual coach and an independent advisor on policy, governance and leadership. He can be contacted at arunavlokitta@gmail.com.