Monday, May 19, 2008

Psychological Disorders and Love

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Some bipolar conditions, especially the "bipolar psychosis," do have genetic roots. It is certainly psychologically arguable and viable that perhaps no human being can ever be "happy and content" one hundred percent of the time. Even Jesus and all the great masterteachers and mysticsaints had their "off" days. So, setting the limit this high is idealism in the extreme, and can do harm to those who are recovering from a serious metabolic or neurotransmitter-based disorder. So, let us set the bar down a bit, more moderately, lovingly, and reasonably.:)

It is true, and verifiable, that the kind of thoughts that we choose to think repeatedly can and do affect the quality of our lives. This simple and observable fact is the basis of all cognitive psychology. But a few stray or even "negative" thoughts cannot and will not hurt us. We can, perhaps, be even grateful that the conscious mind has the power to change nothing in the "outer, molecular" world. Otherwise, our worst fears and nightmares would all come true!:) The "monster in the closet," imagined with vivid childhood imagination, would be real!

No, the function and purpose of the conscious, cognitive (thinking) mind is to experience reality, not "magically" to transform it. It is the kkarma-creator,so it influences our daily lives as well as future destiny. But to believe that the conscious mind is God, or that it has unlimited Power, is to practice "magical thinking." This is recognized by psychology as marking very primitive or very childish thinking.

A little girl, for example, feels "responsible" when her aunt dies; she thinks that, somehow, she has "magically" caused the death. This is unhealthy. It is fearbased, and fear is the conceptual opposite (there is no real opposite) of Love. Happily, most people outgrow this thinking in the course of natural maturation, by about age six. But some, wishing to control the entire cosmos, out of fear, return to it as adults, and label it a "great new discovery," or a "spiritual principle." It is neither, but simple regression.

So, my advice is to continue to love and support Michael [pseudonym], and to let him know this fact. Let him know that your Love is unconditional (otherwise, not Love). It does not depend, iow, on his "getting well," or "recovery." The sick are those who most need the medicine of Love, including the bipolar and the chronically depressed and/or confused.

There is a megaton or two of more material relevant to the wide spectrum of human psychophysiological disorders, but, instead of writing a book, and boring you to death, this message will be mercifully ended here.:)
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