TODAY’S CONSIDERATIONS
To review: these sources of instability and insanity which have been discussed:
Psychological Splitting
Duality-Based Splitting
Personality Disorders
Personality Disintegration
A Failure to Psychically Integrate
Chemical Imbalances in the Plant Food Body
Biological / Genetic Factors
Fixation in "The Parent" or "The Child" State
Programming, Conditioning, Domestication, Brainwashing, Indoctrination, and Acculturation
The Insane Cultural Influences Propagated Via Exposure to Acculturation
Modeling Parental Thoughts and Words and Actions
Accepting Parental Beliefs Without Questioning
Emotional Intoxication and Fanaticism
and
Religious / Spiritual Intoxication
To the list can be added the instability / insanity induced by depression and mania, both of which - once again - happen after personality identifications have been assigned or assumed.
At one point, the mental healthcare industry spoke of "the Manic-Depressive Personality Disorder." Nowadays, the same illness is spoken of as "the Bipolar Personality Disorder."
WebMD offer the following information about this disorder:
Bipolar disorder was formerly called manic depression. It is a form of major affective disorder, or mood disorder, defined by manic or hypomanic episodes (changes from one's normal mood accompanied by high energy states). Bipolar disorder is a serious condition. Mania can often involve sleeplessness, sometimes for days, along with hallucinations, psychosis, grandiose delusions, or paranoid rage. In addition, depressive episodes can be more devastating and more difficult to treat than in people who never have manias or hypomanias.
[Note that both names used at various times to identify this personality disorder indicate that the illness involves the very essence of duality.]
Bipolar disorder is a complex disorder that likely stems from a combination of genetic and non-genetic factors. The mood episodes associated with it involve clinical depression or mania (extreme elation and high energy) with periods of normal mood and energy in between episodes. The severity of mood episodes can range from very mild to extreme, and they can happen gradually or suddenly within a timeframe of days to weeks.
When discrete mood episodes happen four or more times per year, the process is called rapid cycling.
Rapid cycling should not be confused with very frequent moment-to-moment changes in mood, which can sometimes occur in people with bipolar disorder or other conditions such as the Borderline Personality Disorder.
Along with manic or depressive episodes, patients with bipolar disorder may have disturbances in thinking. They may also have distortions of perception and impairment in social functioning.
[That does not mean that everyone with distorted perceptions has the Bipolar Personality. Maharaj estimated that 99%+ of those among the masses are "non-realized" and are, therefore, suffering from the symptoms of the Ultimate Sickness (a.k.a., "The Ultimate Mental Sickness") including distorted perspectives. To review the list at the top of this page is to see that distorted perspectives can be rooted in a variety of personality disorders, all involving distorted programming, conditioning, domestication, acculturation, brainwashing, and indoctrination; however, it has long been understood by the wisest "non-dualists" that a lack of mental and emotional stability is preceded by dualistic beliefs and thinking. From 2000 years ago: "A dual-minded person is unstable in all ways." ]
The discussion of the role which depression and mania play in generating instability will continue via the sharing of certain excerpts drawn from the book INSTABILITY / INSANITY: What the Advaita Teachings Can (and Cannot Address):
INSTABILITY / INSANITY INDUCED BY DEPRESSION AND MANIA
Consider the instability and insanity of being depressed for periods of varying lengths; and then being overly-enthused for varying periods of time; and then moving back into depression; and thereafter continuing such swings throughout the relative existence.
Depression and mania are common mental disorders that present with certain identifiable symptoms.
(Note: Not everyone who is depressed or manic experiences every symptom listed below. Some people experience a few symptoms, some many. The severity of symptoms also varies with individuals and also varies over time.)
Depression Symptoms:
Persistent sadness; anxiety; moodiness; feelings of emptiness; feelings of hopelessness; pessimism; feelings of guilt; feelings of worthlessness;
feelings of helplessness; loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex; decreased energy; fatigue; being "slowed down"; difficulty concentrating, remembering, and making decisions; insomnia, early-morning awakening, or oversleeping; appetite and / or weight loss or overeating and weight gain; actions that harm the body;
thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts; restlessness, irritability; and persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain.
Mania Symptoms:
Abnormal or excessive elation; unusual irritability; decreased need for sleep; grandiose notions; idealized dreams and schemes; increased talking; racing thoughts; increased sexual desire; markedly increased levels of energy; poor judgment; and inappropriate social behavior.
Note how the relevancy of those two disorders is raised during the Advaita discussion shared below which is a part of one exchange extracted from the book FROM THE I TO THE ABSOLUTE as I answered Q's (a Questioner's) queries:
F.: But my question is, ‘What do you think is the source of your misery’?”
Q.: “My wife leaving me. She said, ‘I don’t even know who I am,’ and she took the children and left. I’m miserable over losing everything . . . wife, family, property. I lost it all.”
F.: “First, if she said that she doesn’t know who she is, we can believe that is the case. Obviously, you don't know who you are, either."
Q.: [Frowns]
F.: "Secondly, if it is truly understood that one does not have a body and therefore cannot ‘lose’ the body, how can one lose the bodies on your list? The world of misery you speak of is imagined. You do not live in the world. More importantly, your freedom will come in knowing that nothing on the list is the source of misery.”
Q.: “I don’t think you appreciate the hurt involved.”
F.: “If you truly understood the illusion of the body, you could not have an illusory mind that would speak of a ‘lost wife’ and this lost person called ‘husband.’ To be free is to be in a state of total independence. Each illusion of personality requires two co-dependent bodies as well as two co-dependent minds. It is that illusion of dualities which prevents a person from being free and which blocks a person from continuing on the path to Realization."
Q.: “Two bodies and two minds?”
F.: “Two bodies and two minds are required for any role to be taken as an identity. You cannot play the role of ‘husband’ alone. She cannot play the role of ‘wife’ alone. You each must have a body in order to play out those roles, you each must have another body willing to play the counter role, and you each must have a mind that has been programmed to believe that the roles you play actually identify who you are. Two bodies, two minds. Duality squared.
If you are ‘husband’ and she leaves, you are not ‘husband’ any longer in your variable mind. According to that belief system, what you truly are can vary, depending on who is in your physical presence! But the reality is that what you truly are can never vary. All personalities (or ‘personas’ or ‘false identities’ or ‘roles’ or ‘states-of-being this’ or ‘states of being that’) are dualities. The real is permanent whereas dualities, being illusions, always appear to come and go.
In that instability, one lives in the depression around perceived loss or in the manic state of joy around perceived gain. Neither state lasts, so one is constantly in a state of flux and desire, clinging to current dependencies while trying to accumulate new dependencies. ‘The employee’ cannot exist without ‘the employer’; the ‘lover’ cannot exist without a separate ‘lover’; the ‘father’ cannot exist without ‘a child.’ If ‘wife’ leaves, ‘husband’ thinks he’s dying.
How tenuous your existence becomes—how absent of freedom life must be—believing in the illusion that your existence is totally dependent on 'another' or all those ‘others.’ How vulnerable and fear-based that life must be . . . feeling so dependent and needy and incomplete.
Do you see that if each assumed personality requires the physical presence of another person, then two co-dependent bodies are required to sustain the illusion of each false personality? Trying to live in that duality, with no freedom at all, is it any wonder that you speak of misery?”
Can the Advaita Teachings address these two disorders?
Both disorders - when manifested at serious levels - usually require treatment by trained professionals, after which the form of depression that is rooted in Personality Types Two, Three, and Four might also be impacted if persons transcend the subconscious influence of personality motivators which can also generate depression. Too, if depression is rooted in the misperception of "loss" and if that can be processed via the teachings, then the teachings have been effective on some occasions.
That said, mental health professionals should likely always be the first who are sought out for assistance with depression and / or mania or any other mental illnesses if they are manifesting at serious levels.
To be continued.
Please enter into the silence of contemplation.
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