Desire and anger rage within most normal people but are kept in some level of check. When these checks are particularly ineffective, mental health issues may arise. Exploring how bad (mental) actors can be controlled might help.
Mental health issues are of many types and are not easy to deal with. Science is unable to peer within the mind in the way it can study so many other phenomena.1 This limitation is an important reason why Science may continue to struggle to treat mental health problems. In my view, far too many treatments today rely on chemicals (medicines) – an arguably crude approach for a problem that is subtle and operates at a level difficult to perceive. In the absence of better proven options, people suffering from mental health issues would have precious few other alternatives to explore.
Here is a new idea: peek within the mind using insights from ancient Indian texts and look for new solutions. The idea is not too far-fetched. Ancient Indian texts have already provided modern science with practices such as meditation that science accepts are useful to support mental health but still struggles to understand. If Indian texts have helped in one way, they may be able to help in other ways too, and it would be ok if Science plays catchup in terms of understanding later on.
First – some pre-reads
Reading through this article, a person would have come across articles that serve as a primer for understanding desire and anger. Here are some that I would recommend as pre-reads before continuing along this article:
Desire is the root-cause of all suffering: Desire eventually causes misery and desire’s roots are not obvious. Neither is the way to get around it.
The first step towards genuine happiness …. recognizing what it is not: Happiness does not come from fulfilling desires. Once we truly understand this, we have taken our first step towards happiness.
My Theory2
On examining material on mental health issues, it appears to me that a significant underlying cause for them is becoming trapped in a mental routine. Such a routine makes a person go repeatedly through similar thought patterns. These thought patterns appear to frequently relate to intense desire or anger. And, the challenge in treating these cases appears to be similar to the one we face when we try to tame desire or anger within. As explained in my article referred to above, desire is the root cause of anger. Desire is such a formidable mental foe that it is almost impossible to overcome. It may shape-shift into something else, it may seek something entirely different within a moment. It is simply very difficult to pin down and vanquish. The challenge faced by people suffering from mental issues appears to be similar: they face a mental routine that they find difficult to break out of, just like we find it difficult to break out of the routine of desire-induced thinking. My understanding here is that if the problem is similar, so might the solution.
Ancient Indian texts offer help on how to elevate the level at which the mind works to overcome desire and anger. In my earlier articles, I have talked about how a meditation technique that is developed based on their teachings can be of help and how it may be applied across a wide range of challenges. I believe the same technique may be of help for mental health issues too.
One challenge would be that while a normal person can take his time to go through slow spiritual progress using this meditation technique, a person with mental health issues may not have that luxury. And progress in spiritual domain is usually slow. Further, a person facing mental health issues may not be inclined to meditate. These challenges mean that my suggested approach may only be tried in combination with more conventional techniques that modern medicine presently prescribes. However, I do believe that the suggested meditation technique would be helpful if a person is able to get into a habit of performing it regularly (preferably daily).
There’s more to the approach than meditation
Perhaps the more important insights that can be derived about the inner workings of the mind can be gleaned from a favorite book of mine from Praramhansa Yogananda. This book explains how different characters of Ancient Indian Text, Mahabharat, represent different forces operating at our mental plane, how they interact, and how the good and bad actors in their midst may be defeated. This knowledge provides important insights into what may be happening within the mind at any time and how challenges created by the bad actors in the mind may be overcome. [VM1] For example, desire is one such character. It is personified in the story by a prince named Duryodhana, who is an overgrown brat who is stubborn as well is immensely powerful. He is favored by the reigning King, Dhratrashtra, who is blind and is unable to get past his love for Duryodhana. Duryodhana is protected by a formidable set of warriors – Bheeshma (ego), Drona (roughly equivalent to a mix of habits and subconscious thought patters), Karana (self-justification), and Dushasana (anger). Set against these forces of the dark side are another set of princes who help a person become more spiritual. The most powerful amongst them are Bheema (representing power of breath control, quite similar to the one that may be harnessed trough TAME) and Arjun (the spiritual determination to improve and perfect oneself).
The range of characters in Mahabharat are diverse and the personalities are far richer than my description above. The important point here is that seeing these characters at our mental plane makes the book of Mahabharat a “User Guide” for the mind. When a person introspects and finds himself struggling to deal with any one force within (e.g. anger), he can look for insights in the story on how to restrain and control that character within.
For those interested in this interpretation of Mahabharat and in Bhagwad Gita, I would strongly recommend Yogananda’s book.
Closing note
Addressing the root cause of mental health problems may be the better way to address them. Admittedly, more research needs to be done to explore how mental health issues can be addressed at the level of the mind rather than at the level of the body (i.e. using chemical medicines). But science is not very familiar with the inner workings of the mind. It tries to compensate by understanding more about the brain, but is mostly clueless about how to make the leap from the organ that the brain is to the subtle processes the mind within it hosts. The problems that arise at this subtle mind-level will not be best addressed at the level of the brain. Thus, in pursuit of mental health cures, Science should explore the mind within at least as much as it explores the brain.
Recommended Readings
Controlling the mind: It is possible to acquire significant level of control over one’s mind. The approach may need to be radically different from what you might expect.
Controlling the mind – Article 2: Second in the series of articles on controlling the mind based on learnings from the Indian epic of Mahabharat. Here I cover the bad actors within the mind.
Controlling the mind – Article 3: Third in the series of articles on controlling the mind based on learnings from the Indian epic of Mahabharat. This post covers the good actors within the mind that make us more spiritual, at peace, and happy.
Footnote
1: While there are many technologies that try to sense what is happening inside the mind, they are so far as limited as a thermometer is at understanding what’s happening inside a body.
2: It is important to call this out as my theory since I do not have much beyond my intuition to support what I believe here.
