Hello, my friends.
Today, I
wish to address a very important question,
something that has
been of great importance to me
all my life, and that is
what we call total well-being.
So right now,
there's a crisis in the world.
And that crisis is a pandemic
that is bigger than
COVID 19, or any other pandemic that we have.
And the pandemic is mental distress,
mental disorders,
and in many cases, suicide
as the last resort by many people.
Today, as we look at the statistics,
every 40 seconds, somebody is dying
from suicide.
And at the same time,
it's become the second
most common cause of death amongst our teens.
And with all the bullying and everything else that's going
on, on social media
and people confusing themselves
for their selfies,
it is something that seems even unstoppable.
So there are many organizations working towards
mental well-being,
including the Chopra Foundation
and its initiative, Never Alone.
Check out www.NeverAlone.Love,
and also an initiative called Freedom
from Suffering that is offered
by Never Alone.Love
and is an initiative
of the Chopra Foundation.
I mentioned this because I have,
after a lot of reflection,
come to the conclusion that what we call mental
well-being is an oxymoron.
There is no such thing as mental well-being
by definition.
The mind is always vacillating
between happiness and sadness,
and that is what the mind is.
It only experiences through contrast.
And over the last century,
everything has been tried for so-called
for people with so-called mental disorders,
including gruesome things like
like lobotomies
and injections of
epileptic drugs and,
of course, even surgeries
which are barbaric and medieval.
And of course, in the last two decades,
the advent of what some people feel
are very effective pharmaceuticals
or especially for psychosis,
what is considered deep
psychosis or treatments
for schizophrenia, etc..
And some of these pharmaceuticals
have indeed been effective.
But overall, overall,
we are losing the...
I hate to use the word, "battle",
we are losing our ability
with conventional methods
to treat mental distress from mild depression
to the extreme of suicidal ideation.
And therefore,
you know, after a lot of reflection and also
work over the years in this area,
I have come to the following conclusions.
There's no such thing as "mental well-being".
The mind by nature is restless
and always vacillates
between poles of opposites
as far as experience goes.
So to say that well-being is possible
"mental well-being", is in a way,
an oxymoron.
And I'll try and explain that.
But bottom line is, no mental approach,
including psychotherapy,
no pharmaceutical approach,
and no surgical approach
has been universally
effective.
And that should
raise some concern because then
we have wasted
decades of research, decades of attempts
to cure mental distress,
and none of it has succeeded.
So I want to pose a few other questions
that I've been thinking about.
What do we think is the normal mind?
Okay.
If you look around us and you see the evidence
of a collective so-called normal mind,
it has created war, terrorism,
weapons of mass
destruction, nuclear weapons, cyber warfare,
eco destruction, extinction of species,
climate change and terrorism,
and a planet
that is slowly
with this collective mind walking
and sleepwalking to extinction.
Just one of those things.
Cyber warfare,
nuclear weapons, climate change,
mass pandemics due to mass,
you know, migrations and rapid transformation
and rapid transportation.
And climate change has a lot to do with it.
And also the fact that our
collective mind has no idea
that it is asleep.
Our collective mind has no idea
that it is asleep.
So this collective, insane mind
is trying to heal mental distress.
This collective mind,
which we call normal, but
is the psycho pathology
of our collective consciousness,
is trying to create mental distress
and those who do not conform to
the insanity of this collective mind.
We say the
you know, and we include a motley
a motley group
of sages, psychotics and geniuses in this category,
those who do not conform
to this collective condition, separate,
fearful mind
are labeled mentally ill as well.
Some, of course,
have severe mental pathology.
But, you know, we are basically
using a fearful,
separate, divided,
I have to say, insane mind
to treat those
who are not part of our conditioning.
And that is the immense tragedy.
So what, if any, is the solution?
I think first we have to recognize
that even the so-called healers
and therapists and doctors
and I include, you know, myself in the past
frequently get burned out.
I don't know if you know that suicide
is a very big problem
in the medical profession
and among psychiatrists too.
You know, psychiatrists
have a huge issue
with mental disorders, too.
So we as healthcare providers,
physicians, psychiatrists, psychotherapists,
are in no condition to help others
that we think are in mental distress.
So is there a solution?
And I believe there is.
And that solution is a spiritual solution.
We have to transcend the mind and enter
that realm of awareness
where we feel spontaneously
deep love because of our unity consciousness
and understand that there's no such thing
as the separate mind.
The separate mind is
a socially induced hallucination,
and has been causing havoc
throughout history.
Look at all the war. History, the books you read,
all you read is about wars.
Look at all the movies you watch.
They're all full of violence.
So this mind cannot heal any other mind.
And we have to ultimately
go to that realm of awareness
where we are inseparable, where we recognize
love as the ultimate truth,
at the heart of creation,
and where we experience spontaneous empathy,
which means we feel what others feel.
We have compassion, which is the desire to
alleviate suffering because
alleviating other people's
suffering alleviates our suffering.
And then compassion
can lead to love in action.
Love in action is referred to as karma yoga
in the wisdom traditions,
because love
without action is meaningless,
and action without love is irrelevant.
But when we collectively
participate in love in action,
then we can hopefully create
that critical mass
for a more peaceful,
just ,sustainable, healthier
and joyful world.
And that should be our goal
not treating mental illness, but
to create a pandemic of joy in the world.
And that pandemic of joy can only come
if there's a critical mass
of joyful people in the world.
That is the intention of
www.NeverAlone.Love
That is the intention
of our course: Freedom from Suffering.
Please help spread the word.
Join NeverAlone.Love
As a global community
where we have the intention
to create global communities
online and offline that have four
goals: Attention,
deep listening, together, listening to each other;
Affection, deep caring and love for each other
and compassion.
The third is Appreciation.
Noticing with gratitude
that each of us has a unique gift
to offer to the world and
radical Acceptance.
We call these the "Four A's":
Attention, Appreciation, Affection,
and total Acceptance.
And if we can create that critical mass
global online offline
communities, courses to help people,
so join our initiative
NeverAlone.Love
www.NeverAlone.Love
Check out the programs
offered by Chopra Foundation
and become part
of a global community of sadhana,
which means spiritual practice
transcending the conflicted, separate,
fearful mind, entering
the domain of universal love. Sadhana.
means practice. Seva,
love in action, service
and sangha community.
This has been said
by other teachers, including the Buddha, who said,
Take refuge in the Buddha,
which means hired consciousness.
Take refuge in the Dharma,
which means higher purpose
and take refuge in the Sangha.
this community of people
that practice divine attitudes
such as empathy, compassion, love
in action and joy.
Joy is the goal.
Joy is who we are.
Joy is how we came into this world.
Joy is how we should live in this world.
And joy is
should be our legacy to this world.
And if joy becomes
the ultimate measure of success
and joy
becomes the ultimate measure of well-being,
then we will be holy,
we will be whole, and we will be healed.
Because that's what health is, well-being is.
It's the return to the memory of wholeness.
It is holy,
it is all inclusive,
it is oneness,
it is healing, and it is love.
So forget about mental
approaches to mental distress
because the people who are providing
those are not well themselves.
And I know this from my personal experience
having been burned out
as a physician, resident, intern,
and until I took care of myself, I realized
there was no hope
that I could ever take care of anyone else.
So thank you for listening.
Spread the word and join
NeverAlone.Love
and the Global Sangha
of Freedom from Suffering
and joy.
Joy is spiritual.
It's not mental.
It's independent
of the vacillations of the mind.
It's independent of what we call
happiness and sadness.
Happiness is the opposite
of sadness and vice versa.
But joy transcends both, and joy brings
energy and joy brings
wonder and curiosity and adventure
and sparks our imagination
and our creativity and our higher vision
for enlightenment as well.
Thank you for listening.