In the East, particularly in Japan -- because of zen -- a totally different treatment has existed for at least one thousand years. In zen monasteries... these are not in any way hospitals, not meant for ill people, but in a village, if a zen monastery exists, it is the only place; if someone goes mad or neurotic, where to go? In the East always they bring the neurotic people to the master because if he can treat normal people, why not neurotics? The difference is only of degree.
So they will bring the neurotic people to the zen monastery, to the master, and they will say, 'What to do? You take charge of him.' And he will take charge.
And the treatment is really unbelievable! The treatment is -- no treatment at all. The man has to be given a solitary cell somewhere at the back of the monastery, in a corner; the neurotic has to live there. He will be given food, every facility -- that's all. And he has to live with himself. Within three weeks, only three weeks, with no treatment, the neurosis disappears.
Now many Western psychiatrists are studying this as a miracle. This is not a miracle. This is simply giving the man a little space to sort it out, that's all! Because he was normal a few days before, he can be normal again. Something has become too heavy on him and he needs space, that's all. And they will not pay him much attention, because if you pay a neurotic person much attention, as it is being paid in the West, he is never going to be back to normal again because nobody paid him so much attention before. He is never going to be back the same, because then nobody bothered about him, and now great psychoanalysts are bothering -- great doctors, names, world-famous names, and they talk to him or her: the patient lying on a couch resting, and a great name just sitting behind, and whatsoever he or she says is listened to carefully, every word. So much attention! The neurosis becomes an investment, because people NEED attention.
A few people start behaving foolishly because then the society gives them attention. In every old country, in every village, you will find a village fool -- and he is not a mediocre man, he is very intelligent. Fools are almost always intelligent, but they have learned a trick: people pay them attention, they feed them, everybody knows them, they are already famous without holding any post -- the whole village looks after them. Wherever they pass, they are like great leaders, a crowd follows them: children jumping and throwing things at them -- and they enjoy it! They are great ones in the town, and they know that this being a fool is an investment, a good one! And the village takes care of them: they are well fed, well clothed -- they have learned the trick. No need to work, no need to do anything -- just be a fool and it is enough!
If a neurotic person... and remember ego IS neurosis and ego needs attention; pay it attention, and ego feels good. Many people have murdered simply to get the attention of the newspapers, because only when they murder can they be covered by headlines. They become suddenly very, very important -- their pictures are given, their names, their biographies are covered: suddenly they are not nobodies, they have become somebodies.
Neurosis is a deep hankering after attention, and if you give it attention, you feed it -- that's why psychoanalysis has been a complete failure.
In zen monasteries they treat a person within three weeks: in Freudian psychoanalysis they cannot treat him in thirty years, because they miss the very point. But in zen monasteries no attention is given to the neurotic person, nobody thinks that he is somebody important -- they simply leave him alone, that is the only treatment. He has to sort out his own things; nobody bothers. Within three weeks he comes out absolutely normal.
Solitariness has a healing effect, it is a healing force. Whenever you feel that you are getting messed up, don't try to solve it there. Move away from society for a few days, for at least three weeks, and just remain silent, just watching yourself, feeling yourself, just being with yourself, and you will have a tremendous force available which heals. Hence, in the East, many people have moved to the mountains, to the forests, somewhere alone, somewhere where there is nobody else to be bothered with. Only oneself... so one can feel oneself directly, and you can see what is happening within.
Nobody is responsible for you except yourself, remember. If you are mad you are mad -- you have to sort it out: it is your deed! This is what Hindus say: your karma. The meaning is very deep. It is not a theory. They say, whatsoever you are it is your own work, so sort it out! Nobody else is responsible for you, only you are responsible.
So go into solitary confinement -- to sort out things, meditate on your own being and your problems. And this is the beauty: even if you can just be quiet, living with yourself for a few days, things settle automatically, because an unsettled state is not natural. An unsettled state is unnatural, you cannot prolong it for long. It needs effort to prolong it. Simply relax and let things be, and watch, and make no effort to change anything, remember; if you try to make any change you will continue the same because the very effort will continue to disturb things.
It is just like sitting by the side of a river: the river flows, the mud settles, the dead leaves go to the sea; by and by the river becomes absolutely clean and pure. You need not go into it to clean it -- if you go, you will muddle it more. Simply watch, and things happen. This is what the theory of karma is: that you have messed yourself up; now move alone.
So you need not throw your problems on others, you need not throw your diseases on others -- you simply move alone; suffer them in silence, watch them. Just sit by the bank of the river of your mind. Things settle! When things settle you have a clarity, a perception. Then move back into the world -- if you feel like it. That too is not a necessity, that too should not be an obsession. Nothing should be an obsession.
No comments:
Post a Comment