May 22, 2002
Mark said he had just printed out my last e-mail to read, re-read, and digest before replying. [Dark Zones: Into the Light, last letter, "Bach & Compatriots," May 20, 2002]
Meanwhile, he was thrilled that he had managed to acquire all three of Osho's Three Treasures books. He had also acquired several CDs—Bill Evans, Miles Davis and Gabor Szabo, but was "not that keen on the country man (I forgot his name already!)." [Waylon Jennings].
His yoga exercises were going well, but meditation was difficult, because "trying to silence the mind is the hardest work of all!!!"
He thought the Lao Tzu Treasures books were amazing, and that Osho was reading his mind. He said he had not been feeling mentally very well lately, "and hey, presto! there in the book Osho is saying illnesses are good-they instigate change. So, hey, I'm dealing with it and feeling ok about not feeling ok !!!"
Mindstate
May 24, 2002
Hi, Mark,
I am absolutely delighted that Dhanyam sent you a printout of the second Three Treasures book and that you now have three of the four volumes! Not easy to get. I checked out a couple of sites online, and did not find a single copy. That's a shame, of course, because Osho's Lao Tzu books are among his best. The out-of-print syndrome does not help any of us. However, we do what we can.
I have reconsidered my opinions on the various anthologies and compilations that are coming out on Osho. They hone in on one or two themes and present Osho's comments in a focused, condensed way, which makes it easy for readers to jump in. Readers who find themselves inspired by the compilations can go ahead and take it from there. So they are good things as introductions, and for distilled presentations of thoughts found throughout Osho's works. Hardly anybody can, or will, read through the entire works (and they are becoming less and less available anyway), so these anthologies are good communicative tools. I have purchased a few recently myself, and look forward to getting into them.
So sorry your mindstate has not been keen these days. I have been feeling a bit low myself for various reasons. Depression, discomfort, anger, doubt, frustration, disappointment and similar negative feelings hurt the psyche and the soul, and make it difficult to generate affirmative, creative energy. They can become extreme, of course, which makes it even more difficult to pull out of their grasp.
So happy for you that Osho tapped into some of your feelings and is helping you accept them and see them in a positive light. Indeed, they instigate change, hopefully in constructive directions. Sometimes it is important to simply lie back and accept them. Don't resist them. Don't nourish them and don't act them out. Accept them, watch them, be patient and courageous. Give yourself love, compassion, sympathy while you suffer through them, as you would comfort a wounded child. Know they will pass. Know you will heal up. Know affirmation can and will return. It seems so dark at the bottom of the well, but if you look skyward you can see light above, however dim and distant it may be.
I am no expert, and am not above anything at all, but I have managed to live through some of these things, and so offer what little bit of perspective I can muster.
You suggested some time ago, if I recall correctly, that you had been talking with a counselor. Have you been continuing that dialogue? Sometimes a therapist, psychologist or psychiatrist can be enormously helpful.
The wisdom traditions, valuable as they are, were simply unaware of unconscious, prepersonal, psychological mechanizations. They are great in dealing with levels of consciousness from the ego on up, but not always adequate when it comes to dealing with pre-egoic dynamics. This is an important point. The wisdom traditions existed before Western depth psychology; they didn't know then what we know today about pre-egoic developmental stages.
A good therapist, seen on a regular basis, can be immensely valuable in helping you see into underlying perceptual entanglements, helping you to understand them, what they are, how they work, and helping you integrate them in constructive ways.
This is something to consider, not only in relation to you, but for all of us. We humanoids are complicated. That is why and how Osho created such an extraordinary ashram in the '70s. It was a magnificently original experimental context in which he combined wisdom traditions with all of the known Western psychotherapeutic disciplines of the day. What a great synthesis!
You are putting such good things into your head and heart these days, Mark. Miles' Kind of Blue, Bill Evans, Gabor, Osho, Yoga. All of these things help enormously, but developmental change takes place incrementally, you know? Some here, some there, a little at a time. Meanwhile, moods rise and fall and rise again. Emotional cross-currents occasionally swirl around and sling us into eddies. We attain a state of serenity and bliss, only to be thunderstruck down to bottomland darkness, shattered into fragments, howling in shades of near madness.
But once again the air clears, sunlight appears, bushes and flowers and leaves stand straight and strong, and we can hear birds sing, streams rush, cool wind whispering through the trees.
Keep on keepin' on, Mark.
All is well.
Lee
Re: Mindstate
May 25, 2002
Mark thanked me for my kind and encouraging words and said he was managing to keep his head above water — just barely. He was visiting a close friend, a "therapist/counselor in a Buddhist tradition." He intended to see him for a couple of sessions and "hopefully make the dim light above my head shine a little bit brighter." He said his Bill Evans CD was his favorite.
Bill Evans, Erroll Garner, Jazz, and Listening
May 26, 2002
Hi, Mark,
Good to hear back from you, and I hope things are improving. You are most fortunate that you have someone to turn to, your Buddhist counselor, and, indeed, you are wise to do so. Strange, isn't it, how so often when we find ourselves in dire straits we don't want to turn to somebody else for help. It takes strength and wisdom, and very often courage, to ask a friend or professional or even just an acquaintance to take a few moments out for a listen. Good for you. I hope you sort through things and come out the other side ready to continue the dance.
I certainly do not want to intrude or pry or overstep my bounds, but might I ask what is the problem? In no way would I presume to be a problem solver, but if a friend finds himself in confusion, my heart goes out to him. If you do not wish to go into it, fine. I understand completely.
Meanwhile, so happy for you that you are enjoying the Bill Evans album. You did not say which one. Tell me, yes? He was an extraordinary musician who recorded dozens of albums. Smooth, subtle, lyrical. He did not exactly evolve, but seemed to emerge in full flower, and then, like Osho's rose, shared his perfume with the world and passed on.
He used to sit at the piano, eyes closed, hunched over, his nose nearly touching the keyboard. Giving himself entirely to the music, he cast a quiet, irresistible spell over the room. No showbiz antics, no flash, patter, or jokes, hardly ever even spoke between songs, just played an unending stream of music in a variety of contexts — solo, trio, quartets with a horn, sometimes an orchestral setting-and his fellow musicians were superb.
For myself, I especially like his solo outings, and his trio albums (with bassist Scott LaFaro in the early days; bassist Eddie Gomez later on, and a variety of drummers, good ones all). Among his last albums, two of my favorites are I Will Say Goodbye, and You Must Believe In Spring (both trio albums, with Eddie Gomez on bass, Eliot Zigmund, drums).
In complete and rather dazzling contrast, check out pianist Erroll Garner's live album, Concert by the Sea, a rollicking, upbeat, swinging, cheerful, extroverted romp recorded in Carmel, California. It has become a classic. Put this album on, and it will pick you up and give you a boost of positive energy that will make you shed all your troubles, no matter how heavy they might be!
"Concerts" was recorded a long time ago, 1955, but that does not matter. This genre of music (the jazz domain) abounds with classics that remain timeless. Tap into them, and you tap into the power of the musical present. Contextual styles and fashions change, yes, rather like clothes and haircuts, but the heart and soul of the greatest performances in jazz remain forever contemporary.
In the case of people like Bill Evans and Erroll Garner, for example, (and Miles and dozens of others I could name), the music does not date itself, because individuality is original. Even when that originality is set in a style that remains associated with a particular period (like Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker), the individual's originality inevitably transcends the stylistically shared context. Jazz is one of those great areas of music that is not tied to fads or linked exclusively with social periods. Fads come and go. Social periods and their surface styles change. But the greatest jazz musicians remain with us as unique individuals and brilliant luminaries.
Obviously, some people listen to this or that period of jazz nostalgically, just as some pop and rock listeners listen nostalgically (having feelings about things they already felt, reliving what they already lived, remembering days and times and passions of their youth, using music to recycle their lives. Nostalgia is one of the pleasures of listening, but by no means the only one; there is more to music and listening than nostalgia, much more).
A good listener from today can check in, and, without having a past rooted in social and musical time zones long gone, can feel new feelings in the immediate present, can be touched and moved by a piano solo or a flight on the trumpet or a waterfall of saxophone notes as if sitting at the feet of the improvising musician in a night club exactly in this moment, experiencing the passion in the flow of the music as if it were taking place right now, instantly: and it is! The music is here, you are here, and your feelings take place spontaneously here and now. Direct connection in the living present.
The jazz genre is a great place to find musics of this kind. So is European classical music (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, et. al.) and contemporary spacemusic (from the '70s to the present).
I move freely in these and many other domains, because I spent many years exploring all stylistic areas, learned how to appreciate the styles for their own sake, found brilliant individuals in each generic area, climbed up and down the spectrum of consciousness within these various psycho-spiritual levels, and can now go wherever I want in order to find whatever I need or prefer at any given moment.
No generic type of music is alien to me now, and within each generic zone there are individual composers/performers who move me. As a listener, I have learned much, not only about music, but, through the medium of music, about myself. For a good listener, music can be more than mere ego-reinforcement. It can be transformative. It has everything to do with a phrase I mentioned before in our correspondence: Through Music to the Self (also the title of Peter Michael Hamel's book, which may be out of print now).
Anyway, Mark, these are some of the delights and pleasures I have found in music. All of them are available to you. Ain't it great? The fact that you check out some of these suggestions and ideas speaks volumes of good things about your sincerity, your inquisitive mind, your capacity to learn and grow. And it's wonderful that you feel free to say No, too. Not everything clicks, and I know that. Your willingness to look into it and evaluate it in terms of whatever you want or need at the moment, increases self-knowledge and powers of discrimination simultaneously.
Good for you, Mark. Let me know how things move along for you. Talk with you soon,
Wishing you well,
All the very best,
Lee
life
May 26, 2002
Mark looked forward to getting the Erroll Garner CD and Peter Michael Hamel’s book, and said the Bill Evans CD was "the live in concert" album I had recommended (Town Hall).
At this point, he told me of his troubled state of mind in greater detail, saying he had developed a devastating condition called "depersonalization" in his early twenties after experimenting with drugs. It lasted about a year, then it came again after further indulgences in drugs and alcohol, even worse than before. It lasted some two or three years. After various drug therapies, he got himself "sort of straight."
He gave up drugs, but continued to drink, slipped back into depersonalization, at which time he was prescribed Prozac, which he had been taking for a couple of years. Just recently, however, he felt like a fraud. Here he was, teaching yoga, searching for meaning, meditating, reading Osho-and still taking Prozac. So he stopped-and relapsed back into the depersonalization syndrome.
Once again taking Prozac, he hoped to get himself straight again. Meanwhile, he hoped and trusted it would not be "the end of the world" if he had to keep on taking Prozac, and anyway, he would keep "meditating and yogaing and oshoing!!"
DP
May 27, 2002
Hi, Mark,
Cannot tell you how much my heart goes out to you. Thank you for telling me about your depersonalization difficulties . . . and for filling me in a bit more on your history with drugs, alcohol, and mental disassociation from a sense of self. I have looked into the subject online,
[ http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/square/kbk73/unreal.htm ] and my heart is with you.
If you would, please forgive me for having sent you that piece on Billy R, because I think the perspective I took there is not entirely helpful to you.
Keep in mind that I was condemning, not the "dark zone" itself, but the romanticizing of it in our culture, the ways in which we celebrate it, the ways in which we elevate the sufferings of Billy, Tim, myself, or you and others to levels of glamorous showbiz theatrics and MTV heroics, when in fact we should be feeling compassion for ourselves and others lost in the syndrome, and holding out our hands and hearts to those who are drawn to serious intoxicants out of a deep need to assuage their inner pain.
In my own heart I feel profound compassion, love, and respect for all who suffer any or all of the effects of depersonalization, egoic disassociation, heavy depression, or other severe forms of alienation from self and others. In various comparitively minor degrees, I have known these sufferings myself, and I have the deepest respect and appreciation for your sufferings and your efforts to cope with the conditions that cause them. You know the "dark side" well, and I am entirely on your side. You are not alone, my friend.
Never would I presume to be able to tell you what to do or how to do it. I am psychologically well informed, but I am not a psychotherapist or medical doctor or enlightened master, and of course I am not physically there in England. Even so, I would ask you to consider some of my thoughts. Take them into your context, see if they make sense; see if you think there are ways to go here that might be helpful—
PROZAC—
You are absolutely right. It would not be the end of the world if you have to keep taking Prozac for a good while yet, and the medicinal use of contemporary drugs is entirely different than smoking pot or getting drunk. True, we have often turned to drugs and alcohol and perhaps other trance-inducing substances or activities in order to escape the pain of depersonalization, in order to help numb our fears and self-doubts while enhancing emotional feelings; in this sense, we have gotten high as a way of "medicating" ourselves. But that is very different from taking Prozac for important medical reasons.
If you had diabetes, you would take certain drugs to help you deal with it. If you had a vitamin deficiency, you would take certain vitamins to make up for it. If you had, say, asthma, you would take certain drugs to cope with it. There is nothing wrong with utilizing contemporary chemical medical discoveries and technological advances to help you achieve mental and physical equilibrium and psychophysiological health.
The kind of drug you ingest, the purpose for which you ingest it, the effects it has — all of these qualifications make an enormous difference, do they not? Obviously, there is a vast difference between cocaine or heroin or alcohol and the reasons for taking them, and Prozac and the reasons for taking that.
Depersonalization seems to be a reaction to chemical imbalances in the body-brain complex combined with deep-seated underlying psychological conflicts that result in anxiety, depression, alienation and depersonalization. Marijuana, alcohol and other forms of intoxicants, hallucinogens and psychotropic drugs may certainly give momentary relief, but they also exacerbate fundamental chemical imbalances and psychological pathologies that are destructive to our perception of ourselves and the world. Prozac is completely different, and can be enormously helpful.
Clearly, one of the dimensions you must deal with is physical — the chemical element in your body, and Prozac is a modern way of helping you do that. If you are able to stabilize your chemical makeup, you stabilize the mental processes that emerge out of that chemical makeup, and that clears the way for another process for dealing with the underlying non-physical dimension: the psychological.
PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH—
It is important to note, Mark, that the great wisdom traditions of the East, the great premodern thinkers such as Buddha, Lao Tzu, and in many respects Osho, had incredible insight into post-egoic transpersonal levels of consciousness, but little or no understanding of prepersonal (pre-egoic) psychological development. Just as the ancients had no knowledge of modern chemistry and modern technological developments — no Prozac, no cars, no airplanes, no refrigerators, no microscopes or telescopes, no notions of balanced nutrition, etc. — so they had no knowledge of Western depth psychology, which is a modern development.
They understood everything that could be understood about the mind from the rational level on up to bliss consciousness, but no understanding of the various stages of pre-egoic consciousness one must evolve through in healthy ways in order to get from protoplasmic oceanic fusion with nature to egoic selfhood. The wisdom traditions knew Buddha, but the buddhas had no knowledge of Freud, Jung, Karen Horney, Ken Wilber, et. Al.
There are some five or six stages one must pass through in order to develop a healthy ego — from sensation, to the perception of images, to a sense of separation from the mother, to words and concepts, to an independent self-sense that can empathetically relate to others, to an egoically well-developed self-sense that feels healthy, whole, strong, autonomous, and able to work and love and participate with others in constructive ways.
As Wilber points out, we cannot skip any stage along the way, if we are to evolve in psychologically healthy ways. Conversely, at any stage along the way certain things can go wrong. If they do, we get stuck at that stage, and our egoic development becomes impaired, sometimes pathologically so. We stop growing.
In the East, ego is "the disease." Ego is the bad guy. Ego is something to be destroyed, crushed and then transcended. In the Eastern view, ego creates all ills in the world-greed, fear, desire, anger, competition, power struggles, cruelty. Therefore, all sorts of philosophies and techniques are developed to help us shed this "awful" ego. Brilliant speakers such as Buddha and Osho give us insight, a multitude of meditation techniques, repetitive mantras, dances. Sometimes earth-oriented shamans have offered psychotropic drugs in modern contexts (peyote, mescaline, marijuana, LSD, Ecstasy, etc.).
All of these points of view, techniques, processes and substances are designed to annihilate the ego. The main rationale behind it is "We begin in the Garden of Eden as innocent children, pure, blissful, blessed by existence. We leave the Garden, develop a mind and an ego, and become lost in samsara. Destroy the ego and transcend it, because it is the mind and ego that cause all of our problems. Return to the Garden of Eden, become as little children, return to innocence, purity, and all will be well. Unless ye become as little children, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
Well, there is a serious problem here: in order to transcend the ego, there first must BE an ego. Secondly, the journey of consciousness does not go from the Garden of innocence, to egohood, back to the Garden. Regression takes us backwards, below egoic development. Transcendence goes upward from ego to higher post-egoic stages. It goes from the Garden, up the ladder of consciousness development several stages to egoic strength, ON UP into post-egoic states of transpersonal unity consciousness. These higher states do not depend upon the destruction of ego. To the contrary, the ego is a jumping off place into the higher stages, where ego is included and honored-and transcended.
Ego is NOT a bad guy, Mark. It is not a block. It is not a barrier to innocence. As Wilber often points out, ego is a healthy steppingstone TO higher-consciousness, a mid-range springboard to levels of mind and awareness that lie upward and BEYOND ego, not backwards, behind and below ego, in a lost Garden of innocent infantile fusion with nature. Pre-rational infantilism and post-rational higher-consciousness sometimes look very much the alike: But they are not the same, not at all. And this is where the confusion comes in, and very often a host of problems.
A lot of people, perhaps you and me included, may find themselves drawn to meditation, Yoga, repetitive mantras, Eastern wisdom and related things, because these processes and points of view validate a certain lack of psychological development. They validate our pre-egoic infantilism, justify our suffering, and keep us in a state of prepersonal development instead of helping us move up the ladder of consciousness TO egohood-and beyond.
It seems to me, Mark, that problems such as deep-seated fear, anxiety, disassociation from a sense of self, depression, depersonalization, derealization and related difficulties may very well spring, not from egoic strength, but just the reverse: At one of the pre-egoic stages of development, something went wrong, and we got stuck there. We do not need to kill our ego, destroy it, despise it, practice all sorts of Eastern techniques to eliminate and transcend it. Perhaps it's just the opposite.
Will you follow me here?
Before we can move beyond ego into higher, more comprehensive and inclusive levels of psycho-spiritual development, we must first develop our ego. We must develop a sense of self and strengthen egoic coherence. We must nourish our thinking in ways that help us become inwardly integrated into a sense of personhood, solidity, reality. In the context we are speaking about here, we do not need less ego. We need more. Do you see what I mean? Our fears, inner splits, double-views, our sense of unreality, disconnection, weakness, and depersonalization may well be symptomatic of underdeveloped ego structures.
We don't need to go back to innocence. We need to move forward and developmentally upward into egoic strength. Only then can we move beyond ego into nondestructive, loving, healthy domains based on creativity and on-going psycho-spiritual development.
HELP—Prozac and psychotherapy can work together. In fact, Prozac can be enormously beneficial in this process. It can stabilize brain chemistry and help you establish psychophysiological equilibrium. When you feel more calm, centered and inwardly collected, you can move more freely and confidently into the workings of your mind. Psychotherapy with a medical doctor well-trained in contemporary psychiatric methodologies (not a specialist in premodern religious practices or modern cognitive or behavorial techniques, but a multi-dimensional authentic, qualified psychotherapist) can open doors upon doors.
With a good psychotherapist, you can dive down into unconscious layers of the mind that every day are directly acting upon your conscious thoughts and conscious feelings and daily life activities. You can bring these unconscious workings of your mind up into the light and make them conscious. You can work with them, understand them, get a grasp on them, detach from them, see them objectively, integrate them, and move beyond them. In this way, you can begin to develop, evolve and grow into a whole and healthy person with a strong, vibrant, constructive level of ego development.
THEN processes, methodologies and viewpoints from the great wisdom traditions can help you transcend the ego-not destroy it, but embrace it and integrate it into your total being, and lovingly utilize it as a springboard into higher consciousness.
Think about these things, Mark. Consider them. In fact, dare to ask yourself what might happen in positive ways if you were to shift your perspective a bit. Instead of more Yoga, meditation, and Osho, what might happen if you made a gradual change? Suppose you embraced Prozac, exercise, nutrition, psychotherapy and new kinds of readings? If you were to do that — not quickly, not abruptly (this is important), but slowly phasing new things in as you phase old things out — might you not begin to give yourself an even better chance of emerging from instability and its problems into stability of body, mind and spirit?
From this distance it may be difficult to receive this kind of input. But think about the things I am suggesting. Prozac, yes, and without a sense of hypocrisy or fraudulence. Sometimes we need medicine, and this medicine leads to stability and greater clarity. Prozac is okay. Think about psychotherapy of a responsible kind, yes, and without a sense of betrayal of your Buddhist friend or Osho or Yoga, just phasing things into your life slowly, using everything available to help yourself.
Of course, there may or may not be a good psychotherapist in Liverpool. But there most certainly would be in London, as well as great book stores, job opportunities and safe, interesting, stimulating, nourishing people. Whether in Liverpool or London, the opportunities are certainly there for you to begin and continue this greatest journey of your life.
Let me know what you think, Mark. Don't rush your reading of this letter. I urge you to print it out, spend time with it, move into it slowly, understand it clearly, don't be too quick to accept or reject any of it, just let its contents sit with you, mull it over, and know that I am with you.
Wishing you well, my friend,
Om Shanti,
Lee
Perhaps Too Far?
May 31, 2002
Hi, Mark,
I have not heard back from you. Hope my last e-mail did not go too far. Forgive me if I overstepped my bounds. Although I thought it important to emphasize the psychological side of the psycho-spiritual coin, I think the paramount factor to be kept in mind is this: No need to give anything up. Simply add a new dimension.
Life does not present the complexities for most people that you and I and many others have to deal with. Most folks are born, conditioned by an orthodox family and environment; they go out into the world armed with whatever conventional coping tools they were given; they suffer, enjoy, die. Not a problem, right?
Others find themselves bereft of a healthy, constructive, understanding background. Their environment may or may not be supportive of education, aesthetics, science, philosophy, psychology, spirituality. They wander into life riddled with questions, doubts, their psyches punctured with holes, their inner spirit crying out with anguished questions that beg to be answered. Their complexities are painful, even as those same complexities often bring enormous joys. Their conflicts can be severe, even as they sometimes open gates to the divine. Their paths are strewn with thorns, even as those thorns sometimes lead to transpersonal beauty, truth, wholeness and bliss.
Among many thinkers and seers, the great task of the last 75 years or so has been to find a harmonious reconciliation between psychology and meditation, between Western rationality and Eastern higher-consciousness, a synthesis between healthy ego-strength and transcendental awareness. For most of the last two centuries, only conflict existed between East and West. Now, today, there is no "East/West" split, but a single global community, and dozens of brilliant, compassionate people are exploring the intersection between psychology and meditation. Their conclusion? Both are needed. Each can help the other. Neither one should be rejected. Both can help us become deeper, fuller, stronger, happier, healthier human beings.
It seems to be largely a matter of finding one's way through the maze, doesn't it? And that journey finally boils down to two factors: knowledge and practice. Reading, self-education, questioning; seeking and finding qualified writers, thinkers and seers; delving into their works with a mind that is open and seriously questing. Knowing that knowledge is not enough, one must also engage in whatever practice is appropriate for whichever stage of development one is in. Sometimes psychotherapy is needed to help build a solid ego structure. Sometimes meditation is needed, not necessarily awareness meditation, which absorbs and dissolves an undeveloped self-sense, but concentration practices that help the mind focus and gain concentrated strength.
Whatever the case, psychotherapy and the wisdom traditions can work hand in hand. It requires a teacher who is qualified in both areas and skilled in helping individuals with their personal, unique, idiosyncratic complexities.
Let me recommend two good books, Mark. I think they will give you terrific insight into some of the things I am talking about, and might help you feel a rising sense of confidence in what may seem to be a less than comforting subject at the moment.
A Path With Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life, by Jack Kornfield, an American writer, a Buddhist monk trained in Thailand, Burma and India, and a psychotherapist with a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.
Awakening the Heart: East/West Approaches to Psychotherapy and the Healing Relationship, a book of essays and discussions that includes writings and/or talks by Jack Kornfield, Ram Dass, John Welwood (editor of the book), Jacob Needleman, Roger Walsh, Chogyam Trungpa, others. Welwood put this book together in 1983; much new research has been done since that time; however, it's a wonderful place to begin exploring some of these important issues and questions.
From Kornfield: "A strong and healthy sense of self is needed to withstand the meditative process of dissolution and come to a deep realization of emptiness. This is true, but do not take it in a linear way-the development of self and the realization of the emptiness of self can actually happen in any order."
From Welwood: "Therapy and meditation have their own proper domains, which should not be confused. . .Psychotherapy has different levels and functions to it, depending on the goals and the understanding of the client and the therapist. At the very least, it is an effective way of solving life problems and developing a functional sense of self. Beyond that, it can also help people deepen feelings and their sense of their inner life. Finally, it may help people begin to break through the protective shell that surrounds the heart, so that they can let the world in and go out to meet others more fully. In this way especially, psychotherapy can serve as a stepping stone to meditative practices, which can take the process of awakening the heart still further." [Italics mine.]
I am on your side 100%, Mark.
Talk to me, won't you?
Wishing you all the best, my friend,
Soon,
Lee
hello
June 11, 2002
Mark said he was getting back on his feet and asked if I had received his last e-mail. He said he was enjoying Bill Evans' You Must Believe In Spring and listening to some classical music which he found "very soothing on the mind."
Re: hello
June 11, 2002
Hi, Mark,
Glad to hear from you again. Did not receive your last e-mail. Have not heard from you since my last e-mail "Perhaps Too Far?" on May 31. Has been a while, yes? Thought maybe the contents of that e-mail and the one before it might have been a bit too much. Let me know your thoughts/feelings about those two e-mails, if you would, as it is important that I not push you in any direction, and that you indicate to me your perspectives at any given moment.
Sounds like you may have been "out there" for a couple of weeks or more? What's happening, friend?
So glad you have Bill Evans' You Must Believe in Spring. My old vinyl copy has a marvelous poem on the back cover, by Bill Zavatsky, in which appears the line, "In meditation you close your eyes to see yourself more clearly." Is that poem included in the CD notes? If not, I'll copy it out for you.
Classical music is wonderful. Which composers are you enjoying these days?
Supersoothing CD: The Ambient Expanse (spacemusic by Steve roach, Patrick O'Hearn, others; I think mentioned it to you a while back. Check it out.)
Thanks for reconnecting, Mark. Let me hear from you.
Best,
Lee
Kundalini & Depersonalization
June 12, 2002
Mark said he could not understand why I had not received his last two e-mails. He said he trusted my judgment and advice 100%, and he already had Kornfield's A Path With Heart, which he would pick up again.
He said he had acquired the Jeff Buckley BBC video documentary on which I had appeared, and although his "spending spree has now come to an end," he had nevertheless purchased the Bill Evans CD, Erroll Garner's Concert By The Sea album, and Peter Hamel's book.
He said he thought there might be a link between anxiety-based illnesses like depersonalization and "the awakening of the kundalini spiritual energies." When suffering most from DP he felt like he wasn't in control of anything at all and didn't know who or what he was, which sounded very much like accounts written by people who had experienced the awakening of the kundalini.
He closed by saying he was going to take a trip to India in December for a yoga retreat.
Full Spectrum
June 12, 2002
Hi, Mark,
Thanks for getting back to me. I did indeed check out depersonalization, and mentioned it in my "DP" e-mail of 5/27/02. Did you receive that e-mail? It is an important one for you to consider. Do you save your e-mails to me (and mine to you)? If so, maybe just re-send the ones you sent to me after receiving my "DP" and "Perhaps Too Far" e-mails. Would you do that?
Wonderful you have Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart. I especially recommend Jack to you (and, at this point do not recommend his once-close friend, Joseph Goldstein), because Jack is thoroughly cognizant, not only of meditation and its enormous potential, but also of Western psychotherapeutic processes. He does not see Western psychoanalytic values as being antithetical to Eastern spiritual values. He sees the whole psycho-spiritual spectrum of human development, from infantile fusion (totally unconscious) to egoic development (and the several stages leading up to it that are necessary for psychic health) on up through transpersonal spiritual unfoldment (in the post-egoic subtle, casual, and nondual domains).
I think Chapter 14 might be a good one to look into as a starting point, and then give the whole book a focused read from the beginning. In this way, you will add to your awareness of what has been happening in the field of consciousness studies, and will develop a more well-rounded, multi-faceted perspective on your own interiority.
Osho is great, as we both know, but he has a number of conceptual limitations. That's okay. Some of them have to do with the fact that much that is known now was simply not known then. Buddha had certain conceptual limitations for the same reason — in Buddha's case, he did not have Nissan trucks, global television, nutrition guides, physics and biological evolution in the empirical realm, and in the mental domain he did not have psychologists such as Abraham Maslow, Jack Kornfield, Karen Horney, Carl Rogers, etc.
So when Osho starts putting down psychology and psychologists, read him with an alert and skeptical eye. In most instances, he simply did not know what he was talking about. He mentions Freud, Jung and Adler often, which makes it sound as if he is thoroughly knowledgeable about them, but I don't think he was/is.
In terms of post-personal development Osho knows what he is talking about ("the psychology of the buddhas"), but not in terms of pre-personal development (pioneered by Freud and then developed extensively by others who corrected Freud's conceptual and perceptual errors and expanded his many valid innovations). Osho is not strong in this domain. In fact, he is often misleading, although certainly without hostile intent.
While his criticisms of Western psychology for the most part do not hold water, his great saving virtue in this area is the fact that he included in his ashram dozens of highly qualified practitioners-psychologists, psychotherapists, psychiatrists, and all schools of psychology known at the time! Good for him. And one of his basic perspectives was right on the money: psychotherapy helps clean out and integrate the psyche so higher post-personal developmental progress can be made more easily and effectively. Good for him again.
When I bring these people to you, I am simply trying, from this great distance, to help you discover some of the luminaries of consciousness you may or may not already know about, wonderful folks who may live today, or perhaps lived a century or several centuries ago. As you read them, you might choose to incorporate their thoughts directly. If you do, great. But even if you don't, you can get a sense of the different kinds of work that have been done in these various areas, and, by no means least, you develop a VOCABULARY that in itself can help you come to greater understanding of your own inner workings.
The whole idea, of course, is not merely to read a lot of books and acquire knowledge, but to find ways and means of seeing more deeply into your own heart and mind, and eventually to begin relevant and potent practices that will address your developmental needs, help dissolve whatever barriers and blocks may exist, and open new doors to higher (and sometimes lower, more basic) psycho-spiritual levels of your own being.
Prozac can help stabilize body chemistry, while these new readings in psychology can be a nourishing complement to your already considerable spiritual readings. Between chemical stability and intense connections with good writers and new subject areas, you create a marvelously energizing context that can help you conceive and formulate and pursue directions that can be healthful, constructive and enormously energizing for you. The whole idea is the healthy realization of your complete physical, mental and spiritual self, is it not?
John McLaughlin used to have a beautiful double-guitar on which were inscribed the words "Guru Alo," which means, "He who leads from darkness to light." Self-actualization means fulfilling your potential on all of the levels, not just one or two.
It means developing from pre-egoic instability, to egoic stabilization, to transpersonal flowering-in other words from darkness to light. You can't skip stages and hope to become fully self-actualized. But you most certainly can seek and find stages that need working on, and then work on them.
The first step is discovering what those stages might be. After that, it is important to find the right kind of qualified person to help you do the work, right? If it's a meditation teacher, a Yoga teacher, a Master like Osho or Buddha, great. If it's a psychologist like Kornfield, or a psychotherapist right there in Liverpool or London, that's great, too. Whatever is needed and whatever works is good for you, do you agree?
Suffering is not fun, nor is it one's destiny, nor does it have to be forever. You are not alone. You can grow and change. At every level, in every domain, assistance is available. And this is a great time of life for you to jump into some of these things. You're gonna luv it!
So glad you bought Erroll Garner's Concerts By The Sea. Have you given it a listen yet? It's delightful. Upbeat, fun, full of energy. And of course Bill Evans, the great Bill Evans, lasts forever and ever. Is that poem I mentioned included in the CD book?
Feel free to write to me at length, Mark. Exploring your thoughts and feelings through writing can be energizing, revelatory, thought-provoking. You can come to know yourself better and better. Writing can increase clarity and develop mental sharpness. All kinds of good things come out of the mere process of writing. Plus, I always enjoy hearing from you.
Peter Michael Hamel's Through Music To the Self-how did you get a copy? Is it back in print? If not, where did you find it? Great! You're going to like that book.
It's an important look at musics that go far beyond industrialized pop-music entertainment and academic art-music. That book helped me begin to understand meditation musics, musics rooted in sacred traditions from around the world, musics that transcend Western art and entertainment, and speak from the heart of transcendental realization.
It was written a long time ago, in the '70s as I recall, but much of the particular music he talks about is still with us, and of course a great deal more music based on global/meditational/transcendental/unity consciousness has emerged since then. Once you read the book, you will be in on a lot of secrets about music that most people simply do not know. Not only that, but you can then begin exploring some of Hamel's own music. Let me know when you are interested in doing so, and I will talk to you about some of his albums. If you like, check out the Celestial Harmonies website,
http://www.harmonies.com
I have not seen the Jeff Buckley/Tim documentary yet. Have heard good things about it, but it has not been shown here yet, and I guess the video set-up in England is mechanically different than here. If you could find a way to transfer a copy from your tape to a video tape that would work on my American VCR machine and send it to me, I would be eternally indebted to you. Thanks for your kind words about my appearance on it. Sorry I was not included at greater length, but I knew it would be that way. The director woman. Serena Cross, was honest about it. She said it would be a documentary primarily about Jeff, with Tim stuff secondary, and although she spent probably four hours of tape while interviewing me, she let me know that only a snippet or two would be included, much to her regret, mine, too. Ah, well. . .
Hey, guy, you're going to have one heck of a good time in Goa this November/December! You may have noticed in some of Osho's books that Goa is mentioned. His sanyassins used to love to take a break from Poona and drive or hitch-hike over to Goa, dance around the campfire on the beach, hang out, party, meditate, swim, make love. It was more primitive and pristine at that time than it is now, but the Goa beach will always be beautiful, and I imagine good folks from all over the world will be there with you. (If you want to visit Osho's ashram in Poona, you will need to show an AIDS test certificate. I know, a drag, but no big deal. And if you have it, you won't get turned away unexpectedly at the door.)
Thanks for getting back to me, and thanks for letting me know you welcome my words. Your feedback is valuable, because I don't want to say too much, but then again I don't want to say too little. Your feedback gives me indications, yes?
Good talking with you.
Om shanti!
Best,
Lee
Farewell
At this point, I wrote Mark three e-mails asking him to describe his daily life, to pick a favorite book and tell me why he liked it, and to choose a favorite recording and tell me why he liked the music. I hoped these kinds of writing exercises would help him begin to focus in a conscious way on the connection between external stimuli and internal experiences. Conscious writing can do wonders to heighten self-awareness and strengthen inner resources. It is a marvelous tool for self-exploration.
A week or so went by. No response. Another week went by. I wrote and asked if he were okay. He said he had sent several e-mails, and could not understand why I had not received them. Neither had he saved them.
More time passed. He sent a note asking if I were there.
I wrote back and pointed out how I had not received the important, lengthy e-mails he claimed he had sent to me, while I did receive notes that asked me if I had received them. How could that be?
I finally said, "I have been wondering if you actually wrote them, or if you are simply saying you wrote them, but in fact did not.. . .I don't mean to put any kind of pressure on you for anything whatsoever. If you do not wish to respond to this or that e-mail from me, feel completely free to say so."
More time passed, then I got a note from Mark saying he had been listening to Tim's Happy Sad album. "Every time I am listening to him, I feel the connection is now with you and the guitar melodies."
I wrote back and let him know I had been thinking of him too, and I missed talking with him, and that Happy Sad was the album closest to my heart.
Mark and I enjoyed a marvelous relationship, but at this point we had to terminate the correspondence. He is a beautiful, sensitive, intelligent human being. I wish him well.
