(Some) Schizophrenics are Enlightened, Minus Proper Body Anchoring
Re-examining the causes and treatments for schizophrenia.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the US Government, likely backed by the entire scientific community declares:
Schizophrenia usually involves delusions (false beliefs), hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that don’t exist), unusual physical behavior, and disorganized thinking and speech. It is common for people with schizophrenia to have paranoid thoughts or hear voices.
The first two statements, the ones with parenthesis for clarification are wrong.
Completely and totally wrong.
Illustrative of a larger mindset that is even more wrong. As if they can define what exists and does not exist, the height of hubris and arrogance.
Allow me to explain.
There is more than one reality
Many spiritual seekers imagine a State where you experience oneness, wholeness, a complete and unclouded view of all reality.
Sound familiar.
Sorry to break it to you folks, but that is a delusion, a spiritual dead end, just as much as the two statements provided by the SAMHSA above.
Who am I, and why should you listen to me?
Several years ago, I arranged my life to spend several hundred hours in float tanks practicing Lamrim in total sensory deprivation.
I put in the time.
I learned how to observe my mind.
I have actual insights into how the mind works, not some academic interpretation based on books and a destructive material reductionist mindset which says the only reality is the one we can see and touch.
I have data.
So here is how it works.
The mind contains an Ultimate Divide that separates objective reality from subjective experience.
This split creates two realities: Body and Mind
Body Reality and Mind Reality
Body reality is objective reality within which we must interact. It’s the reality of material reductionism, the mechanics of how things work.
Eliminative Materialism is the ultimate wrong answer. Completely 100% wrong. The opposite of Truth. No wiggle room here.
The Mind reality, subjective reality within which we have unlimited control to create reality as we wish.
Fundamental Truth of the Mind
Every belief in your head begins as a seed planted in Body Reality.
Some information in the outside world enters your awareness.
Philosophers call these Brute Facts or more simply, Data.
From there, you have complete control, to interpret the meaning of that fact.
This is the key insight from Victor Frankl’s Man Search for Meaning.
Interpretations are up to you
People don’t realize that they have this power, which is why so few are enlightened, but everyone has this power.
Anyone can develop this power.
Since you read my words, you understand it now, at least on an intellectual level, the level of data and facts.
But there is a deeper level, the level of heart and mind. It doesn’t know that yet.
In order for me to cross that divide in myself, I had to spend countless hours in float tanks practicing Lamrim in total sensory deprivation.
I wish I knew an easier way to get there.
It’s a lot of work, much of it very emotionally difficult.
But if you follow that path, you’d get there too.
Experience the Reality of a Schizophrenic for Yourself
I can drive this point home to you with an experience you can obtain anywhere you see a VR headset being sold, often at Microsoft brick-and-mortar stores or wherever the Oculus is sold.
If you try the Richie’s Plank Experience, you will quickly discover that your Mind Reality can become completely disconnected from your Body Reality.
In the Plank experience, your Body Reality is that you are standing in a completely safe environment with no physical danger at all.
However, your Mind Reality is that you are standing on a plank many stories up, and the slightest misstep will result in your untimely death.
The VR experience makes this disconnection so complete that you will have the emotional experiences of actually being there.
Let the profundity of that sink in. We will return to in momentarily.
The Mind of a Schizophrenic
Schizophrenics fully understand the nature of the Human Mind.
Far more so that the reductive materialists around them telling them they are crazy.
This is why Schizophrenics often have strong religious experiences and are utterly impervious to reasoning thrown at them by the “experts” around them.
They are right.
Everyone else is wrong.
Not just in their Minds, but in Truth, in the objective world.
It takes a lot of gaslighting to convince someone their Mind Reality is not real, particularly when you’re talking with a Schizophrenic.
In their mind, they are an adult who knows, and the person gaslighting is a toddler who does not.
The Schizophrenic is right about that.
Schizophrenics are never going to respond well to cognitive therapies designed to convince them their Mind Reality is not real.
It shouldn’t be surprising that the entire medical community turns to drugs for the answer.
Drugs are an Essential Safety Net
No, I’m not going to say we should stop using drugs with Schizophrenics. That would result in a large number of completely unnecessary deaths.
Remember back to Richie’s Plank Experience? A Schizophrenic has the opposite juxtaposition of safety and danger.
A Schizophrenic could in Body Reality be standing on a plank where the slightest misstep results in death, but in Mind Reality, they may be roaming the Scottish Moors, free and untroubled.
The clash of these two realities becomes apparent when they take their first step.
So if Schizophrenics lose their connection, they can expose themselves to great danger, necessitating a safety net to prevent untimely death.
I would not practice on a Trapeze without a safety net. Would you?
I don’t want Schizophrenics to die. And neither do you.
Drugs are a necessary safety net, needed when Schizophrenics lose the bridge to Body Reality.
It’s absolutely critical that you find the right drug to do this if you want to make sure Schizophrenics don’t make the ultimate mistake.
I know many people are resistant to even exploring drug options. I highly suggest you drop that resistance.
Why Drugged Schizophrenics are Unhappy
When you drug a Schizophrenic, you make them very unhappy. We give them necessary drugs to keep them alive, but offering cognitive therapies does little to make them feel good about it.
Allow me to share a personal experience that illustrates this.
My life circumstances came together in an intense emotional experience where the rate at which my brain processes information temporarily doubled and even since operates at a level much, much faster than before this experience.
The experience itself arrived with little notice, so I was not able to properly prepare my family for what they might see.
It was traumatic. They took me to the hospital for testing, rightly so.
When the physicians examined me, they couldn’t find anything wrong other than my heart-rate had jumped from 50–60 beats per minute up to about 100 beats per minute.
I felt great, extremely amped up, but it was not the slightest bit painful.
Out of their concern they asked me to take some medications. They handed me a cocktail of Xanax and Valium, two powerful neurotransmitter suppressors.
I joked with them that I didn’t want to take that poison because it would take a lot of effort to purge it, perhaps several hours. I didn’t obtain complete poison immunity in the power up as I hadn’t mastered all the needed visualizations.
The nurse told me to relax and that I would feel better in the morning, so I decided to take the pills.
Within minutes, I could feel the fog of these drugs dragging on my mind. It did nothing to drop my heartrate which I watched carefully.
I called in the Marines in my mind, and started imagining each one grabbing an enemy and them parachuting down to my kidney for filtering and removal.
It’s a great visualization, but there are better ones I don’t know.
Grigori Rasputin knew more visualizations. He had near poison immunity.
I wish I had his knowledge. His death was a loss because I don’t believe he passed it down to anyone.
About an hour in, I struggled to maintain the discipline as I approached losing consciousness.
After another hour, I began regaining more clarity, and I called up the Marines with renewed enthusiasm to complete their mission.
By the end of three hours, I stepped out to the nurses station to tweak her. I looked her straight in the eye, held her gaze, and said. “Three hours.” And I went back to my room.
I remember clearly the emotional side of that experience in the last hour.
An awful feeling arose.
A concern that the gift I received, the payoff for 35 years of meditation and countless hours in float tanks practicing Lamrim in total sensory deprivation, everything I had worked for had been taken from me by modern medicine.
I didn’t start at birth, so I’m ancient, not 35 years old.
I mentioned that time and Effort are required to obtain these realizations.
I felt the pain of all Schizophrenics who get pulled back from their beautiful state of Mind Reality and being forced to live in a crappy, reductionist world.
I don’t have to live there because I am not Schizophrenic (despite the cries from material reductionists who out of willful ignorance fail to see that).
Unfortunately, those who are Schizophrenic must live there until they learn to use their Mind Reality to bridge back to Body Reality.
This doesn’t Apply to All Schizophrenics
One of the most saddening aspects of Schizophrenia is the overwhelming sense of confusion many experience.
I remember asking a kind Schizophrenic in a hospital what his name was. He looked at me, then pulled back his sleeve and beckoned me to look at his arm tag.
He didn’t know his name.
He had no idea who he was or why he was standing there.
He was still the kind soul with the same drives as a typical person, but his mind was so confused, nothing penetrated it.
That’s sad.
Those Schizophrenics are not enlightened, or if they are, they don’t know it, and that makes them even more dangerous to themselves.
How To Extract Schizophrenics from their Safety Net
There is hope for Schizophrenics, but it will not arrive in the form of some magic medicine that material reductionists believe will find that one enzyme, one gene, one whatever that is the physical cause.
The cause is not physical, so material reductionists will never reach their goal.
Finding more safety net drugs is useful, but it isn’t the answer.
Why Schizophrenics won’t stay on drugs
Schizophrenics are among the most resistant patients when it comes to taking medications.
I feel their motivation.
If someone were to attempt to take away my freedom of choice and simultaneously take away what I felt was my greatest gift, well, I would resist that.
In fact, I would resist that with every fiber of my Being.
I hope you understand why they don’t want those drugs you believe will save them.
Schizophrenic Choices
If Schizophrenics were offered a choice, a path to get off the drugs, they will be highly motivated to follow that path, and not make a single misstep.
To a Schizophrenic a pathway off drugs is a Stairway to Heaven.
And literally, in Mind Reality, it is a Stairway to Heaven.
Tibetan Buddhism Bridges the Divide
This wisdom comes from a very old Tradition that was nearly destroyed by the Chinese Government in one of the most atrocious acts of wonton destruction and cultural genocide in the 20th century (Shame. Shame. Shame.)
The Tibetan monks learned that in order for monks to integrate the realizations of enlightenment, Mind Reality, they needed to be firmly anchored in Body Reality, or they would become Schizophrenics.
The entire Lamrim is preparation for an new Mind Reality by providing extensive grounding.
Yes, that really is why they did it that way.
And that’s how the few remaining monks carry on.
Chanting requires feeling the Body.
Listen to a bit. You will feel it in your Body, I assure you.
Body Work, Body Work, Body Work
There is only way Schizophrenics will ever be freed from their Safety Nets and get to truly embrace their gift.
They must maintain the connection to Body Reality, all the time, 24/7 like non-schizophrenics.
While non-schizophrenics are trapped in Body Reality, schizophrenics have difficulty keeping touch with Body Reality.
It’s a problem so far outside of the experience of non-schizophrenics that they don’t really grasp the problem.
I hope this explanation helps with that.
Schizophrenics still need a safety net, but rather than a material reductionists drug, they can develop mental practices and maintain them instead.
Schizophrenics at a minimum should meditate each day for as long as needed to fully feel every point in their bodies.
After warming up with breath meditation, which is also part of Body Work, they should scan their body parts one-by-one and feel them. Acknowledge their Body Reality.
Mentally check in with your little toe every day.
Massage, Massage, Massage
When the Body and Mind enjoy Harmony, the Body functions with near perfection. You experience no persistent pain, and your Qi flows freely.
When Body and Mind Harmony is lost, dis-ease is introduced to the system. Not disease as Body Reality would define it.
A lack of ease. Dis-ease.
Everyone should use Massage to maintain balance.
But it’s even more essential for Schizophrenics.
Massages are the Body’s call to Schizophrenics.
Please, please, facilitate that communication as much as possible.
(See author’s notes at bottom for more information).
More mental techniques to explore
I’ve described above the most basic, foundational technique required.
Many, many more techniques exist.
Since Schizophrenics already possess Mind Reality, they should be able to develop many more on their own, if they know to look for them.
Gradual Reductions, Keep Meds for Emergencies
Over time, and with disciplined practice, Schizophrenics can start reducing the dosage of the drug they use as a safety net.
With careful observation they can chart a safe course to freedom from the drug.
The observations should be from the Schizophrenic, and from physicians and psychologists (not messed up by their material reductionist mindset) to ensure the process is safe.
If the Schizophrenic loses control, the meds are there for an emergency to restore the safety net.
Freedom
Schizophrenics really shouldn’t be too upset by the demand of the path.
They will need to maintain a strict discipline of daily body work for the rest of their lives, but their reward is their Freedom.
And even the Tibetan Buddhists never stopped doing Body Work.
People imagine that Enlightened Beings never have to work at anything.
Go to Tibet and ask one, and they will tell you that the work never ends, that bridge always must be maintained.
Nothing is being put on Schizophrenics that isn’t put on those who’ve bridged the divide between Body Reality and Mind Reality.
They should find comfort in that.
Related posts:
Daniel in the Lion’s Den at a Mental Health Institution
Note on Author’s process
This is a writer’s website. Allow me to offer an observation on my writing process.
When I completed the first draft and crafted it a bit, I published it.
I always publish then continue looking for corrections or additions, particularly if I see inspired comments.
Never believe you have all the information needed to deliver a message in your own mind.
Borrow wisdom from others.
That’s not plagiarism.
That’s Teamwork.
I publish on Medium because it makes the writing better. Sorry to inform all of you, but I borrow your wisdom all the time.
If I project a lonely voice in the Night or Dark, pleading for attention on my own private blog (I’ve done that to zero success), my Selfish Desire squelches the message.
I reach no one.
I don’t want that.
The message is what’s important to me.
After I hit publish, I was overcome by a muscle tension headache. It was the first notable, persistent physical pain I had experienced in more than a week.
I listened to my body.
I had a mindworm remind me with song, a beautiful song with a wonderful message. Shaina Noll, You Can Relax Now.
Her music is lovely and soothing. It played in my mind on a loop for about 5 hours. It was very helpful in restoring my balance.
I explained my needs to the masseur through a translator, a cumbersome processes, but this man’s hand’s are magic, so it was worth the effort.
I relaxed through a 150 minute full-body massage. Yes. 2.5 hours.
I released many toxins into my system. It was unpleasant. I didn’t realize I had accumulated so much since my last massage.
After I arrived back home, my stomach assisted by expelling a cache of these toxins in what most would consider an unpleasant way.
It was certainly unsightly (please don’t ask me describe it in more detail. You get the picture.)
I showered and cleaned up, out of respect for the Body.
Once my mind was cleared and my inner balance restored, I could return to this writing and add the section on Massage.
You see, I had forgotten a key point.
My mind and body told me that if I am going to put this important message into the world, I damn well better get it right.
It’s right now. It still has room for improvement. Everything does. Always.
Enjoy with me….
~~wink~~
Anatta
About Anatta. How to Quote Anatta. Contact: selflessanatta@gmail.com
Anatta only responds to requests from the Heart.
