Mental Disease or Mania Versus Brain Disease

Psychic disease and brain disease are not the same thing. They are quite different.

Brain disease occurs due to:

• some disorder in a part of the brain
• a congenital defect
• hereditary causes which hamper the proper brain formation

Mental disease is different.

It arises due to a disorder in the objectivated mind, in the first stage in the process of subjectivization.

Common Mania

People who create thoughts in their objectivated minds out of weakness or fear repeatedly form the same image. This is a mental disease called mania.

Kansa, one week before his death, repeatedly thought of nothing but Krśńa.

Whether he liked it or not, his objectivated mind created the image of Krśńa. He thought that Krśńa would kill him.

In whichever direction he looked, his objectivated mind created forms of Krśńa. In this way, his objectivated mind became stronger than his subjective mind.

This meant his mental death, and mental death leads to physical death.

Among women in certain countries one such mania occurs: touch-mania.

They tell the so-called low caste people, or even their own people, not to touch them, to keep away. While walking they take particular care not to touch or be touched by things considered unholy according to their prejudiced judgment.

In these cases, their objectivated minds are full of so-called contaminated objects. As their minds constantly entertain those unclean things, externally they condemn them.

They judge people in terms of casteism and thus their minds become dens of impure and mean thoughts. Once I saw a so-called low-caste woman come to show her grandchild to another woman.

The latter woman, who was a chronic victim of touch-mania, would not touch the child, but rather bestowed her affection on it keeping a safe distance, and thus maintaining her so-called purity. This is a case of mania.

There was another person I knew who was quite healthy and carried out his daily activities with ease, and yet he was under the impression, for no particular reason, that there was some trouble in his stomach.

Actually there was no disease. Yet occasionally he used to come to me and complain that there was some disorder in his stomach. This was his mania.

Melancholia

Because of problems in the objectivated mind, people suffer from various psychic complexes.

For example, there are those who are inclined to think that no one, neither their friends and relatives nor even their domestic animals, cares to think of them.

They unnecessarily think that everyone deliberately avoids them, dislikes them, or ignores them, and therefore they become disappointed, dejected, and dispirited.

Life loses all its charm and attraction for them, and they may even commit suicide. This type of mania is called melancholia.

Hydrophobia

Another example is hydrophobia.

Suppose a dog has bitten a person and the person has become terribly frightened. His or her objectivated mind sees only the images of dogs, dogs on all sides. This is called hydrophobia.(1)

Therefore, humans should have full control over their objectivated minds to avert serious psychic problems.

Inferiority and Superiority Complexes

A defect in the objectivated mind may also cause inferiority complex or superiority complex.

When the objectivated mind becomes large enough to pamper one’s ego, one develops a superiority complex.

One starts considering oneself to be superior to others in points of knowledge, the capacity to act, organizational calibre and other qualities of leadership, and unnecessarily slights others. Such a person expects preferential treatment, VIP status, and unquestioning obedience.

If by accident their ego is hurt even slightly, they become violently angry. This is another kind of mania.

Conversely, there are those who exert too much control over their objectivated minds, which results in the mind’s constriction.

In such a state their minds fail to grasp noble ideas, and such people start considering themselves to be inferior to others in all respects – education, social position, etc. Normally such people become unnecessarily nervous and begin to falter or fumble before their elders and seniors: they lack self-confidence and faith in themselves. This is inferiority complex.

The best way to cure such people is to generate self-confidence in them by frequently advising them not to feel inferior to anyone. Slowly, gradually, they will free themselves from their inferiority complex and the feeling of superiority will increase.

But one must be careful that, after a certain stage, a superiority complex is not allowed to develop.

Most psychic diseases, if not all, grow out of the defective control over the objectivated mind. If one is alert, any trouble can be avoided. Those who regularly practise Iishvara prańidhána or dhyána (meditation) can remain free from these diseases, as their minds will remain in a balanced state.

One of the numerous benefits of sádhaná is that it keeps the mind free from psychic disease and encourages the natural growth of the mind. This is of tremendous importance since such problems may arise not only in individual life, but in collective life as well.

Individual human beings as well as large communities often suffer from some sort of psychic disease. A subjugated people suffer from an inferiority complex towards the sovereign elite, the ruling class.

When India was a dependent colony, many Indians used to describe the members of the ruling community as God’s children, obviously due to their deep-rooted inferiority complex. Most of them wondered: “Will India ever see the light of freedom? When will we ever win the struggle against the ruling class?”

This shows that the entire indigenous community was a victim of inferiority complex, the removal of which would require a group of leaders endowed with enormous mental strength and noble character – a group of mighty personalities. India at that time was not fortunate enough to have such great people, and that is why the struggle for Indian freedom had to be prolonged.

Otherwise, India could have gained freedom in a much shorter time.

I say all this because psychic diseases, as I have just pointed out, affect not only individuals but collective bodies as well. You must remain vigilant so that in your individual life you do not become the victim of a psychic disease, and so that if there is any such psychic disease in collective life, you see that it is eliminated.

11 May 1980, Calcutta