By: Shreepal Singh
In Buradi, a suburb of Delhi, 11 persons of a single family have died a few days back. It is now almost clear from the police investigation that it was not the case of murder but they had committed suicide. Why did they commit suicide? The entire family was superstitious and claimed one of them was in touch of the ‘soul’ of his father who had recently died. This person who claimed to be in contact of the ‘soul’ of his father was guiding his entire family on the ‘dictation’ of that ‘soul’ to do what they did. The entire sad episode would have been a deep mystery – almost impossible to crack for the police in their investigation – but for one fortunate circumstance: the family members wrote down in registers and in detail everything that they had in their minds !
Why did they commit suicide? They committed suicide because they were superstitious in their beliefs; because superstition is a mental illness. Now the society is struggling to search ways and means how to avoid such incidents in future.
In this context, there has come a statement of Dr. Nimesh Desai, the Director of Institute of Human Behavior and Allied Sciences, who said that it is estimated there are 10 – 20% people in India who are suffering from the problems of mental health. It is a huge number. Other countries too are not faring any better in this matter and it is stated by Dr. Desai that there is a still larger number of people in the U.S. who are suffering mental health problems.
What is mental illness? One who is not a normal person in his mind is suffering some kind of mental illness. Who is normal in his mind? Any test? Yes, there is the test. The normal person is the one who takes the real ‘things’ of this world in his mind in the real way as these things in ‘reality’ are!! We live in this real world and there are real things around us and we must take them as they are. The reference point for a normal mind is the realities of this world; this real world is the calibrating – reference – point to put our mind at its correct place.
A fledgling science – parapsychology – puts this situation in a beautiful way when it allocates three categories of people: Normal; Abnormal; and Supernormal. When one’s mind is normal, it is good; when it goes down as abnormal, it is sad state requiring medical attention; and when it goes up to become supernormal, it is applauded.
Unfortunately, from the medical point of view going below or above normal state of mind is ‘mental illness’. There have been many great Yogis who were above normal and were often times looked down as mentally ill persons, like Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Sai Baba of Shridi. In fact, all great spiritual persons have been above normal, whether looked down or applauded by the ordinary folk.
Now, come to these Buradi people, who committed suicide. One of them claimed that he was in touch of his dead father. Is it ever possible to be in touch with a person who has been dead? It is a superstitious belief; it cannot be so!
However, it is a well-known fact of the Buddhist religion that Buddha, after he achieved enlightenment, went up (!) to meet her mother – long dead before – and guided her there (where?) to get enlightenment (enlightenment of the dead?) – that is, Buddha helped her to escape from the endless cycles of life and death!
It all must be declared ignorance and superstition by the normal standard of medical science. However, Buddha escaped this judgment because he performed many acts, which were supernormal miracles to ordinary people.
Then, how can one draw a line of distinction between a ‘superstition’ and an ‘enlightenment’; how one can draw a line between the mental state of the Buradi persons and the mental state of Buddha?
This line of distinction is the only measure, the only way, that our society – humanity – can take to safeguard itself against the acts of mental illness of people like the acts that these Buradi persons did.
Let us enlighten ourselves on this subject. People with normal mind remain in constant touch with the realities – material world – around them. How do they do it? They do it by habitually living in the ‘realities’ of this world, as normal people do present: living in ‘realities’ as against ‘make-believe’ world of beliefs; they do it by habitually living in the ‘present’ as against living in the ‘past’ or in the ‘future’.
Unfortunately, today the humanity is driving itself towards ‘mental illness’, rather towards mental insanity, simply for the reason that in their mental efforts of scientific research, more and more people push themselves hard in the ‘make-believe’ world of hypothetical realities. These mental hypothesis conceived by scientific mind are not only the ‘make believe’ realities but also are tend to be tense on human mind. These ‘make believe’ hypothetical realities travel from the laboratories of scientists to the class rooms of ordinary students, and thence to our society of educated people.
The tense hypothetical realities are not the realities of this world; they are mentally conceived realities only; they are tense realities and tax the mind. While dealing with these make-believe realities, we humans do not ‘live’ in the present: in the present as against the future. Then, we put pressure on our mind to project itself into future.
Though human mind has been pushing itself hard in this direction since the ‘age of reason’, human mind is not a dedicated tool for this purpose! It is opening the human mind to the mysteries of this universal existence, which is beyond its pale. Uncovering this mystery belongs to different domain of human tools. Pushing a tool too much for the work for which it is not meant, would push humanity – by and large – towards menta illness.
Now, let us see the line that distinguishes the superstition of Buradi persons and enlightenment of Buddha. The great Yogis and spiritual personalities have suffered themselves on their chosen path and learnt many precious lessons. These lessons always needed to be heeded by all those people who dare to put their foot on this strange ‘business of soul contacting’ to avoid going mentally ill.
Those great spiritual persons who had labored on this strage path and suffered in consequence, have laid down certain guidelines – safety precaution – for the good of posterities.
The first and the foremost lesson among them all is: such things, like ‘living’ or ‘attempting’ to live in contact with the ‘soul’ of the dead persons is NOT meant for ordinary worldly people – people who run shops and businesses; or whose concerns have anything to do even remotely to the attractions of this world.
If one attempts such things, then this world and its concerns should be regarded as poison! One has to make a choice: either this world or that world! The unfortunate 11 persons living in Buradi made a wrong move by embracing two antagonistic worlds!! And, they suffered.