Neurotika -Biting the Devil.

In every life -we come to a moment of crisis. This is the time -when we must either grow or die. Sometimes it’s a matter of karma or decision. We are bogged down or stranded on a hill. We are then known to have a mental illness -in all the scientific terms. It is said that this is a biological imperative -or a disease of the spirit. One or the either -it’s true that as individuals we experience a change or changes. Sometimes its a transformation that compels us. Other times it’s just a funk or a disappointment -of dashed hopes.

]But in any case when we take medication -it’s to treat a mysterious set of symptoms -considered to be an incurable schizophrenia or depression. A whole set of terms are enacted to explain something illogical and secretive. All this is really a simplification -of what is really an existential problem. If we believe in God we are healthy -and if we believe in a devil -we are mad in some way. It’s really a matter of flipping a coin -a sort of harmful duality. A young man begins to read Revelations -and he shaves his head -and begins to speak of Good and Evil. What is really a palliative becomes mania and fanaticism.

And so I advise -to bite the devil -is to be without fear. The thing we call -‘Evil’ is actually an alien thing to a person’s soul. It comes from without -and enters as a foreign force. It invades the mind and seen to be disease -That is good. If you know it as a cancer or lesion -you understand the importance of medical reasoning. Even so all unbalanced energies are a matter of going too far one way or another. If we are obsessed by an idea -we are involved in its concourse. If we are afraid -we become what we fear. And to fear always leads to disaster -it is destructive and also confused. The only illness of all -is worry and doubt. If we hesitate we are lost. As it says in the Bible -‘if you take you lose what you had -if you give -you gain so much more.’ This is a matter of attitude -in that we must be generous in all our ways -not in matters of charity -but in friendship and business. Mental illness is indeed a reluctance to relate to others. No. We cannot force people to be social -such as counsellors do. We can’t fit the round peg in the square hole -but we can encourage freedom.

To bite the devil -we face the countenance of chaos. We neither flinch or linger on it -we stand straight on our two feet -and tell the Truth. We know that we are only vulnerable to persecution -if we believe in it. I have learned through the years -to see it as a state of oppression. The power that comes down from above encourages dependence and submission. I have learned to defeat this power by being entirely contrary to it. I know now that madness is a stratagem to adapt to an impossible world. All mad behaviour is a result of conditioning -and the breaking of its influence. To unlearn what we have learned is a difficult process -we either grow or die. To throw off what weakens us -and to break the power -is to stand back and look -to see what it is. To recognize what hurts you.

So now I know -not to seek an absolute Truth. I do not try to penetrate the fog of mystery. I am not involved with a scientific curiosity. I look to the flower -and not the root. I accept varieties -as perfumes and smells -of spices and tastes. I do not believe in the unity of all life -everything is unique and different. The man who finds himself in the serenity of calmness and contemplation -has not gone far enough. Inside the heart is the secret garden of the soul. We all search the Heavens and Earth for some kind of answer. I say -do not look for the fate -time itself is the creator of disappointment. I often feel that the passing of Time -is itself a obligation I do not accept. All things converge in the moment -that itself is like the shores of a great sea reaching out to infinity. In the present -all past memories and future expectations are nullified in the acid seas. Time is useless and ignorant in that it leads to a fixation on things that do not exist. Our only world is what surrounds us -the people who deserve our attention -the events and ceremonies we take part in. The immediate realm of our senses and our understanding. We bite the devil -by avoiding the things that suffocate us -and choke our voice. We take care of our own souls -and we shape and form our own reality