Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Sahaj Marg, Spiritual Tourism and "The India Syndrome"!

Taken and translated from a comment by Martin on Elodie's blog in France: Pour Que Vive Le Sahaj Marg
(see comments to article called: An Open Letter, by Alexis


Martin Said:


Did you know that India is the only country where the consulate of France has put in place a psychiatric service to deal with the mental health problems manifested by French nationals.

All those who have gone to India can testify to a very intriguing world, sometimes unbearable.

The travel journal of Cyril (see previous post) is a good example!

For Regis Airault, psychiatrist, it is the "shock of India". Long positioned at the French consulate in Bombay, he met hundreds of Westerners who slipped into anxiety, panic or were staggered shortly after landing. Therefore he wanted to analyze this "Indian syndrome" (In "Crazy in India", Payot 2000.)

"Upon arrival in the country, it manifests itself as an inexplicable anxiety or sadness. A few weeks later, more alarming symptoms such as psychotic hallucinations or delusions, may occur in some travelers." They live a real depersonalization, which I call " the race of India," says the psychiatrist. These travelers begin by losing their money, their belongings, before forgetting their name, their identity, and they fall into a kind of wander lust, or experience wild feelings of ecstasy ... Because India, the land of a thousand temples and ashrams, wakes up the "mystical feeling" of the most rationalist. "It is only when they re-attach themselves to a stronger symbol of their own culture, by consulting a french doctor for example, that they take up little by little a foothold in reality." Most of the returnees found their psychological health balance upon returning to their country of origin. Apart from some severe cases - drug addicts or those with marginal psychiatric history, which have become "disconnected" because they no longer have limits - most of the victims are rather balanced and structured personalities. It is truly the immersion in the country that has triggered a decompensation, a collapse of their usual defenses. "

All is becoming "globalized" and spirituality too, spiritual tourism works very well in India, boosted by Westerners in search of solution to make their "mortitude" (certainty of death) more bearable.

In India, they have a choice, this "land of a thousand gods," offers a scale of proposition that is unique on the entire planet.

For them death is a celebration, at home it is still taboo. We do not transgress such cultural barriers and leave without feathers (sticking to one's self).

What is flagrantly evident in the testimony of Cyril, is this agitation (nervous), this rush, this excitement, which evokes more hysteria and delirium, than mystical spiritual elevation.

Confusing ego and natural defenses and landmarks, the followers, too often leaving their ego, end up losing any relation to reality.

It is as if their ego was butting against another more daunting ego: "I found ... I know", and that certainty is an ego trap, a bondage (slavery), one hour before death (living dead). It prevents the follower from moving freely, intimately, naturally, so as to attempt to approach the truth that no one can ever really understand because it contains us all!

Cyrille advises Don (earlier comment):

"There is in the heart a point called the" point of discernment, "I counsel you to meditate, because if you put in one basket: Jesus, Muhammad, Caesar, Attila, Hitler, Buddha, Ben Laden ? There is something to ask questions ... "

Cyril must not be meditating on the right point in the heart (point of discernment), or it is the wrong point, if it exists at all, but what is certain is that he has lost much of his (discernment) and should also be asking the right questions.

Don is unfortunately right ( "the sense of Don's father": Talk sense, or shut up! ), but there is one common point among all these people (I would personally exclude Buddha). They all managed to connect people around the same belief, which was gradually transformed into a certainty, the consequences of which have resulted in wars or (including) the recent attacks on the World Trade Center ... The pilots (terrorists) of these aircrafts were also convinced that these acts were their guaranteed entry into paradise ... as heroes!

If the path of Kasturi seems much more "clean" than Chari's, it should be understood that she also borrows parallel trajectories by offering the same types of placebo effects as answers to spiritual questions.

The testimony of Cyril is evidence ...

Martin

Monday April 06, 01:08:00 PM

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