#3.5 The ending note.

This is a story of a psychologist unhappy with his job and grieved by the condition he sees around him.

He is in conversation with someone, perhaps the author.

A psychologist, an analyst, and an M.D., he was plump, with a large head and serious eyes. He had

come, he said, to talk over several points; however, he would not use the jargon of psychology and

analysis, but would keep to words with which we were both familiar. Having studied the famous

psychologists, and himself been analyzed by one of them, he knew the limitations of

modern psychology, as well as its therapeutic value. It was not always successful, he explained, but it

had great possibilities in the hands of the right people. Of course, there were many quacks, but that was

to be expected. He had also studied, although not extensively oriental thought and the oriental idea of

consciousness.

“When the subconscious was first discovered and described here in the West, no university had a place

for it, and no publisher would undertake to bring out the book; but now, of course, after only two

decades, the word is on everybody’s lips. We like to think that we are the discoverer of everything and

that the Orient is a jungle of mysticism and disappearing-rope tricks; but the fact is that the Orient

undertook the exploration of consciousness many centuries ago, only they used different symbols, with

more extensive meanings. I am saying this only to indicate that I am eager to learn, and have not the

usual bias in this matter. We specialists in the field of psychology do help the maladjusted to return to

society, and that seems to be our main concern. But somehow I personally am not satisfied with this –

which brings me to one of the points I want to discuss. Is that all we psychologists can do? Can we not

do more than just help the maladjusted individual to return to society?”

Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the

individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but

why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part

of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to

society? “I don’t think society is healthy; it is run by and for frustrated, power-seeking superstitious

people. It is always in a state of convulsion. During the last war I helped in the work of trying to

straighten out the misfits in the army who couldn’t adjust themselves to the horrors of the battlefield.

They were probably right, but there was a war on, and it had to be won. Some of those who fought and

survived still need psychiatric help, and to bring them back into society is going to be quite a job.” To

help the individual to fit into a society which is ever at war with itself – is this, what psychologists and

analysts are supposed to do? Is the individual to be healed only in order to kill or be killed? If one is not

killed, or driven insane, then must one only fit into the structure of hate, envy, ambition and superstition

which can be very scientific? “I admit society is not what it should be, but what can you do? You can’t

get out of society; you have to work in it, make a living in it, suffer and die in it. You can’t become a

recluse, or one of those people who withdraw and think only of their own salvation. We must save

society in spite of itself.”

Society is man’s relationship with man; its structure is based on his compulsions, ambitions, hatred,

vanities, and envies, on the whole complexity of his urge to dominate and to follow. Unless the individual breaks away from this corruptive structure, what fundamental value can there be

in the physician’s help? He will only be made corrupt again. “It is the duty of a physician to heal. We

are not reformers of society; that department belongs to the sociologists.” Life is one it’s not to be

departmentalized. We have to be concerned with the whole of man: with his work, with his love, with

his conduct, with his health, his death and his God – as well as with the atomic bomb. It’s this

fragmentation of man that’s making him sick.

“Some of us realize this, sir, but what can we do? We ourselves are not whole men with an overall

outlook, an integrated drive and purpose. We heal one part while the rest disintegrates, only to see that

the deep rot is destroying the whole. What is one to do? As a physician, what is my duty?” To heal,

obviously; but isn’t it also the responsibility of the physician to heal society as a whole? There can be

no reformation of society; there can only be a revolution outside the pattern of society. “But I come

back to my point: as an individual, what can one do?” Break away from society, of course; be free, not

from mere outward things, but from envy, ambition, the worship of success, and so on. “Such freedom

would give one more time for study, and there certainly would be greater tranquility; but would it not

lead to a rather superficial, useless existence?” On the contrary, freedom from envy and fear would

bring to the individual a state of integration, would it not? It would put a stop to the various forms of

escape which inevitably cause confusion and self-contradiction, and life would have a deeper, wider

significance. “Aren’t some escapes beneficial to a limited intelligence? Religion is a splendid escape for

many people; it gives significance, however illusory, to their otherwise drab existence.” So do cinemas,

romantic novels and some drugs; and would you encourage such forms of escape? The intellectuals also

have their escapes, crude or subtle, and almost every person has his blind spots; and when such people

are in positions of power, they breed more mischief and misery. Religion is not a matter of dogmas and

beliefs, of rituals and superstitions; nor is it the cultivation of personal salvation, which is a self￾centered activity. Religion is the total way of life; it is the understanding of truth, which is not a

projection of the mind.

“You are asking too much of the average person, who wants his amusements, his escapes, his self￾satisfying religion, and someone to follow or to hate. What you are hinting at demands a different

education, a different world-society, and neither our politicians nor our average educators are capable

of this wider vision. I suppose man has got to go through the long, dark night of misery and pain before

he will emerge as an integrated, intelligent human being. For the moment, that is not my concern. My

concern is with individual human wrecks, for which I can and do a great deal; but it seems so little in

this vast sea of misery. As you say, I shall have to bring about a state of integration in myself, and that’s

quite an arduous undertaking. “There is another thing, personal in nature, which I would like to talk

over with you, if I may. You said earlier something about envy. I realize that I am envious; and

although I allow myself to be analyzed from time to time, as most of us analysts do, I haven’t been able

to go beyond this thing. I am almost ashamed to admit it, but envy is there, ranging from petty jealousy

up to its more complex forms, and I don’t seem able to shake it off.” Is the mind capable of being free

from envy, not in little bits, but completely? Unless there is total freedom from it, right through one’s

whole being, envy keeps repeating itself in different forms, at different times.

“Yes, I realize that. Envy must be wholly eliminated from the mind, just as a malignant growth must be

totally removed from the body, otherwise it will recur; but how?” The ‘how’ is another form of envy,

isn’t it? When one asks for a method, one wants to get rid of envy in order to be something else; so

envy is still operating. “It was a natural question but I see what you mean. This aspect of the matter had

never struck me before.”

We always seem to fall into this trap, and for ever after we are caught in it; we are always trying to be

free from envy. Trying to be free gives rise to the method, and so the mind is never free either from

envy or from the method. Inquiring into the possibility of total freedom from envy is one thing, and

seeking a method to help one to be free is another. In seeking a method, one invariably finds it,

however simple or complex it may be. Then all inquiry into the possibility of total freedom ceases, and

one is stuck with a method, a practice, and a discipline. Thus envy goes on and is subtly sustained.

“Yes, as you point it out, I see that’s perfectly true. In effect you are asking me if I am really concerned

with total freedom from envy. You know, sir, I have found envy to be stimulating at times; there has

been pleasure in it. Do I want to be free from the totality of envy, from both the pleasure and the painful

anxiety of it? I confess I have never before asked myself that question, nor have I been asked it by

others. My first reaction is, I don’t know if I want to or not. I suppose what I would really like, is to

keep the stimulating side of envy and get rid of the rest. But it is obviously impossible to retain only the

desirable parts of it, and one must accept the whole content of envy, or be free of it completely. I am

beginning to see the meaning of your question. The urge is there to be free from envy, and yet I want to

hold on to certain parts of it. We human beings are certainly irrational and contradictory! This requires

further analysis, sir, and I hope you will have the patience to go through to the end of it. I can see there

is fear involved in this. If I were not driven by envy, which is covered over by professional words and

requirements, there might be a slipping back; I might not be so successful, so prominent, and so

financially well-off. There is a subtle fear of losing all this fear of insecurity, and other fears which it’s

not worth going into now. This underlying fear is certainly stronger than the urge to be free from even

the unpleasant aspects of envy, to say nothing of being totally free from it. I now see the intricate

patterns of this problem, and I am not at all sure I want to be free from envy.”

As long as the mind thinks in terms of the ‘more’, there must be envy; as long as there’s comparison,

though through comparison we think we understand, there must be envy; as long as there’s an end, a

goal to be achieved, there must be envy; as long as the additive process exists which is self￾improvement, the gaining of virtue, and so on, there must be envy. The ‘more’ implies time, does it

not? It implies time in order to change from what one is to what one should be, the ideal; time as a

means of gaining, arriving achieving. “Of course, to move from one point to another time is necessary.”

Time as a movement from here to there is a physical, chronological fact. But is time needed to be free

from envy? We say, “I am this, and to become that, or to change this quality into that, needs time.” But

is time the factor of change? Or is any change within the field of time is no change at all? “I am getting

rather confused here. You are suggesting that change in terms of time is no change at all. How is that?”

Such change is a modified continuity of what has been, is it not? “Let me see if I understand this. To

change from the fact, which is envy, to the ideal, which is non-envy, needs time – at least, that’s what

we think. This gradual change through time, you say, is no change at all, but merely a further

wallowing in envy. Yes, I can see that.” As long as the mind thinks in terms of changing through time,

of bringing about a revolution in the future, there is no transformation in the present. This is a fact, isn’t

it? “All right, sir, we both sees this to be a fact. Then what?” How does the mind react when it is

confronted with this fact? “Either it runs away from the fact, or it stops and looks at it.” Which is your

reaction? “Both, I am afraid. There is an urge to escape from the fact, and at the same time I want to

examine it. ”Can you examine something when there’s fear concerning it? Can you observe a fact about

which you have an opinion, a judgment? “I see what you mean. I am not observing the fact, but

evaluating it. My mind is projecting its ideas and fears upon it. Yes, that’s right.” In other words, your

mind is occupied with itself, and is therefore incapable of being simply aware of the fact. You are operating upon the fact, and not allowing the fact to operate upon your mind. The fact that

change within the field of time is no change at all, that there can only be total and not partial, gradual

freedom from envy – the very truth of this fact will operate on the mind, setting it free.

“I really think the truth of it is making its way through my blockages.”

(Extracted from Commentaries on Living, Series 3, and Chapter 20 – ‘The Fragmentation of Man is

making him sick’)