Mental Health:

Last week was a little difficult here in Mysore. One of the yoga students had some sever mental problems and it affected all of us directly or indirectly. Due to personal problems her very perception of reality got altered to a state where she no longer was able to take care of her self, she became too destructive and the final option was to admit her to a mental hospital. After five days she came back, but unfortunately no problems were solved apart from having heavily sedated her mind. Luckily her brother and her fiancé came to bring her home, but it left all of us tremendously sad that this could happen in this little yoga community in Mysore.
 
The practice of yoga is supposed to bring about a greater perception of our inmost nature. To be able to look at all the different patterns in our mind and build healthy patterns for greater clarity of introspection and minimize our destructive tendencies that create further suffering. In the case of Mrs. X, that is a beautiful woman in her late 20’s, the destructive tendencies unfortunately took over and spiraled out of control until her psychotic behavior started imagining things that was not real and no matter who tried to help her, she was completely shut down and immune to lifting her gaze beyond the confusion and suffering that was cluttering her mind.  The root of the problem may for sure run deep, and every person have their unique history of pleasure and pain that shape us, but perhaps the best way to help somebody in such a situation is not trying to fix them or give them another idea they need to grasp onto, but simply help them become aware of what is actually going on. Despite the complexity of her conditioning and persona unless she can learn to be with herself it is incredibly difficult to be present in life and get a clear perspective of ‘what actually is’ rather than the fantasies and projections that were eating her mind. I pray she may be able to find the support she needs when being back home with her family and for the rest of us here, we’re still a little shaken, but blatantly reminded of how fragile this life is and how we need to learn to take better care of ourselves and the people around us for less damage to affect us all.
 
A practice of yoga will certainly bring up all of our patterns. If we are going to heal them there is certainly plenty of work involved. Some people find it safer to remind ignorant and rather consume various distractions. But to be able to remain naked with all our madness, anger, fancy and ambition – and be able to see it, feel it and acknowledge it before we are thrown into the wheel of constant activity, perhaps a new glimpse of consciousness presents itself that may lead us to greater freedom rather than this continued suffering?
 
The patterns of our mind and the laws that govern cause and effect are indeed infinitely intricate and subtle and no fixed answers are given, but hopefully from creating some greater awareness of how they are operating, something expands from within and our limited confused Ego may no longer imprison us, but perhaps neutralize a little and give us a new perspective of being.