The Mystery of Happiness

Mystical Union

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:05:15 +0000

One's life philosophy is not an abstract matter; it has to serve one's daily life. Joseph Campbell, whose guiding idea was expressed as "the commonality of themes in world myths," was once asked by the interviewer Bill Moyers, "You're talking about a search for the meaning of life?" "No, no, no," he replied. "For the experience of being alive."

The glue for this unity with the world is a kind of love that extends and dedifferentiates one from others, from things, and ultimately from the universe. John R. Howe, in The Road Within, asks, "Is there a ladder between Heaven and Earth?" There is no "here"; there is no "I" to stand independently. One does not view the world; one is dissolved in it. Enlarging our boundaries by loving is a gradual but progressive growth of the self, incorporating within ourselves the world outside. In short, the more we extend ourselves, which means the more we embrace the universe, the less clear and less important are the distinctions between the self and the world. In fact, we may lose our boundaries and become totally identified with the world. The closest we can come to this feeling of ecstasy is when we fall in love. But, as M. Scott Peck tells in his book The Road Less Traveled, there is a major difference:

The feeling of ecstasy or bliss associated with mystical union, while perhaps more gentle than that associated with falling in love, is nonetheless much more stable and lasting. It is the difference between the peak experience, typified by falling in love, and what Abraham Maslow has referred to as the "plateau experience." The heights are not suddenly glimpsed and lost again; they are attained forever.

It is interesting that the confirmation of such "mystical union" comes from an entirely unexpected source - quantum physics. In his book The Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot points out that, although at the level of our everyday lives things have specific locations, at the subquantum level, location ceases to exist. All points in space become equal to all other points in space. Thus, it becomes meaningless to speak of anything as being separate from anything else.

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. author of The Art of Serenity

The Communion with Nature

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:50:26 +0000

We are all vulnerable, partly because we are totally exposed. As John O'Donohue says, although this very exposure allows us to have positive experiences, such as smelling the roses, seeing the waves and stars, and reading the hieroglyphics of the human condition, it also makes us feel unsheltered. His cosmic view is that one is surrounded by infinite space without physical shelter. This is why from the very beginning human beings have sought security, initially in caves and subsequently in houses. The desire for such strong physical shelters is a reflection of the sense of the openness of space, that anything can approach or attack the temple of one's life from all sides. Whereas home ideally offers shelter from this threat, it too is vulnerable. No man-made walls are strong enough to keep destructive forces away. Thus, the human body itself becomes a fragile home.

Ironically, the more human beings try to shelter ourselves, the more vulnerable we become. Only by being inseparable from the world does one secure his or her boundaries. Such a secure harmony is dependent on being in union with one's environment.

One of the underappreciated lessons of the Greek myth of Odysseus is its reference to the importance of being alone. In that story, when his ship was torn apart and the members of the crew thrown overboard, Odysseus clung to a mast and finally landed onshore. His first words were "Alone at last, Alone at last."

One patient's defensive maneuvers against intrusions was, paradoxically, always seeking to be surrounded by other people. Not friends, because he didn't have any and insisted he didn't believe in friendship. On the surface, he seemed to be a very social person, but in fact he was counterphobically seeking others to defend himself against. Reassured by their presence, he pursued his determination to keep his boundaries. One would think that such a person would rather be alone. But, in fact, he was most vulnerable to his most frightening feelings in solitude. Therefore, he made sure that he was never alone, which is why he got married in spite of his lack of interest in sexual or personal intimacy.

The deprivation of solitude is the cause of many manifestations of psychological and physiological distress. Being with other people for long periods of time, no matter how loving, wonderful, and interesting they may be, interferes with one's biopsychological rhythm. People interfere with one's synchrony with nature as well as with one's authentic self. Like all of nature, human beings are biologically programmed. Our psyche's interference with the physical rhythms and cycles is detrimental to our bodies, only to be negatively resonated, in return. This vicious circle is a distinctly human phenomenon. No other living creature steps out of pace with nature and survives. Chronobiology (the biology of time) asserts that our bodies have an internal rhythm or music, which we not only can but should tune in to.

In his book Solitude: A Return to the Self, Anthony Storr writes about the Antarctic explorer Admiral Richard Byrd, who searched for solitude in order to "sink roots into some replenishing philosophy." The explorer had reported that, upon being in the Antarctic at a remote weather base, he felt he was at one with the great natural forces of the cosmos, which he described as harmonious and soundless: "It was enough to catch that rhythm momentarily to be myself a part of it. In that instant I could feel no doubt of man's oneness with the universe." Similarly, Henry David Thoreau, in the quiet of Walden Pond, said, "When the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through ever pore...I go and come with a strange liberty in nature, a part of herself." Both solitary men, in effect, found themselves in nature.

Solitude not only synchronizes the body with nature but also reinforces our belonging to a larger presence, setting the stage for enlightenment and transformation. Storr tells us that enlightenment came to Buddha while he was meditating beneath a tree on the banks of the Nairanjana River. Both St. Matthew and St. Luke report that Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness undergoing temptation by the devil before returning to proclaim his message of repentance and salvation. Similarly, each year during the month of Ramadan, Muhammad withdrew himself from the world to the cave of Hera. And St. Catherine of Siena spent three years in seclusion in her tiny room in the Via Benincasa undergoing a series of mystical experiences, which preceded her entrance to an active life of teaching and preaching.

Solitude puts the individual in touch with his or her deepest feelings and allows time for previously unrelated thoughts and feelings to interact, to regroup themselves into new formations and combinations, and thus to bring harmony to the mind.

In a reciprocal state, the more one is in contact with one's own inner world, the more he will establish connections with the external world. The more estranged or split from nature we are, the more nature seems dangerous and malignant. People who tend to regard nature as a source of primary goodness and wisdom are more likely to experience instances of intimation of mystical union, and immortality.

In being alone, one can either be painfully lonely or in peaceful solitude. Just as one can be alone in the presence of someone else, one cannot be alone in the absence of someone else. One develops this solitude in early childhood in the mother's presence. In adulthood this ability to be alone is dependent on whether one has achieved an internal sense of presence of a reassuring mother. Nature can fill that maternal role regardless of whether one had such a mother. The capacity for solitude enables us, when alone, to be free to experience what is idiosyncratic in us.

The cynical saying that some people yearn for eternity but wouldn't know what to do with themselves on a sunny Sunday afternoon, never mind a rainy one, is not all that incorrect. We quickly jump to make phone contacts or arrange a date, to meet someone, at times even someone we may not enjoy being with. Being alone generates anxiety if one does not cultivate being with one's own self. It is interesting that people are often advised not to be alone, to go out, set up lunch and dinner dates, to avoid aloneness by every possible means. This advice is in part because aloneness is so commonly associated with loneliness. This misconception is what generates an anxious dependency.

In fact, if one can tolerate the first few times of being alone and not spend that time watching TV or arranging social engagements, anxiety eventually subsides and is replaced with an uncommon calmness-provided the person, in his solitude, reflects on his or her life.

The actual place and psychological activities this solitude would entail may vary. A great deal depends on the individual's skills and imagination. The context should be stable but free from content and form. Inner imaginations may take the form of writing, building furniture, photography, gardening, playing musical instruments, or the like. These activities emanate from within. They are the objectification of one's subjective state. They are not activities from outside, such as listening to music, reading a book, or watching sports. Those are also important, entertaining, and enriching experiences, but they are primarily taking in external life. At a deeper level, they embody the objective world, in other words, changing from a passive experience to an active one. At times such activities emerge when one sets the silent stage for them by establishing a private space for solitude.

One frequently hears people complain about partners, parents, or even children who intrude into their "space" or do not allow them "to be." This need for psychological space, for time-out from relatedness, can occur as early as infancy. This disengagement is of equal importance with engagement at any age. If one lives in a family or environment that does not respect the need for private space, one can experience its absence as a suffocation of the self, a denial of personhood or, in Leonard Shengold's term, a form of "soul murder."

A private space is an extension of self and doesn't require an elaborate stone tower as Jung has described. All you have to do is identify a small area in the house, designed and decorated solely for your purpose and interest, wherein you can retreat undisturbed and uninterrupted. It could also be a specific outdoor place, in the park, in the woods, or by the river, a personally chosen temple where you can withdraw from daily activities and interactions in silence. Once you come to prefer the silence of a house of worship to all its holy activities you'll begin to experience some intimations of perfect harmony. As the writer and poet Franz Kafka said, in a similar vein: There, you listen. "You need not even listen, simply wait. You need not even wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will writhe in ecstasy at your feet."

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. author of The Art of Serenity

Nature Is Transformative

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:15:29 +0000

Joseph Campbell tells the story of how a Zen master stood up before his students to deliver a sermon. Just as he was about to open his mouth, a bird sang. The Zen master proclaimed, "The sermon has been delivered." Nature is a natural teacher. All you need is to read its sacred scripture. A student had neither harmony with nature nor any idea what he could learn from this master. What a great teacher nature is, if one can participate in it. But the student was just an observer, and a contentious one at that.

In nature, the observer remains an outsider. Hidden from nature, he can neither locate himself nor be located. The participant, by contrast, situated within nature, finds himself and is found, even if he is hidden in it.

Throughout history people of different cultures and religions have gravitated to their respective sites of power and beauty, such as the river Ganges (India), the Western Wall (Jerusalem), the Temple at Delphi (Greece), and St. Peter's Basilica (Rome), in order to seek personal transformation. Yet nature itself is the ultimate transformer. As Wendell Berry says, "Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine-which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes."

In nature we are confronted everywhere, even in a simple garden, with wonders-but we have to seek divinity within them. In their book Spiritual Literacy, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat advise us to spend time in a flower garden. But we are to make sure that our visit is long enough to take in the various charms provided by the universe of blossoms, stems, and petals. Whatever way we choose to spend our time, we should be aware that we are gracious guests in someone else's home-nature's abode-so we must act accordingly.

We should be bathed by the rays and feel the way flowers must feel as the sun shines on them. We should gaze at the great beauty and variety of blooms, their diverse shapes and colors, and the way each is different yet part of the world of flowers. We should use all our senses, hearing the sounds of blossoms in the breeze, and smelling the fragrance of the flowers, separately and together, and experience the garden's vulnerability and its infinity. If you really touch one flower, you touch the whole world, say the Sufis.

As Scott Russell Sanders says in his book Staying Put, one's spiritual center is also a geographical one: one cannot live a grounded life without being grounded in a place. By belonging to a landscape, one feels a rightness, an at-homeness, a knitting of self and world. This sense of clarity and focus, of being fully present, is likened to what in Buddhism is called mindfulness, what Christian contemplatives refer to as recollection, and what Quakers call centering down.

Whether at Stonehenge or in a field of flowers, human beings need to find a place to commune with nature in order to be grounded, so that we can afford to launch a spiritual pilgrimage. It is only by becoming a part of the sacredness of nature that one may unearth his spiritual self. It is there waiting for the transformation.

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. is the author of, The Art of Serenity

Look Back

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:55:47 +0000

John Wheeler, an eminent physicist, wrote, "The past, the present, and the future are all unreal as independent entities, but real as a unity." This recognition should tame our preoccupation with "now," our agony of the past as well as anxiety about the future. A patient's attempt at denial of the importance of the past and the future is a way of defending against anxiety. In return this anxiety deprives one of living in the present. The patient couldn't get beyond his mind.

The German philosopher Ernst Block has this epitaph on his gravestone in Tübingen: Denken heist überschreiten, "To think is to go beyond," which means recognizing and going beyond the frontiers of thinking. The mind can relate only to what it can sense and touch, smell what gives scent, hear what makes sound, and see what is visually present. It can abstract and extrapolate, intellectualize and speculate. All this exists within the mind-made concept of time and space. If we look for things that can be seen, that is what we will see. If we look for things that cannot be seen, beyond the concept of time and space, beyond the enclosure of the mind, then the revelation of unity will come to embrace us with serenity.

Some people fear not only that precious time will be wasted in looking back, but that even a quick glance is a diverting form of sentimentalism or, worse, that such backward looking may paralyze the person and leave him frozen in time. A patient even cited the common misinterpretation of the story of Lot's wife to give weight to his argument: When God destroyed the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, he permitted Lot and his wife to flee on the condition that they not look back. But Lot's wife did look back, and she was instantly turned into a pillar of salt. He dismissed the alternative explanation: Maybe it was the torrent of her tears, her grief over her loss of the past, that turned her to salt.

Those who do not look back deprive themselves of continuity with their own past, which forms the present. Our early relationships live in our current ones, even though we may not be conscious of them. Our present moods, thoughts, and feelings have a real a priori basis. It is known that our personal unconscious is formed with our own specific circumstances in life and powerfully influences most of our behavior. There is another, less well known but equally if not more powerful unconscious we all have: the archetypal-the collective-unconscious. It is multigenerational, inherited, and tribal. Together the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious form an individual's specific unconscious.

The artchetypal unconscious is inherited in two ways. The first is the genetic one, through the direct incorporation of cell memories of previous generations. The genetically imprinted material passes from our ancestors to us through lineage. The "genetic" transmission in the memories of the unconscious is not limited to the actual passing of genes. Even through the transplantation of cells, one can acquire such memories. In fact, some transplant patients have reported a remarkable experience after having received a donated organ, such as a heart, liver, or kidney. Without knowing anything about the organ donor, they begin to participate in his or her memories!
The second form of archetypal inheritance is the tribal one, perpetuated through our myths. Some expand to the whole of humankind. Such mythical transmission of unconscious knowledge, experience, and memories is a collective source of the human psyche. At times only this archetypal perspective can deal with questions that are insoluble at the individual level.

Therapists frequently are puzzled and frustrated by the lack of success in their work with some patients, who may diligently regress, discover repressed early personal experiences and work through the conflicts of some of their personal unconscious but still maintain the symptoms and behaviors that brought them to therapy. This is because they haven't dealt with their archetypal unconscious. The archetypal unconscious always preempts the personal unconscious.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

Facing the World with Soul

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:36:24 +0000

One does not lose one's self by conviviality-living together with other beings and things-in fact, one can only find one's self in it. In his famous essay "Self-Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source." The subjective sense of self is best experienced by being part of a greater choir, by blurring or blending of boundaries between human and animal, or between animals and vegetation, light and space. Natural scientists agree with the Aristotelian thesis of a great "chain of being" that connects all classes of living things (as well as nonliving things) along a gradual progression of differences.

From animals, to vegetation, to earth, and to air, all is continuous and homogeneous. This homogeneity is not just a matter of form but goes to the essence, just as water becomes homogeneous with earth in the plant. The world and everything in it are close or distant relatives. In Robert Sardello's recent book Facing the World with Soul, he says that our bodies reflect the body of the world. In this sense, the human body is a universal body. Our cells correspond to the particles of the environment. Molecules that make up a human body, a tree, and a river are very similar. As we eat fruits, vegetables, fish, chicken and mammals, they become part of us. Our muscles, skin, hearts, and brains are developed and maintained by what we eat. Ultimate processing and DNA differentiations are variations of the same existence. We are part of nature, no different from a bird being part of nature. At the natural end of life, our disintegrated remains have the same chemical components. We start with two mobile cell donations, and we end with millions of immobile ones. Although our ultimate shape is predetermined by the genes contained in these two original cells, the substance that sustains our spectacular growth comes from the environment. "We are what we eat" is literally correct, plus the two original cells.

Even illnesses are part of the universe. In their new science of Darwinian medicine, Drs. Randolph M. Nesse and George C. Williams suggest that diseases do not result from random or malevolent forces but ultimately arise from past natural selection. Moreover, perhaps paradoxically, the same capacities that benefit humans can also make them vulnerable. The authors give the example of autoimmune disease and its remarkable ability to confer benefits as well as endanger the body. Aging and death also are not random but rather are compromises struck by natural selection to maximize the transmission of our genes. One may find a gentle satisfaction, even a bit of meaning, from attributing the significance of our individual existences to a larger reference point: nature. Joyful and graceful life derives from the recognition, appreciation, and celebration of this unity.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

Boundless Communion

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:37:26 +0000

Here are two poems, one from an ancient Welsh text, the other from a Sufi poet, thousands of miles and decades away from each other, revealing that same mystery of being in communion with the world.

I am the wind that breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave on the ocean,
I am the murmur of leaves rustling,
I am the rays of the sun,
I am the beam of the moon and stars,
I am the power of trees growing,
I am the bud breaking into blossom,
I am the movement of the salmon swimming,
I am the courage of the wild boar fighting,
I am the speed of the stag running,
I am the strength of the ox pulling the plough,
I am the size of the mighty oak,
And I am the thoughts of all people,
Who praise my beauty and grace.
--"The Black Book of Carmathan"

I am dust particles in sunlight.
I am the round sun.
I am morning mist, and the breathing of evening.
I am wind in the top of a grove,
And surf on the cliff.
Mast, rudder, helmsman, and keel,
I am also the coral reef they founder on.
I am a tree with a trained parrot in its branches.
Silence, thought, and voice.
The musical air coming through a flute, a spark of a stone,
a flickering
in metal. Both candle, and the moth crazy around it.
Rose, and the nightingale lost in the fragrance.
I am all orders of being, the circling galaxy, and the falling
away.
What is, and what isn't. You who know
Jalālu'l-Din, You the one
in all, say who
I am, Say I
am You.
--Jalālu'l-Dīn Rūmi

In the ancient image, a drop of water in the ocean is indistinguishable from any other drop. The ocean exists only in convivium (living together) with all the drops. With humans, conviviality requires some degree of sacrifice of one's self-centeredness and joining as part of the communal life. It means focusing not on one's own success but that of the community at large, striving to own things not individually but commonly. That means investing one's energy and resources in communal properties, such as parks, museums, forests, lakes, clean air and water supplies. IT means appreciating simply life, honoring virtues, promoting a measure of asceticism in the large sense of the world and, yes, even as simple an act as recycling. We do have extraordinary examples of such convivialtity by a number of individuals who would not consider themselves more than ordinary: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and John Cronin, Susan Seacrest, and Veer Bhadra Misha's fights to protect the world's waterways from being polluted: Mary Barley's work to save the Everglades from human plunder; Christine Jean's attempts to establish an estuary to harbor wildlife; David Kopenawa Yanomami's effort in the Amazon.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

The Spiritual Healing

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 14:28:24 +0000

The human mind can heal itself and the body naturally, provided that the mind makes room for the spirit to coexist with it. The healer, therefore, would help the patient to heal himself by simply helping him commune with the spiritual nature. Paracelsus, the great sixteenth-century Swiss healer said, "The physician is only the servant of nature, not her master." Similarly, the healer's role is not to impose upon nature but to observe, to appreciate, to witness, and to commune with.

Those who are impoverished in their spiritual world tend deep down to have a depressive disposition. They steadily spew out anger and disapproval, and chant criticism filled with pessimism and ingratitude. The psychologist Timothy Miller purposely rewords a famous song in order to express such negative sentiment:

I see hungry kids and hopeless men-And futile wars
No one can win,
And I think to myself-What a terrible world.

This is contrasted with Bob Thiele's and George David Weiss's first cadenza of their original song, "What a Wonderful World," which portrays sacred optimism, evoking gratitude in everyday living:

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow.
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know:
And I think to myself-What a wonderful world.

It is the same world, but perceived with two very different views. Miller tells us how to deal with this contrast in his book How to Want What you Have. When you are chronically pessimistic, negativistic, and ungrateful, he recommends that you take another look at the world. If you purge yourself of resentment, envy, or disappointment, you will find something to be grateful about. Such gratitude can be as obvious as being thankful for being fed, feeling warm, and being loved or as subtle as appreciating the small delights of nature. Gratitude may not naturally come to us because we seem to take for granted what we have. In fact, we seem always to be wanting more than we have. Miller suggests a simple practice of picking an object in your immediate surroundings and seeing "if you find a way that it might evoke gratitude."

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

Enlightenment is Simplicity

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:32:13 +0000

Only what happens to you is your sacred teacher, follow the observation of Berrien Berends, whether you get old, lose a loved one, or become ill. The secret, Berends says, is to learn to sit at the feet of your life and be taught. That means being constantly alert to your experience and always being receptive to life's teachings. Even in ordinary living, never mind for such Job-like sufferings, no one is really an expert. A good teacher sometimes knows that he has nothing to say. The best teaching emanates from what happens to the teacher and how he lives. That is why in a famous Hasidic tale of how to teach-and learn-a disciple goes to see his Rebbe not to hear what he has to say but to watch closely how he ties his shoelaces.

Self-healing through enlightenment is not a highly complicated, mystical or philosophical achievement. It is a return to the simplicity of life. Transcendence isn't a supernatural striving but a potentially natural occurrence. Yet, by our psychologizing, interpreting, and medicating attitude, we treat ourselves as objects. Even our ordinary physical acts are laced with many unnatural layers. We don't simply eat, we dine, we have power lunches, we balance our diet. We don't simply sleep, we want REM, we want to record our dreams and bring them for interpretation. We don't simply have sex, we want to make a statement with sex, a commitment or its avoidance, we send messages through sex, we want to exercise power, display superiority or rejection. No wonder we frequently have problems in eating, sleeping, and making love.

No therapy, no medication, and no meditation returns to us our natural existence unless we stop searching or imposing meanings on our bodily functions. All these visceral functions are regulated by the "old" part of the brain, the subcortical system. The intrusion of the human mind, the cortical system, into visceral activities generates turmoil, not enlightenment. The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying tells this Zen story:

The disciple asked his Master:
"Master, how do you put enlightenment into action?"
"By eating and by sleeping," answered the master:
The disciple was perplexed. "But Master, everybody sleeps and everybody eats."
To this the Master replied, "But not everybody eats when they eat, and not everybody sleeps when they sleep."

This kind of spiritual simplicity isn't an extraordinary occurrence belonging only to Zen masters. In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, such enlightenment is described as "something not exotic, not fantastic, not for an elite, but for all of humanity...it is unexpectedly ordinary. Spiritual truth is not something elaborate and esoteric, it is in fact profound common sense...It is not being some omnipotent spiritual superman, but becoming at last a true human being." In this sense, it is no wonder that Buddhist tradition calls the nature of mind "the wisdom of ordinariness." Yes, our true nature and the nature of all beings is not something unreal and out of reach. The irony is that it is our so-called ordinary and real world that is extraordinary and fantastic.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

Pain Inflicted on the Wound

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 18:00:57 +0000

There is only one thing I dread: Not to be
worthy of my suffering.

--Viktor E. Frankl

We do not know what is being healed with sufferings, says Gary Zukav in the Seat of the Soul. Each person who comes through this world is called upon, at some time or other, to bear some of the weight of the pain that befalls the world. To assist in carrying this pain a little farther for others is a precious calling, although it may also be experienced as a difficult or isolating time in one's life. In Eternal Echoes John O'Donohue tells of a subtle brightening that resides behind that darkness as he explains the meaning of the Cross in Christianity, and enduring symbol of the transfiguration of pain. Both pain and darkness were carried up the hill of Calvary so that they could face the new dawn of Resurrection and become transfigured. In this sense, the Cross and the Resurrection are united. One does not succeed the other in time or space. Rather, the Resurrection can be viewed as the inner light that remains hidden at the heart of darkness in the Cross. In Christian terms, there is no way to light or glory except by passage through the dark weight of the Cross.

Suffering is the shadow of divine light, and its embedded divinity inspires the ultimate harmony. One's progress from pain to harmony and darkness to light is found in the celebrated allegory of the cave in Plato's Republic. The myth starts with a somber portrayal of the human condition. Men sit in the darkness of a cave, their backs to the light, able to see only shadows on the wall they face. When one of the men turns around, he sees no objects but the light itself, the light that has cast their shadows.

Some old traditions say that no man is adult until he has become opened to the soul and spirit world, and they say that such an opening is done by a wound in the right place, at the right time, in the right company. A wound allows the spirit or soul to enter.

--Robert Bly

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity

God of Saturn

T. Byram Karasu, M.D. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:05:19 +0000

In ancient Greece, depression was identified with the god Saturn. If a young person got depressed, he was called a child of Saturn, and he was believed to have suffered an aging of his soul. Otherwise, every adult eventually would reach a natural Saturn-the melancholy of the loss of youth. The vitality and sensuality of everyday life with its colorful existence would fade away, and the older person would carry a dignified halo of sacred melancholy around him, not unlike the rings of the planet Saturn.

Those who do not come to terms with their age may get away with it for a few years. Eventually, however, disappointments, rejection, and even ridicule will mercilessly tear down the fantasy of eternal youth, making holes in one's assumptions and illusions, and generating fears bordering on panic and fragmentation.

My father once told me an amusing but painful story about Jean-Paul Sartre's encounter with his own aging. Sartre was known as a flirt and a womanizer. Throughout his youth he lived as a ladies' man. His activities, including his numerous writings, all were subordinated to his interest in women. He would accept or refuse speaking arrangements not on the basis of whether the audience would be intellectually challenging, or whether the fee was high enough, but on the basis of whether it would be largely a female audience, and more so, whether the talk, was organized in such a way that he would be able to intermingle with them socially before or after the talk, and, hopefully, seduce one or two. Even though physically he was not an attractive man, most women responded to his seductions, and he had many affairs. He never stopped chasing women. Unless he was loved by the last woman he wanted, he felt unlovable. Thus, he was in a chronic state of pursuing women, always anxious in anticipation and depressed afterward, regardless of the outcome. As he was aging, his preoccupation with desirability intensified. One day in Paris, as he entered a crowded bus, he saw a young woman sitting in the front. He elbowed himself toward her. For a moment as he got the young woman's glance, he felt encouraged and struggled with other passengers on his way to her. Finally, when he was next to her, the young woman stood up and gave her seat to him.

If one doesn't age gracefully, one will age embarrassingly. Acceptance of aging brings with it a ripe sadness and a light anxiety, validating the losses that have already occurred. Denial of aging brings a raw depression and a dark anxiety, invalidating one's self. The feeling of melancholy with its slowly maturing influence will bring out the depth and flavor of one's character. One does not have a choice with aging, but one has the choice of either suffering from it or enjoying its benefits. These benefits are difference from those of youthful years; nevertheless, they are there. The only alternative is the starvation that comes from inconsolable yearning for one's youthfulness.

The melancholy of aging gives weight and density to one's personality. It distills the various lifelong experiences into a meaningful whole, giving them a firm grounding. It allows one's thoughts, beliefs, and values to coalesce into a life philosophy. The frightening, immense emptiness that melancholy seems to carve out in one's soul is transitory, and it is a preparatory stage for the sacredness of aging, which will fill a much larger space.

T. Byram Karasu, MD is the author of The Art of Serenity