INSANITY IS THE ABSENCE OF LOVE/SANITY IS THE PRESENCE OF LOVE
Ozodi Thomas Osuji

     Psychologists, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals have written tons of literature on the putative causes of the various mental disorders.  At present, Neuroscientists tell us that most mental disorders are caused by biological factors: schizophrenia, by excess of the neurotransmitter, dopamine; mania, by excess of the neurotransmitter, norepinephrine; depression, by deficiency in the neurotransmitter, serotonin; anxiety by deficiency of the neurotransmitter, GABA and so on. All these alleged causal factors probably have some merits. For example, Schizophrenics have 500% more dopamine in their brains than so-called normal persons.

       However, I think that these observers, while contributing to our understanding of mental disorders, are, largely, taking the tree for the forest. Certain types of disordered thinking, for example, can also raise the observed neurotransmitters in the brain. If the individual’s thought is filled with fear, he tends to arouse excitatory neurotransmitters, such as acetylcholine, while reducing inhibitory neurotransmitters, such as GABA and Endorphin. Thinking can produce anxiety disorder, depression, mania, delusion disorder, even schizophrenia.

      Whereas problematic neurotransmitters seem implicated in mental disorders, I think that all mental disorders, in the final analysis, are caused by the absence of love; better put, by thinking not influenced by love.  Thus, whereas patients of these disorders need to take their prescribed psychotropic medications to deal with the implicated neurotransmitters in their specific disorders, they also need to be taught the art of love.

       I think that human beings are so in need of love that when love is missing in their lives, particularly during their formative years, ages 1-18, they develop mental and or personality disorders.  Of course, biological and social factors contribute to mental disorders but those are probably not their primary causal agents; in fact, those may actually result from the absence of loving care for children.

      Where these disorders now exist, clearly, there is need for both medicinal and psychological interventions to address them, the psychological aspect being, I think, infusion of love and nurturing. 

       One is not proposing an either or solution to the seeming intractable problem of mental disorders; instead, one proposes a multimodal approach that includes medications, love and cognitive behavior therapy.

       So far, there is no conclusive evidence that only problematic neurotransmitters cause mental disorders although those neurotransmitters are disordered in the mentally ill. For example, if you give individuals L-dopa you raise the level of dopamine in their brains’ dopamine receptor cells, but that does not necessarily make them to hallucinate (and delusional) as would be expected in schizophrenia.

     If the individual has love in his life and believes in God, the chances are that artificially elevating dopamine in his brain would not generate psychosis in him. It is known that some persons, upon taking central nervous system stimulants, such as cocaine, amphetamine, even caffeine, tend to behave in a paranoid manner, but not all persons who take these drugs so behave. In most cases the person who behaves in a paranoid manner, upon ingesting stimulants, had a premorbid personality that was suspicious, guarded and untrusting of other people, a personality probably produced by childhood insecurity, by absence of love in his formative years. At any rate, the prognosis for improvement for drug induced paranoia tends to be better for folks who do not have preexisting paranoid personality.

      As I see people, they crave love and must have love and if you do not give it to them they would do anything to get it, including becoming behaving like clowns and or mentally ill.

        People’s craving for love, I think, is rooted in the fact that their nature is love and when they do not have love in their lives their nature is violated and they go crazy.  I think, in fact, I know that we are by nature love. 

      Love is union. In nature we are unified. When we separated from each other so as to be on planet earth, the abode of space, time and matter, we no longer feel loved. On earth, apriori, we feel separated room each other, hence from love. In separation we feel psychologically incomplete, hence sick.

       If those around us do not love us, they exacerbate our sense of not been complete and we become insane. But, if while on earth, those around us love us, I mean care for us, meet our emotional and physical needs, particularly during childhood, we tend to become partially sane, in appropriate language, normal.

     On earth, normalcy is what passes for sanity; however, normalcy is only partial sanity; complete sanity can only obtain in a totally unified state, which is possible only in a non-material state, spirit, not in a material state, our world.

BODY, MADE TO PREVENT LOVE

      If you looked at human beings bodies and approached them as mere bodies, you would not love them. As mere bodies they are not different from animals.

      Animals and trees are composed of the same elements, atoms and particles. They are part of physics (natura). From this perspective, they are nothing special; nature certainly does not treat them as if they are important, for it wipes thousands of people off, at any time; a recent (2004) tsunami wiped off thousands of people in East Asia . 

       If you accepted a naturalistic perspective on phenomena, you would not respect human beings and certainly would not see any need to love them. Cut down a tree, shoot an animal for sport, and kill a human being, what is the difference?  All you did was decompose their bodies and have them return to the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen, calcium, sodium,  potassium, magnesium, phosphor, magnesium, and the other elements that form their bodies, no big deal. 

       Simply stated, as mere bodies, human beings are nothing special and one can destroy them, as nature destroys them without regard for their fancied worth, without any qualm of conscience, without feeling like one did right or wrong. Morality is a luxury in dealing with nature.

       Apparent as it may seem that human beings are just like other animals, they are not only their bodies. There is something else in them. That something else has no name, though to differentiate it from matter we can call it spirit, if by spirit is meant non-material being.

       The non non-material aspect of people is love. The true nature of human beings is love.  When a human being is not loved, he is no longer living in his natural state and suffers psychological and physical pain. It is only in love that human beings feel at home and happy. (Metaphysically, love, the non-material aspect of people, is unified, has intelligence and is eternal.)

      The subject of body and its contribution to lack of love for human beings need further exploration. Consider men’s attitude towards women.

         In most traditional societies, the world over, men did not take women seriously. Women were relegated to minor roles in society. In the 1970s, Western feminists believed that they understood why women were socially marginalized and talked ad nausea about what they called patriarchy. They employed Marxists class analysis and its categories of understanding and told us that men constitute a class who served their class interests by oppressing another class, women.  It all sounded simple and many of these women actually believed their own lies. 

      Men asked: since women wanted to understand why men marginalized them why don’t they ask men why they did what they did rather than imputing Marxist ideological categories to men?

      During their teenage years, most boys want to have sex with girls. They are preoccupied with the desire for sex with girls. Eventually, they do so.  Generally, they are disappointed by their sexual experience. They see the whole exercise as ridiculous, animal and filthy; something that were it possible to be avoided.

       They see sexual intercourse as degrading (to animal level). They draw the logical inference that since women were the persons attracting them to engage in this seeming degrading activity that women must be degraded (animalizing) beings.    

      To avoid reduction to animal, hence inferior status, men conclude that women ought to be separated from men, and related to mostly for procreative purposes or in so far that the sex urge is powerful.

        This reasoning is manifested in traditional societies who invariably saw women as inferior creatures (read, animalizing creatures).  Ancient Greece saw women as filthy creatures to be tolerated only for procreative and sexual purposes. In many contemporary African societies menstruating women cannot be permitted to enter the same room as men. They were considered unclean.  Muslim practices cover women from head to toe to deemphasize their sexual allure to men, to reduce the distraction to sexual pursuits so that men would concentrate on spiritual matters.

       Women remind men of their animal nature and men would rather not want that remembrance every moment of their lives.

        Women are the embodiment of bodies; and men would rather be bodiless reason.  Thus, to operate at a more rational level, men kept women away from them. When women are present, thoughts of sex, that is, body/animality, enter men’s minds, but when women are not present, men think about more elevated subjects like philosophy and how to organize their society.

      Sex is an animal activity and those that engage in it feel like animals hence lower than the god-like state men would like to see themselves as at.  This largely accounted for traditional societies relegating women to inferior social status. It is not because of women lack of intelligence, they are as intelligent as men, that they were “oppressed” by men, but because of their bodies and what bodies symbolize for men, inferiority.

      If you want men to respect women you must deemphasize women’s sexuality, for sex, like it or not, is an animalizing factor in human existence. Men feel elevated to the extent that they avoid sex, as in celibacy. In fact, in most traditional societies, before men embark on difficult acts they are told to avoid sex and the presence of women, so as not to be tempted by flesh and its weakness.

         Having stated this truth, a truth that feminists unconsciously did not want to recognize, for it would deflate their self esteem, the rational thing to do is for men to accept that beneath the mask of women’s bodies is a divine being and, as such, women are the same as men and must be respected and loved. We must love all human beings despite their bodies’ tendency to make us not wanting to respect and love them.

OBSTACLES TO LOVE

       Alas, on earth, in body, in space and time, human beings cannot be completely in love, in their true state, for, on earth, by definition, they are in the abode of non-love; they are in the world of separation from union.

       Perfect union is perfect love. Perfect union is impossible in the world of separation, space, time and matter. Perfect union is only possible in a non-material world, in the world of spirit.

       On earth, people cannot be totally in love and since to be in love is to be sane, on earth people cannot be totally sane, they can only attain partial sanity, normalcy. 

        Those who were loved by their significant others and society tend to be normal, that is, partially sane; those who were not loved by their primary care givers in childhood and or were rejected by their dominant society (such as black persons in America who, apriori, were rejected by sadistic white society) tend to develop insanity (at a higher rate, anyway).

       Love is sanity, lack of love is insanity. The various mental disorders are expressions of lack of love in their victims’ lives.

       Since the absence of love caused insanity, the presence of love heals insanity. To heal the mentally ill, which are all people in degrees, is to love them. When we create an environment that replicates heaven’s total love we shall produce sane human beings. In the meantime, as long as society does every thing to generate hate, people will not be completely sane.

      Consider African societies. Until the twentieth century, people in Africa pounced on each other, captured weak persons and sold them into slavery. This was not exactly acts of love. To the present, African children are seldom loved beyond the first six years of their lives before they are abandoned by their parents and left to fend for themselves. (If you are an African and are tempted to feel defensive, before you become defensive, please tell us when your parents last hugged you?  How old were you? I left for secondary boarding school at age twelve and can swear that since then none of my parents has touched me; and by African standards they are the most loving Africans on earth!)

       I believe that the absence of genuine love in African societies largely account for the fact that most Africans have personality, if not mental disorders. For example, Africans must be sick to engage in the type of corruption they engage in, stealing from their people and not working for their people’s welfare. 

        A sane person identifies with his people’s welfare and works for their common good; a sane person does not steal from his people.

        The Africans I see seem to take pleasure in desecrating each other, putting each other down rather than building each other up, hence are insane. Igbo persons will do everything in their power to show the world that you are no good but will not lift a finger to help you out; indeed, they would rather pull you down. Such behaviors are found in persons with personality disorders, and in those with outright mental disorders. The saddest part of it all is that those engaged in this behavior do not even know that they are mentally ill. Every time you say something nasty, something that is not loving and kind about another person you are insane.

         I believe that the one thousand years (900-1900 AD; Arab and European slavery) slave culture Africans lived under had warped their psychological states, so much so, that they can no longer love one another but can only work against one another. In fact, it is doubtful that many Africans know what love is! You seldom hear Africans employ the word love in their conversations. All they do is talk of politics and yet they cannot govern themselves well; they see politics as neurotic opportunity for the individual politician to seem superior to other people, not as an opportunity to serve other people. Contemporary Africans have to be systematically taught the nature of love and to love one another.

      One is not implying that other races are better than Africans. I am an African and deal with African issues and leave it to non-Africans to deal with their issues. If I may butt my self into European matters may I ask:  how loving are Europeans? Is it love to train your male children for the sole purpose of sending them to war at age 18, to go kill and get killed?  Is it love to train children to fit the requirements of factories and other work situations and consider them successful only to the extent that they do well at work?  You be the judge.

      However, if truth is said, my perception is that white folk, on the whole, tend to care for their children much longer than Africans do. I would say that loving stops for most African children at age six and for most European children at age thirteen. 

       But, on the whole, all extant human cultures do not love and we might say that contemporary human beings are anti-love and produce people with relative insanity.

     Love is the most important thing in life. In fact, without love we are nothing.

WHAT IS SICKNESS AND WHAT IS HEALTH?

         Sickness is separation from the whole. Heath is union with all life. To be sick is to be separated from other people, to live only for ones perceived self interests, apart from other people’s interests. To be healthy is to see ones self as the same and equal with all people and to work for our common good.

       To heal is to see that ones self interests and other people’s interests are the same and work for those common interests.

       To heal is to join with all people in Christ love. To heal is to forgive the evils people do and see the Christ in them and teach them to live out of their Christhood, which is love. To heal is to love rather than harm each other.

     No one is healed while his brothers are sick; no son of God returns home to his father without the company of his brothers.

     The prodigal son who has realized his mistakes and has come home, ended separation, closed the gap between him and God (part and whole) is sent back out again to the world to go help heal his brothers, so that all of them would finally come home.  The journey home is done in twos and threes but never alone.

A NECESSARY MYTHOLOGY FOR HEALING

        Love is not self evident in this world. What is self evident is hate. People must, therefore, be given a reason to love one another rather than hate one another. The best way to do so is to provide them with a myth of creation.

        This myth of creation is not true but is a story that attempts to show that people are the same and, as such, ought to love one another.  The following myth of creation is actually very close to the truth; however, it is not the truth, for truth cannot be explained in words.  Metaphors are attempts to articulate the nature of reality in words but are not the reality they are expressing. Mental constructs are not the reality they seek to construct.

        All people are one.  All people are unified. All people are the same. All people are equal. All people are parts of one whole (in religious language, the children of God).

       In their truth, people are not material; they are, for lack of a better term, spirit, unified spirit, infinite spirits who are one spirit.

       These assertions are true but their truth is not self evident in our world and are not verified by our empirical experience. On the contrary, our experience on earth shows us that we are separated from one another, are different, are not equal and are not spirit.

     So, how does one reconcile the assertion of oneness and the seeming reality of differences?  

      In spirit, in eternity, in heaven, in God (call it what you like, reality has no name, so whatever name makes sense to you, use it) all are unified as one. 

       Only the non-material could unify; the material must separate. In God, in spirit all are unified.

       God (the whole) is spirit. He created spirits.  One God extended himself to each of us.  One God manifested in each of us.

       As it were, God now seems in two places (or infinite places), himself (as the whole) and as each of us (as the part of the whole).

        The whole extends into a part. Now the whole is himself and his part. God (whole) is now his son (part of God). 

        God and his son, whole and part, are one. God and his son share one self and one mind, literally, not figuratively. 

      Because the part of the whole, the son of God, could seem apart from the whole, even though it is not, it is tempted to see itself as separated from the whole.  But remember that the part is also part of the whole, so to say that the part could separate from the whole is to say that the whole could separate from the part, that is, that God could separate from himself, not be he, which is impossible.  One cannot not be ones self.

      The son of God cannot separate from God, for he is part of God. Nevertheless, the son of God desired separation and since he could not accomplish that wish in reality, he seems to have done so in a dream.

       Our empirical word is the dream of the son of God; in that dream, he seems separated from his father and from his brothers.

       Each of us, a son of God, seems separated from God, the whole and from other people, other parts of the whole.

        To make our seeming separation seem real to us, we seem to house ourselves in bodies and seem to live in a world of space and time. We see space between us; it takes time for each of us to reach another.

       Each of us thinks that he begins and ends where he sees his body.  Each of us sees himself as not only separate from others but as having different interests. Each of us defends his self interests from other people’s self interests. 

      A world where folks define themselves as separated from each other and see their interests as different and defend them must be a conflicted world; it must be a world at war with itself. 

       Our world seems very real to us; we can feel space and time and our bodies.  The whole thing seems so real that it would seem to take madness to say that it is not real.

       Yet it is not real.  It is an illusion, a dream that seems real.  We make it real by defending it. Defense of an illusion makes it seem real in the defenders’ eyes.

       In our world each of us defines his self interest as different from other people’s interests. We see other people doing things that are contrary to our self interests. We see other people attacking our self-interests.

        We defend ourselves against those who appear to have attacked us. Ones self defense is then perceived by others as an attack on them. Our defense is an attack on others and they, in turn, attack us, and their attack now is defended by us. This way, the world of mutual attacks continues and we all seem separated from each other, by mutually attacking each other.  Attack and defense maintains the world of separation.

ON EARTH, FORGIVENESS IS THE TRUE MEANING OF LOVE

      But we are not separated; we are unified. How do you find out if we are unified, if we remain as God created us: unified with him and with each other and are holy?

       If someone attacks you, see his attack on you as a call for you to forgive him and teach him love.  Instead of counter attacking him, forgive him and show him love.

        Showing him love does not mean tolerating his attack.  Forgiveness does not mean condoning evil.   Forgiveness means teaching mutual help, not mutual exploitation.

     When you see other people attack you and you feel pain stop and know that they are asking for you to teach them the nature of love, for they have forgotten love.         

       Love is union. In spirit, we are always in the state of union, but forgot it when we think that we are separated from God and from each other.

        Forgiveness overlooks what is done in the state of separation, making it not seem real. When we forgive what is done in separation, on earth, we have overcome the earth, as Jesus did, and in so doing we resurrect to our true self, unified self, the Christ self. Forgiveness is correction of the error of separation and what is done in the state of separation.

    All attack is a call for love and help when love is missing. One loves by helping other people not by exploiting them, for only mentally and emotionally underdeveloped thieves exploit their fellow human beings. To love and serve is to be strong; to hate and exploit is to be weak.

     When we forgive those who did us bad, we have simultaneously forgiven the bad that we did to other people. Forgive and you are forgiven (by God, that is, our shared one self).  When you forgive others, which means when you forgive you, which means when you teach others love, when you teach you love, and you experience oneness.

        How do you know that God is true?  Forgive other people, forgive you, teach only love and you experience oneness with all creation and its creator. But until you have forgiven all people, taught only love, seen all people as the same with you, as one with you, as having the same interests with you, and helped them all rather than exploit them all, you would not experience oneness.

      Forgive and you experience your true self, love self. Forgive and you return to your true self, Christ, unified spirit, the Holy Son of God, the part that is as the whole, unified.

        All these sound religious and metaphysical. I am a realistic person. I do not like to escape into wooly metaphysics, so let us knock off the metaphysics thing. Just do I a favor, will you?  Forgive those who wronged you by teaching them love for all people. Do so and you would feel peaceful.

        Peace is not something to be sneered at. In a world at war with itself peace is a premium commodity.

         If you keep forgiving all people and working for our common interests, one fine day you would experience yourself as one with all people. This experience cannot be explained in words for it is ineffable; suddenly you experience your ego separated self disappear and there is no longer a you and a non-you, no seer and seen, no subject and object, just one self that is simultaneously infinite selves, one of which is you.

       Do not permit yourself to get lost in metaphysics, for that could become vacuous. Just look at your next door neighbor as part of you, and if there is something that he or she needs done that you could do, do it. If you are at a store and see a woman with young children, help her load her groceries into her car. I do not care what her race is, white or black, she is your sister.

          All people are your sisters and brothers, so serve their needs in the best way you can.  That is all that is asked of you: forgive and serve all.  God will do the rest. But until you forgive and serve all, God (as his whole spirit, contracted to Holy Spirit) will not do his own part. Actually he has done his part, waiting for you to do your part, forgive, and then experience the part he has already done.

DISCUSSION

       There are three levels of being: the physical, the refined physical and the non- physical. 

      We live in the world of physics, the world of space, time and matter. In that world we live in body. Body is composed of elements, atoms and particles. All things being equal, occasionally, there are mistakes in the constitution of the materials that form the body. The distortion could be caused by environmental matters or by our disordered thinking. In this light, the various mental disorders have their correlates in physics. 

        Therefore, those with mental disorders ought to see their physicians for medical intervention. The various neuroleptics do reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia; the anti mania medications do reduce the symptoms of mania; the anti depressants do reduce the symptoms of depression and the anti anxiety agents do reduce anxiety.  Medications are effective although, ultimately, they do not heal mental illness.

       In the future genetic science and genetic engineering probably would be able to fix problematic genes hence fix their role in producing unbalance neurotransmitters and electrical ionic behaviors in the nervous system.  In the meantime, a judicious application of medications and cognitive behavior therapy seem the most effective approach to treating mental disorders.

      Thinking does affect the body’s state and folk must learn to restructure their thinking. Thinking influenced by love is implicated in healthy mental status.  Love is the answer to most human problems.

      However, in the world of separation, space, time and matter, love is attenuated. As long as we live in body we have made a choice to reduce our lovingness. Those who live in body cannot totally love each other.

       Perfect love can only obtain in formless spirit, what Christians call heaven. It is in God and his heaven that people can love each other perfectly. On earth they cannot love each other perfectly. 

       An intermediary state is what Orientals call astral world, what some Catholics call purgatory, and what can be called living in light forms.  We do have bodies in light forms (made of photons of light, hence still a physical world, albeit in a more refined level). The light forms of bodies are seen in our nightly dreams and in the post physical death world.

        Those light forms operate at a different (vibration) level from the laws of physics we have on earth.  A Course in Miracles talked about the world of light forms as the happy dream, the real world, gate of heaven, the borderline between heaven and earth, a world where while we still have some wishes for separation hence seem in form, we permit the Holy Spirit, that is, love, to guide us. 

       The world of light forms is not our world.  The world of light forms is a forgiven world; it is still like our world in appearance but now forgiven, and, as such, everything in it is radiant and beautiful.

     Our extant world is a world where we must sometimes not forgive our attackers and where we must defend ourselves. Our world is the world of defense and punishment.  We must arrest and punish criminals otherwise they would kill people.

      True, in the final analysis no one kills any one. People only seem to kill each other in the world of dreams. Dream or not, that world seems real to us and we must defend our dream selves to seem alive in the dream world.

       It is impossible to be on earth and not be egoistic and defensive, for it is defense that maintains the earth, maintains the world of separated selves. Without defense, that is, practice of total forgiveness, one dies, and exits from this world.

       When Jesus decided to be defenseless, to forgive those who destroyed his body rather than defend himself and live in this world, he died. He exited from this world and resurrected in the world of light forms.

       If you want to die and exit from this world then do not defend your physical existence. Muslim terrorists do give up on this world and strap bombs on themselves and blow themselves to smithereens.

       As long as you want to live on earth, you must defend your body and your separated self. Alas, as long as you defend your separated self and the body that houses it, you must be prone to fear, depression, delusion, mania, schizophrenia and the other mental disorders.

        As long as you are in body the most that you can attain is normalcy but never mental health, for mental health requires not defending separated self and return to pure spirit, which is unified spirit, infinite spirits as one spirit self with one joined mind.

      In as much as we live in the world of dreams and its physical forms, there will be problems with our bodies and those need medical intervention. We need food for our bodies, medications for our bodies, clothes for our bodies and shelter for our bodies.  

       Nevertheless, we can learn to use our bodies to love one another, not as in the perfect love of formless spirit or the attenuated love of light forms, but as imperfect human love.

      This world is not heaven; it is not the gate of heaven, either. This world is a place of separation, space, time and matter; love in our world cannot be perfect, yet we can do our best to love one another. To the extent that we love one another we are mentally healthy, and experience peace and happiness.

CONCLUSION

       We are love (unified) but we denied that love and see ourselves as hateful (separated from one another). On earth, we do hate and harm one another.

       The true meaning of love, where hate is practiced, is forgiveness; if one loves the person who harmed one, one must forgive him or her.

        To love is to forgive. To forgive is to teach love to those who harm each other. It is in this light that Jesus taught forgiveness and practiced it to the point of forgiving those who killed him rather than fighting back to defend himself.  We must all forgive one another and to the extant that we do that we love one another.

     (Whereas radical forgiveness, the type taught and practiced by Jesus, is the true meaning of love, the path to salvation and escape from this world, but in as much as we do not want to exit from this world yet, and still want to live in body, obviously, we cannot practice total forgiveness. An attenuated form of forgiveness is to arrest evil doers, jail them and while in jail teach them how to love their fellow human beings. That is to say that whereas true Christianity does not punish evil doers, for it does not recognize evil and enemies, on earth we must punish criminals while teaching them to work for our mutual social interests.)

      It is in love that we feel happy and peaceful.  When we hate we are in conflict with each other. 

        When we love we are sane and when we do not love we re insane.  Of course, many other factors contribute to insanity, such as the individual’s biochemistry and social experiences but in the final analysis it is love that makes for sanity.  Hate makes for insanity. Love people and make them sane; hate people and make them insane. The choice is yours to make.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

September 24, 2006

Robot  Villager

# 1 When we love we are sane and when we do not love we re insane. Of course, many other factor...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 24.09.2006 08:39