Dear Carl,
So perhaps one of your tasks at this
stage is helping the person to sublimate the desire for objects into the desire
for liberation.
Carl: I agree this makes good sense.
Psychotherapy generally sees the problem as one of misplaced or misunderstood
desire. That we desire is understood by therapists as a fact…what we desire is
the result of upbringing, experience and biology. It is certainly true that
people approach a therapist because they "want" something they think
they haven't got - almost always happiness. To sublimate desire for objects
into desire for liberation could be described as liberation from desire I
think.
Ram: Yes. When the desire is flowing to an object, in
this case the subject, the Self, it can extinguish itself once and for
all…because you are everything that you could ever want.
Buddhism, as perhaps you know, posits four ‘noble’
truths, the first of which is that everyone here is suffering. The second is that ‘desire’ is the cause of
suffering. It goes on to say that the
elimination of desire is the path and the cessation of desire is the goal. Vedanta asks ‘What is the cause of
desire?’ after
the second truth because trying to eliminate desire through practice (the
Eightfold Path) turns out to be virtually impossible. It says that the cause of desire is
ignorance of the fact that one is whole and complete ordinary actionless
awareness. And it supplies a means of
knowledge, a way to eliminate this ignorance, inquiry and the teaching
tradition.
Carl: This is what psychotherapists could add to
their thinking…I would guess that almost all of them don't. It interests me that to some extent this
seems to occur naturally for people who concentrate on their "spiritual
development". There does seem to me to be often the case that they give up
the quest and remain satisfied with what is...although many have not realized
the Self.
Ram:
You’re right. Perhaps I should
have said ‘relatively satisfied.’ You
never stop wanting until you realize who you are. And then, even if the wants persist as a kind
of habit, you they have no power to destroy your equanimity. And finally, you realize, as
Are you working on the right ‘I?’
Carl: I think in relation to therapy
a very interesting process occurs which I describe as a therapeutic crisis.
Someone enters therapy because they think they are not OK - for awhile they
bask in the illusion that they "got" something from the therapist and
they feel OK…then something happens…the
therapist screws up…isn't "sensitive" enough …the client gets disillusioned
and there is a situation where they have to take a choice either they dump the
therapist and look for another one...or decide therapy is not any good...or
they confront and accept that whether they are OK or not is up to them. They
realize the deception that is at the heart of the psychotherapy relationship
but find that realization as liberating from desire. Of course it requires a
therapist who realizes that they have nothing to offer their clients and that
that is OK and needs to be discovered by the client for this process to occur.
Ram:
This is very interesting. It
bears out the fact that happiness does not come from the outside and that the
ego has no control of the results of action.
I suppose you can’t just unmask this whole process before you begin
therapy and get down to why the person thinks therapy or anything else is going
to solve the happiness problem…because it wouldn’t be good for business. But on one hand it seems like a responsible
and compassionate thing to do since the patient is going to realize that the
whole business of seeking happiness in some relationship is not going to
work…unless that relationship is with someone who knows the truth and is
willing to help the person set his or her sights on it. However, usually people want what they want
and will not listen to wisdom, so after I’ve tried to show them that the way
they are thinking about the problem is faulty, I encourage them to go ahead
pursuing happiness as they see fit…and when they realize that their approach
doesn’t work suggest that they try the path of inquiry into the ‘I’. Disappointment can be very helpful in
stimulating inquiry.
Ram