Spirituality and Psychology

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Spirituality keeps saying that mind doesnt exsist everything is a illusion, pain is not real since its in the mind........etc
But what happens when such a patient doesnt take treatment and their problems keep on aggravating ultimately
is it dangerous??

Because incase of my mom i have seen that she uses the crutch of spirituality to walk on her traumatic past
but somewhere she completely doesnt take support of psychiatry for medication and theraphy i have seen her
going from bad to worse and causing harm to many

Recently i posted this comment on a spiritual forum
"Depression, anxiety and panic attacks are NOT a sign of weakness.
They are signs of having tried to remain strong for way too long.


And a spiritual person gave me this reply
No, friend, we don't have to 'try to remain strong'. We have to know that we are already made very strong, in divine image. We don't have to seek strength, we only have to improve our knowing that we already have it. There can never be a test bigger than our coping abilities ; if it appears to be so it is because we are not in touch with our real Self. Life is just a role play ; anchored in the inner joyous invincibility through right living and daily meditation, we can be stronger than our tests. Depression is a result of spiritual isolation - putting what we 'have' above what we 'are' and that's an ignorance.

What is your comment about this

I think spirituality / religion was a coping mechanism in times of illness (among other things). But nowadays, it can get in the way of medical treatment, especially when it comes to an illness of the mind or the so-called soul.

For me, the brain is just an organ. Like all other organs of the human body, the brain is affected by stress and other environmental influences, and can stop functioning correctly. That is nothing to be ashamed of and shouldn't be stigmatized. An "upset brain" shouldn't be more embarrassing than an upset stomach.

wonderful answer

i agree with you. brain is a organ and like some people get allergies
they cant control the allergy there is no medicine for it you just have to avoid that thing
similarly brain gets affected with too much of voilence, abuse and then it needs treatment
just like physical body and spirituality interferes with the treatment saying its not needed
ultimately the person is a confused wire

I like that allergy comparison I have a mental allergy to too much stress and social interaction. As long as I limit my exposure to stressful situations, I'm doing fine.

Even when i am not interacting socially i get stress
eg. my son's school notes are incomplete and i have to call up someone to ask for help
and they give excuse well that gives me stress

I have to call up his school driver and ask him to bring him at this place i get stress
i have to go to tailor to alter the dress.......tailor is rude i get stress

so without delibrately interacting im socially stressed.

Sorry to get nit-picky, but are you saying that anyone with a view other than the above would be debarred from considering themselves "spiritual?"



Personal opinion: I'd give a qualified "yes" to it being dangerous. None of my beeswax, in the sense that I'm not asking you to get specific, but I think the answer would depend upon the extent and nature of your mother's problems. If she is threatening violence against herself or others, stealing money or shoplifting compulsively, that sort of thing, than, yeah, I'd consider that dangerous. If she's merely, I dunno, spreading vicious gossip about others behind their backs, making and failing to keep promises and otherwise letting people down, than that's not the sort of person I'd want to spend much time around, given the choice, but not something I'd consider a danger either to herself or others. Certainly a pattern of behavior it would be better to change than not, but not likely dangerous as I understand the term.

And I must admit I'm curious why you would refer to spirituality as a "crutch," even in your mother's case. Assuming you do believe her to be spiritual, and that being spiritual is a good thing, wouldn't it simply be a source of strength?



Since I personally do not believe the reply you received, I'm not sure what sort of constructive response I could make. I certainly don't see how such a statement could be open to proof or rejection, but I suppose if it helps them, and perhaps yourself, get through each day; as a practical matter I don't see what harm holding such a belief could cause.



What exactly is "spiritual isolation?" Had the term isolation not been modified with "spiritual," I'd have said this was a very cruel comment. As in, a great many folks on the Spectrum are isolated from others simply because they cannot relate to them in conversations, pick up nonverbal signals, etc. And I'd say it is not on balance their fault, given the physical reality of the condition.

Honestly, I'm still inclined to think that portion of their response akin to "blaming the victim," but that may be a misreading on my part. But I guess I'd need my ignorance dispelled on the vocabulary used before forming a final judgment. (It might also be interesting to find out where they stand on major unipolar depression and bipolar depression...do they even think such things exist as something beyond the "ignorance" of the sufferer?)

You know, one of the biggest head-scratchers in my life are the people who proudly announce they're not "religious" but are "spiritual."

I guess they're claiming they've tossed aside or grown beyond meaningless ritual, feel free to pick and choose what they like from various faiths around the world (and contra this reject whatever it is about those faiths they do not like) and get to treat all the various religious traditions of the planet like a giant all you can eat buffet. I'm not saying there's anything particularly right or wrong about this approach, but the end result always seems to be something that makes less sense than any of the faiths they cribbed from, and that is if they can even offer up a set of beliefs beyond generic platitudes in the first place.

The Christian variant being the even odder claim that they're not "religious" (again) but do have a "personal relationship with Jesus." I've had even less luck grasping this claim, other than emerging with a sense that the personal relationship types consider the religious types either hypocrites or weak-willed.

Sorry for going O/T, but seeing the terms combined like that, I felt compelled to make this probably useless observation.

I'm neither spiritual nor religious I only make this distinction because religion is usually defined as being affiliated with an organized religion and adhering to certain rituals. Another reason is that I've met several people on this board who appear to be rational thinkers and don't believe in anything supernatural / magical, but they nonetheless call themselves theists (usually Pantheists).

Spirituality can also be a mere life philosophy, such as Zen Buddhism or Confucianism. I have a hard time seeing those world views as religions, but they are spiritual in nature. Spirituality does not always involve cherry-picking from so-called holy books.