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“Adjustment to a sick and insane environment is of itself not ‘health’ but sickness and insanity.” – James Agee
Question: I have been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder, for which I have been prescribed drugs. However, might this condition be advantageous, or even a sign that I am moving toward enlightenment?
JS: In the old days they would simply have said that you were overly self-conscious. But consciousness is not a disorder, or something that one can ever have in excess. Consciousness is what prevents one from acting mechanically, and what allows one see the world as it truly is. And so, obviously, the system will try to put you back to sleep, through drugs or whatever other means. Then your mind will start to move mechanically again, like a cog, and be able to participate in the greater mechanism – the matrix of minds which are manipulated to manifest this particular reality.
Having a greater level of consciousness will not make it easier to function in the world, but harder. Even just talking to other people can become arduous, because most are simply reacting to content with their own programmed content; no different, really, from a character within a computer game. This is why small-talk seems so effortless for the majority, whereas a more conscious person struggles – unless and until they develop the skills to play along.
Most children realise, at some point, that it is necessary to ‘act’ in order to appear normal; to conform with the expectations of others. And due to the inherent fear of being shunned, or isolated, they rapidly identify with whatever character they have been conditioned to play. Most then live out the rest of their lives in this deluded state, completely unaware that they are merely playing a part… and reading from somebody else’s script.
A few, however, do not forget, but remain painfully aware. And the greater one’s awareness of this process – of one’s own participation in the charade – the more one may suspect oneself of having some form mental illness; a suspicion which others, of course, who represent the system, are only too eager to validate. Certainly, from their own mechanical perspective, a conscious person is not functioning correctly. And the more conscious a person is, the more ‘insane’ they will likely appear to be, in the eyes of those who are themselves suffering from a kind of insanity.
So what’s going on here? The singular cause of a person’s pain and suffering can be traced back to others, one way or another. But people also need others, because of the yearning emptiness they feel inside themselves, which other people fill; and certainly, also, because of the fleeting happiness which others can provide – at a price. This is what keeps everyone on the wheel of life, going around in circles, lifetime after lifetime.
Fundamentally, then, no one is here by choice, but rather through a combination of conscious and unconscious forces; needs and desires which can only be transcended through the suffering inherent to the illusion itself – to apparent individuality within a dualistic universe.
Is aversion to people and a tendency toward introversion a sign of transcendence? Absolutely it is! But if you want to awaken more fully, and actually break through that chrysalis of fear and illusion, then you should ruthlessly focus on the task at hand – which is nothing other than the acceptance of reality. For in the absence of illusion, beyond conditioned identity, there is only the Truth and freedom of Self; the beginning and the end of your journey.
“A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.” – Soren Kierkegaard
http://introfinity.wordpress.com/2010/10/10/social-anxiety-and-the-price-we-pay-to-fit-in/
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