ON SATAN AND MENTAL DISORDERS

Generally, I do not employ the term Satan. I do not believe in the existence of Satan; in so far that I recognize Satan I see it as symbol of the human capacity for evil.

I tend to see human beings as having the capacity for good and evil. The good part of them I root in what might be called God and the evil part of them may be called Satan. However, I choose to employ neutral terms such as ego.

To me the term ego is akin to what religious folks call Satan. What religious people call Christ (or Atman, Buddha self, Krishna self) I choose to call unified spirit self.

I know from direct experience that there is a unified spirit self. That self is not material; it is consciousness and light. It is one and simultaneously infinite in numbers.

One self is simultaneously infinite selves; it is akin to a wave of light that has infinite particles of light in it; the wave is the particles and the particles are the wave, although one particle is not the entire wave.

That wave of light can be called universal consciousness; it is love, in fact, it is perfect love. It is perfect intelligence.

If a person recognizes that he is part of that loving self and loves every person in his world, his self-included, he tends to feel happy and peaceful. If he continues on that path every once in a while he sees the physical universe disappear from his perception and he experiences his self-one with the universal self that though nameless we might call God.

In that experience one has no separate self, no ego self; in it one knows that one is still a self but a self that is part of infinite selves and the whole self (God).

The experience of oneness... Catholic Christians call it mystical union of the father and his son...see Meister Eckhart, Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila...Hindus call it Samadhi, Buddhists call it Nirvana and Zen calls it Satori... may last a few minutes or even hours; regardless of how long it lasts after it one knows, not believes, that God is real and that we are all parts of God but that in the temporal universe we behave as the opposite of God.

God is unified but we behave in a separated manner; God is love but we do hate people.

What the experience of union with all translates to is deliberate effort to love every person in one’s world and refusal to hate any one.

When one loves one’s self and loves all selves one feels connected to them and obtain feeling of oneness with them even in this world.

In loving and helping all people one tends to transcend ones ego self and in doing so feel happy. If I feel sad I go out and do something nice to a person. I could go to a store and see an old person and help carry his or her groceries to his or her car and talk to him or her for a while; I could go talk to a school boy or girl and ask him how he is doing; if I sense issues with his studies I volunteer to help him learn his subjects; I often take high school kids to the library and expose them to spending their time in libraries, as I did as a young person, instead of roaming the streets looking for drugs to get high on; you can feel high from reading books; occasionally; I go to jails and prisons and teach the brothers in there coping skills; many of them have near zero coping skills and when they get out of jails the stress of daily living makes them commit more crimes and they wound up in jail; recidivism is very high among the brothers; if you teach these folks anger management, stress and anxiety monument, help them to develop good self-esteem by striving to be competent in something, you can save them jail and prison times; sometimes, on Sundays, from church I go to homeless shelters and just talk to the people, talk to them about why they take drugs and help them understand the role of drugs and mental disorders in their situation (over half of people in homeless shelters have either drug or mental health issues...especially personality disorders...most Nigerians have personality disorders but do not know it, that is why they cannot govern their country and see it as a place from which they steal ).

In focusing on other people I forget myself; when I forget my ego separated self, which I do when I serve other people’s needs, I am peaceful and happy. When I concentrate on me and my needs I tend to be egoistic and is lacking in peace and joy.

I extrapolate from this experience to state that one cannot feel depressed, certainly not for a prolonged period of time, if one tries to forget ones ego and instead seek ways to serve other people; in serving people one feels joined to them; in feeling joined to folks one overcomes ones existential sense of incompletion and feels completed; feeling completed makes one feel happy and peaceful (the ego makes one feel incomplete; the ego is separation from other people and from God hence one who identifies with the ego must feel incomplete hence unhappy).

Thus, to me depression and other mental disorders are rooted in efforts to be the separated self, to affirm a seeming ego that is in fact a dream self for our real self is part of our unified self. As I pointed out elsewhere, we think that we are separated selves in bodies living in the world of space, time and matter and perceive attacks on our bodies and egos and defend our egos and bodies. If we do not defend our egos, bodies, space, time and matter we tend to escape from awareness of being in this world and glean the unified world and in it feel bliss (perfect peace and joy), which to me is what heaven is all about

I recognize traditional Christians’ right to employ the term Satan. As long as they try to love all of us I have no quarrel with them.

I do not agree with Martin Luther that all we need to do is express Faith in God and his supposed only son, Jesus Christ (if Jesus is God’s only son, who is the father of the rest of us, are we orphans) and we are saved; to me, faith without works is useless.

One must love and serve all people for one to be saved. That is my view. Thanks for sharing your perception of the correlation of Satan’s lies with folks depression. Perhaps, your perception helps to heal depression, who am I to say otherwise, what do I know?

I do not have complete knowledge; the little knowledge that I have tells me that all mental disorders emanate from our separation from our real self, unified self, our affirmation of our earthly ego separated selves and that all mental health issues are healed when we affirm our union with all people and our creator, God.

I do not object to folks taking medications; I have dealt with folks with major depression; at that point they want to commit suicide; therefore, it may be necessary to give them anti-depressant medications; but when they are relatively free from suicidal ideation I tend to talk to them and explain what I have explained here; if they listen and return to egoless love for all people they tend not to need further psychotropic medications.

As for psychotics, such as schizophrenics and manic folks, they are too checked out from reality that one cannot even talk to them; they live in their world; mental health professionals offer only supportive therapy and medications to psychotics but do not attempt psychotherapy (deep talking actually makes them experience panic, intense anxiety and run away) for they do not understand what you are talking about.