Hello Ron,

Thank you for your reply. I have noticed that our phone conversations have decreased over the years and I was thinking that is a sign of growth, healing and less drama. What are your thoughts? Also, did you ever work with a therapist throughout your healing process after your nervous breakdown, or simply use books and interviews with Sathya Sai Baba? Thank you for the generosity of counseling over the phone. I think a plan would be good for me to make on setting some goals, because it is very easy to slide into dependency on one’s therapist; but maybe that is temporarily needed until one gets stronger, more self-reliant and gains confidence.

Have a great day.
Till next time.
Jay from the USA

My dear Jay,

Yes I imagine your phoning me less often these days either means you have plenty to work on and feel more clear and self-sufficient to do so without much input, or that you needed a break from so much intensive work on yourself. In answer to your questions about someone becoming dependent on the therapist, I’ve never found you to be the least dependent, only self-sufficient in that you always had a clear set of questions to explore; you were not looking for recognition or accolades; and you never asked for more than I was able to give.

You asked me whether I ever sought out therapy or counseling after I had my nervous collapse. I consulted a professor of psychiatry on one occasion in the first few weeks after the onset of the panic attacks, pleading for some drug to give me respite from the non-stop feeling of terror. He was quite amazing in that he reluctantly gave me a script for some Valium with the advice that using medication would cover up vital ‘information’ I would need to have access to if I was ever to get at the underlying causes of the problem. I only ever took one half of a Valium, once, and the feeling was so calming I realized that he was quite right, so I opted  for the fear so that I could use it as  guideposts on the mountain path. Of course such a journey is not for everyone. I was fortunate in that I had at my command every possible behavior therapy technique that was available at the time, since I had been lecturing and researching in that area for the previous seven years. So it was a great opportunity to be my own laboratory, to see what worked and what didn’t and to devise self-help approaches for myself that did produce some understanding and positive results.

Perhaps if I had sought out other therapists for assistance over those first six years after the breakthrough process began I would have made faster progress. But it never felt right to do so. I was familiar with almost all of the relevant literature at the time and felt that nothing could be gained from asking for another person’s viewpoint. I seemed to make good progress and it was very satisfying to explore outside of the traditional approaches of psychology and psychiatry. I don’t think anyone could have led me to what was for me a revelationary piece of advice about fear:  “Fear is the door to the unknown. Unbolt that door!”,  and a variation on the second part: “Burn that door.” This came out of my intuitive searching through the literature of the Sufis, the esoteric order of the Islamic religion. To my understanding, the words were telling me that there was a benevolent and creative purpose underlying the fear. Gradually I came to understand that the ‘unknown’ was my true Self - the real, unchanging, all-loving, ever-peaceful Me. So, in a strange sort of way, the fear became my friend, guiding me towards finding myself. And now I regard all of the emotions - particularly what the writer Paul Brunton called ‘the negatives’- as impulses towards rediscovering the true Self. And we can see that this is not an original thought, for, when we read the Lebanese poet Kahil Gibran, we come across those beautiful words for suffering humanity: “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” It’s dinner time here in Australia, Jay, so I’ll leave it there for now.

May God bless you in every way.
Ron

Dear Ron,

I agree with your assessment about why I have called less often over the years. I feel that for myself the main area that causes panic/anxiety/anger is in the realm of dealing with a woman and the break-up pain. It is my hope that one day I will be self-sufficient to deal with that pain when I experience it. I have often been dependent on talking to someone, when upset or troubled and I would like to feel that either I have resolved an issue or can deal with the ‘problem’ on my own. I find journaling without censoring a great tool. Do you feel the self-help techniques that worked for you are all on your CDs? I am fascinated that you were able to take a path that most people would not be able to do so when you decided not to continue with the Valium prescription, although the Rescue Remedy, Valerian Root, Kali Phos do help take some of the edge off, along with exercise.
Finally, what specific Sufi books did you read at the beginning of the process? It seems that your ‘relationship’ to fear changed  once you adopted a new philosophy based on your readings and research. I am also curious as to what DID NOT work for you within the realm of traditional psychiatry and psychology and why you think that is.

Thanks again
Jay from the USA

Dear Jay,

I have some time to reply which is my great pleasure as you are so sincere and persevering in your  efforts to find inner and outer harmony.
In relation to your wish to one day be independent enough so that you don’t feel the need to call me when you are working through the pain and anger that comes with breaking up with a woman: I like to make up  good stories. So, rather than seeing your wish to share with someone your difficulties - talking them through -  as some form of weakness or dependency,  I suggest that the urge to do so has been serving another, perhaps more important, function. And that is to prompt you to bare your soul to another person, to be open and honest and humble and sincere and focused in that interaction. I feel that this is invaluable for one’s personnel growth towards having an open heart. Perhaps if a mentor had come into my life with whom I could do that I would have made faster progress in learning to love and be true.
I too have found journaling without censoring to be really helpful. Once I did it for about 4 months in relation to my dreams. It started when I was in Bali living in the village of Celuk for a while and I was having these vivid dreams which I started recording, then interpreting that morning, then another lot of reflection a week later, then again at some other time. The level of understanding of what could be gained from the dream in terms of insights, guidance and so on was impressive. I filled up several 100 page writing books. A few years later I burned them all as I had moved on, but they made fascinating reading before I did so. I like to burn things, give them away or rubbish-tip things that have been in my life for a while so that I am not attached to the old me.

During those three months in Bali and for a year or so afterwards I read (or ‘threw’ the coins for a reading) the I-Ching, an ancient Chinese book of divination (the Richard Wilhelm translation which I think is the best and has a long and beautiful  Foreword by Carl Jung, the one-time colleague of Freud). After each reading I would copy it all down in detail in one of my journal books and analyse each part to see how I could gain in wisdom from the words. So much of the language refers to the images of Nature which really resonates with me. My first attempt at meditation happened in the midst of a period of severe insomnia, and after I ‘consulted’ the I-Ching for some guidance on this. It gave me the image of stillness as being two mountains side by side. The image was remarkably effective in helping me to quieten my mind for just seconds at a time and allowed me to sleep. That wonderful book helped me so much. A clairvoyant once told me that I had been a scribe in ancient China, writing out copies of the I-Ching. I’m sure that must be the case as I felt a great affinity with the ‘oracle’ for a long time. Occasionally I do a reading for someone and it is always very informative.

A good number of self help techniques that I have used on myself are on the CDs. Some are not, as I have experimented with so many different approaches, sometimes only for a few weeks until that led to something else. But we are making more CDs so there is an opportunity to share more of them then. We have now completed the double CD called Transmuting Anger. It is truly beautiful and just today I heard from a friend who has battled with his anger for many years that listening to just the first few paragraphs has helped him so much. So you might like to hear it sometime. The next one we are doing is on gratitude and then one on loneliness.

The Sufi books that I studied made a big difference to how I regarded the emotion we call fear. Until coming across the Sufis I had reacted to the presence of fear as if it was an enemy, a cruel imposition of fate upon my life, a burden to be endured until each wave of fear had passed. When I discovered the words, ‘Fear is the door to the unknown. Unbolt that door’, I knew with a certainty that I had just been given an enormous gift, even though I didn’t know what it meant for a long time afterwards. But I could see that it was a message of hope, of there being a meaning or purpose underlying the presence of fear. Gradually I changed  my attitude to fear, still trembling at its presence but at the same time endeavouring to hold in my mind the conviction that I was being prompted and guided towards a vast unknown about myself and the world in which I existed. The most influential writer for me was Hazrat Inayat Khan who wrote many books. One of my favourites is, The Complete Sayings of Hazrat Inayat Khan, but the saying about the door to the unknown is not mentioned there so I don’t know where he wrote that. In the book he says something similar which is: ‘Fear is a shadow cast upon the light of the soul; the shadow of something the soul does not know, which is strange to the soul’.

Most of the traditional and behavior therapy approaches were not helpful, at least for me.  I’m sure those approaches work for some people but intuitively I knew that they would not be productive for me. That’s really why I left my position at the University of New South Wales where I was teaching the Masters level students about how to treat people with fears. I knew from my own experience that we didn’t know  enough about free-floating anxiety, panic attacks and multiple phobias, and that I would not find my way out of the immense fear that permeated my life as long as I stayed within the cultural and academic confines of the university. The thinking was too narrow for me, even though the techniques were very effective for lots of problems. So I left, ‘to follow the path that has heart’, as Carlos Castenada describes the advice given by his mentor, the Mexican shaman Don Juan, and to become ‘unknown’, again as advised by Don Juan, this latter because it is easier to go through profound change amongst people who have not known you before.
That will do for now, I think I have replied to your questions. I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect and share with you.

May God bless every thought word and deed of yours
With love
Ron