Psychiatry & Reincarnation

I’ve been reading a good book, titled Many Lives, Many Masters, written by Dr. Brian L Weiss, a US-based psychiatrist. The book deals with two very interesting topics, psychiatry and reincarnation. Specifically, the significance of reincarnation in psychiatric treatment.

The book details Dr. Weiss’ personal experience using hypnotic regression to treat a patient afflicted with various psychic disorders. (Hypnotic regression is the use of hypnosis to make a patient relive his past, in order to identify events or emotions that are at the root of the patient’s present symptoms.) Rather than just revisiting her childhood, the patient recalls her past births, reliving events that underlie her symptoms. For example, she recalls one of her lives as a woman in a medieval village, who died in a deluge that wiped out her village, while trying vainly to save her infant son. Simply recalling that life cures her of her present fear of water.

However, the more important aspect of this for the doctor is that his patient experiences the transitory period after death (or after each of her deaths, to be precise), where she is a spirit with no physical form, except as a spot of light, just like all theother spirits that are waiting to enter their new lives. In this state, she also acts as a medium for transmitting to the doctor spiritual messages from higher spirits, termed Master Spirits in the book. The knowledge gained by the doctor through these messages transform his own life and those of his family, for the better. He realises that we do not live our lives to the fullest simply because we fear death, that our purpose in life is to learn and evolve and to become God-like through knowledge.

The concepts of reincarnation, good karma and nirvana are fundamental to India and most Indians are familiar with them. But seen through the eyes of an American who previously had no exposure to them, these same concepts appear to have a new value. We have reduced these concepts to mere cliches, but actually understanding them will free us from the materialism and corruption that afflict our lives.

The thoughts that Dr. Weiss has tried to disseminate through this book are a sort of subset of the teachings of the Brahmakumari order, who in turn use the Bhagavad Gita as their main reference. The book’s description of the spiritual state between lives is very similar to that taught by the Brahmakumaris. Out of plain curiosity, I had once attended a few sessions at one of their Vishwavidyalayas (which is what they call their centres) but was a little sceptical. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, but the similarity of the various real-life experiences described in this book, by a man who had never been exposed to the underlying concepts, is certainly thought-provoking.

As a schoolgirl, I used to dream about becoming a psychiatrist, but life had other plans. Maybe in my next birth…:)

Do we deserve a democracy?

The kind of absurdities that our people indulge in sometimes make me wonder whether India deserves to be a democracy at all.

We’ve heard of film music directors lifting tunes from other cultures, genres, even other films to make up for the creativity they lack. Filmmaker Ram Gopal Verma has stretched this to the ultimate extreme – for his next ‘creative’ effort, he wants to use a song based on the tune of, hold your breath, the National Anthem! At times like this, I do feel there is a certain case to be made for intolerant, dictatorial regimes that hand out corporal punishment to traitors and people guilty of contempt.

Then there are the so-called human rights activists who yelled slogans till they were blue in the face, opposing the death penalty to which our courts sentenced Afzal Guru. Remember, he was charged with attacking the Parliament, no less. The sentencing followed the due process of justice, a proper trial was conducted, this was no arbitrary decree. Arbitrariness seems to be the prerogative of the human rights activists alone! Why else would they conveniently neglect the cause of Indian army soldiers who are dying needless deaths at the border, for reasons as pathetic as lack of proper first aid kits and emergency transport helicopters? Such occasions remind me, almost wistfully, of British officers lathi-charging stubborn demonstrators fighting for the release of a captive. Seen from that side of the fence, there was a certain justice in that. (Of course, the key difference is that those earlier demonstrators actually believed in the justice of their cause.)

We are growing immune to our democracy being insulted by our own people. Our cynicism is turning into a shield against the necessity of corrective action. How long are we going to let this continue? At this rate, we will end up re-learning our lessons under the tyranny of some foreign regime that will have taken advantage of our foolish, blind complacency.

The Great Dictator

I had the good fortune to catch this pathbreaking movie on UTV WM yesterday. Never much of a Chaplin fan (I always preferred Laurel & Hardy), I was an instant convert! The man is amazing!
I recalled reading somewhere that Chaplin had made a movie spoofing Hitler, his supposed inspiration having been someone referring to a resemblance between himself and Hitler. So when this movie came on, I knew this was going to be a different experience.
The movie has, apart from Chaplin’s usual funny-man sequences, a lot of sarcastic humour and wittily written scenes that really beat hollow Hitler’s fearsome dictatorial image. One can only marvel at the artist who had the spine to make this movie during the reign of the German dictator himself, and in the face of potential opposition from the US government who were in ‘appeasement’ mode toward Nazi Germany at the time. One can see that this is one movie close to Chaplin’s heart – he risked bankruptcy and spent a fortune out of his own money on making this movie. Happily though, the movie did release on schedule and is recorded to be Chaplin’s most successful venture.

I find it hard to pick any favourite scenes, but all the scenes involving Hynkel (Chaplin’s Hitler) are uproarious. During production, Chaplin had received cautionary messages from his fellows at United Artists, but as he later said, “I was determined to go ahead, for Hitler must be laughed at.” He certainly did succeed in this worthy mission.

The movie closes on a serious note, with a well-written, well-delivered speech (I never imagined Chaplin like this) which conveys his message to the world, then caught in the midst of an insane war. That speech is equally relevant in today’s terrorism-ridden world. It is a reminder to all of us that the brutality of men is unnatural; that men were made to create, not destroy; to live in joy, not fear; to seek freedom, not power.

The experience of this movie would be incomplete without a peek into the trivia, the names and symbolism used in the movie which give it an interesting depth. A copy of the movie was sent to Hitler (predictably, he had banned it in Germany), and he ended up watching it not once but twice. There is no record of his thoughts on it, but the fact that he watched it twice says something!

 In my view, this movie is a victory; the victory of the artist over the dictator, and over power-hungry brutes in general. And that spells hope for the world.