Sat in full lotus position, studying Falun Data with two cherished practitioners, the psychosis strikes.
I am thinking about the rock band U2, and a live version of the song Bullet the Blue Sky. This is a very powerful song about money, corruption and the arms trade. In the noise and heat and distortion of the song’s climax, Bono shouts out “IRA” – his call for an independent and united Ireland free from the shackles of British imperialism, and the armed struggle to support this movement.
The band U2 taught me, as a young teenager, about how Martin Luther King, B.B. King, and many more, have used this stadium rock, in front of an audience of tens of thousands, to perfectly crescendo their political message as the gathered masses are most open and receptive. It stirs within me my own thoughts (psychotic) of wanting to change the world through music.
The single most important factor in my fledgling mental health recovery has been practising Falun Dafa, an ancient Chinese meditation practice. Yet this practice is brutally persecuted in Communist China, with many thousands having been killed. Falun Gong practitioners all over the world find peaceful ways to let the world’s people know about the persecution and its horrors – including stronger and stronger evidence that practitioners are being killed for their organs on an industrial scale.
I begin to believe that I could become a big music star and tell the world about the persecution. I then begin to have other thoughts, which I won’t explain explicitly as they involve another person, but I basically decide emphatically to jump into a project that in a previous state of mind I have been very hesitant about.
Next – I begin to feel sexually aroused. Remember: I am sat in full lotus, studying scripture. This is not good. Could it be that I am experiencing psychosis? I make an active attempt to eliminate these thoughts, something like: “These thoughts are not my true thoughts, they are leading me away from my true path, from the peaceful life I have worked so hard to cultivate. They are trying to lead me to destruction and ruin and chaos. They are not my true thoughts. They are interference and psychosis.”
This seemed to work, for the time-being at least. Now I need to be really vigilant, and make sure I do the things that keep me well and in a clear state of mind, so I can repel these interfering thoughts if they return. This means no drink, no drugs, healthy food, good exercise, talk a lot about what I’m going through (this is the hardest one!!) and lots of meditation.
Good luck to everyone on their recovery journey!
