Anxiety of the Intellect. Therapy of the Spirit.

Posted on October 16, 2007
Filed Under Society, Spirituality |

Social Paranoia I have gone through anxiety a number of times – it comes and goes it stages, and the causes – almost always without fail, were the lack of ability to be in the moment. I am a thinker by nature; I think on everything no matter how small and insignificant. When presented with a situation, I plot out all its potential courses within my mind. In short, I often fall into the trap of over-analysing.

As I wrote about recently, the mind contains a lot of noise, and we can compound this issue when we over-think things. For many people, this situation is made worse by constant self doubt, along with the inner conflict which results from our conditioning. In many respects these traits represent a fragmented mind – and after all, looking around at humanity, one would be hard-pressed to say we not on the cusp of madness.

Much of this apparent madness surely has to result from this mental fragmentation. In the end – we have become a product of the intellect. A materialistic belief of reductionism, rationalising away everything until all action is broken down into its most basic components. The problem with this is that we are more than the sum of our parts, and in separating those parts we have created materialistic behaviour. That is materialistic behaviour instead of spiritual behaviour.

Materialistic behaviour is full of mental reasoning and intellectual analysis. There is plenty of room for that, but it is only a single aspect of our being. When we act purely from this fragmented reasoning we cause disruption within ourselves, because it is impossible for the analytical mind to be in the moment. It is too concerned with the where-tos and where-fors, the what-ifs and the could-haves.

It is interesting because the anxiety we create in our lives, is often treated with equally materialistic methods. Medication, further analysis, or even ‘retail therapy’. People may laugh at the idea of retail therapy, and they never really consider why it temporarily works. Most people will tell you it is because retail therapy rewards the ego, it gives us want we want. On a physical level that is no doubt true. But there is another aspect to it; when people go on a shopping spree, they feel great – because they are in the moment! They are only concerned with what is right in front of them!

There’s a great lesson to be learnt from that. Being in the moment is a form of spiritual action. It doesn’t require the analysis of the analytical mind and is happy simply to be. We can find this sort of presence in nearly all the tasks we undertake, we just need to focus on what we are doing – rather on what could-be, may-be or should-be.

The truth is, the analytical mind is rarely happy with the current moment – because its analytical activity is rarely needed. Spending half an hour everyday on simple tasks is a great way to get in the moment, and persistence will put the intellectual mind in its place.