“What Causes Mental Illness?” (Quora)

Dr. Michael LaitmanMichael Laitman, On Quora: What causes mental illness?

Egoistic human nature—the incomplete and broken self-centered desire—is the cause of all problems, including mental illness.

It functions with a significant fault by trying to satiate itself at the expense of others. By doing so, it devours both itself and others. This faulty functioning of our desire is behind our every illness—mental included.

According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, as egoists, we are opposite to nature’s altruistic form, and this opposition between us and nature gives us to every illness, problem and pain.

If we could perceive nature in its wholeness, then we would perceive nature functioning by laws of love, bestowal and connection. Therefore, the more we are opposed to nature’s laws, the more we enter into dissonance with them, then the more we experience nature’s completely positive force, which we dwell within, in an increasingly negative way. As such, the more we egoistic we become in our development, the more illnesses and suffering we experience.

Curing mental illness, as well as every other problem and pain, at its root would thus involve correcting our egoistic human nature: positively connecting with supportive, encouraging and loving attitudes to each other above our egoistic drives, and by doing so, aligning ourselves with nature. We would then experience nature’s completely positive force in a positive way, elevating ourselves to a newfound harmony, peace and balance with each other and the world.

Based on “Close-Up, Is Frankl right?” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman on August 8, 2010. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.
Photo by Varun Gaba on Unsplash.

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