Page 26 - NAMAH Oct 2015
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Namah Vol. 23, Issue 3, 15th October 2015
conducting psycho-drama (drama therapy) pleasure, as it was not a sensual pleasure,
sessions where usually a suffering subject but a pleasure felt first in consciousness and
was given an opposite role to act out. then elicited in the sensory matrix. Even
Reversal of roles brought out psychological masochistic pleasure at the level of the senses
conflicts and though in the West, it is has a message, for in the Indian spiritual
conventional to describe extroverts as tradition, the lower functions are limited,
benefitting from drama therapy, in our distorted, deviated or perverse representations
Indian setting, introverts responded too. of higher archetypal attributes. In that sense,
These sessions, as adjuncts also, went a long masochistic pleasure is a perversion and
way in consolidating our therapeutic gains. distortion of the Supreme Bliss-principle that
sustains existence. This led me to speculate
By the beginning of the 21st century, how physical pain could be understood in
Duloxetine (a SNRI agent1) became available terms of consciousness.
as an anti-depressant with some analgesic
effects in chronic musculoskeletal pain and Exploring the body-consciousness
surprisingly, methylcobalamin injections also
became popular in pain-relief and a sub- In the meantime, I had already been working
group of my patients who had responded with consciousness paradigms of health and
excellently to acupuncture also responded psychology since the 1990s. We had two
remarkably to parenteral methylcobalamin. As overlapping groups. One group had its focus
increasing evidence points to a conglom- on developing the concept of Integral Health;
eration of factors that produce pain-relief the other group had as its main focus the
with methylcobalamin — improved nerve building up of a foundation of Integral
conduction velocity, nerve regeneration and Psychology (Integral Yoga Psychology). There
inhibited spontaneous discharges from were basic zones of commonality between
neurons in neuropathic pain states — I the two groups of which the most pragmatic
wonder if acupuncture provided relief and yet elusive was the work on the body-
through similar mechanisms! consciousness. Just as an individual has a
unique mindset and a unique emotional
My association with the Ashram and serious representation which are known both to
spiritual insights also gave me new insights oneself and others (for example, a mathem-
into pain-management. I saw that physical atical mindset may be associated with
pain of the most intense and intolerable type frequent emotional outbursts), one has also a
could be borne with magnanimity. I also had unique body-consciousness of which one is
the experience of knowing selected people ordinarily not aware at all. This subtle body-
who even in the midst of severe pain could consciousness can be tapped and activated
carry on in-depth meditation. There were through a technology of consciousness to a
also rare instances when pain after reaching point where a mental will can act upon it or
an optimal point could get transformed into the body-consciousness itself can work
pleasure. This was not a masochistic independent of the mental will (1). Exploring
1serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor
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