I once had a disturbed young man come to a meditation class I was teaching in Edinburgh. As we’d gathered and during the meditation instruction I’d noticed that he was unusually intense and that he had noticeably poor personal hygiene, but in most ways he seemed like a fairly typical young man.
In the discussion following, however, his conversation started to veer off into more bizarre areas. He’d had “cosmic” experiences during the meditation session — experiences whose details I no longer recall but which sounded very off-balance. His girlfriend was apparently an Iranian princess. He was being shadowed by various security forces. Later still, as we were winding up and preparing to leave, and he was able to talk to me more or less alone, his conversation became more delusional still. He had developed special powers through his spiritual practice and could make things happen in the world around him. As we talked a housefly smacked noisily into the glass door we were standing beside. “See!” he said, excitedly. “I made that happen.”
He was obviously ill and suffering, and I experienced that pang of knowing that there was little or nothing I could do to help.
I’m no mental health professional, but his behaviors reminded me of what little I knew about schizophrenia and so I suggested as kindly as I could that he might be misinterpreting his experiences and that he might want to talk to a doctor about what was going on. He was clearly having problems with his mental health, but here’s the thing: according to the Buddha, so were the rest of us. “All worldlings are mad,” he said.*
“Worldling” is a translation of “putthujana,” which is simply anyone who isn’t enlightened. That’s me, and you. The Buddha had his own ideas about what constitutes mental health, and by his definition anyone who isn’t well on the way to Enlightenment is insane. Quite how literally he meant it when he said “All worldlings are mad” is hard to say, but when he looked at ordinary people like us going about their daily business he saw a world out of balance — and a world that by necessity is out of balance, because it is composed of those same off-kilter individuals.
He had a term for this imbalance, which was viparyasa in Sanskrit, although the less-well-known Pali equivalent vipallasa is a bit easier on the tongue and the eye. Vipallasa means “inversion,” “perversion,” or “derangement.” Specifically, in using this term the Buddha was talking about the ways in which we misunderstand the world we live in, and the ways in which we misunderstand ourselves. Just at the young man at my meditation class was constantly misinterpreting what was happening (“See! I made that happen”) so too do the rest of us live in a virtual reality of delusion, confusion, and distortion.
What’s more, we largely share the same delusions, which means that we don’t even realize that our minds are disturbed. And thus, as Krishnamurti suggests, it’s possible to think that we’re spiritually and mentally healthy because we share our mistaken values and understandings with those around us. Collectively, our ill minds create a society that is itself ill, and we consider ourselves healthy because we see our values reflected in our fellow worldlings.
When I think of the vipallasas in modern life I’m overwhelmed by examples, but the one that springs most to mind is to materialism. We keep thinking that the answer to our sense of existential dissatisfaction is to buy more stuff: more stuff, and better stuff. I guess I notice this most with gadgets, but for other people it’s houses, furniture, shoes, clothes, or cars — none of which I care about at all. I get a new gadget — the shiny MacBook Pro I’m writing this article on, for example — and I feel a sense of pleasure just looking at it. It’s better, faster, prettier than any computer I’ve had before. But then what happens over time? Newer, better, faster, prettier computers come on the market, and I start comparing my machine unfavorably with them. My gadget starts to look a bit old-fashioned (after only six months!), less cool, less capable. It feels less fast. And I’m no longer so happy with it. I now start to hanker after something new.
And I’ve been through all this craziness before. (Don’t they say that insanity is doing the same time over and over and expecting a different result?) Even knowing that I’m on a materialistic treadmill doesn’t entirely blunt the craving for a new computer, although to give myself credit I live without a television and rarely make impulse purchases. But on some level I really believe that the answer to the discomfort of my cravings will arrive in a box carried by a UPS truck.
I work with these cravings in my meditation and in my daily life, because the Buddha suggested that there was a better answer to the problem of craving. His advice was that we need to look deeply at our craving itself, and to realize the many levels of delusion that come packaged with it. The new gadget (or pair of shoes, or that lovely sweater, or sexy car) doesn’t contain a magical ingredient that will make us happy. The object of our craving is impermanent and therefore incapable of giving lasting satisfaction.
Our craving itself is impermanent! We can watch cravings arise and pass. As we watch them come and go, choosing not to act on them, they begin to develop an unreal appearance. As we start increasingly to see through them we no longer take them so seriously, and they become weaker and less frequent. And in the end we come to see what the Buddha himself saw, which is that the answer to the problem of our cravings is not acquiring the object of our cravings but letting go of craving itself.
It’s through abandoning craving that we will finally find peace, that we’ll come back to our senses, stop seeing things in a distorted way, and find true health and wellbeing. And having done that, to whatever degree, we can look around at the imbalance that surrounds us — really seeing it — and then compassionately reach out to others so that we can help them bring about their own healing.
* I’ve since learned that this quotation is not from the Buddha, but is ultimately from the commentator Buddhaghosa. You can read more here.
Also the quote, “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society,” seems to be a condensation of something Krishnamurti said in his “Commentaries on Living, Series 3” (1960): “Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?โ Thanks to reader George Coyne for supplying the full quotation.
The condensed form used in the title of this article seems to have first been attributed to Krishnamurti by Mark Vonnegut in “The Eden Express” (1975). Misattributed or inaccurate quotes abound on the internet.
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One of the happiest times in my life was sailing in the 2002 Clipper round-the-world yacht race. All any of us had was the clothes we needed, some bedding, toiletries, a book or two, maybe some sort of personal music player, perhaps a knife or a torch; and we didn’t really consider ourselves ‘owning’ much of this stuff. Books were shared, knives and torches used by whoever needed them, and I doubt we would’ve let anyone go without whatever they needed.
Amongst other things, it felt liberating not to have – or need – keys, or television, or the vast majority of other stuff we fill our lives with.
[…] is if we see injustices at all. I will ensure that you know what Jiddu Krishnamurti said, โIt is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” Instead, we will see sickness where we find it; we will speak out about the sickness and heal […]
I sure hope the author isn’t suggesting here that people who suffer from schizophrenia are somehow equally sane as people who are not schizophrenic. That mentality could lead some people not to seek the help they need.
I don’t think that the words “I suggested as kindly as I could that he might be misinterpreting his experiences and that he might want to talk to a doctor about what was going on. He was clearly having problems with his mental health” imply anything other than that people with schizophrenia need to seek professional help.
As a mental health professional I applaud this. As a suffering human who just knows all of my suffering is around attachment, I applaud you
Fiona, I don’t feel “suffering” stems from “attachment” – rather from “disconnection”.
But disconnection results from attachment. If I’m disconnected emotionally from another human being, then it’s because I’m clinging to something else โ often to fear.
You are all talking words. Words hold no understanding of anything. You are all of you, kidding yourselves on. The search for what you are seeking is the block to it. The mind of seeking is the disconnect. Your meditations, as you talk of here, are nothing other than part of the very movement which prevents you coming into contact with what you seek. When you talk in sentences such as: “But disconnection results from attachment. ” – you think you understand something? There is no understanding here at all. If there were, seeking would have come to an end. But it has not, because words in themselves, hold no potential to understand a thing, and your mind has never stopped relying on words and images. Words may communicate wisdom, but they are not it, neither can they hold it. The problem you have is in ending your conceptual view of life. One which we have all traditionally lived in, and been educated into. Any movement of yours here, including supposed understandings, chained into a sentence of words, and communicated to another, as though some understanding could be passed, is only continuity of that which you seek to end. Life is not so far away from us. We are part of it, we do not need to seek so hard, rather, a gentle, passive watching of all things may lead to quite astonishing places. This is never to be searched for. Which does not mean, not to search. That which searches, is forever divided from it, so any movement towards, is counterproductive. There is absolutely nothing to do, or to be done. Life is not found in the past. It is found, when the past, ends. The past, is the movement of words and images.
Thank you for that. I’d no idea it was possible to hook a fortune cookie message generator up to the internet.
The negative ego rears its head, found, as usual, in an air of superiority.
The decoded message: “I have found it, and you have not, so I am superior”
I love and appreciate all spiritual practices and tools and how they assist different people at different stages of their awakening process over multiple lifetimes. The idea of not trying to actively achieve enlightenment or self improvement is profoundly foolish and outright dangerous. But it can so easily be disguised as wisdom. Doing nothing leads to terrific suffering in the information era. Hows that working out for you?
The greatest irony is that Buddha believed that words were the ultimate healing tool for his fellow man, and that correct advice for a specific individual was the ultimate remedy.
Krishnamurti never said that. It’s one of those widely misattributed quotes.
Ha! I’m always doing the same thing to other people, having realized (apparently after writing this article) that many quotes found on the internet (and in books) are misattributed. It seems this one was attributed to Krishnamurti in Mark Vonnegut’s “The Eden Express” (1975). He may never have said it, of course, so I’ll make a change in the article.
If Krishnamurti didn’t say, โIt is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”, then who did?
I’m afraid I can’t tell you! Krishnamurti was still alive at the time that book was written, so it’s possible that the quote (or something like it) was his, but delivered in a private conversation or in a talk that hasn’t been transcribed. Or it could be a paraphrase of something he wrote or said. Or it might not be his at all. Sometimes we just have to live with uncertainty, and make sure to be clear that a quote is only “attributed” to someone.
I don’t care who said it — it’s a great quote with a great deal of truth.
The truth of the statement doesn’t depend on who made it, but the truth of claims about who said it do matter. As Einstein said, โWhoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted in important affairs.โ
Here is a similar statement by Krishnamurti from the Commentaries on Living Series 3 (1960),:”Is society healthy, that an individual should return to it? Has not society itself helped to make the individual unhealthy? Of course, the unhealthy must be made healthy, that goes without saying; but why should the individual adjust himself to an unhealthy society? If he is healthy, he will not be a part of it. Without first questioning the health of society, what is the good of helping misfits to conform to society?”
Thank you so much for this, George. Much appreciated.
I’ve added your contribution in the footnote to the essay.
“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
Erich Fromm (social psychologist)
From his book “The Sane Society” (1955 I guess)…
Excellent response if I may say. Individuals such as the person whom you replied so eruditely too miss the entire point. Being schizophrenic has a huge vacillating spectrum firstly. Secondly; whom are we to assume that this is a state of unmanageable or even unwanted, mental “sickness”? I have a close friend who has moderate schitzophrenia and at times is terribly distraught. Yet he speaks openly about it and asserts that the pain of the worst “troughs” of the condition are worth it several times over for the insight, “oneness” and true albeit transient Universal truth that is so apparent with such ease when having a good period a “peak” to the challenging troughs. As a clinical psychologist, I’m really at a crossroads in my work because I’m beginning to get overwhelmed by the way folk get pigeonholed and wacked up on meds. These meds may indeed control the acute episodes of alleged mental illness; however – that’s generally by causing the figurative guinea pig (human beings bring nigh on abused on occasion imo) to “feel” less. Useful in a crisis – but rejected by my friend ultimately as robbing him of the bliss and beauty as well as the agony…. ultimately resulting in a strange sort of sleepwalk through life where everything felt “beige” (his words.)
Through my work I’ve become sickened at numerous things. One is the huge range of criteria that encapsulates vast numbers of ‘mental illness’. It’s a shame the person who discussed her rather ignorant, uninformed and presumptuous opinion on something she lucidly doesn’t understand,did not stop and think about the “human condition” and societies role in it. Nor look at the icreasingky broad spectrum of diverse symptoms that will get one diagnosed with all manner of psychiatric conditions. Why? Well then you’re encouraged toward medication ; if not actually sectioned that is. Thank you for not conforming to the stereotypical belief learned by the least trustworthy types about what constitutes sickness. My work has become a fraction of what it was as I actually couldn’t sleep at night knowing and being involved in some activity that I won’t bore you with. Love and peace to you and to all. ๐๐. Profuse gratitude again.
Lovely post, TrayC!!!! Thank you for your high level of consciousness and your unblinking courage in the face of the mounting evidence you were seeing that things might not be quite right with The System. I’ve read that there is no greater advocate for peace than a general who has seen war, and you are the general here. :-) (Well, in the Old Paradigm, where we had to learn from experience, instead of our inner wisdom, such things were true. There is less and less need for experience as a teacher, as our spiritual selves grow stronger, which — despite all appearances — seems to be the case right now. But in this sort of “interim period”, your testimony is hugely, hugely helpful. It helps me, anyway!)
I also wanted to comment that I think there’s a little twist to the idea that we need to let go of cravings (which could also be considered thoughts). Byron Katie says she doesn’t have to let go of anything. She says that, as she examines her thoughts, THEY let go of HER. It sounds crazy, but I’ve experienced that, too (but only once or twice).
When you look at something closely, it loses its power (as the blog post author was saying); but there are several ways of understanding how this happens. I think a lot of spiritual people would say that our thoughts really are independent energies, implying that they have minds of their own, in a way. When we cease vibrating at the same (low) level of energy as the thought forms, those thought forms lose interest in us, because they can’t use us to amplify (or feed) themselves.
Eckhart Tolle, for example, says there is a “pain body” that lives in us and feeds off our negative energies, and he is not being metaphorical. So he is telling us that the negativity (cravings, etc.) is not actually a part of us. Our true identity has none of that in it.
So there’s no real act of will involved in ‘getting rid of’ thoughts. The only thing required is the courage to look at the thoughts and question them. This results in the disidentification with the thoughts, which then necessarily and naturally results in the withdrawing of energy from them. This natural withdrawing of our energy causes the thought to ‘lose interest’ in US, and poof! The thought disappears.
This has been vastly useful to me in my recent/new adventures with meditation, because I am a “try-er”. I try to use my brain (that is, my ego) to outsmart itself; but there’s a circularity in that that just doesn’t work. But all that efforting, by proving itself of no use at all, I guess then becomes useful, because I am forced to acknowledge that it (the efforting) doesn’t contribute anything. Peace is on its way.
Peace to you all, too!!!! ๐๐๐
[…] is a saying that Iโve been mulling over for some time, attributed to Jidda Krishnamurti: โIt is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick […]
Dr. Thomas Szaszโs The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct” (1974) provides a great deal of clarity in stating: “Mental illness” is an expression, a metaphor that describes an offending, disturbing, shocking, or vexing conduct, action, or pattern of behavior, such as packaged under the wide-ranging term schizophrenia, as an “illness” or “disease”. He makes a distinction between diseases and thinking and behaving in disturbing ways.
In Notfinity Process (2022) by George S. Coyne there is a chapter on consciousness which uses a cognitive psychology and neurological approach to the subject and equates it with brain functioning. What is referred to as the โselfโ is actually a program for physical survival. All psychological problems arise when the brain identifies itself with this program.
Those last two sentences sound very Buddhist, George. Thank you.
You are most welcome, Bodhipaksa. When the brain understands this it immediately stops making this identification without any effort. Freedom from the false belief that the “self” is a living organism capable of taking action brings about an end to what sustains the illusion: all attempts to become or achieve something psychologically.
I’m still saying it’s Jiddu Krishnamurti because who knows who Mark Vonnegut is? ๐
He’s the son of Kurt Vonnegut, but you don’t have to cite him anyway, because he’s not the author of the quote. He seems to have thought he was quoting Krishnamurti. Possibly he was! Who knows?
Seeing that the desire to be free of craving in the belief that to do so will bring the reward of peace and lasting satisfaction is part of the movement of craving which always results in psychological suffering. As long as there is any kind of psychological seeking, there will never be a full understanding that dissolves the problem. Taking any action through meditation or one’s daily life to end craving will inevitably contribute to that which causes it.
Thanks for sharing your view on this, George. Needless to say, this doesn’t reflect the Buddha’s approach. Even during his lifetime, there were criticisms that the Buddhist path was effectively endless, because “It’s not possible to give up desire by means of desire.” My understanding is that desire is very deep-rooted, and we can’t simply give it up. But we can examine desire closely, see it as illusory and unsatisfactory, and thereby abandon it.
Bodhipaksa, you have written wise words about examining desire. Desire is not the problem. It is 100% necessary for physical survival. Otherwise, we would not seek sustenance for the body. But it becomes destructive when it is directed toward satisfying the psychological “self” by seeking status through having power over others or great wealth etc. The attempt to eliminate desire is not wise because the motive is originating in the psyche.
Hi again, George. When I’m talking about desire, I’m talking, as you are, only in the sense of desire that causes suffering.
Yes, that is an important distinction, Bodhipaksa. Enquiring about what generates the desire that causes suffering, rather than attempting to end it, will result in seeing that what the brain has become identified with ( i.e the psychological “me” ) is a mistake that occurs due to confusion and which is the source of this distortion in desire.
The quote at top is NOT K’s quote. Please remove it. He never said that statement.
I made note of that fact in the article, which perhaps you neglected to read in your haste to condemn it?
I loved this article and while reading it something unlocked in my mind. I felt as though an old layer or blockage somehow released and something made sense. A layer of desire I hadn’t been able to see past was broken through. Thank you so much! I can see now that my life is very un fulfilling and I hold on to projects that keep me amused but now seem like busy work to keep me from confronting my life.
I found myself here after seeing the (mis) quote on X social media and searching it which led me here. So glad I did. I feel my life is taking new forms these last few months. What a wonderful thing it is to experience these old walls so to speak being made more see through. Bless ๐