A Quote by R. D. Laing
Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair.
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Despair ... is the only cure for illusion. Without despair we cannot transfer our allegiance to reality - it's a kind of mourning period for our fantasies. Some people do not survive this despair, but no major change within a person can occur without it.
Life is such a mystery, no one can understand it, and one who claims that he understands it is simply ignorant. He is not aware of what he is saying, of what nonsense he is talking. If you are wise, this will be the first realization: life cannot be understood. Understanding is impossible. Only this much can be understood - that understanding is impossible.
The act of collaboration must start with dialogue. You cannot build relationships without having an understanding of your potential partners, and you cannot achieve that understanding without a special form of communication that goes beyond ordinary conversation.
We cannot do without it, and yet we disgrace and vilify the same. It may be compared to a cage, the birds without despair to get in, and those within despair to get out.
Our world cannot be complete without you, and without hearing what you have to say. True justice cannot exist without compassion; compassion cannot exist without understanding. But no one will understand you unless you speak, and are able to speak clearly (Sister Janet to the students, page 155).
Love is a chemical reaction, but it cannot be fully understood or defined by science. And though a body cannot exist without a soul, it too cannot be fully understood or defined by science. Love is the most powerful form of energy, but science cannot decipher its elements. Yet the best cure for a sick soul is love, but even the most advanced physician cannot prescribe it as medicine.
If an autoimmune disease can create symptoms that look exactly like schizophrenia, that raises the question, what is schizophrenia? And are there forms of schizophrenia that are caused by other types of autoimmune disease?
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
You cannot study other planets without referring to Earth and without applying the techniques and the insights of Earth science. And you cannot really do a good job understanding the Earth without the insights from planetary exploration.
No one has schizophrenia, like having a cold. The patient has not "got" schizophrenia. He is schizophrenic.
Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both.
An old joke puts its thus, "when a man speaks to a god its prayer , when a god speaks to a man its schizophrenia"... Many people hear voices without suffering any of the debilitating and dysfunctional effects associated with schizophrenia, some treat these as sources of inspiration of develop religious ideas around them, others become mediums or occultists.
I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard-won lack of understanding.
Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave. What you WANT is irrelevant, what you've CHOSEN is at hand. You and I are essentially infinite choice-makers. In every moment of our existence, we are in that field of all possibilities where we have access to an infinity of choices.
In truth, opinion may be taken for understanding; understanding cannot be taken for opinion. How so? Surely because opinion may be deceived; understanding cannot be. If it could, it would not be understanding but opinion. For true understanding has not only certain truth, but the knowledge of truth.
Despair is the result of each earnest attempt to go through life with virtue, justice and understanding, and to fulfill their requirements. Children live on one side of despair, the awakened on the other side.
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