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I was delighted to see, in the
book review page of the June issue of ‘Yoga and Health’, that Dr Viktor
Frankl’s "Man’s Search for Meaning" had been reprinted.
In 1964 I had happened upon an earlier review.
It was at the moment when I was seeking recovery after a traumatic spiritual
crisis. I purchased the book and found that reading it and absorbing the lessons
within was the major factor in restoring my health and finding a purpose in
living life to the full. It has been an inspiration to me ever since.
In 1975, I wrote an article for ‘Yoga and
Health’ paying tribute to Dr Frankl’s work.
In 1997, Dr Frankl passed away (in the same
week as Princess Diana), and I made it a point to go to Synagogue to say Kaddish
(the memorial prayer) as a thank you to his memory for what his book did for me.
Now that his book has become available again,
it seemed timely to offer a revised version of my earlier article as a tribute
to his memory and in the hope that others who suffer a spiritual crisis may be
tempted to read his remarkable testimony to the human spirit and its potential.
"There are men who learn
their Yoga by peaceful contemplation in the majestic tranquillity of the
Himalayas, and there are men who learn their Yoga through being picked up
by the scruff of their neck and being dropped into Hell."
The Death Camps
In the years of the 'Holocaust' (1939 — 1945), Hell
was no metaphysical concept — it was a concrete geographical reality spelt
Auschwitz — Belsen — Treblinka — Dachau — the death camps of Nazi
Germany.
During the 2nd World War Dr. Viktor Frankl was a slave
labourer in one of the Nazi Concentration Camps, in constant danger of death in
the gas chamber or from one of the epidemics of typhoid fever. By day he had to
perform the heaviest of manual labour: digging, carting and moving dead bodies.
But by night he developed the therapy that he had already started upon before
the war, not only through choice, but also through sheer stark necessity.
For those who learnt their Yoga in Hell, whether it was
the concentration camps of the Nazis, the Communists or one of the totalitarian
regimes of more recent times, their education was thrust upon them by those who
perpetrated these atrocities.
The Nazis had a deliberate policy of attempting to
destroy a Man's identity by stripping him, not only of his possessions and
clothing, not only of his hair and dignity, but also of his name. In return he
was given the cast-off clothing of a man already a victim of the gas chamber and
a number was tattooed on his arm.
All meaning gone
The moment of truth for the shattered 'number' who once
upon a time, in a different life, in a different world, had been Dr. Viktor
Frankl, was when the one remaining possession that he valued above all others,
the manuscript that recorded all his life's work was stripped from him along
with his clothes, and he was given the rags of another.
For a moment he felt that all meaning had been ripped
from his life, that there was nothing left for him to do, and then thrusting his
hands into the pockets of his new rags he found a piece of crumpled paper.
Carefully and curiously unfolding it, he found that it was a page torn out of a
Hebrew prayer book bearing the words of the fundamental Jewish prayer (or
declaration of faith) known as the 'Shema' with its challenge – "Hear O!
Israel, YHVY your God is One" (which means "Harken to this O! you who
wrestle with God and Man and in that wrestling find both God and yourselves, He
who was, is and always will be is your God and is a Unity") and its
invitation to a creative relationship with Divinity – "You shall love the
Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your
might".
If the Prisoner was not to lose his humanity and his
spirit, the attack had to be resisted by Creative Meditation on the fundamental
nature of one's identity and the analysis of those freedoms that still remained
to be exploited in one's predicament.
Dr. Frankl had previously experienced the truth of Carl
Jung's idea of 'Synchronicity', the theory that coincidences are not arbitrary
but are meaningful. However they only become personally meaningful when the
person to whom the coincidence occurs has the courage, the intuition and the
ability to invest it with a personal meaning.
Faced with this prayer, Dr. Frankl might well have
asked 'In what sort of God could one believe in a World full of suffering?' But
Logotherapy inverts the question and poses another — 'How can we afford to
deny the existence of God in a World full of suffering?' The very essence of
Logotherapy is the belief that there is ultimately 'Meaning' behind suffering,
that God is manifest in the Universe as 'Logos' or 'Ultimate Meaning'.
If there were no meaning, if this World was a mere
matter of chance — a giant joke, then suffering would be unbearable. Only by
accepting a doctrine of meaning can suffering be overcome.
Meditating upon the particular incident of the prayer.
Dr. Frankl realised that the destruction of his manuscript did not negate the
meaning of his life, for the prayer found in his rags could only be interpreted
as a command to realise his work in action, not only to maintain his own dignity
and integrity as a human being, but also that of his fellow prisoners.
In his narrative of his concentration camp experiences
and the case histories of the people that he helped after the War Dr. Frankl
reminds us again and again that the one freedom that can never be taken away
from us is our freedom to choose our attitudes in the face of our circumstances.
In the death camps he found that
'He
who has a WHY to live for can bear with almost any HOW'.
'As
long as Men could find some personal meaning in life —As
long as Men could find a reason for continuing to fight on against apathy
and despair — whether it be for some one or something beyond themselves
—For
just so long could Man retain an amazing power of endurance'.
Twofold nature of Man
In the Bhagavad-Gita, Man is taught that life is a
two-fold battle: both within the soul of Man and in the outer World. But while
Man is not permitted to shirk the outer battle against the evils of sickness and
hunger, poverty and fear, discrimination and brutality, oppression and
censorship, it is also demanded of him that he fight that outer battle with
peace in his heart.
The inner conflict is the attempt by the Ego to fly
from the true Centre. In the allegory of the 'Gita' it is portrayed by Arjuna's
attempt to escape from his responsibilities.
Arjuna represents the Ego, and Krishna the Higher Self
or Indwelling Divinity to whose guidance Arjuna slowly learns to submit himself
in love.
In the Bible we find a close parallel in the story of
Jacob and the Angel. The Angel is both Adversary (shadow) and Redeemer (Spirit)
and it is only when Jacob perceives the twofold nature of the angel with whom he
wrestles, that he is transformed from the egotistical Jacob into Israel and
finds his true nature.
We mature by fighting that battle within ourselves and
learning that we are not alone but rather an organic part of a much greater
spiritual structure whose health and wholeness depends upon our actions and
attitudes.
Loss of a sense of meaning
The spiritual neurosis from which we all may suffer to
a greater or lesser extent is a lack of sense of meaning. This is largely the
product of the times, of the breakdown of community bonds through the mobility
of the Industrial Era, the increasing regimentation of our activities, the
weakening and depersonalising of human relationships through bureaucracy, the
impoverishment of our means of leisure through the increasing mechanisation of
entertainment and the loss of a sense of personal destiny. In many people this
has become a source of spiritual neurosis which appears in feelings of apathy,
frustration and depression.
At the highest level it expresses itself as a feeling
of separation from the Spiritual sources of our being. At more mundane levels it
appears in feeling of depression, frustration, apathy, and in extreme cases the
total dependence or addiction to some form of crutch.
Faced with this problem, some of the younger disciples
of Freud began the development of a new method that was far more spiritual in
its approach. To distinguish it from the 'Psycho-Analysis' of Sigmund Freud they
called it 'Existential Analysis'. They never failed to acknowledge their debt to
Freud, nor did they deny that there are many problems of spiritual and psychic
tension best treated by 'Depth' psychology. Nevertheless they demonstrated that
there were an increasing number of problems that demanded what might be termed a
'Height' psychology.
Its essence lies in its endeavour to reveal and develop
all those latent spiritual strengths within our selves that will enable us to
transcend our personal suffering and to find healing from the highest and most
spiritual elements of one’s Self. It gives practical effect to the idea that a
therapy can deliberately search out all those aspirations, potentialities and
relationships to greater causes that give meaning to life.
Existential analysis attained its full maturity in
Logotherapy, the system developed by Dr. Viktor Frankl, the man who ‘learnt
his Yoga in Hell’.
To understand Logotherapy, one must first understand
its exponent and the circumstances under which it developed, for these
illustrate better than any other example the nature of its potential.
Viktor Frankl began his career as a student of Sigmund
Freud who encouraged him in his early writings. While acknowledging his debt to
Freud's teaching and the fact that there were many problems best treated by
classical Freudian depth psychology he found himself increasingly drawn towards
those who were developing 'Existential Analysis'.
Before the War he had already started developing the
techniques of Logotherapy and was holding official hospital posts in Vienna.
After the war, Dr. Viktor Frankl became Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at
the University of Vienna medical school, Head of the Neurological department of
the Poliklmic hospital of Vienna and President of the Austrian Medical Society
of Psychotherapy — a man who received the respect of professional
psychotherapists all over the world. It was a respect that was earned the hard
way.
One of the objectives of the 'Yoga' in all Religions
and Philosophies is the fulfilment of the command:- 'Man — Know Thy Self. To
the Logotherapist, the answer to the question 'Who am I?' is found in posing and
meditating upon two more questions: 'Where do I stand?' and 'What is expected of
me?'. This demands three closely related sets of values:
When we are completely free, we have a potential for
'Creativity' in which we can choose our activities in the outer World and the
manner in which we can transcend our Ego in service to others. When our freedom
is partially restricted through physical infirmity or external pressures, we
still retain a capacity for 'Experience', the ability to observe the things that
are happening to us and around us, and to find meaning in life or to invest it
with meaning through relationship with others.
Even when all freedom of action and experience is
completely denied us and the agony of our suffering is at its most intense and
humiliating, we still retain our ability to choose our 'Attitudes' in the face
of our circumstances — one can still observe oneself — and this represents
the ultimate freedom that no one can ever deny us, unless they completely rob us
of our will through mind changing drugs. It is this ability which, in the last
resort, establishes the Human as a potentially religious and self transcending
Being.
The problem of dehumanisation
We talk about Psychoses and Spiritual Neuroses because
they are an extreme manifestation of what affects us all in this stress-laden
society and age.
We talk about the Concentration Camps because they are
an extreme manifestation of the dehumanisation process which is always
endangering the World and which George Orwell and other writers have so ably
portrayed. But the fact that Man can retain his humanity, his capacity for
compassion, courage and hope in the horrors of the Concentration Camp is an
encouragement to all those who believe in the Spiritual Quality and Potential of
Mankind and the ability to transcend one’s circumstances .
Dr. Frankl is by no means unique in the way that he
maintained his own dignity and that of his fellow prisoners under extreme
temptation to despair. He is unique in that he had the background and the vision
to use his experience to create a powerful system of psychiatry that will one
day be as widely known as that of Sigmund Freud or Carl Jung and that is in many
ways far more appropriate to our times and needs.
In the terrible attempts to dehumanise Man in the Nazi
death camps, Dr. Frankl saw for himself the ultimate result of that pagan and
materialistic philosophy that reduces Man to a mere pawn of conditioning
circumstances. This led him to make his great contribution to humanise
psychiatry through Logotherapy.
Again and again he reminds us that the one freedom that
can never be taken away from Mankind is our freedom to choose our attitudes in
the face of our circumstances.
Dimensions Of Fulfillment
"If you can meet with
triumph and disaster -
and treat those two imposters
just the same".
Thus wrote Rudyard Kipling in his much quoted poem
"If". Kipling spent many years in India and was influenced by Indian
thought. Much of the poem "If" is excellent Karma Yoga in that Karma
Yoga teaches detachment from the fruits of one's work.
Dr. Frankl, in the existential philosophy that
underlies Logotherapy, carries this line of argument a stage further.
At the materialistic level, we tend to judge our lives
in terms of Triumph and Disaster - Success and Failure. Let this Material
dimension be represented by the horizontal member of a cross. Failure to the
left. Success to the right. How many people are there, who are, in material
terms, highly successful and yet their lives are empty to the point that they
require psychiatric treatment and may even contemplate or turn to suicide. This
can be illustrated by having the vertical member of the cross represent the
Spiritual dimension. In this dimension, we see at the bottom - despair and at
the top - fulfilment, which is not the same thing as achievement.
One can meet people who in material terms have failed
and yet have fulfilled their destiny, and who in a strange way have influenced
their immediate circle of kin and friends by bringing a quality of humanity,
compassion and encouragement to them.
It is of course possible to be both materially
successful and also to have fulfilled one's destiny spiritually, and happy is
the person who is in that case. It is tragically possible to fail materially and
to be sunk in apathy. But most tragic of all, it is possible to have fulfilled
one's purpose and yet to despair because one cannot see one's own spiritual
potential. And this is where the insights of Logotherapy or Karma Yoga can be of
the greatest help.
Investing life with meaning
Logotherapy demands of one that we stop looking
backwards and downwards into our hidden subconscious motivations and that we
should look forwards and upwards into life to do all of, and more than, that
which is demanded of us. More particularly, however, although 'Absolute Meaning'
is something upon which we can speculate by Philosophy but can never truly know
except by mystical experience, Logotherapy is concerned with the 'Unique
Meaning' for the concrete situation facing this person at this moment in time.
It suggests that although 'meaning' in the human dimension is not the same as
'meaning' in the Divine dimension, nevertheless part of the concept of Man
created in the Divine Image suggests that one of his faculties is his capacity
to invest life with meaning.
Our task through both creative action and creative
meditation is to bring 'Logos' (meaning) into life. The therapeutic technique of
Logotherapy is essentially to show each person how they can achieve this for
their own circumstances.
In the battle to harmonise the conflicting elements of
the personality one often needs human counsel and guidance from one who is more
experienced and integrated. This may be sought from a person or from their
writings. But both the genuine Guru and the true Logotherapist is a guide who
acts as a catalyst to stimulate, and yet no more than stimulate, the unfolding
and flowering of the person from within.
Dr. Frankl describes his experiences with patients who
were on the verge of suicide and who had to be helped to find a reason for
living: — patients who were crippled with phobias and who had to be helped to
use their sense of humour to conquer their fears: — patients who were
depressed and apathetic, and who had to be helped to find a new meaning in life
itself. In these case histories everyone can find their own problems set out and
analysed.
Of course, major neuroses and psychoses are a subject
for the professional qualified Logotherapist, who may use pharmaco-therapy or
analytical psychology where indicated in addition to logotherapeutic
counselling. The most important feature of clinical Logotherapy is the personal
dialogue between therapist and patient. These aspects of the work of the
Logotherapist are beyond the scope of this article. But Logotherapy is a
philosophy and a technique that in many cases people can apply to their own
problems for themselves by using reflective meditation to observe the incidents
that befall them in as detached a manner as possible, and to penetrate into
their significance to invest them with meaning.
We can use for our inspiration the message of the
Bhagavad Gita and similar parables from other Eastern and Western scriptures. We
can study Viktor Frankl's own books on the subject, for his writings are geared
to the needs of the ‘Man in the street’ who can apply them to his own needs.
For all those engaged in the day to day battle of life, who need to help
themselves or their colleagues, the philosophy that underlies his spiritual
healing techniques is of the utmost urgency and importance.
The prayer of the 18th century Chassidic
master, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, is a forerunner of Dr Frankl’s
approach and is one of my favourite sources of personal inspiration:
Master of the Universe!
I do not beg you to reveal to me
the secret of your ways - that would be
too much for me - I could not bear
it.
But show me one thing, show it to
me ever more clearly and more deeply.
Show me what this, which is
happening to me here and now, means to
me. What it demands of me. What it
is that you, Lord of the World, are
telling me by way of it.
Oh! it is not why I suffer that I
wish to know, but only whether I suffer for
your sake.
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