There is a difference between faith and schizophrenia! When
you have faith you seek to know reality itself. Faith gives you actual experiences and you
have a more satisfying, integrated, and successful life. In faith you live with
progressively more understanding of yourself and your world.Mental illness involves splitting yourself from reality. Perhaps your
daily life is too painful, or too boring, or too unappreciative of your individual talents
and concerns. In advanced mental trauma you, or your reactions to life (or your
chemical/genetic makeup, as some experts say), create a mental/emotional world that is
very different — and cut off — from reality.
In the case of sufferers of delusions who
seek higher consciousness, elaborate fantasies and deep emotional problems are usually
involved. While most everyone releases steam or imagines a better world through some
healthy fantasizing, the deeply deluded usually have a need to be extremely important.
Sometimes they have made huge mistakes, can't face them, and must be "proven right
all along." They may crave the satisfaction of being known to themselves or others as
clearly superior — perhaps even a guest from God or space, deigning to serve addled,
slow humanity. On the path of higher consciousness where so many subjective feelings and
thoughts can masquerade as spiritual, and where the fantasizing seeker can often find much
love and respect from fellow seekers who don't know where he or she is coming from, a
person can soar far into a near-permanent dream world.
