OCD: TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL Barbara, a 33-year-old honors graduate of a prestigious Ivy League university, knew that she was an underachiever, working for a temporary agency. She was intelligent and articulate, but was plagued by intrusive thoughts that told her to check and recheck things. Had she unplugged the appliances? Locked the door? Often, she would leave early for her job, knowing she would have to turn around and come back home once or twice to check. One really bad day, she tucked the coffee machine and the iron in her book bag and took them to work. She felt very ashamed. “If you start doing these things,” Barbara told herself, “you’re going to lose whatever self-respect you have left.” So she developed new strategies for coping with her nagging and nonsensical thoughts: Before she left for work each day, she put the coffee machine on top of the refrigerator, far from any electrical outlet, and said out loud—and very tongue in cheek—“Goodbye, Mr. Coffee!” She had come ...
Most of the Vedic instructions are about switching your perception of reality from material to transcendental, e.g. Bhagavad-gītā 7.28. The transcendental reality is supposed to be more enjoyable. However, it can still be called illusion. Everything in this world, and the world is itself maya. This simply suggests that everything tangible to the senses is unreal. And for that matter, so was Krishna. It is Krishna’s body that is maya, it hence perished. But not the cosmic spirit, it is eternal and i. Krishna says this material world is illusion becasue if I ask you a simple question you won't be able to answer it. If I ask you to point towards you then you can point towards your face, your chest, your head and etc etc etc but none of it is you. Those are all basically the organs of your material body. So where is that real you located? Most of the world is deluded about it and instead most focus is on gross material body which is not the real self. But the soul is very s...