ABSTRACT | PDF
Faculty Forum
Struggle for Immortality and Origin of Neurosis
Kamal Nath
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Silchar Medical College and Hospital
[Abstract: It says that all living being fight against death every moment. In case of human being, a death complex develops slowly in the early part of life along with development of higher function through its interaction with the environment like exposure and experiencing the trauma of death following death of near and dear ones. This death complex is dealt with defence mechanism – isolation, repression and denial. But as the idea remains in the conscious mind as well as sometime the repressed content tends to come in to the conscious mind breaking the barrier of subconscious particularly during stress, it converts the struggle against death in to struggle for immortality in case of human being. Depending upon the capacity, resources and concept, different people do the struggle for immortality in different ways. The nature of the struggle, outcome of the struggle and various other factors related to this struggle in different ways give rise to different kind of neurotic symptoms in the individual. I will try to elaborate the basic phenomenon of this struggle in short below. Attempt for correlation of this phenomenon with individual neurotic disorder and the method of treatment kept out of this purview.]
Yes death, the final truth of our life, the last station of this earthly journey, the last assault on this living body, the last obstacle in this stifle-strident life. The invincible mighty demon with which we all are in a grim struggle since our birth, sorry, since our life starts (as it starts long before birth though we are not much concerned about this fact) and ends up only with our defeat in the end.
So, this death being so strong, so big and invincible in nature, is bound to have a major effect in our personal, familial, social, cultural and almost any other aspects of life that can be comprehended.
If we just look into the matter psychodynamically how it does appears to us? We all know how much pain, pathos, sorrows and emotional upset is brought on us just by the news of death of someone known to us and we can really comprehend it by our heart when someone very close to us passes away. Probably it is the ugliest view one can have in the earth when he sees his near and dear one get slowly burnt in the pyre and get converted into ugly mass of ashes in front of his eyes. That is why the news of any death brings us the most dreaded and unwanted memory and images and emotions. But is it not surprising enough to see that (knowing fully well about the ultimate destiny we all live with our lives very much comfortably throughout most part of our life)?
In Mahabharata also we find the reference of this strange phenomenon of life. One day in a very tragic circumstance, Judhisthir, the eldest of the Pandava had to face the God of religion, who came in disguise in the form of a big bird – Baka. He asked Judhisthir ten (10) questions, one of which was, what is the most surprising thing in the world? Judhisthir replied, “Knowing very well that we all are one day going to die, we all remain forgotten about it throughout out life.” This single incidence shows that mankind baffled with this strange phenomenon since time immemorial. But how it happens? Why it happens and what is its significance?
Here the three different psychological phenomena are involved – first is the isolation, the second one is the repression and the third is the denial. (Our mind has got structurally three parts – the id, ego and superego. It is the duty of the ego to keep our conscious part of the mind conflict free and anxiety free). Under ordinary circumstances a person experiences in conscious mind both the emotional disturbances (anxiety, depression etc.) and unwanted imagery (picturisation) when such an emotion-laden idea comes to mind. By isolation, the egofirst separates the emotional and imagery component from the ideational component and then by isolation pushed these unwanted emotion and imagery deep down into the unconscious mind. And then only the idea remains in the conscious mind without its associated agony and anxiety. That is why we can talk about death, write about death, discuss about death, can take part in a funeral process and funeral meeting and ceremony so casually with much calm and composure. But in spite of all these, some particular death of our very closest one may haunt us for our life long as because in those cases emotion may be so strong, imagery may be so vivid that all these isolation may be incomplete and repression may be partial and weak and then the particular memory or thought or idea may continue to have the associated emotions and unwanted imagery attached with it and may continuously disturb us off and on throughout the life particularly when we are under stress, lonely and insecure because of many other reasons.
Now all these are about the death of others. What happened to the thought of death of us? Under normal circumstances are we bothered about our death? Do we believe from our heart that we can also die and one day will die? This human life so dear to us. This beautiful world where there is so much to see, so much to listen, so much to take and so much to give will stay behind us and we will have to go away with all desires unfulfilled. Then why we have not started crying yet? Why we are not overly depressed? It is because of the denial, another very weak and immature defence mechanism by ego to keep our conscious mind free. Knowing very well the fact, the ultimate fate of this grim battle, the invincibility of the death, we ignore it throughout our life time. Thanks to ego that denial was there, otherwise it would have been impossible for us to live a normal life, to keep ourselves engage in day to day activity, to bear the responsibility and to do our duty, to prepare ourselves for the struggle for tomorrow, to keep the value and beauty of interpersonal relations and what not. But can we say keeping our hand over our chest that I am not afraid to die? Can we thwart the tear and anxiety of our death completely from our life? No. It is because the denial is weak and very immature defence act of ego. On the other hand, though by isolation and repression most of the dreaded emotions are kept away from our conscious mind, the idea and thought of death remains in our conscious mind. Thanks to the facts that it remains. It is because of this only that the whole living world, the all living beings strive for immortality. Every living being tries to live past death. Every human being tries to cut his name in the rock. But rarely one knows how to cut it exactly. We keep on struggling against death every moment, moment to moment throughout our life. We struggle to protect it, preserve it and prolong it, even if it is for a moment only, by any means available to us. The nature of this struggle for immortality and the ultimate approach and acceptance of death varies in different people in different ways largely on the basis of their capacity and resources for struggle, and the concept of death ad immortality. For the lower animal and for the most part of the so called common people, the struggle for immortality is merged and synonymous with the struggle for existence and daily living. The life is full of trial and tribulations and full of obstacles and each obstacle brings a threat of death in subtle form like chronic poisoning and winning each obstacle means winning the battle with death for the day. Here come the two basic instincts of life – eros and thanatos, life instinct and death instinct. This life instinct helps us to protect the life against all possible threat to life. It is active and naturally of us in our fight against death throughout the life. The capacity to avoid a major accident at last moment, capacity to find a way out from a crisis situation immediately that has befallen to us suddenly and without any fore sign, a drowning man trying to catch up a straw, so many and so forth – all are examples of life instinct. Then comes the thanatos – death instinct, that pushes us toward the death. But does it pushes only to death? Both these eros and thanatos because of its attachment with strong libidinal energy (energy related to sex and sexual instincts) leads to creation of offspring, a basic and primal desire towards getting the immortality. One helps in the protection of the individual and the other in the protection of the genera, race and the civilization in nutshell. This is the story of large majority of our common people and because of this nature of struggle for immortality of these people, the civilization keeps on living and running on forever. Though everybody knows in this way immortality cannot be achieved, but they like to live with this struggle with denial. That the death will never come to them.
The great people try to live past the death by their work and can probably think of the facts that the immortal rock has been inscribed with their name. All their creative energy, libidinal energy is invested with their creative work. They try to deny the death by sublimating their whole energy to the creative work. It is because of this sublimation we get the greatest of the artists, scientists, singers, painters, writers. The immortality of their work becomes the primary concern. There are innumerable instances where this group of people suffers inhuman pain and punishment at the hands of rulers for their discovery, their creation, their creative idea, but they prefer to die the physical death to keep their work and conviction immortal. It is for this group of people and their nature of struggle for immortality the civilisation develops from one stage to the next higher stage.
Then come the mahapurushas or great saints or the great religious leaders. How they react to their death? They of course never take the help of defence mechanism denial. They actually intellectualise the matter and really believe that death is not the end but life after death is the rule and that life after death will be as per karma. They can really face the life and death with equal strength. But there also lies the urge for immortality. They are convinced about the immortality of the soul, which is more important to them than the physique (another intellectualisation) and that sense of security regarding immortality helps them to accept this physical death more calmly.
The common people also like to believe this theory as because it suits their needs and desire to live permanently and fondle this idea with false sense of security. Probably that is why they cannot tolerate any attack on their religious belief and idea and react vehemently with slightest provocation. But still, there remains an everlasting question mark in subtle form in their mind regarding this theory. If it fails then what? So they continue their struggle for immortality, the struggle for existence as per their own power and capacity. If everything fails, sexual instincts are there for procreation to give semblance of immortality. That is why probably the persons, cults, groups or sects who are having less power of other creative activity, indulges more in procreation (‘breeder hypothesis’). These are the people who find it most difficult to accept the death.
Then there are people who are neither saints nor believers like common people, but still can accept the death more calmly and comfortably like Bhagat Singh, who at the dawn of the particular day when he was hanged was studying the autobiography of Lenin and asked the authority for few minutes to wait, to allow him to finish the book. It is only possible because of their identification (another strange psychological phenomenon) with their idea. Here the immortality of the idea gets the priority over the immortality of their self because of the identification.
Then at the top of all these there are very few individual like Lord Buddha, who accepted both his life and death as a painful and meaningless journey and wanted nirvana – mukti. Did he not want immortality? Haa. He wanted the greatest immortality by nirvana not only for him but for all human being. As like all other great saints he also gave much more importance to the soul then the physique and pressed upon the amalgamation of atma (soul) with paromatma. What was the concept of paromatma? The eternal and immortal source of energy and creation.
At the end there are only few rare people who live and die with true insight of the whole phenomenon. Albert Einstein asked the people who were standing by his side not to disturb him as he was experiencing the death! Sigmund Freud just arranged his deathbed himself, prepared everything for a nice death in the last weeks before the death. At the final moment he called on all important people of his life to come near to his deathbed, asked the doctor to inject him the required dose of morphine, paid the fees of that injection to the doctor by himself just before the injection, hold his hand out to the doctor and assured the doctor not to be nervous and not to double prick the vein at last moment and asking him to give the next dose of morphine if he doesn’t die by single shot with clear instruction about the timing and amount of next dose. He took the first shot smilingly and went into sleep. Then coma and then death. The master of the mind died like a master.
Was it their sense of immortality by what they have already achieved was the cause of their neurosis free human death?
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