QA166 QUESTION: I wish to ask about my husband who has recently suffered a nervous breakdown. What are the main problems which have led him to this state, and how could I help him regain strength and vitality?
ANSWER: The main problem and reason, from an overall point of view – from the point of view of the evolution of the individual soul – is the following. Here is a human being, a human entity, who is essentially and potentially ready to evolve and to use and invest his energies and his faculties in a much more meaningful way than he does.
The way he conducts these energies and his faculties and his potentialities is very, very different from the way it is meant to be used, and this creates a tremendous inner conflict. It tears him apart, because the more he goes in the direction he’s going, the more his spirit self rebels against it. And the more the spirit self rebels against it, the more he tries, unknowingly, to shut out this voice, or to heed it in an erroneous way.
Now, perhaps it will be possible for you to reach him once you know and comprehend this, but it is very essential that when you approach him in this matter, that you do not do this in a mechanical way. I would rather suggest that you give yourself more time, in the first place, to observe him from this point of view – that you truly see the truth of what I am saying, rather than listen to it and blindly following it.
Once you feel this truth – you observe it, you see it – the chances are that you will reach him in a much more effective way. Because otherwise it would merely be a preaching that is more likely to be rejected by him – that will reverberate by a wall of resistance, a wall of fear.
If you do it in this way, the chances are greater that you will have proper guidance, that the right moment will be found, the right tone will be found. Everything will be right, where perhaps just at this particular moment he is more reachable.
Also, I would say that this understanding is more likely to come to you when you proceed further in your own development – especially in view of your recent discoveries about yourself – and when you therefore also understand more profoundly your irritations with him.
For these irritations block the way to reaching an understanding. And you will be less irritated when you understand your problem better.
The positive chain reaction here would be the following. After understanding what I say on a merely intellectual basis, it would be necessary for you to go deeper into yourself, into the recently encountered problems. You will consequently view more objectively your irritations so that the force of the irritation diminishes – not because you tell yourself, “I must not be irritated,” and even being punishing with yourself, for this never has success. But rather by understanding the nature of the irritation – that will diminish it.
By this, you will have a more realistic comprehension of what I say here. You would feel the truth and, furthermore, then in consequence, you will be guidable so that the right moment will come where you can convey this.
