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For most people, meditation is either helpful or harmless. For the mentally ill, however, it can be counter-productive. Usually such people don't have the discipline to meditate anyway, so the question doesn't arise. If they do, however, it can exacerbate their behaviour. People with paranoid tendencies can become more paranoid, and the clinically depressed even more depressed.

Borderline schizophrenics who commonly have a tendency to solitude and withdrawal, often find their way into meditation groups. Because meditation tends to loosen one's sense of self and expand the mind, schizophrenics can seriously lose the plot. The best advice any meditation teacher can give a schizophrenic is "Don't meditate!"

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The degree of supervision that would safely help the mentally disturbed is not available anywhere in the world, to my knowledge.

{I may have scribbled down that last sentence too hastily and omitted a phrase or two }

Hmmm ... so ... are we saying that there is this incredibly powerful tool called meditation that can profoundly improve the quality of your life experiences, but it's too dangerous for some people to use it? So, they should just sit around twiddling their proverbials and being medicated? ... hmmm ...

I mean if ever there is a group of people crying out for a profound change in the quality of their experiences ... if you've ever spent any time withing the existing mental health system ... hmmm ... I'm just tossing ideas around in my head ... I would say if you are on medication, then the question would be fairly moot. But for those of us who manage 2 survive without the meds and who have dabbled in meditation and derived some benefit ... I don't now that you can give a totally definitive answer to that question ... I suppose, if you still need some external 'authority' to tell you what to do, then you are still in the process of awakening ...

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If you're not throoughly confused just yet, here's a couple of other points-of-view:

Article by Les Mitchell {about spirtiuality & mental health}

Long, dark night of the soul - I was re-reading this only this morning, and if anything could be called a 'long, dark night' it would be schizophrenia ...

Should also include a link to John Watkins if I can find one ... I did include some of his stuff in this page:

Click here {scroll down to "A Personal Reflection by John Watkins"}

John's book is called ... Hearing voices

Google - might plug in 'advice meditation schizophrenia' next time I'm connected ... and see what pops up ...

Then, of course, there's this little link -

Do not believe because you read it in a book {also 'Do not believe because others have believed it for a thousand years' }

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{Include my other mental health links list? --- click}

Let alone the entire question of 'Just what is schizophrenia, anyway?'

And finally (?), there's a couple in this list that give still further perspectives on the whole question ... :)

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Here's a search for the actual book by Eric ...

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