The Cure

Bodily illnesses need a physician.
Spiritual illnesses need a priest.
Mental illnesses need a sage.

If one breaks an arm, one must let it heal
In a cast, and rest it for may days.

If one is consumed by bitterness
Or flashes of uncontrollable lust, 
One must rest from the source of the bitterness or lust.

If deluded, or depressed one must rest,
To allow the ancient wisdom of accountability to soothe their soul.

Sages have found in all mental strife
An error of judgment, be it one's perception about life
Or one's desire, unmet.
Good men often suffer;
Bad men often feel no pain.
Yet, to heal from mental illness, the Sage tells the opposite
Of a Therapist.
He does not say become more worldly
But, rather, one must forsake the world 
And learn to have peace.
Not to embrace suffering and reach nirvana.
Not to say suffering is life's chief end.
Rather, feast at the appointed time,
Fast at the appointed time,
Make love at the appointed time,
And shun embracing at the appointed time.

The mental woes of our modern age
Are guilt and shame.
All have guilt; all have shame;
Therefore, it makes deluded and depressed minds.
At the end of the burden comes numbness.
Rather, the Sage Philosopher teaches
To become more sane by loving those around oneself.
To love those who one sees
To accept that love is going to wound
More profoundly than enemies.
To accept this fact, and understand
That we ourselves have wounded many, too.

The modern sickness is of the soul;
It comes from a sickness in society:
Men must be selfish in order to eat;
Men must accept they cause other's starvation;
They compete and burden others with their status.
For all men to eat, it would take a righteous confluence
Of one's own soul with the souls of others.
To truly unburden the self of suffering
Requires one to escape from the self
And merge one's identity with others,
Merge identity with God, family and friends.
Yet, the mental sickness encountered today
Is the succoring of the self
And the abandonment of spiritual things
And the abandonment of love.