"sarve sukhino bhavantu"
Let everyone be happy.
That should be the goal of our efforts.
(A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada)
Introduction
This presentation on OIDA-therapy is a proposal of healing various aspects of diseased conditions of life through faith. Most parts of this book are taken from lectures, given in my daily work as a therapist and spiritual counselor. Henceforth many of the ideas, which you will find in the proposal of OIDA-therapy, are based on experience, coming from tackling big questions of life with individuals from different backgrounds of life - highly educated backgrounds as well as from simple beautiful peasants.
While doing the research work on OIDA-therapy and talking about it with many psychologists and psychiatrists, my own awareness increased. We realized that the subject of healing has not been approached with a holistic attitude, giving space to the most fundamental necessities and aspects of the human being. At the same time we also experienced a lot of joy as we discovered newer and newer incidences which coincided with the basic thesis of OIDA-therapy: sane and healthy faith can cure you.
We found so many confirmations of this, that we are presenting the OIDA-therapy to you, even though it is in a rudimentary stage, with its natural faults. But when the house is on fire, we can help by carrying water, even if we are not yet properly dressed. It is a fact that the house is on fire. Our world is full of problems. Many of them are well known, such as depression, drug addiction, increasing tendency of suicide, ruined family relationships and so on. The list is long. All these phenomena are manifesting themselves in front of us. We have many ideas regarding what the cause could be. What is the reason that people are increasingly lacking motivation for life? What depresses them so easily? What makes values dwindle and increases the harshness in relationships? If we knew the answer to all this, we could try to solve these problems.
What has happened during our education and to our lifestyle that has had such a negative influence on us and our children? In order to not favor any particular religious teachings, the larger part of the world has subscribed to secular education. As a consequence of this, there is a great lack of information about the history and value of religion.
From such information we obtain values and responsibilities, which can protect us to a certain degree. Faith in the values transmitted by mystical traditions has been the substance of what we may call human evolution in consciousness. The evolution from an innocent child to a grown up adult is based on education and values, which have their roots in the faith of the ancestral tradition and the respective educators. When governments, schools and the media ignore those traditions or present them as ridiculous or outdated, all the components of these traditions will gradually be lost. The consumer society injects new ideas of values which are usually related to some fashion, competition etc. Most of these trends are influenced by lust, anger and greed.
Undoubtedly, upon observing the behavior of humanity, many activities performed in the name of religion and welfare actually had nothing to do with either. Therefore many of those, who are promoting secular education, are motivated by their disgust with what they have witnessedPerennial Psychology those claiming to be religious do. Without responsibility and faith in values, which are neither sectarian nor do they exclude the wellbeing of others, the human being becomes increasingly dissatisfied with life and loses sensitivity towards others.
OIDA-therapy develops around our immediate needs. It reevaluates the importance of thought, knowledge and belief. In order to make advancement in this process we have gathered a lot of information from many different mystical traditions. OIDA-therapy wants to heal all those individuals and circumstances, which have arisen from a lack of values and a predominantly materialistic perspective of life. Since we ourselves received our education and practical experience guided by Vedic scriptures and yogic tradition, many of our examples are derived from that source. As a matter of fact, what we call OIDA Veda -Therapy in this manual, is one practical example of how OIDA-therapy could be applied in all mystical traditions. To take full advantage of OIDA-therapy in other mystical traditions, the experts, who have deep knowledge and concern for a particular tradition, would have to develop the corresponding guidance so that patients, who are inclined to their mystical tradition, will find help and be healed.
What kind of help can we expect today from the mystical traditions of this planet?
What remedy can they offer for our dilemma?
How can we reevaluate impartially the value of what we believe or what we used to believe in?
How can we advance in our mystical tradition to gain strength and to counteract the ills of our modern society?
How can we answer the doubts which may have been the cause of losing our faith?
What kind of people do we have to meet in our mystical tradition or practice, so that we may make an attempt to practice again?
What would actually qualify us for a deeper understanding of faith?
What do other mystical faith traditions teach that is interesting to us?
How do different mystical faith traditions compare to each other and how are they helping to heal our body, mind and soul?
How to really differentiate between what is good or bad for us?
How can we exercise our faculty to think and feel in a beneficial way? How to understand the true history of a tradition?
A lot of information can be obtained from OIDA-therapy but eventually everyone has to follow their own path and search out the ideals and examples which will help and guide them further in the development of a particular faith.
OIDA-therapy wants to raise your criteria to discover with the help of your inner voice, how close you are actually to the teachings of many mystical traditions and the values they profess.
OIDA-therapy starts with the general understanding of faith and its origin and impact on human thought.
OIDA means “I know” in Greek. We are open to all that people claim to know, especially to what has helped people in the past to maintain their values and sanity.
In the general section OIDA-therapy encourages us to do some critical reflecting about our own way of thinking.
Then follows a study of what the mystical traditions in general have recommended for humanity. After that you can proceed to expand your awareness of OIDA-therapy in your particular mystical faith tradition. Of course this Manual on oida TheraPy is a voluntary and individual process and during this process you are also invited to study and to compare different faith traditions to enlarge your picture and understanding of various faith traditions. OIDA-therapy is a self-therapy, and it is applied according to a person’s decision to submerge themself in their particular faith, which then becomes stronger. Only an expert teacher on a particular mystical path will be able to guide him. As time goes by and the OIDA-therapy counseling gets more and more positive results, many of their personal experiences can be shared to benefit all others on the path of OIDA-therapy.
The main thesis of OIDA-therapy is that faith in a mystical tradition is generally constructive and good for the human being -both, at an individual and a social level as well. If such faith is protected by some of the common sense values and increased by the inclination for universal all-embracing love, we will all be greatly benefited.
If in the name of a mystical path, aspects are being promoted, which harm and minimize others, or promote one’s own superiority over those who do not belong to the same faith, it becomes obviously clear, that the true mystical element is already lost in that tradition. OIDA-therapy wants to give every human being the chance to find the meaning of their existence. Humans do not have to become sick and morose during their lifetime, as C.G. Jung used to say. Every person has the right to know about the mystical tradition of his ancestors. If you consider that we are all offspring of the same human race, then we all have a right to know about the different faith traditions of the humans who lived before us, just as much as we all have the right to be benefited by new discoveries of medical sciences, as soon as they become available. People must be encouraged in their faith in such a way that their faith will not harm others. That means that the recommendations pertaining to different faith traditions should be acknowledged and those who want to follow them must not find any obstacles on their path. This would be true religious freedom.
We hope and pray that this presentation of Oida-therapy may be considered to be an attempt to help restore faith and to reveal the meaning of life to any individual who is searching for this.