Schizophrenia (2 of Swords)

 

The person on this card brings a new twist to the old idea of "getting stuck between a rock and a hard place"! But we are in precisely this sort of situation when we get stuck in the indecisive and dualistic aspect of the mind. Should I let my arms go and fall head-first, or let my legs go and fall feet-first? Should I go here or there? Should I say yes or no? And whatever decision we make, we will always wonder if we should have decided the other way. The only way out of this dilemma is, unfortunately, to let go of both at once. You can't work your way out of this one by solving it, making lists of pros and cons, or in any way working it out with your mind. Better to follow your heart, if you can find it. If you can't find it, just jump--your heart will start beating so fast there will be no mistake about where it is!

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Man is split. Schizophrenia is a normal condition of man--at least now. It may not have been so in the primitive world, but centuries of conditioning, civilization, culture and religion have made man a crowd--divided, split, contradictory.... But because this split is against his nature, deep down somewhere hidden the unity still survives. Because the soul of man is one, all the conditionings at the most destroy the periphery of the man. But the center remains untouched--that's how man continues to live. But his life has become a hell. The whole effort of Zen is how to drop this schizophrenia, how to drop this split personality, how to drop the divided mind of man, how to become undivided, integrated, centered, crystallized. The way you are, you cannot say that you are. You don't have a being. You are a marketplace--many voices. If you want to say 'yes', immediately the 'no' is there. You cannot even utter a simple word 'yes' with totality.... In this way happiness is not possible; unhappiness is a natural consequence of a split personality.