page 476 -- 488 : ' Assassins'

Page 476
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" This is India, my friend ! Why, do anything simply if you can do it in a complicated way ? Have you ever been to get a driving license or a ration card ? Have you even filed a complaint at a police station ? Have uou ever got a child admitted to school ? It's the brahminical brain , so wily, so twisted, it draws a straight line by making circles ! "
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Page 487
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Guruji to Narrator : Dont' make things complicated. It's ok for human being to Want. It's ok too, for human beings to move on . Like desire, movement too, is the essence of the world.

" Everything must be continually in a state of movement. Sun, Moon, Stars, Air, Water, Earth : men, women, animals, Germs. Everything must be in flux.

"And, as you pay a price for Want, you pay a price for Movement, too ! But you need not be afraid of losses. At the end, at the VERY end, it will all be squared up. Till it is not, the journey will go on ! Finally, everyone will end up in the same place, everyone's balance sheet perfectly balanced.

"The only difference is - how, each of us got there ! We will be distinguished and separated NOT by the final destination, but the quality of our journey. The choices we made : the paths we took.

" That is the miracle of free will ! That is the miracle of being human ! Moksha is not the opportunity : Life is ! Moksha is the same for everyone and we will all eventually get it. But Life is discrete, several and separate : it is our indulgence and our gift. Hence, my son, do not be afraid of Wants, do not be afraid of Moving on, do not be afraid of the prices to pay for both. "
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Page : 488
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Guruji to our Narrator : Men make the great mistake of thinking that, every woman's karma revolves around her man ! The Truth is - a woman's Karma is far more varied and much more complex than a man's.

" Children, parents, servants, in-laws.
The ceaseless war against the small injustices of the world, of small animals and small people.
The quiet breaking down of walls
The quiet location of compassion.
Being the sail that catches the wind of good fortune.
Being the cushion that breaks the fall of hard fate.
Being the poultice on injury.
The pill against disease.

" In contrast, Man's Karma is nothing but the pursuit of money and power, whose accumulations know no limit ! It's the reason , most men soon think their lives are a failure, while women never cease to strive ! "

Narrator's monologue : The peasants and villagers left. They were given small , quick pills of wisdom and sent away. The full treatment is reserved to the City Folk, whose resistance to illumination had become dangerously high ! Still, Guruji enjoyed us. We were a challenge !

Page 378

Narrator's monologue on Sara : " Guruji was right. Too much reading, too many books, were a dangerous thing. No conversation culd be simple : no response , uncalibrated. Everything had to be fashioned into an elaborate constgruct : of motives and postures and neweroses and failings. "

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page 381
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When Sara attacked him ( the lawyer) for being money minded, he said - I could just see him, with a cinematic cock of his head, his finger tips priming his collar - " Madam ! Who doesn't like money ? But here , there is no case and there is no money ! I have studied at it and I know. We are both wasting our time. These men ( the assassins) are like rando stalks of sugarcane. Powerful men cut them, chew them , and spit them out. No one pays to kill them : no one pays to save them. You must spend your time on better things. Bride burning, child labour, witch-hunting, sati, dowry deaths, female foeticide, cholera, tuberculosis, polio, tree-felling, pollution.. "

Yes ! The whole fucking world is waiting to be saved. From itself !

But Sara was not the one to take anything at face value. She was too full of grand education for that ! The American university had taught her things like deconstruction and subtext. Instead of the cunning of the sub-literate, she had the supicion of the over educated.

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Page 384
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Guruji said, beaming, " If she ( Sara ) means, innocent because they ( the assassins ) are the victims of their circumstances, then, of course, they are innocent ! Just like the Police are, and SHE is, and you and I are ..... and Ravana was , and Duryodhana was and Pakistan is ! "

Narrator : That leaves me no wiser, Guru ji !

Guruji : Of course it won't. And in any case , this is not what she means. This is njot the way to look at the world. Only holy men and fools are supposed to find everyone blameless. And you all are , neither ! Trust is NOT like love. It is good to give love freely to everybody, but trust is like good karma - it must always be earned.

" Men must remember that, they live among men. There is no wisdom in forgetting that. For men, we know, are the least reliable of all animals. For money and power, they can forsake the womb that birthed them. Remember, Gandhi was killed by a Hindu and Jesus was betrayed by his own followers and was nailed to the cross. The Universe manufactures more bad people than good people because, the good is always tested. Continually tested. Because, it's not enough to be good once or twice : it's not enough to get the better of one bad man - the warriors of God need to best, battalions of the bad, in the course of their lives'.

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Page 402
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" All you had to do , was to remember their favour ( the dons' ). To never lose your sense of gratitude. Nothing more. No favours were asked in return. There was very little that the majority could possibly give them ( the Dons ) in return. In truth, the Dons were just like powerful men elsewhere. They wanted, not just money and influence, but also , the affection and admiration of people.
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420 ( an asshole of iron)
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that night, Rajbir Gujjar told Hathoda Tyaagi : " Rememer, beta the final seat of all achievement is neither the Head nor the Heart nor the Muscles. It is the Ass ! Courate and determination lives in the ass ! When the odds stack up against men, when the challenges mount, it is the ass that gives way first ! All my life, I have seen it. The asshole opens up and bleasts like a goat ! The head aned the heart and the muscles see it, and follow suit ! " ( LOL)
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Page 444
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Ali wore a green monkey cap pulled so low down over his face, with just his eyes visible, that Hathoda Tyaagi could not recognize him.
Ali : Hah ! Didn't recognise me ? Not even my wife would ! Might even open her legs because of that ! hah hah !
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Page 444
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Ali would be dead before long. So would be the other hitmen he worked over, in the coming years. As a rule, triggermen were picked for their dispensability.
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Page 455
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" Hathoda Tyaagi, with his growing reputation, was a hulking presence at these summits. He neer spoke and he seldom followed the train of the conversation. What he did was - to observe with fascination , the fear that gripped rich men in the face of physical violence. Men, who would have been ruthless and dismissive with underlings, men with fortunes they could not burn in 3 lifetimes, wheedled and whinged in the presence of Donullian's men. And yet, the moment they had to commission the killing of another, the acquired a rare bravura !
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Page 458
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" Along the plinth of the temple sat, a long line of beggas and alm-seekers - cfripples, lepers, the blighted and the cursed : limbs missing, limbs glarled, eyes gouged out,: men, women, children. Hathoday Tyagi walked down the hellish ranks , doling out ten - and twenty-rupee notes, sparking a ripple of cries and blessings. it was what he did whenever he got the opportunity. He had no real use fo rhis money. Some of it went to his family, some was swuandered on meat for the dogs, doles to the old man, and alms to all manner of fakirs and beggars.

For, Hathoda Tyagi knew, that all blessings ned to be secured and kept whole by concinual acts of generosity and kindness. In the company of vileness, the greatest boons were leachd of their potency. He gave what he had little need of - his money - and tried to keep what he needd - the benedications of the wretches - which were the benedictions of the Gods !
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Page 467
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Jai to our Narrator : Power is the Engine of the world. Sex and Money, its oil and lubricants. God is, at best, the invocation before you start the engine - meaningless if you have no engine to start ! God is a Goli, a multi-flavoured pill, invented by those who have power, money, and sex, to give to those , who have none ! Love is another goli. Some days, we too swallow these golis. They feel good, like a joint, a temporary high. But they are not the reality. The reality is power , money , sex. And yes, here is anohter Goli - Morality! "
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story of my assassins : page no.326

Story of my assassins
--------------------------
These college boys , sons of influential parents, played basket ball. They were full of quick feints, loud abuse, and aggresive elbows. Some were accompanied by ripening girls. At the end, they sat huddled together and shared cigarettes. I wanted to slap their smug, confident faces. These were kids for whom, India was just a vast amusemetn park, set up by some earnest gold geezers after kicking out some whte men. they all neeed a fucking craxsh course in the Vedanta and a stint in the Army. Three months in Siachen, and 6 months in Imphal. Then, they would gain a perspective on the fadeaway jumper.

( Page 293)

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( After Chini's first adventure of stealing a woman's hand bag ; the gang leader Dhaka, after seeing the items rolling out of the handbag : remarks philosophically )

" There is no difference between a woman and her hand bag. The exterior may have no relation to what is inside! "

" From the many stomachs, small and big, of the bad emerged a mountain of jumple. Kaalia pulled up each item with seremonial slowness and held it up for all to see.

" 3 sticks of Lipstick. Red,Pink and Pinker.
A round handled hair brush with a plastic teeth.
A small , mud brown bottle, its cap, stained, its sharp smell, pleasant.
2 plastic ball pens. One short pencil.
A slim book of thick paper leaves, which, Dhaka explained them, can be exchanged for money ( cheque book).
A small yellow towel.
A pair of pale dark glasses.
A nail cutter, a nail file , and a fat, multipurpose knife.
A small , maroon color , leather diary , held together by a string.
Many thick black rubber bands.
A soft white cotton pad, with a bullet of a Tampon.
A Shining compact of a face powder.
An eye liner pencil.
A small beautiful tottle of sweet perfume.
A foil of some tablets, old and battered.
2 thin silver bangles. 2 thick glass bangles.
A tiny tin of some creams.
A lump of white cotton in plastic pouch.
A bar of chocolate and a fistful of toffees.
A thick paper card picture of Goddess Lakshmi.
A pair of silver ear rings.
A brown tube of cream.
A tube of some sweet white liquid.
A disposable safety A razor.
A litter of coins.
A pack of condoms in black plastic casing.
And finally, a bag within a bag, containing,
credit cards, debit cards, photo of a man and
2 children. Seven hundred and seventy two rupees !


( After a number of items that come out of that stolen handbag of a woman, Dhaka says ; sagely, like a philosopher ) : " A woman's handbag is like her Pussy. It's so small, Prima Facie, that you think only piss can come out of it : but then, one day, it throws out a whole fucking baby ! "

( page no.326)

"assassins " page 131 --> 293

Page : 131 ( tope the chaaku)
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" The true measure of things.
The tyrant after the court has vanished :
the policeman shorn of his uniform :
the man who is no longer is minister :
the school master in the Bazaar :
The tormentor bereft of his trappings :
The molester leached of his tumescence.

Nothing to make the juice rise, nothing to inflate the mind and the flesh with power and passion.

To strip Bhupi of his conceit - all it tok was a knofe ! A Rampuria. Not the size, not wealth, not numbers. Not caste, not creed, not class. Just a knife !

( page 134)
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" The hallmark of a robust relationship is - knowing how to act in a crisis without anything being said. There would be no time to talk. "
( page 132)
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" Chaaku told his uncle, he knows how to use his weapon in a way that married meance with restraint. He would slice skin, never artery : he would put in the fear of life, never take it. People wrongly assume that , men are either fearless or fearful. The turh is, like most thinkgs, courage has many degrees. Chaaku did not, yet, have the nerve to kill.
( page 136)
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" Chaaku learnt that, almost all the world lived in colossal and constant fear. Afraid of everything - the police, officials and courts, the thugs, criminals and mafia ; afriad of the establishment and the anti-establishment : afraid of failure and of criticism , of being humiliated and of being mocked, of being ugly and of being bald, afraid of cockroaches and of cats, of the seas and the skies, of lightening and of electricity : afriad of priests and phuysicians : afraid of dying and of living. More than hope, people's lives seemed to be defined by fear. Most hope, it seemed, was only about somehow being able to negotiate fers successfully.

( page 157)
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" Most businessmen who came to visit us had this quality - an ability to walk into a space and intuit the true lay of the land. A quality of contained watchfulness, of shrewd assessment - vested in just their eyes - which saw them give away very little while soaking everything in. Of a piece with a commercial metabolism : always letting LESS flow out , than was flowing in. And each one had his own pattern of mono-syllables. "
( page 179)
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" These successful businessmen, these were all, the men of the world. These men existed outside the grand vocabulary of state and governance and citizenship and the ideas of privilege and responsibility. They were all worldly wise - uncontaminated by any sense of larger agency or of greater good. They were driven , each moment, by self-interest, by the primal need to protect and expand their turf and that of their families. It was very basic stuff, with narrow and insular horizons, and yet, I could see , these were not men, to be dismissed : they shaped the world by the simple act of continual endeavour. Not one of them, I thought, would ever hit a state of stasis, or be crippled into inaction by the size and scale and unknowability of the universe. And with them, Jai struggled to find the language that would connect him to them. "
( page 179)

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Bhall snubbing both of them : " Everything in this country is ' insider trading '. What do you think politics in this damn city is ? What do you think your fucking journalism is ? There is no truth in this fucking country except for the poor bastard on the street who has to carry the load of all of it, and of you and me ! Have you ever really looked at this poor bastgard ? next time you are fucking around on the roads, look at him ! He knows everything is insider trading ! And he knows he's outside of it ! And you know something ? He's happy for it! He knows all of us great inside traders are doomed ! We are busy scribbling out our misery ! He's fucking happy, the Universe is on his side ! He knows - the joke is on us ! "

( page 183)

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" The kind, gentle, Tiwari sahab, the head warder in the jail, used to say, " In the world , there are only 2 kinds of people , the jailor and the doctor, who know the truth - that most men are punished for no fault of theirs! "

( page 258 )
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Story of my assassins page 94

If Sara had listened to the inheritance of her blood she would have known the world does not need to be fixed, it only needs to be balanced !

And the Art of Aalance demands - you tread lightly, not leap about in a continual frenzy.
The art of balance demands -- you know your designated role in the game of life, not start muscling in on everyone else's.
The art of Balance demands - absence of panic, a rippleless internal calm.
The Art of Balance demands -- knowledge of timelessness, of birth and death and rebirth.
The Art of Balance demands that - you know the world cannot be fixed, it must be endured : it must, simply, be kept forever in splendid play !

But, Sara wanted to Fix the World !

She wanted - action, answers, victories,solutions, resolutions, liberty, equality, fraternity. She wanted final solutions !

Story of my assassins - upto page 84

Sara said, " Wystan's telling us that fascism is creeping up all around us, and we don't even know ! He's telling us that, we suffer from the Illusion of Normalcy. He's telling us that the worst horrors take place around us while we go happily about our everyday lives. Just because the newspapers keep coming, the televisions keep humming, the planes keep taking off, the trains keep running - just because our daily crap goes on deosn't mean all is well. My dear phallo-foolish friend, Icarus has plnged into the ocean and is drowing while we are chattering away merrily on the sailing ship ?

( page 24)
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( Mr.Lincoln Meets Frock Raja)
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At each stage Jai had addresses the staff as if he were Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address, assuring them that immortality and the turnaround would bothe be theirs, in fact, were just days away. All, each of us had to do , was to resolutely stand by our posts and keep firing. At what, he didn't say. The fucker was so eloquent, with his burning eyes and waving arms, that even I fell for his talk ! Each time, when the trance broke, I thought : ' through millennia, men like him have led thousands to their untimely graves !
(page 52)
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Guruji said, the covenant of spiritual power was unchanging, and clear : he could protect others but not himself ; he could always enrich others but not himself ; he cold heal others but not himself . He alone could take care of the multitudes ; but the multitudes, collectively, needed to take care of him.

It was the answer I would have given to the cynicisms of Sarah and Jai , if I could be bothered about them. The vanities - and limitations - of reason.
( Page 59 )

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Guruji : ' the wise traveller uses any horse to rach his destination. He doesn't agonize about who owns the animal. He only thinks about the pleasure of riding it, about getting it to take him where he wishes to go.
(page 69)
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I didn't want to enter an argument with her - about
you didn't call !
why didn't you call ?
where are you ?
With who, are you ?
do you feel ?
what do you feel ?
you don't care !
Why can't you come ?
why can't we go ?
why can't you say something ?
What are you saying ?
you only want ' that' ?
you don't want anything ?
whre is this thing going ?
this si going nowhere !
I thought you were strong !
I know you are strong .
You are making me weak.
I am not weak.
you dont' want to change.
You have changed !
you make me sick !
you are sick !
you don't really love me.
I really love you.
How can anyone love you ?
actually you hate me !
actrualy you hate yoruself.
Actually, I hate you !

I had discovered, over time, that the workable cycle of an affair was about 16 weeks. 2 weeks of wooing ; 4 weeks of passion ; and 10 slow and painful weeks of disengagement. By the time it ended there was POISON everywhere, with every fine feeling in tatters.

When the last lingering tendon was finally snipped, with one of us, saying something so barbaric, that could easily have gone unsaid, there was a euphoria not dissimilar to that of weeks of passion.

Some times the process was less corrosive, whe she too understood , like cops and doctors do , that the world is what it is, ephermeral, luneven, to be squarely dealt with, and not to be conjured out of weak romantic novels.

But FEW seems to possess the gift of leaving the room while the laughter was still in the air and the spirits high. For the most, everyone seemed to be committed to creating a heap of debris before walking away from it !

( page 84)

"The story of my assassins" by Tarun J.Tejpal

Page 5 : " I waited - as the icons lined themselves up at the top and bottom of the screen, like two teams of toofball players before the start of a match. After the great era of literacy, the world was going back to the pre-literate stage. For centuries , there had been the hunt to find a word for every image, every sensation, every feeling, now, we were working at finding an image for every word, every sensation, every feeling. Advertising, television, cinema, photography, computers, mobiles, graphics, animatronics - every thing is geared to turn the squiggle of the word into the splendour of image !

Across the globe, Photoshop Picassos crouched at their machines marrying unlike images to produce such unlikely images as no word could hope to withstand. The imagination now longer needed to word to negotiate its darkets recesses. The imagination having its most fantastical meanderings served up in prefabricated images, for all to share ! Our Mordor was the same. Our Frankenstein ws teh same . Our Tinker Bell was the same. We didn't have to Davy Jones - the graphics company in Silicon Valley was manufacturing him for us. We all picked our visuals from the univarsal pool. The individual monster was dead. private passion ws dead. Personal grief was dead. Ager was an icon. Love , an image. Sex, an organ. The future , a matrix. If you could imagin it or feel it, it would be shown to you - in any colour, from every angle - without the exertions of the word. Even God would , finally, be shrunk to size. No larger than the screen. No denser than a pixel.
Page 5-6
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Man's Search for meaning.

They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom. Only in this way, can one explain the apparant paradox that some prisoners of a less hardy make up often seemed to survive camp life better than those of a robust nature. In order to make myself clear,I am forced to fall back on personal experience. Page No.56 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Dr.Frankl an authors cum psychiatrist, sometimes asked his patients who suffer from a multitude of torments great and small, " Why do you not commit suicide ? " . From their answers he can often find the guideline for his psychotherapy : in one life , there is love for one's children to tie to ; in another life, a talent to be used ; in a third, perhaps only a lingering memories worth preserving. To be weave these slender threads of a broken life, into a firm pattern, of meaning and responsibility is the object and challenge of Logotherapy, which is Dr.Frankl's own version of modern existential analysis. " ( Page no.09 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " In Europe today, there is a marked turning away from Freud and wide spread embracing of existential analysis, which takes several related forms - the school of Logotherapy being one. It is charactaristic of Frankl's tolerant outlook, that he does not repudiate Freud, but builds gladly on his contributions ; nor does he quarrel with other forms of existential therapy , but welcomes kinship with them ! " (Page 10) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do net search : Dr.Gordon W.Allport, professor of psychology. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Again and again I therefore admonish my students both in Europe and America : " Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it, and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued ; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success : you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to your best of your knowledge. Then , you will live to see, that in the long run - in the Long Run I say ! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. ( page : 17 ) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " If my lack of emotion had not surprised me from the standpoint of professional interest, I would not remember this incident now, because there was so little feeling involved in it. ( page 42) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " I did not know what was going in the line behind me, nor in the mind of SS guard, but suddenly I received 2 sharp blows on my head. Only then did Ispot the guard , at my side, who was using his stick. At such moments , it is not the physical pain which hurst the most ( and this applies to adults as much as to punish children) ; it the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all. (page no.42) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- " Humour was another of the soul's weapons in the fight of self preservation. It is well known that , humour, more than anything esle in the human make up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation , even if only for a few seconds. I practically trained a friend of mine, who worked next to m on the building site, to develop a sense of humour. I suggested to him that, we would promise each other to invent at least amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation." ( page no.63) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- But those who stayed behind in camp, who were still capable of work, had to make use of every means, to improve their chances of survival. They were not sentimental. The prisoners saw themselves completely dependant on the moods of gurads - playthings of fate and this made them even less human than the circumstance warranted. ( Page no.74) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The purpose of my words was to find a full meaning in our life, then and there, in that hut, and in that practically hopeless situtation. I saw that my efforts had been successful. When the electric bulb flared again, I saw the miserable figures of my friends limping towards me to thank me with tears in their eyes. But I have to confess here, that only too rarely had I suffering that I must have missed many opportunities for doing so.

( page 105)

“ The body has fewer inhibitions than the mind. It made good use of the new freedom from the first moment on. It began to eat ravenously, for hours and days , even half the night. It is amazing what quantities one can eat !

(page 110)

“ Just as the physical health of caisson worker would be endangered if he left his driver’s chamber suddenly ( where is under enormous atmospheric pressure) , so the man who’s suddenly been liberated from mental pressure can suffer damage to his moral and spiritual health.

During this psychological phase, one observed that, people with natures of a more primitive kind, could not escape the influences of the brutality which had surrounded them in camp life. Now, being free, they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed, for them, was that, they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects of wilful force and injustice. They justified their behaviour by their own terrible experiences. This often revealed in apparently insignificant events.

( page 112)

Only slowly, could these men be guided back to the common place truth , that, no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them. We had to strive to lead them back to this truth, or the consequences would have been much worse than the loss of a few thousands stalks of oats.

(page 113)

Apart from moral deformity , resulting from sudden release of mental pressure , there were 2 other fundamental experiences which threatened to damage the character of the liberated person : bitterness and disillusionment when he returned to his former life.

(page 113)

When we spoke about attempts to give a man in camp mental courage, we said that he had to be shown something to look forward to in the future. He had to be reminded that, life still waited for him, that a human being waited for his return. But after liberation ? There were some men who found them, who found that , no one awaited them. Woe to him, who found that, the person whose memory alone had given him courage in camp did not exist more !! Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he longed for ! Perhaps, he boarded a troelly, travelled out to the home, which he has seen for year in his mind, and pressed the bell, just as he longed to do in thousands of dream, only to find that, the person who should open the door was not there, and would never be there again.

We all said to each other in camp, that there could be no earthly happiness which could compensate for all we had suffered. We were not hoping for happiness – it was not that which gave us courage and gave meaning to our suffering, our sacrifices and our dying. And yet, we were not prepared for unhappiness.

( page 114)

The crowing experience of all, for the home coming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered , there is nothing he needs to fear anymore – except his God.

( page 115)

“ Can you tell me in one sentence , what is meant by logo therapy ? “ he asked. “ At least, what is the difference between psychoanalysis and logo therapy ? “

“Yes” I said, “ But in the first place, can you tell me one sentence, what you think the essence of psychoanalysis is ? “

This was his answer : “ During psycho analysis, the patient must lie down a couch and tell you things which sometimes are very disagreeable to tell . “

Where upon I immediately retorted with the following improvisation : “ Now, in Logo therapy, the patient may remain sitting erect, but he must hear things which are sometimes very disagreeable to hear ! “

(Page 120)

Another stastistical survey of 7,948 students at 48 colleges was conducted by social scientists from John Hopkins university. There , preliminary report is part of a 2 year study sponsored by the national inst of mental health. Asked what they considered ‘ very important’ to them now, 16 % of students checked ‘ making lots of money’ : 78% said , their first goal was ‘ finding a purpose and meaning to my life’. Of course, there may be some cases, in which an individual’s concern with values is really a camouflage of hidden inner conflicts ; but, if so, they represent the exception from the rule , rather than rule itself.

(page 122)

“ Logo therapy regards its assignment as that of assisting the patient to find meaning in his life. In as much as Logo therapy makes him aware of the hidden logos of his experience, it is an analytical process. To this extent, logo therapy resembles psycho analysis. However, in Logo therapy ‘ s attempt to make something conscious again it does not restrict its activity to instinctual facts within the individual’s unconscious but also cares for essential realities, such as, the potential meaning of his existence to be fulfilled as well as his will to meaning.

( page 125)

To be sure, man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather an inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that, there is a meaning in one’s life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietsche, ‘ he , who has a why to live for, can bear almost any ‘ how’. ‘ I can see in these words a motto which holds true for any psycho therapy Nazi concentrations camps, one could have witnessed that , those who knew that there was a task, waiting for them to fulfil were most apt to survive. The same conclhusion has since been reached by other authors of books on concentration camps, and also by psychiatric investigations into Japanese, North Korean and North Vietanam prisoner-of-war.

(page 126)

I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygience to assume that, what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, ‘ homoe statis’ , for example, a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather , the striving and struggling for a worth while goal , a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. What man needs is not homeo statis but what I call ‘ noo-dynamics’ . For Example, the existential dynamics in a polar field of tension where one pole is represented by a meaning that is to be fulfilled and the other pole by the man who has to fulfil it.

And one should not think that, this holds true only for normal conditions : neurotic individuals, it is even more valid .

( page 127)