The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself Quotes

“Your fundamental assumption is wrong. You think you are this vehicle. This naked ape. Homo sapiens. I tell you, you are no more human than a driver is the car he is driving. You would never go to a junkyard to look for the driver would you?”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“There is not a single person I have met in my lifetime who is comfortable talking about death. It’s the biggest downside to our youth-centric culture. Death is a bummer, so let’s not talk about it. Let’s hide it away and hope it never strikes close to home.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“Know this Mr. Davis. I am not crazy. I am not sane. I am not alive. I am not dead. I am not even the human being who you call Dr. Vigo Andersen. I was never born and I will never die. I am an eternal being. I am that I am. This, what you call reality, is just a collective dream. I was about to wake up from it permanently when I was yanked back into this temporal space. I did not try to kill myself. I tried to wake up.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“Why lie, Robert? Why lie? You know that lying is the alcoholics kryptonite, you can’t afford it, the reasonable voice in his head screamed.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“Philosophy has become the shadow of itself over the years. Nine parts history and one part reflection on history. It has been ages since anything original came forth in the field. All the good thinking has already been done. Nowadays, philosophers are mostly institutionalized academics—like me—focused more on the politics of tenure than on philosophizing.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“For years I tried to help people with simple things, such as tension relief through breathing and relaxation, but all they wanted were the drugs. They wanted to numb themselves. They did not want to face their fears or feel better through their own efforts—and they certainly did not want to be illuminated.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“Instead of using therapy to try and reduce their fear and anger, people now celebrated these destructive emotions, labeling themselves as politically active rather than emotionally dysfunctional.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“Fear and anger, the two emotions that most people came to him to reduce—emotions that he’d worked so hard to overcome in his own life—were fuel for politicians. Maybe candidates and congressmen thought that sowing discord among countrymen, even family members, was an unfortunate type of collateral damage. Maybe they didn’t think about it at all.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“That’s the problem, isn’t it? Our youth enamored society hides death from us, makes us believe that we will live forever," Jack asserted, rather forcefully. "We don’t want to see death. We even hide old people so that we don’t have to be reminded of our own mortality. In other cultures, old age is celebrated, embraced even. Death is a part of life.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“…but death can’t be the final word, can it? I mean, look at this fire. The wood that we threw on it has been decimated, or so it seems, but in reality, the wood has been transformed into gasses and ashes. I think about that, you know, about how nothing is ever destroyed, but only changes form.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“None of us understand the infinite universe. Most people who start thinking about it, get overwhelmed, shrug their shoulders, and turn their attention back to something mundane, like drinking beer or watching TV. Only a few great minds have ever actually contemplated the nature of the universe. Fewer still have done it without going insane.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“When the patient began speaking, Robert continued, he sounded unlike any person I have ever met before. Sure, his actions signaled that he was crazy, but his presence… Jessica, his presence was like what I imagine it would be to be close to a holy person or a spiritual master. I mean, that is really the only conclusion I can come to.

And the holy guy tried to kill himself? Come on Robert. That just sounds ridiculous.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself

“You are wrong about that, you know, Dr. Andersen replied calmly. This, right here—us talking, sitting in this overlit room, a bunch of shrinks watching us through the tinted windows—this is the dream. The peace you felt before, that is reality. It is the I. The only part of existence that does not change, that cannot change, that will not change. You may not be ready to understand this quite yet, but if you continue meditating, you will.”
― Gudjon Bergmann, The Meditating Psychiatrist Who Tried to Kill Himself