Depression

"Do you want to know why you are really sad and depressed and why those emotions come to you? It is because you miss God. That is the reason for all unhappiness and it is also the seed of all joy."

Directives

"Do not let raging emotions or deep depression cast a shadow upon your practice, for your practice is greater than your emotional states, which change like the winds and the clouds but cannot mask the universe above them."

Origins of Depression

"What is Hell? Hell is separation. Hell is being disconnected from God. And this disconnection can lead to deeper and deeper states of fear, anger and depression."

"For people who have attained wealth and seeming security, often depression sets in because they have satisfied the desires of the mind, but their need is still unmet. The deeper need of the soul remains unfulfilled. Their greater purpose and calling for coming into the world have not really been answered."

“Depression, cynicism, ambivalence—these are all the result of not taking action around things that one recognizes to be important. The awareness was not fulfilled, and, as a result, it becomes dark. It becomes clouded, and the inspiration is lost.”

"Here the tragedies of the rich become apparent, for though they may appear to have everything, though they may appear even to have the luxury of free time, though they can own anything and go anywhere, and have so much social power, if they are unrecognized and unknown, they are desolate. And despite their wealth or privilege, depression will overtake them. They will find that their life is empty. And without real meaning or purpose."

"Their happiness is intermittent and short-lived and easily threatened by life around them. Even if they have adopted a happy face, a happy behavior, within themselves there is roiling frustration. They are fighting depression. They are fighting inner conflict to put on a happy face to the world because they have not really connected with who they are and why they are here in the world, and the deeper direction that their life is meant to go in and was always meant to go in."

"[Finding and following your purpose in life when your foundation is weak] proves to be hard, and you really do not have the strength to undertake it. So you settle for something much less in life. You tell yourself, “Oh, well. This relationship will be good enough for me,” or “This job will be good enough for me.” And you compromise yourself, and you give your life to things that really have no promise. You give your life to people who are really not going anywhere. Though you might feel more secure or relieved of the challenge, in your heart there is a great depression, a great misgiving."

"Indeed, many of your depressing moods have nothing to do with you at all. Many of them are the result of you engaging with something in the mental environment that you are not aware of."

"People are very depressed because they do not have any vitality. They have no sense of purpose, no sense of being. They blame their bodies because their bodies are always hurting them, and they blame their environment because their environment is always obstructing them. But the problem is that they do not experience their own vitality. They are not experiencing life. They are bogged down within themselves and are not with life."

"Anger, depression, chronic confusion, self-denial and self-abuse--all these are the result of not responding to a call for work in the world and not fulfilling that response."

"All of the addictions, all of the depression, all of the poor mental and physical health you see around you is a product of this desperation and this disassociation that people have with themselves and with the greater purpose that has brought them into the world."

"Many people just go to drugs to try to escape their own inner antagonism, the hellish state of their mind. People fall into depression. People become obsessive in their habits, their hobbies. Their mental illness becomes rampant, ever present. If their mind does not serve spirit, well, it becomes self destructive. And even if its self destructive tendencies are held in check, it seems to know no happiness or fulfillment."

"When you engage in sexuality with another, you are engaging your physical life force. If this life force is not shared within a meaningful relationship, it will be wasted. If it is wasted, you will lose energy and vitality. Physically, you will experience a loss of power, vitality and health. Mentally, you will experience discouragement, depression, a loss of vision and your sense of direction and a loss of your sense of purpose and meaning."

"If you become aware of great change and do nothing, your anxiety will increase and so will your sense of powerlessness. You will be held in place, hoping that someone will take care of these problems, hoping for a miracle from God because if awareness does not lead to action, it leads to a sense of powerlessness and depression. If the people standing on the beach waiting for the great waves to come think to themselves, “Maybe I should get to higher ground?” and they do not move, they are lost."

Antidotes for depression

"Building the Four Pillars of your life is the perfect antidote to eccentricity and self-obsession. It is the perfect foundation for building a life of real meaning and purpose. It is an antidote to depression and low self-esteem."

"Look at nature and all of its details. Look at a rose bush and all of its details and you cannot be depressed. People who look at the details of nature rarely are depressed because they are marveling at life, life on a very small scale. You could look at a plant in a pot on your windowsill and be amazed at its shape and its evolution."

"Being present to the beauty of life around you, to the marvel of your existence and to the innumerable things in your life that are supporting you and that are beneficial for you-- How can you be immersed in depression or suffering when you are paying so much attention to all these things, when you are exercising observation and clarity of mind? Clearly, you have gained enough strength here to check your own self-destructive tendencies, to check your own desire for denial and avoidance, to choose again how you will respond to the world, instead of being merely a slave to your reactions and to your previous thinking and social conditioning.

Effects of depression

"Often the cost of pursuing a pleasure cannot be accounted for at the outset because when the pursuit robs you of your awareness of yourself, of your interaction with life and of your appreciation of your own existence, such a great price goes unnoticed.Yet, people pay it because they are depressed and angry and lack value and meaning in their lives.They are paying the price all the time.They often associate their suffering with other things, so they seek greater pleasures, which exact great prices, and their dilemma and depression become deeper. In fact, their depression can become so deep that it is like a dark cell with no windows where no light can penetrate."

Depression as a reaction to the challenges of the world

"All problems that face you individually have a very simple answer. How will you find this answer? Will you find it by struggling with yourself? Will you find it by trying every possible resolution that you can think of? Will you find it by worrying about it and fretting over it? Will you find it by denying it and seeking pleasurable stimulation instead? Will you find it by sinking into depression and thinking that life is so hard for you that you cannot meet the demands of your own circumstances?

"In your past you have been afraid of the world, intimidated by the world, angered by the world and depressed by the world. Therefore, your past contribution to the world has been limited by these reactions."

"If you make your life too easy, you will not apply yourself and will become depressed."

Special cases of depression in confronting the Greater Community

"At times reading [Life in the Universe], you may find yourself experiencing something like “astro-depression.” How can the universe be this worldly? Where are the enlightened races, the stories of great empires, heroes, free energy and adventures in space? Why can’t it be better than life here on Earth? It is natural for us to want these things, even to demand them from the last remaining frontier of existence. For all of human history, the universe remained comfortably unknown, allowing our fantasies and mythologies to grow and be untempered by reality. The universe became the canvas upon which we expressed our longings and our dissatisfaction with life here on Earth. Given our isolation in the universe, this is understandable. Yet now it is time to face the living universe."

"For the vast majority of people in your world, the Intervention will be unknown and completely hidden. Yet for those who become aware of it, either because they have been taken, or because they have witnessed evidence of the Intervention in your world, these individuals will either be encouraged to believe and to support the Intervention or they will be cast aside and tormented by it. Already, there are individuals in your world, we understand, who have been cast aside and who are tormented, who have seen and felt and recognized things that they cannot incorporate into their understanding. Finding no compassion amongst their human fellows, they deteriorate into depression and into self-disassociation."

See Also

Suicide

Emotions

Failure