Depression is a rampant disease according to our scientific medical community. Is that an accurate statement, or is it a massive misdiagnosis based on the real problem being too illusive to cure or too “spiritual” for medical science to acknowledge.
In the Gospel of Thomas from the Nag Hammadi Library; Jesus said, “Those who seek should not stop seeking until they find. When they find, they will be disturbed. When they are disturbed, they will marvel, and will reign over all. [And after they have reigned they will rest.]”
Let me clarify that disturbance is not mentally disturbed, but rather disturbed as in an irritating notice in the background
Are there many people who are born knowing that there is something to find, just enough to be disturbed. Once you find you cannot live a “normal” life, so you are disturbed because you can never rest in watching sports as your main pass time or getting drunk or just laying around. Some people have always been “disturbed” as such, knowing about the reality of our world but not being able to touch it, perhaps feeling trapped in their body. Some don’t know why, they just feel disturbed and cannot explain, but the nearest interpretation is depressed.
Put in a Box
Some people get classified as depressed, perhaps severely depressed, and are given drugs to counteract that. Some doctors tell the patient that they will probably have to take these drugs for the rest of their life. that makes sense if the reason is that the patient is not really depressed so of course the drug cannot cure the problem, since that is not what the problem is.
It is not depression but disturbance. There is a case of someone who had been diagnosed as chronic depression, was taking Prozac and lived in a mentally and emotionally unhealthy situation. This person went for a little trip to a small town country home to visit a friend for a couple of weeks. One day, the so called depressed person came out of their room so amazed that that they had not taken their medication for 4 days. They felt so good that they thought they were taking it and so actually forgot to take the pills. That proves that disturbance due to something lacking in life or unhealthy in the environment and can be misdiagnosed as depression. The difference is that depression remains regardless of the situation, but disturbance is situation reliant. Curing disturbance does not need drugs, only a change of environment. Most often the necessary change is not possible or available. Because that change is so difficult to achieve, the medical community has come up with an alternative, drug them and they won’t know the difference. On the other hand, some people are suffering so much without the option of a cure, they are happy to do anything to alleviate the pain.
Unfortunately, the cure is sometimes only found in such a significant change of lifestyle that most people do not want to give up what they know and are accustomed to, so better to suffer than change. This is possibly one of the reasons that in the past spiritual seekers known as Fakirs used to deliberately inflict pain upon themselves, to strengthen the mind so they do not fall into self medication of pleasures and intoxicants. Sometimes the disturbance is the lack of a source of teaching and guidance. There are not many who are truly capable of guiding others, despite how many claim to be. Knowing this, increases the disturbance because the cause is known but the cure seems almost impossible to acquire.
The pain is simple, although the cure is illusive.
The pain is loneliness. Lonely for truth, for true companionship of spirit, for the real home that we, the spirit we are, comes from. The cure is illusive for obvious reasons. Getting back home while clothed in this earthly habit is not something we can easily achieve, and anyone who tries to tell you that it is easy to go on astral travel and be happy is perfectly happy taking your money to teach you how to do that. Money does have a way of easing pain and making life happy, so of course they appear to have achieved this great happiness.
The Hermetica, a body of teaching about 3,000 years old does warn; “…Beware, there are many false teachers…” and Caveat Emptor, written long before Christ, a Latin saying meaning, Buyer Beware. There have been crooks and charlatans out there since money and profit began, and that goes back a very long way. Inherently knowing this makes us blind ourselves to this because if we accept it, then where can we turn for the guidance and companionship we so desperately need? Yet following a false guru only perpetuates the problem by giving another false cure. Don’t loose hope, there is light at the end … of the tunnel.
A basic psychological principal is that gifted people will suffer psychologically when their gifts are not used to the utmost. This principal is not limited to only those we refer to as gifted, but to all people since, if you think about it, we are all gifted in some way.
So called depression comes when that little light is covered by a thick blanket of limitations, often self imposed, that suffocate it. We all have something to offer, and if we do not, we suffocate that bit of God that was born in our human body that wants to be seen.
Humans are unique in that we are part mortal and part immortal. The immortal has taken a mortal form to show what it is, to express itself, to manifest a material reality of that aspect of the concept of God. If you do not express your talents, whatever they may be, then you are not allowing that immortal part of yourself to live as it needs to live, and that suffocates it which causes what appears to be depression.
Your mind has to breath. The breath of the mind is the inhalation of thoughts to contemplate and the exhalation of ideas. If ideas are not expressed, they get very unhappy because they cannot go out and play. If they cannot go out and play, their unhappiness becomes what appears to be depression, but really is indigestion.
There is a famous story in the Talmud about Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish, his disciple/colleague. When Resh Lakish died, Rabbi Yochanan went into a terrible depression, far more than for the loss of his children who died young, for the very reason of the lack of intellectual/spiritual stimulation, (Resh Lakish was the only one who was able to keep asking him the most difficult questions which kept his mind working harder).
Test Yourself
Consider the following items when you try to figure out why you are depressed, and do not limit thinking that depressed means major depression. A light perpetual unrest is still something we not need live with.
- Are you expressing your creativity.
- Are you using your mind to think about, learn and discuss things that interest you.
- Are you useful to anyone in some way on a daily basis, even if it is a different person each day.
There is a way out, but it is not easily found. If you are willing to devote your life to what it takes to get it, then it can be achieved. The first question is if you are willing to suffer to get it. That does not mean that it necessarily takes suffering, but if you are not willing to endure the difficulties of the journey, then how can you expect to arrive at the destination. We cannot know what an unknown journey will be like, but we must be willing to do whatever it takes. The journey of taming the ego, cultivating true humility, refining the mind, these are journeys that the human does not want to take, but the soul withers in pain if it does not.
All creative people in history have suffered from periods of depression whenever circumstances did not favour their inner creativity. Creativity is a double-edged sword: a blessing and potential curse, “USE IT, OR ELSE…”
Let us close on a very positive note. Whatever the mind can conceive, the mind can achieve. If you can think of something, the only reason that your mind is capable of thinking it, is because it exists, somewhere, somehow it exists. If we can conceive of a state of knowledge and peace, we can achieve it. The question is, what are you willing to do to get it.
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