Another chapter, another Life. The end of depression
2013/11/17 13 Comments
Imagine that… I have managed to heal myself with little or no
It´s been a terrible journey in the most unthinkable barren desert.
It´s been an Odyssey into utter loneliness and darkness.
Depression is humiliating.
And you have no capacity to stop the downward plunge. You have no perspective, no emotional reserves, no faith that it will get better. So you feel guilty and ashamed of your inability to deal with life like a regular human, which exacerbates the depression and the isolation.
A comment to Paul
2012/09/05 Leave a comment
Paul,
It is a sad fact of life: when people detect depression in themselves or, above all, in someone else,
they kind of flee like sparrows. People are usually afraid of introspection. Depression forces us all to look for answers inward… to contemplate – pure and simple – inner reality.
I recognize myself in your words – feeling alone, not having people to talk with. It is true in my case as well: we seem to have more virtual friends, than mates in our very proximity.
What is vital to know is that basically depression is – among other things – the outcome of isolation.
We try to compensate isolation through contact with others… It does never work.
We have to go down into the feeling of isolation, and examine the very nature of it…Not easy though – when you are isolated, whatever you do creates even more isolation.
So what is this isolation about? Can we look at it…? Can we stay with it without trying to flee into conversations…or whatever other ways of escape…?
As long as we don´t directly confront ourselves we will suffer from a constant feeling of loneliness and loss,
that is not going to be healed other than by our sincere readiness to find out…
Another letter to Paul about healing depression
2012/08/30 9 Comments
Paul,
The world and everything around you has savagely and relentlessly forced you into the erroneous picture of you being nothing more than shards.
On a real deeper level though, you are whole, complete, ONE…It is maybe a cynical thing to say, given your present situation, as you don´t have a direct experience of this immediate reality..not yet 🙂
So you have to trust me on that. 🙂 I wouldn´t dream of uttering this truth, unless I knew it for sure.
On this level where you are now, depression is undoubtedly real…For sure, depression sucks insanely, debilitating and consuming our life force…I share your feelings, and I know from own experience that sometimes you feel like putting a vehement stop to it all…
You say:
“My existence is the only “thing” that is truly mine” – without indulging in superfluous semantics, think it over: is existence mine or yours?…Stay with this thought a while…because this very misunderstanding has generated the basic incorrect picture we hold about reality.
I mentioned this earlier: do you exist or existence lives you?…If you come to an immediate understanding of the latter, you will gradually learn to let go…Indeed, to trust…
I am going into a hard one now, which seems incredibly far-fetched – in a weird way yes, we create even our physical experience, as we participate in the whole Cosmic Drama. We won´t dwell on this now though. The truth of the matter is that you have created yourself in all your aspects.
This “YOU” is where society and you as an entity meet. Paul-society and society-Paul 🙂
Depression is ultimately loss of Self…so society is thus a sum of people who are out of touch with Self…As I see, you have to learn somehow to express your loss…your depression. You´ll just recognize the proper moment if you learn to listen…Listening, will reveal what is the appropriate way for you…You are the only one to find out.
Thinking doesn´t help, trust me on that…
Part of the whole present Drama is that humans no longer have A RIGHT RELATION TO PRESENT ANYMORE…In a sort of funny way – I never put it like this – depression is absence…absence of life!! So stop trying “understanding” the present!!…- LIVE THE PRESENT THE WAY IT IS…easy to say, when the present is hell…But it is what it is – you have no other choice…
I said this and I say it again: depression is basically un-lived life!
Now, if you trust me, give up for a while this kind of fruitless speculations like ” I might be in more “trouble” if I was “happy-happy” all the time when such atrocities occur daily.”
To continue:
You ask -“Is it possible for one to be truly happy amidst all the death and destruction?”
Yes my friend IT IS POSSIBLE AND DOABLE 🙂 You might not understand my words now – but when “you will come to the point” of being ONE, – or to formulate better, when you will allow ONE to live you – you will be joyous NO MATTER WHAT. If you don´t trust me, leave this for now.
Look what you say : “… collectively and individually, I would say we ought to be at least somewhat depressed”…Aren´t we already that? Aren´t you sufficiently depressed already?
Leave aside thinking and speculating, just know: happiness is sustainable in this day and age despite all howling chaos.
Your following question is the most essential:
“What is the medication supposed to heal? What are its implications?”
You see YOU ARE THE PROBLEM AS MUCH AS THE WORLD IS THE PROBLEM. You are this world and this very age…You cannot dissociate it one from the other.
It ´s a hard one: it ´s not you or the world having the problem, it is the “wrong participation” between you and the world, which is the problem…It is Thinking which has cut us off from Feeling life´s immediate presence here and now…it sounds reductionistic, but that´s the truth…
The world is entirely a sum of different aspects of yourself! Don´t try to understand, feel instead my words!
Most of the doctors and psychiatrists are in deep problems themselves, so how can a sick person treat another one…? So here is a blatant truth: not knowing a better way, they have invented medication 😀
The medical system is bankrupt, as society for the rest – they all deal at the level of effect! Every solution invented by them, creates just another problem…
Paul, understand that there is no solution to anything, other than understanding the actual problem from inside, that is, from where you presently are… The solution is inherent in the very problem!! STAY WITH THE PROBLEM! Don´t think, cause thinking is resisting the problem, trying to get rid of it!!
You say it yourself:
“There is no doubt in my mind that until I am off the pills, and able to get “into” my Self then no meaningful or lasting healing will occur.”
Furthermore you say:
“All I know is that I am about to acquaint myself to my Self very soon”. WHAT ABOUT STARTING NOW…?It is nothing to wait, as you are here all the time you see, but this mad age has taught you that we are here sort of “later”…:)) This is really insanity in a nutshell…Procrastination…Not daring facing life now…
This is not crazy talk at all : “I have not been “me” my entire young adult life.” you say. This is sadly enough the predicament of most of the people on this planet just now… there is no “moving forward” or “past”, there are only different parts of now my friend 🙂 and NOW IS EVERYTHING THERE IS!
You have all the answers you need:
“What then, is the purpose of medicating me while the problem persists outside of me creating a perpetual dependence on something I do not need, but rather need to do without in order to work on solving the real problems?”
You do say with your words what I have been saying in this letter 🙂
Remember, it is not about something you “need to do” but something you can unreservedly observe and dwell upon with no resistance…As a final word, when you heal – if that´s what you want, you will heal the whole age.
Another word to Paul
2012/08/28 4 Comments
We explore here a vast subject matter. We don´t know for sure how the mechanisms of depression really work, as very few people venture on this so risky and perilous quest for real answers. What psychiatrists usually do, they try to cope with the matter through medication – which hardly solves the real cause.
We try to find out – and in the process of finding out we can be terribly mistaken.
Thus, as I said before, the question is not “how” we deal with illusion or depression but “why”…?
It might sound strange but again, the question is:
“Why” did we ever “choose” to get depressed…? Somewhere on the road we fell victim of delusion…Unfortunately, we never realized that, and unfortunately there was no one in the nearness to help us understand, as they were victim of the same predicament…
I never thought it this way, and I am not trying to minimize the toughness of the subject, but what secret gain was there in the moment when depression began to have effect on us…?
When we find out WHY, I think HOW is going to unfold naturally.
What do you think?
A letter to a friend
2012/08/27 6 Comments
These questions arise within me:
I know it sounds strange: do we secretly choose to be depressed? Have we chosen depression in order to escape something we don´t want to see…?
It strikes me somehow that depression is an unconscious “choice”. Something in me, kind of has identified with this role of being depressed, and that mechanism is going on irrespective of my conscious will and regularly takes control of “me”.
What are we fleeing from…? How real is depression…? Does depression stem somehow from a “wrong” comprehension of a certain moment in our life…? It is quite obvious, depression is fear basically, but how real is Fear?
Is fear in close liaison with illusion? Can it be so that when you drop illusion, depression vanishes as well…?
I was amazed to see that in those moments of great inner freedom I experienced the other day, there was no trace of depression. Illusion had vanished so did depression…
I realized with awe that my deepest inner space is untouched by all these “clouds”, that every single time I get in touch with this inner untainted reality, depression is not even a distant memory. Deep down in my soul depression doesn´t exist.
Julien Matei
Mirrors of Encounters 