1. Depression is to be recognized as a way and a means to move through our ignorance and our perpetual distractions that prevent us from living our lives more authentically as ourselves, as truer human beings.
2. The soul, the psyche, is alive in us and is speaking directly to us through our depression in such a way that we cannot ignore its message. Depression is therefore to be experienced and understood as an actual communication to us from our psyche-soul, given to us so that we might understand who and what we are, and what life is, and that we consequently might be enabled to move forward in this psychological and spiritual understanding, not only for ourselves but for others, and for the world itself.
3. Those who do experience this shattering pain of depression are among those who are sensitive and aware enough to receive it. They possess the ability to discipline themselves to become able to hear and respond to the messages of the soul within themselves and within humanity as a whole.
4. The depressed ones are among those able to receive and respond to the anima mundi, the soul of the world itself. The depression makes it possible to become receptive to this understanding by stripping them, in so many ways, of themselves, that is, of their beliefs and cultural identities, their habitual ways of seeing and understanding, and their own identity and sense of security and contentment, while, simultaneously, sensitizing them to the realities of life in the world in which they live.
5. Depression has the power and the effect of opening us up to the soul of the world and the pain of the world—the suffering of others; not so that we are drowned in this loss and sorrow, but, rather, so that we no longer avoid that which is difficult and painful for us as individuals, and become able to squarely face it, come to terms with it, and stand up for ourselves, both singularly and collectively. This is precisely why we were born: to be proper and true human beings in connection not only with all other human beings, but with all life on the planet, and the cosmos itself.
However, before we can do anything, much less achieve such goals, we must be able to see the truth of things in themselves as much as possible, rather than being immersed in our own versions of what we want to see. We must be focused and undistracted. Most of us live our lives in absolute distraction from who and what we are in essence. Throughout the world, people are primarily engaged in simply surviving from day to day, and this distracts them from any other possibility beyond that necessary directive. Some of us have the luxury of not having to constantly worry about and engage in the act of literal survival, but the pain of injustice and our lack of ability and confidence to face this inequity within ourselves as well as in the world, drives us away from looking into ourselves and our own reflection in the world, that is, into distracting ourselves from seeing what is real.
Depression could be considered an essential part of the psychological and spiritual, or psycho-spiritual, inner journey. It is characterized by an initial descending within ourselves and the experience of the “dark” and hitherto unconscious parts of ourselves and, by extension, of life in general. Mythically, it is the underworld journey; Dante’s guided journey through Hell and Purgatory and finally to Paradise, and Christ’s descent into Hell three days before rising to Heaven. But the underworld journey is meant to move through Hell and not to remain or get stuck there. It is a necessary phase of the psycho-spiritual journey, which is traversed through our understanding, our internalizing of that understanding, and our learning from our own experience. The underworld journey contains and conveys messages to us from our own psyche-soul that we must both hear and heed if we are to be able to finally move through the depression phase of our journey.
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