GETTING BACK TO IT

I obviously had a bit of a hiatus these past few months. My wife, Amy Pierovich, is very ill (as well as being disabled) with Fibromyalgia, and I have been editing her book, Tradition and Change in Urban China: A Critical Hermeneutic Inquiry of Language, Culture and Identity in Shanghai, in addition to caring for her.

However, now I am back. To be honest, it also seemed to me that absolutely no one ever reads this blog, so I simply wasn't very inspired to continue. However, I have decided to continue with the blog "just in case" someone might be helped in understanding and working with their depression--so that they and their life improve.

I might add something here regarding depression that some may find interesting. Let me paraphrase something from Alice Bailey's Esoteric Healing [Lucis Trust, New York, 1953](p.566): "... the soul's [product of the merging of spirit and matter] inclination to 'the good' can bring about resistance upon the physical plane so that the turmoil thus engendered in the consciousness ... can and does produce disease. This type of disease is responsible for many of the difficulties of advanced people, aspirants and disciples. This 'friction' produces then a secondary reaction and leads to those psychological conditions to which we give the name 'depression, an inferiority complex, and the sense of failure.' This particular source of disease, 'the Good,' is one that primarily affects the mental types."

I'll share one more section, On Problems of Melancholia [Depression] (pp.338-9), from the same book: "These problems of melancholia are ... due to a wide variety of causes.
1. A sense of frustration, a thwarted wish-life, or a recognition of a basic life failure.
2. A sense of dramatics, and a desire to figure importantly on the little stage of a person's life. This can often be quite unrealized and have a truly subconscious origin, or it can be a carefully cultivated habit or attitude.
3. A devitalized condition, largely of an etheric nature, which robs life of all joy and desire and presents always a sense of futility. Many women passing through the menopause experience this.
4. A certain form of breakdown in the cells found in a a particular area of the brain.
5. Based on fear of insanity and of death--a baseless fear which has never materialized but which does constitute an idee fixe, so that the person is the victim of a well-developed thoughtform.
6. A tuning-in, through oversensitivity, on the suffering and massed pain of the world. Disciples can be temporarily overcome by this.
7. This condition is very seldom brought about by any form of obsession such as 'an earthbound entity or a living vampire-like person.'
8. Sometimes a person tunes in on a state of massed melancholia, such as can be found in our sanitariums or asylums. The condition has then nothing really to do with him, but being sensitive, he identifies himself with those who are suffering from acute melancholia.
9. Melancholia, as a symptom of disease (not of brain disease) is also fairly frequent and will disappear when the disease is under proper treatment."

This source is primarily theosophical in its perspective and approach. Many of its essential ideas exist in other approaches, at least to some extent, such as Jung's work. Both sources, among others, are also reflected in my book, which is available on this blogpage.

THE DIRECTIONS OF DEPRESSION

Depression has many directions. Again, what is proposed here is that depression, as it occurs in our lives, does have personal meaning for us, and also, that it has its own reasons for being there.


Depression has the capacity to lead us to profound self-understanding and self-mastery, however, if we view and experience depression as a curse, we will surely feel and be cursed. On the other hand, if we can accept and experience that depression contains within it a way through its hellishness, we may be able to view it as a blessing, even a gift. This particular understanding and insight are only available to those who have depression, for they, as much as they might prefer it otherwise, are no longer able to live in their illusions of belief, safety,
contentment, and convention.
 

Those who have depression possess the key to their inner selves, their own soul, their own underworld, and such a journey awaits them. It is not an easy journey by any means.We do “go through the fires,” but the fires purify us of our false and self-destructive beliefs and actions. And the accompanying disillusionment of depression actually can lead us out of the darkness of our self-ignorance into the light of our self-understanding.

Those who are called to depression, to this particular level and kind of sensitivity—mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual—are drawn to this journey. They are among those who have become sensitive enough and disillusioned enough to begin moving into heretofore new territory within themselves, and perhaps in the outer world as well. With some external guidance combined with their own self-guidance, they can witness for themselves the “light at the end of the tunnel,” and consciously move in its direction.

We each have our own particular journey, however, a guide that points out the universal reference points and direction markers on the journey can make a difference. In fact, we are literally surrounded by these reference points and direction-markers all the time. We must simply learn to be able to recognize them. This is the function of a guide. This book helps us to recognize the guidance which is right in front of us and within us. It does require that we be open to such guidance so that we might learn to recognize it and benefit from it.

SEEING DEPRESSION AS A SPIRITUAL DIRECTIVE

I'd like to discuss the notion of "depression as a spiritual path". I don't think we should necessarily view depression in this way, since in my own experience with myself and others, depression, if understood properly and experienced deeply and honestly, has the capacity to point us in what might be called "spiritual" directions.

I definitely do not see depression as a "disease", though it can certainly be a chronic condition. I suppose it is a disease if it comes upon us and we react to it as if it were a disease, keeping it in place and essentially maintaining it in our ignorance of what it may hold for our spiritual, or psycho-spiritual direction and development.

Depression is not to be seen as a "spiritual path" because it is not an end in itself; it points beyond itself. However, its nature is deep and psychic, that is, pertaining to the soul, the psyche, and it consequently has a strongly spiritual component and power--if we are willing and able to learn from it and "use" it properly.

Another point I wish to make is that I don't believe there is any "cure" for depression. I say this because I see depression as a component of our psycho-spiritual process, rather than as a disease to be cured. Depression is at least partly a sensitivity to the voice of our own soul, or deeper self. If misunderstood or misinterpreted, which is the norm in our culture, depression does become a chronic condition, and it causes profound suffering on many levels of consciousness and unconsciousness. If we see depression as our "soul-sensitivity", our goal is to comprehend it and experience it from this perspective and in this way, rather than to be "cured" or "healed" of it. "Soul-sensitivity" is fraught with much self-responsibility. That level of sensitivity is a deeper-than-normal awareness. It is actually a gift, however, it is also a blessing and a curse. Sometimes we are aware of more than we want to be aware of. Sometimes we feel the suffering that exists in the world itself, and wish we were not so sensitive. But, in fact, we are, and there is no denying that reality and fact. And there is no getting away from ourselves.

Our "depression" or soul-sensitivity will stay with us probably for our whole lives. We will never really lose this sensitivity. However, as we come to understand it and experience it in its peace-bringing qualities, we will not suffer so intensely and ignorantly as a result of it. I try to practice zazen, Zen Buddhist meditation, every day. For me, it becomes very much an exercise in self-observation--of thoughts, emotions, beliefs, bodily sensations--and in this practice, I have to "sit with" whatever is bothering me or painfully affecting me the most. I sit "in" it, feel it, watch it, experience it, and this is profoundly difficult and painful oftentimes. There is no escape from myself in this "soul-sensitivity" or depression. And, though I vow I'll never "sit" again, I try to last through the meditation. And the next day, I sit again--not because I force myself, but because I want to and because I know it is what I need to do for myself. Though I make it sound like torture, it also has its moments of profound experience of being "free", that is, of being beyond myself in a state of "no-self". We each have our own way of "being with ourselves as we are" and I mention this as my way. Your own way will be discovered by you. In my book, I present questions to ask yourself to help promote an understanding and a relationship between you and your soul. The depression or soul-sensitivity qualifies you as one who may be able to have this kind of contact with your inner self or spiritual-self, as it were.

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I am in the process of converting my book into a series of on-line educational seminars for those who prefer this kind of presentation and learning experience. It breaks the book down into bite-size pieces and provides opportunities to experience an exercise in each "class" of each seminar. I will keep you informed of the progress of this endeavor.


I will be providing a free introductory seminar to the series to give people an opportunity to sample the seminars and to sign up and purchase one to see if they like it or to purchase the whole series at a discount. The price will be quite reasonable. I'll let you know when the free introductory seminar is ready.