Depression is a choice – An Insight

What if I tell you to choose between Depression and bliss ? What would you choose ? Bliss ofcourse, right. But is it really a choice ?

Nature of Depression

Our mind is nothing but thoughts. Constant thoughts. Mind never stops thinking. That’s its basic nature. So throughout the day there are all kind of thoughts - good thoughts, bad thoughts, energetic thoughts, happy thoughts, sexual thoughts, sad thoughts, negative thoughts etc incessansatly.

 Depression is a state of negative-thinking habit or pattern. So fundamentally Depression is nothing but thoughts. Thoughts that do not work for you but against you.

 Now anything that’s “consistent” is like a snow-ball. What happens when a snow-ball grows gigantic in size? It becomes scary and monstrous, right. Same is with depression, with consistent pessimistic thoughts, the snowball of pessimism grows big and slowly hit every sphere of our life.

 At micro level, in a layman’s language, depression is just wrong thinking. That's the root of it.

 Of course if you have some health issue, family issue, relationship issue, career issue, social issue, money issue etc these will act as a catalyst. So you must work on them. But even after you solve them for now, these things are not permanent and will mess up again someday or the other. So only with right approach and thinking process, you will not get depressed by them every then and now.

 

Mind and Body

What our mind thinks, our body manifests. When you are happy your body is full of energy. When you are sad your body is low in energy. When you are angry, you get a sudden kick of energy.

 In depression a parallel thought process is running at a subtle level in your head and your body responds accordingly. You can easily notice changes in your breath, heart rate and energy at gross level. At a subtle level, hormonal secretion in the form of stress hormones like Cortisol happens. It's all inter-linked and happening at the same time.

 So the seed of Depression is in mind but its branches spread out to our body at gross level.

 

How and Why do we get Depression ?

 Depression is not some bacteria or virus that you get from some external contact. Its lab is inside your head only where its invented. And no one but we invent it for ourselves.

 But a depressed person will always blame the outside world for his/her situation. He will always see the cause outside – he did that, because he said so, because I couldn’t do this, because I didn’t get this… and so many “if”, “but” and “may” follow. That’s what makes things worse for him because outside world is not in his control and he can’t change a thing about it. And if he tries, he fails miserably and lose hope which in turn will make his situation more severe. If I ask you, do you have control over me or yourself ? Of course you have control over yourself only. We may not be using this control button but that’s the basic truth. What you think, how you act, how you react .. this is in your control but how I think, act or react is not in your control. But that’s what everyone is trying today, to change others or outside. If we are not good at something, we want everyone to be below that level. But that only leads to more disappointment and  distress.

 In today’s modern life-style there is barely anyone who is safe from the clutches of depression. We have exposed ourselves so much to the materialistic attachments that we rather invite it. With so much around us to see, to desire, to get, to enjoy, to compare and to compete, depression is inevitable. We have become so vulnerable that any small external stimuli affects our peace and happiness and makes us unrestful and anxious.

 To understand “why”, we need to go back to the very basics of creation and it’s very nature. Our Scriptures have always been telling that everything in physical world is “impermanent” and we are not owners but mere “custodians” of our possessions. But we keep forgetting it or maybe we want to skip this basic principle as it sounds inconvenient to our selfish-self. But ignoring this has rather more dire consequences. “Depression” is one.

 For us, the world is all about “Me and Mine”. Me, my bungalow, my car, my cloths, my girlfriend, my father, my status, my wealth, my power, my possessions and my Ego. This matrix of “me” and “mine” is a dark abyss and once we fall into it, we get lost.

 

But how Depression is a choice ?  

 Suppose you are walking on the road and your foot hits a stone and its paining badly. The pain is real. Everyone would “feel” it but everyone would “react” different to this pain. Mr A would simply ignore and keep walking in pain like nothing happened. Mr B would remove the stone from the path and walk away. Mr C would lie down there and start crying. So you see, “hitting your foot on the stone” was not a choice. The “pain” it caused was not a choice. But “suffering” was a choice. If it was not, A, B and C would have reacted the same.

 “Pain is real, suffering is a choice.”

 Pain is at physical level, suffering is at mental/thought level.

 Now is Depression a pain or a suffering ? Well you know the answer by now. Something wrong happened – you lost someone or something – there is pain, no one can deny that. That’s for real.

 But how you respond to such loss is definitely a choice. However, we are so compulsively driven by our thoughts that we think it’s not so.

 

How to get out of Depression ?

 There is no medicine for depression. No tablet can cure the cause but only symptoms. You can inject endorphin or dopamine in your body but they can only work on the symptoms but never the cause. You can smoke Cigarettes or drink alcohol but they can temporarily relieve you of overthinking but very soon you find yourself back to square one.

 “You donot want solace but solution.”

 Its only at the level of self-understanding we can wriggle free out of it. No one understands you better than yourself and you can’t explain yourself to anyone, so be your own rescuer.

 Our every experience creates an impression on our mind. Imagine this impression in the form of a line. Now there are 3 types of lines –

1.     Line on water – What happens when you draw a line on water ? it disappears as soon as you draw it.

2.     Line on sand – What happens when you draw a line on sand ? It remains for a while and when a wave of water comes it disappears.

3.     Line on stone – This line doesn’t disappear easily.

You choose which types of lines you want to draw on your mind of the impressions of your experiences. The impressions would keep changing. No person or thing or possessions or relations or emotions or feelings will always remain the same. So come to terms with this impermanence and transient nature of everything around you.

 Humans are miserable beings. Ironically this misery is self-inflicited. All his life, the man is in pursuit of something. Something he doesn't really know but he names it happiness. So he follows everything that he believes can give him that. He strives and struggles and achieves and attains. But eventually he realise its not that something he was looking for. There is something more to it.

 All this while he is only looking outwards without realizing that all he is looking for, what he is seeking, he is already blessed with it. Just like the story of a beggar who daily used to sit on a box and beg when one day in his last days he found out that the box was full of gold and diamonds. All a man needs to do is divert his attention, his senses and his energies inwards.

The greatest flaw that the highest conscious beings on planet - humans - live with is that they believe peace, happiness, bliss and contentment is an achievement. But these states are not trophies. These are the very basic states that the maker has endowed us with. These shall be our permanent states, independent of what or what not happens in the outside world.

My best Wishes !

 

Rahil