Overcoming negative emotions 2 – Depression

[Talk at North Florida University]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you so much for coming.
So, I’m grateful to be here. Thank you for coming. Am I audible? So, last time I talked about overcoming resentment.
And how many of you were there last time? Okay. Thank you. So, almost we are 50% same.
So, we are talking a series on how to overcome negative emotions. And there will be some principles which we will be developing over the sessions, which will be common. And some will be specific to that particular emotion which we are dealing with.
So, I broadly talked about how there is something inside us which works against us. I talked about how there is a three-level existence. The conception of the self is, in the computer system we have software, hardware and user.
Does anyone remember what the hardware, software and user are like? Compared to? The hardware is the body, the user is the soul. The user is the soul. Thank you.
So, now the place where emotions are primarily stimulated is the mind. So, the body, the mind and the soul. Among these three, the emotions arise sometimes from the outer perceptions, sometimes from the inner recollection.
But the mind is where they are situated. And we need to recognise that we are different from the mind. To the extent we can do that, to the extent we can process our emotions, otherwise we identify with them and we get carried away by them.
So, while talking about how to deal with resentment, I talked about shifting our focus, counting our blessings instead of our problems and looking at ourselves spiritually by which we understand that there is a indestructible aspect within us which is not affected no matter how many negative things happen around us. So, I’ll be talking about many of the emotions that you discussed about, especially fear, later in a future session. But today I’m going to talk about overcoming depression.
So, when we talk about resentment, it is more about externals and why are externals going the way they are? Why are people behaving like this? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? Depression is where the emotion is directed towards oneself. To use a metaphor, when we are resentful, we want to beat up the world. Why is this happening? When we become depressed, we beat ourselves up.
So, in both cases, our emotions are beating, trying to beat. When we try to beat the world up, the world is too big for us to beat. We just feel powerless.
On the other hand, when we become depressed, we are beating ourselves up. And when we are resentful, we are powerless because we can’t change the things around us. When we are depressed, we become again powerless because we are disempowering ourselves.
Now, the main metaphor I will use for dealing with depression, I’ll be in a future session talking about addiction where I’ll use this metaphor once again. But, the metaphor here for depression is also relevant, is that of a prison. Now, we can compare depression to be a prison in which we are both the prisoner and the jailer.
We are both the prisoner and the jailer. We are both inside the prison and we are suffering. I have talked with several people who are depressed and most people with good intentions, come on, cheer up, think of the positive.
Why are you so depressed? Why are you so negative? And the main thing with those who are depressed is you just don’t understand. You are not going through this problem. It is I who am going through this problem.
So, when we get depressed, there is great suffering over there and we can’t wish it away saying it’s all in the mind. Why are you thinking so negatively? Just cheer up. It doesn’t work so much at that time.
So, when we are imprisoned, we are actually in distress and we just don’t see any way out. A mind that is depressed, even if it sees some solution, okay, maybe I can do this. But then it goes a little bit ahead, thinks I can do this and then says no, this is not going to work.
This problem will come up. That problem will come up. And then we start again becoming negative.
So, even if solutions come up, it’s like if I am in the prison, I see a way out, I see a way out, but then I think oh, there is a wall over there, I can’t go forward. Or there is a door open but suddenly it seems as if it is clanged shut. So, depression is a situation where we feel imprisoned in our own circumstance and we don’t see any way to get out.
So, once I was talking with a person, a young boy, so he had a particular habit which he wanted to overcome and which he was not able to give up. So, then I just told him okay, if you want to go and do it, just go and do it. He was a little taken aback.
He says just look at me, a little surprised. That was not what he expected to hear from a spiritual teacher. I told him again, if you want to go and do it, just go and do it.
But then he said, but I don’t want to do it. I said, that’s the point. All this point, all this time you are saying, I can’t give it up, I can’t give it up.
But now you are saying, I don’t want to do it. So, the point is, there is not one you. There are two yous over here.
There is a you who says, I can’t give up this. I have to do it. There is another you which says, I don’t want to do this.
So, basically when we are depressed, there is a, there is a I inside me who feels nothing is going to work. I have tried so many things in my life, they did not work, even this is not going to work. And as long as we identify with that I, it’s impossible to overcome depression.
But, as I said, with respect to addiction, there is a I which feels, I can’t give this up. But there is also a I which feels, I don’t want to do this. So, there are, I’ll talk about what I mean by these two I’s.
But the point is, that there is this duality within us. So, this brings us to the second part where we are also the jailers. That means, we are in the prison but we have put ourselves in this prison.
And, the jailer can lock the door tight or the jailer can unlock the door. If the jailer unlocks the door, the prisoner will come out. So, when we often talk about the word self-help, many books are written about self-help.
Now, it’s a it’s a curious term, self-help. That means the self is going to help oneself. How does this actually work out? In the Bhagavad Gita, in chapter 6, fifth verse, there is a very intriguing analysis given.
The Sanskrit is uddhared ātmanātmānam nātmānam avasādayed ātmaiva yātmanobandhur ātmaiva ripurātmanaḥ The word ātmā is used six times over there. Now, ātmā means the self. So, the literal translation of that verse is elevate oneself with the self, don’t degrade oneself with the self.
The self is the friend of the self and the self is also the enemy of the self. Now, what exactly is going on over here? The self is the friend of the self, the self is the enemy of the self. So, when you talk about the self, the self is not just one conception.
There is one self, no doubt. Right now, when you are looking at me, you are one individual person who is looking at me. I am speaking to you, I am one individual person.
But at the same time, when I function, within us, there are many different aspects which are going on. I’ll come to what I mean by aspects. But we sometimes identify with one feature within us, sometimes we identify with another feature.
One word that is used to describe this is we have a lower self and we have a higher self. So, the lower self is the prisoner. The lower self is impulsive, short-sighted, is easily overcome by circumstances.
The higher self is capable of long-term thinking. But the higher self can also work at the level of the lower self. What I mean by this is two examples I would give.
Before I come back, please come. So, before I come back to the metaphor of the jail, if we consider, say, we decide when we are going to sleep at night, that tomorrow morning I am going to wake up early. And we set the alarm.
And after we set the alarm, go to sleep, I am going to wake up early. And then the alarm rings. At that time, we look at the alarm, we hear the alarm sounding, and then something within us says, go to sleep.
And that says, then we find a snooze button. And then we either shut off the alarm or snooze it. And then maybe half an hour later, one hour later, whatever, two hours later, when we wake up, hey, why did I sleep at that time? I wanted to wake up.
So, there was a self who before sleeping said, I want to wake up at this time. And that same self resurfaces two hours later to beat us up. You are a fool! Why don’t you wake up on time? You are such a lazy person.
You are never going to improve. But there is another self who was there and said, just go to sleep. Just go to sleep.
So now, basically, this, we could say, the self who planned I want to wake up on time. That is the higher self. The self who said, just go to sleep.
That is the lower self. Now, in the Bhagavad Gita, I talked about this last time about the software, the hardware and the user. Software is like the mind.
The hardware is the body and the user is the soul. Now, in the software, it’s not just the mind. There is the mind and there is what Bhagavad Gita calls as the intelligence.
That is also at the level of software. So, to give you another example for this, at the level of software, there could be the normal operating system, the various programmes that we are having, which is required as an interface for the device to function. But within that software, there could also be a virus.
And that virus can corrupt the whole software and can make even the hardware useless. In that same software, there could also be a antivirus programme, which can counter that virus. So, now the virus is like the lower self.
The antivirus programme, that is like the higher self. And when the virus pops up, some viruses work automatically. Most viruses start working automatically.
Some antivirus programmes, they may clean some viruses automatically. But others, they prompt. This seems to be like a threatening software.
This is a threatening file. Do you want to keep it or delete it? And then we have to select it. If we don’t select it, then it will stay there and it will work in the background.
And we know all the time that new viruses also keep coming up. We have to update our antivirus software. So, if there is a virus which our software does not identify, then that virus will work in the background and cause havoc in the computer.
So, similarly, within us, our mind is meant to be, mind is at one level, we could say it is broadly the software. So, everything that is at software level can be compared to the mind. But within the software that is there in the computer, there is some software which can sabotage the software, that is like virus.
And there is some software which can protect the whole software, that is like the antivirus programme. So, the mind is that which, when we talk about the word mind, actually the word mind itself has many different meanings. For example, when we say give this your full mind, that means, your mind means attention.
Sometimes you may use the word mind to say that Einstein was one of the greatest minds of the last century. Here we are using mind to refer to the intelligence. So, not just intelligence, very intelligent person.
A brilliant person, we may use that sense also for the word mind. So, the word mind can be used in different senses. I will not go too much into semantics.
But the point which I am making is that at one level the whole software can be called, compared to the mind. But there when you are comparing the simple point is that it is subtle. The software, we can’t see it.
It is there, but we can’t see it. Like that there is a dimension within us which we can’t see, but it is there. And it is quite prominent.
Now, within the software, there can be a virus, there can be an antivirus programme. So, when we get depressed, essentially the virus has become active. And if the virus is active, and if at that time the antivirus programme is inactive, then you just feel, you can’t do anything.
Now, okay, this file is corrupted, this file is corrupted, this portion of the disc is corrupted. And things just keep getting corrupted more and more and more. And because it is all working at a subtle level, we just don’t know what to do.
We just don’t know what to do. Now, if somebody were say beating us with a stick, we might use our hand to protect ourselves, we might try to get another stick. We would fight some beings to protect us.
But if say somebody, something inside us, if a negative emotion is beating us, how do we shield ourselves? What do you do? It just keeps beating us, beating us and there is practically nothing that we can do at that time. Because we are just unequipped. So, this is where what is happening, there is a self which, there is a sense in which we feel trapped.
We are like the prisoner. And when we are the prisoner, we actually at that time feel imprisoned. Whatever way out we see, it just doesn’t seem to work.
Or even if it works for some time, this problem will come up. And again the same old story will repeat itself. And thus, we, even if we see some solution, we lose heart after some time.
Because we see some obstacle and we see at that point, no means to overcome the obstacle. And thus, we not only get depressed, but they stay depressed. Now, the part which is the jailer.
Now, the jailer can, as I said, lock the door, the jailer can open the door. So, there is a part of us which when solutions come up. So, for example, I feel that nobody loves me, nobody cares for me.
I have no friends. I am so lonely. When I am feeling like this, I can look at all the people who disappointed me and that can make me feel more lonely.
Now, I may look at some people with whom I have some good relationships. Some people I feel they care for me. Now, if that jailer is active for closing the door, then there is a voice within saying, whom can you trust? They may disappoint you.
They may betray you. You can’t trust anyone. So, better don’t get, better don’t risk getting hurt.
Just stay alone. So, here when you say the jailer locks the door, it is not so much locking the door by force. The jailer just disheartens us in our efforts to get out.
That’s how we stay there. Now, there is some truth to it. Nothing in life actually comes with foolproof guarantee.
We don’t know how, who is going to behave in future. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that everybody is going to disappoint us. Everybody is going to cheat us.
Everybody is going to betray us. But at that time, that emotion, that voice, that is what locks. So, depression is, as long as there is a self that is in the prison and the self that is the jailer.
The jailer is closing the door constantly. There is just no way we can come out of the depression. Now, what will make the jailer open the door? There is a part of us which keeps thinking negatively.
One of the, I will talk about three steps for dealing with depression. And then I will talk about some thought exercise that we could do. You could all note down.
The first step is that depression is a function of expectation. So, rather than depressing ourselves, we can depress our expectations. What does that mean? Rather than depressing ourselves, we can depress our expectations.
AIDS, things always go wrong. Nobody cares for me. We could turn this around and say, okay, I feel so lonely.
I accept, I am alone. I was born alone in this world. I am going to die alone.
So, I am alone in this world. And, I am a social person. All of us are social creatures.
I would like to have some relationships. But, to the extent I have a lot of expectations from others, I will get frustrated. One extreme is I have so much expectation that I almost become emotionally dependent on the other person.
There, a little expression of disapproval, a little failure to keep a promise, I just feel as if the world is crumbling down because of that. And, I may go to the other extreme into a shell where I say, I don’t care. I won’t care for anyone.
I won’t relate with anyone. So, it’s like, either we have too high expectation or we just try to cut ourselves off. But, depressing our expectations means that we just take small steps forward.
So, for example, if I am going by this door, this path seems to be open. I can explore this option. But then, man starts thinking, oh, but this will also go wrong.
That will go wrong. And, things are not going to work out. And, when I think like that, at that time, I just decide, okay, let me take one step forward.
Let me take one step forward. There was a survey done about cyclists who had to cycle up a hill. And, they found, when the cyclists were cycling up the hill in the day time and when they are cycling in the night time.
Curiously, many cyclists were able to cycle more at night than at the day time. Now, why was this? Sorry? Yeah, exactly. Thank you.
So, when they are in the day time, then they would say, oh, such a long road ahead. I can’t do it. I’ll just give up.
In the night time, they just didn’t know, okay, maybe I can just take one pedal forward. I can just pedal one circle, one circle. And, they kept pedalling and actually, they were able to go much further distance.
So, when we try to look too long term, yes, in the long term, many things can go wrong. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are all going to go wrong. So, just because things are going to go wrong in future, that doesn’t mean that I have to do wrong right now.
That doesn’t mean I have to quit right now. So, if we just take steps forward, one at a time. Just take small steps forward.
Okay. I’m feeling nothing is going to work out. Maybe, I can read this book.
Maybe, I can do this one thing. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to pass all my exams. But, this one subject I like, I can study this.
Let me do this. So, this, taking small steps. See, this is actually second point and the second point are related.
The first point was decreasing our expectations. The second point was taking small steps. And, third point, I’ll explain all of these in continuity.
Third point is learning to trust ourselves. So, learning to trust ourselves. There all three are related.
Say, if I want to learn something new. If I want to learn, say, music. And, I expect that I just go for one or two rehearsals.
And then, I’m going to be in a part of orchestra, on the stage in front of thousands of people and I’m going to perform. And, if I go with that expectation and I become a laughing stock over there. I feel so embarrassed that afterwards, I’m never going to even touch a musical instrument.
So, here what has happened? I have lost, I had an unrealistic expectation. Because of that unrealistic expectation, things went wrong. And, because of that unrealistic expectation, instead of taking small steps forward, I just took a huge leap.
From not knowing an instrument, I wanted to perform in a big festival. And, when that didn’t work out, then I just lost faith in myself. And, what resulted was, I just became very paranoid.
I won’t do anything. So, if we look at the incidents that have caused depression, there can be some which is just completely out of control. But, many times, depression is not, depression doesn’t happen just because things go wrong.
Depression primarily happens because when the things go wrong, something goes wrong inside. And, we start losing faith in ourselves. We stop trusting ourselves.
Whatever happens, we are the only resource we have. Even if we want to turn towards some higher spiritual power, we want to turn towards the ultimate reality. We want to grow spiritually.
We want to connect with when we practise. I talked about bhakti yoga last time, by which we connect with God, with Krishna. Even for that, we need to trust ourselves.
Yes, I have some understanding which I have got. And, with this understanding, I am following this process. So, when things go wrong, that can make us resentful.
But, when things go wrong and they cause something to go wrong inside us, that is we lose trust in ourselves. That losing trust in ourselves is where we become the jailer. Things going wrong will make us go into a shell where I feel, oh, this is not working.
That is not working. This is going wrong. That is going wrong.
Yes. It’s natural when things are going wrong, we would like to go a little bit on the defensive. I want to take a break.
I want to retreat. That’s fine. Taking a break to recover is perfectly fine.
But, when we lose faith in ourselves, that’s like we ourselves become the jailer who locks the door. When the door is locked, then we are not only suffering, but we don’t let ourselves find any way out of the suffering. So, if we trace it backwards, unrealistic expectations led to big steps, big leaps, and when those big leaps didn’t work out, that led to losing faith in oneself.
If we decide to take those steps conversely, instead of having huge expectations, we can have more realistic expectations. Now, the Bhagavad Gita describes that the world we live in is a broken place. It’s a place of distress.
One of my friends, he came from America to India, and he had read some yoga texts, and the yoga texts were always talking about how the world is a place of distress. And he said, why are these yoga texts so pessimistic? They’re talking about distress, distress, distress. Life is comfortable.
Life is nice. Then, he came to India, and when he came to India, in India, we have what we call metro trains, then we call it local trains. And in one compartment, we have, the capacity of the compartment is 50, and we have 250 people over there.
And there are people living in huts, or people living on footpaths in the streets. And when he saw all that congestion, all that misery, he said, yes, the world is a place of distress. Now, somebody may think, oh, maybe poor countries like India is rising now, but there are poor countries, maybe they are places of misery.
But we, the developed world, we are not a place of misery. America is a happy place. Yes.
There may be relatively far lesser discomfort or shortage in America as compared to India. But when we say this world is a place of distress, the distress can be external, or the distress can be internal. In the western world, there may be physically not much distress, there is, but emotionally, mentally, psychologically, there is enormous distress.
Because it is externally comfortable, we may not see the distress. But it is still there. So, the point which I am making here is not comparison of the first world and third world.
That’s a different subject. The focus here is that the world is a place of distress. This does not mean that we are to be fatalistic, that we are to expect that everything is going to go wrong.
But this is the ground reality with which we begin. The metaphor for understanding this point that the world is a place of distress is that the world is like a hospital. In a hospital, distress is to be expected.
If I am in a hospital and I expect I should get a seven course meal, the hospital is going to give us some diet. So, now, distress is a fact in the hospital. But distress is not the purpose of the hospital.
The hospital is not there to increase our distress. But it is a fact. So, when we say that degrees are expectations, that doesn’t mean that we simply resign ourselves to any and every distress that comes in our life.
It simply means we have a realistic beginning point. In a hospital, there is going to be distress. In a hospital, I can’t expect that I’ll have a feast to enjoy.
That doesn’t mean that my suffering is simply going to increase. But the beginning point. When I go to a hotel, when I go to a party, when I go to a trek, an outing, the expectation that I have is different from when I go to a hospital.
And when the expectation is properly adjusted, if I go to a hospital and expect the menu of a hotel, I’ll be frustrated. If I go to a hospital with the understanding that this is a hospital, then I can deal with the reality more manageably. So, similarly, when I talk about depressing the expectations, instead of depressing ourselves, what that means is, if I go to a hospital with the expectation of a hot sorry, if I go to a hospital with the expectation of a hotel, and nothing seems to be working out of my plan, then I beat myself up.
Nothing is working. Nothing is working. I get depressed.
But if I depress my expectations, yes, this place is like a hospital. So, things are not necessarily going to work out. Things are not necessarily going to be enjoyable here.
So, then, that decrease in expectation can decrease the frustration that we get. And when the decrease in frustration, we won’t beat ourselves up so much. Yes.
I have my own conditionings and I have my own issues. Others have their issues. Sometimes people let me down.
Sometimes I let people down. That is the way the world is. So, when we decrease our expectations, then when things go wrong, we don’t beat ourselves up.
The second step I said is, you remember what was the second step? Decrease our expectations, then take small steps. So, if, say, I had a fracture and my hand is not moving. Earlier, I might have been a boxer, just knock people down with one punch.
Now, I can’t even lift my hand. And then the doctor says, now do some exercise. He says, I can’t move my hand.
What exercise can I do? He says, no. Can you move your finger? Yeah, I can do that. That is your exercise.
Hey, that’s not exercise. That’s kids play. He says, no, that is your exercise.
Just move your finger up. Move your finger up. Move your finger up.
And just by doing that, gradually the energy will develop. And then from the finger I’ll start moving the full hand. Then maybe the forearm.
Then the full arm. So, similarly, when we, when life wounds us, when people wound us, at that time we need to take small steps. It’s like we have become fractured, now we are recovering.
So, take small steps forward. My earlier conception might be that I could lift huge weights with my hand. Now, I can’t even lift my hand.
Leave alone lift weights with the hand. But that doesn’t mean the hand is useless. The hand can develop the energy.
But take small steps. So, when we take steps, okay, if I feel depressed, I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I can’t do that. Okay, what is it that I can do? As a writer, often, one of my main services is writing.
So, writers often get what is called the writer’s block, where you sit down and you get no ideas to write. So, I found a very, I didn’t find, a friend told me, and I found that it works. He says, if you don’t get any ideas to write, just decide that I am going to be in front of the computer for 30 minutes every week, every day, whatever, for me it’s one hour every day or whatever, depends on our time.
And he says that you just write. No, I have no idea to write. You write that.
I have no idea to write. I have no idea to write. I have no idea to write.
I have no idea to write. After typing this, by the time you’ll get bored and you’ll start writing something. And, as you keep writing, keep writing, sometimes most of what you write may be crap.
But still, even crap is not useless. You know, crap can become good fertiliser. So, if I just sit down for 30 minutes and write, on average I can write about 1500 words in 30 minutes.
I write down that, out of that, 100 words may be good. And those 100 words can be developed afterwards. So, if I just think, I can’t write anything.
I have no idea to write. Fine. I have no idea to write.
If I identify with that self, I am identifying with the jailor who is locking the door. I have no idea to write. I have no idea to write.
I have no idea to write. But what I do is, I just take that and start writing. Then what is happening? I am getting the jailor to open the door.
I am saying, I have no idea to write. But, I am writing that. So, what I am doing is, I am challenging my own mind’s idea that you have no idea to write.
You can’t write. I can’t write anything. But I am writing something.
So, when the mind says, you can never do anything. So, basically, depression, it can have many specific causes. But what locks the door, what has made me withdraw myself into the shell, that is a story which will be different for all of us.
Maybe I had sickness, I had betrayal, I failed in my exam, this happened, that happened. Those specific stories can be different. But what locks the door is, what locks the gate is, you can’t do it.
You won’t be able to do it. So, we counter that, we challenge that by doing it. Even if it is a small step, just do it.
So, when we start this way, take small steps, that itself is the beginning of opening the door. So, when we start doing something, we are getting the jailer who is closing the door to start opening the door. And once the jailer starts opening the door, I can move one step forward.
One step forward. So, we could envision this like a jail which has multiple doors. Sometimes, the high security jails may have multiple doors.
So, okay, this door, it’s open. Later on, again the mind may be, again the we may take the role of the jailer, you can’t do it, we close it. Oh, there are so many doors to open, one of them will be locked.
Don’t worry about that door, just walk through this door. So, when we take small steps forward, now this, first of all what it does is, it challenges the negative narrative that is going on, you can’t do it, you can’t do it. And this automatically leads to the third point also.
When we see, I have done this, that itself builds our confidence. Something you are saying, you can’t do it, but I have done this. I took this one step.
I took this one step forward. So, when we take those steps forward, the key to trusting ourselves is small steps taken successfully. Small steps taken successfully.
Many times when people make resolutions, for the rest of my life, I am not going to do this. We decide that one week, two weeks we keep it and then we may have a relapse and then we think, oh, I can’t give it up. So, for the rest of my life, I will do it.
We go to the extreme of, for the rest of my life, I will never do it, to for the rest of my life, I will keep doing this. Because we have just given up at that time. But you don’t have to go through such extremes.
Just take small steps. Small steps and do them. And this is where a spiritual vision of life comes primarily into play.
I talked earlier about how the world is like a hospital. Now, in a hospital, there is a doctor. I talked earlier also about this friend of mine who said that.
Now, I just couldn’t figure out why the Yogateks are so pessimistic. So, it’s interesting that the Yogateks are pessimistic only initially, not conclusively. The Bhagavad Gita is a Yogateks which begins with a warrior, Arjuna, who is extremely depressed.
He feels everything is going wrong. And he is overwhelmed. Just puts aside his bow, saying, I can’t fight.
I can’t do anything. In the Bhagavad Gita, one of the messages is, this world is a place of distress. But, when he is being counselled, he is not told, this world is a place of distress, you are distressed, so stay distressed now.
That’s not the point. Gives him hope. How does it give him hope? By raising his vision upwards.
Raising his vision to the spiritual level. At the spiritual level, when we see things from our present material perspective, then we can see only a short distance. The Bhagavad Gita explains that there is a higher plan that is working in the world.
In the 9th chapter, 10th verse, Krishna says that actually things are working under my supervision. So, in a hospital, from a patient’s perspective, you know, I had the pain in my chest. Now I am having a pain in my arm.
I am having this problem, that problem. The patient feels depressed. The patient feels helpless.
The patient feels victimised. But if the doctor has diagnosed and the doctor is treating, then what happens? That means that the doctor is still in control and eventually the patient will be healed. So, similarly, when we are taking small steps forward, when we are learning to trust ourselves, when we are decreasing our expectations, at this point, if we have a spiritual vision, where we see that there is a higher plan in operation, that things may be going wrong right now, but that does not mean that everything is chaotic.
Things may be bad and it is not that I have to imagine that things are good. But good can come out of the bad. Good can come out of the bad.
And there is a plan that is working. So, if I have that understanding, which comes when I look beyond my level of perception. If I am just looking horizontally at the world, this person did like this, that went wrong.
Things always keep going wrong. But if I look up, the patient is looking from one’s own perspective, this problem, this pain, this issue. But, there is a doctor.
Doctor is treating. So, if we have that perspective, spiritual vision is not just about getting some experiences. Yes, we may come to some place, sing some mantras, go to some holy places, go to some special places, get some special experiences.
All that is good. But that is not the essence of spirituality. The essence of spirituality is to learn to see life from a higher perspective.
Learn to see life from a higher perspective. I’ll conclude with one example. That, say, if there is a child who is lying on a mother’s lap or is, say, lying on a bed below or a cloth below.
And the mother is weaving. Now, if there is a cloth on which something is being woven, there is a pattern that is being woven from above. But if you look at it from below, the thread is simply symbiotic.
There is a dab of red over here, some red over here, some green over here. It doesn’t make any sense. But, from above, there is a proper pattern being woven.
Now, when the mother completes the pattern and turns it around, say, maybe it’s a sweater for the child and happy birthday. It’s for his birthday. So, at that point, the child cannot see this needle is coming in, going out, coming in, going out.
Nothing seems to be organised in any way. But, there is a perspective different from ours. And, what happens in the Bhagavad Gita is, as the Bhagavad Gita’s message is taken forward, student Arjuna starts getting glimpses of that perspective.
And as he gets that perspective, his negativity goes away and positivity comes in. He becomes confident once again. So, similarly for us, when we are feeling depressed, at that time, we are looking from our perspective.
But, if we keep looking from this perspective, it is like we are either identifying with the prisoner who is inside or we identify the jailer who is locking the door. But, if we understand there is another perspective, I don’t know what that is right now. But, I will just keep taking steps forward.
There is a higher plan working. Then, that’s like opening the door. And, as the door opens, we keep moving forward.
And, eventually, if we look back at our lives, we will find that many of the things, which we found were bad for us, which we found disastrous, when they happened, if we look back at them, we will find that actually, not at that time, but later, there is so much we learned from it. We grew through those incidents. We learned from it.
We grew through it. And, actually, that made us better. So, we can all introspect and we can observe this.
And, from our own lives, we can look at others’ lives. We can see that there are patterns. But, the challenge is the patterns can be seen only in retrospection.
We cannot see it forward. So, depression comes when we project the negative present onto the future and think that things are just going to be like this. But, when we are open, let me take small steps forward.
And, eventually, things will work out. We will find that there is a positive that will emerge from it. The spiritual vision gives us an understanding that there is another perspective.
I will not be able to see it. But, eventually, when that cloth is turned around, Oh! It’s a happy birthday. It’s for me.
There is a pattern going on over here. So, that flipping will happen in due course. It may happen in one moment of insight.
Oh! This is what it is. Or, it may happen over a gradual understanding. But, it will happen for all of us.
And, by being open to that higher perspective, we keep opening the door. And, we keep moving forward. So, I will summarise.
So, I spoke today about how to overcome depression. And, I started by talking about how there is a software, the hardware, and the user. So, the software is like the mind.
The hardware is the body. And, the user is the soul. We discussed that earlier.
It’s repeated that. And, the main metaphor for talking about the I think that, instead of I doing this summary, maybe do any of you have any questions at this stage? We could do three things now. One is that we could just have all of you speak any particular point which you found striking.
Second is, we could take up some questions. Third is that, I said we had a thought exercise. Which you could You have got the printout? Okay, fine.
No problem. So, this was an exercise which you could do. So, we have all three options right now.
So, how should we go ahead? Should we do that exercise? Okay, sure. So, I gave the example of that there is a jailer that we are both the prisoner and the jailer. The depression is like a jail in which we are both the one who is locked and the one who is locking.
So, I would like all of you to think you can, if you have a notebook or a phone, you can write. Now, think of three things which you could do by which you can open the door in your own life. I talked about three steps.
These are more conceptual steps. I talked about decreasing our expectations, taking small steps, learning to trust ourselves. But those are more conceptual of a frame of analysis.
But here, you could think of something which depresses you. And think of what could be the ways in which you could open the door. What is the way in which you could take steps forward? The door is locking up, just open it.
So, you have around three minutes. Think about it and write it. You don’t have to share it with anyone.
Just think about it and write it down. So, I’ll summarise what I spoke. So, how many of you were able to write some three steps or it was difficult to think of it immediately? How many of you were able to write something? Thank you.
So, I spoke about depression and how it’s like a prison in which we are both the prisoner and the jailer. And there are two senses of self within us, a lower self and a higher self. So, the lower self feels victimised.
That’s like the virus within us. The higher self is meant to be like the antivirus software, the protector. Now, when we identify with the imprisoned, we just become powerless.
It’s only when we identify ourselves with the jailer, actually I am locking myself and I can unlock myself, then we can move forward. So, the example of the point which I talked about for identifying ourselves as the jailer and moving forward is that there is a point in this, I can’t give this up, but I don’t want to do this. So, when we identify with this higher self, then we can start taking steps to open the door.
So, we close the door and lock ourselves up by having unrealistic expectations, by taking giant leaps, and then by losing faith in ourselves. We turn the steps around, have realistic expectations. That means this world is a hospital.
It’s going to be a place of distress. So, I don’t start with big expectations from the world or from myself. I am sick right now.
This is like a hospital. So, I can’t lift big weights, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything. I can do small exercises.
So, once we bring down our expectations, understanding this world is a place of distress. Some places there is physical distress, some places there is emotional distress, but there is distress everywhere. So, then the next is that I just learn to take small steps.
So, what can I do in this situation? You can’t do it. You can’t do it. The writing example is that, okay, just write, I can’t write, I can’t write, and we’ll write something.
So, the whip with which we are being beaten internally, you can’t do it, you can’t do it. We turn it around and we guard ourselves by doing something. There is always something which we can do, even a micro step.
And once we set it up and do it, instead of deciding to make lifelong resolutions, just make small steps. Like a cyclist can go further because they don’t see how long they have to go. So, like that, just take small steps.
And by that we learn to trust ourselves. So, when we trust ourselves, we are the only resource we have. By trusting ourselves, we move forward.
And for doing all this, we can have a spiritual world view. That is, even if things are going wrong right now, there is a higher plan working in life. It’s a hospital, I am in distress, but there is a doctor who is treating me.
There is a pattern being woven in my life. A child may see simply a needle coming up and down, but from the upper side, there is a pattern. And eventually when the cloth is flipped, the pattern will be revealed.
So, like that, right now, what’s happening in our life, we may not see the pattern, but in due course, we will see. And if we look back at our life, we may be seeing some patterns in things that happened in the past. And that way, by identifying with the, not the imprisoned, but with the jailer, and learning to open the doors, we can move forward and we can overcome the negativity of depression.
Thank you very much. So, do we have, yeah? Do you become, like, overwhelmed by a lot of negative emotions at once? Like a, I don’t know, like that. What was the last thing you said? A lot of negative? You get, like, a lot of negative emotions at once, like a panic attack.
Yeah. So, if you get a lot of negative emotions, as in a panic attack, actually, this is a, I am going to talk later about overcoming fear and anxiety, where we will go more into that. But I will talk about two points here.
First is that there is the situation and there is the imagination. Right. So, the situation is what is confronting us right now.
That is what we need to deal with. But along with that, the imagination comes. And the imagination is what can actually overwhelms us.
So, for example, if I am going on a road and I see a deadly accident, and then I start thinking, what if when I drive, somebody comes and hits my car and I am lying there like that. And if I start thinking like that, I become fearful. I become too fearful to start driving also.
I am built in accident. Not just for driving, even if I am sitting with somebody else and they are driving, still I may become fearful. The situation is that the accident has occurred.
But the imagination is it will happen to me and I will be destroyed. So, to deal with this, whenever a panic attack is there, now, the first thing is what exactly has happened. This can happen, that can happen, that can happen.
That is what the mind, that is what fuels the imagination. So, to stop that imagination from being fuelled, what exactly has happened right now? What is it that I am dealing with right now? So, if we bring the thoughts back to the situation, not to the imagination, that is what can bring us back to reality. The situation can be managed.
The imagination can go anywhere and to manage that becomes very difficult. All the imaginary scenarios that may come up. And we may say, I am not just simply imagining, it can happen.
Yes, it can happen. So, the first step is, come back to the situation. What is the situation right now? And what about the possibilities? This can happen, that can happen.
There is, this is where we have to use our intelligence to differentiate between possibilities and probabilities. If it comes to possibility, anything is possible. Right now, I am sitting in this roof-made cave and we may die.
Anything is possible. Now, if we start worrying about possibilities, we will not be able to do anything. What to speak of driving in a car, I can’t sit under a roof also.
I will not sit under a roof, I may sit under open sky. Well, the earth may quake from below. Isn’t it? If I start worrying about possibilities, I won’t be able to do anything.
So, there are possibilities and there are probabilities. Probability means that which is likely to happen. Now, a hurricane can come anytime.
But if there is a prediction, there is a weather forecast, a hurricane is going to come. And that is not a possibility, that is a probability. Then I have to have a different approach for dealing with that.
So, road accidents can happen anytime. But if my car’s brake has already failed, then an accident is not a possibility, it’s a probability. So, if I use my intelligence to differentiate, what is the possibility, what is the probability? Yeah, this can happen.
Probabilities, we can deal with. If this happens, I can do 1, 2, 3. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. So, when we are focussing on imagination, we get disempowered.
This can happen, this can happen, this can happen. But when I focus on the situation, this is what has happened. What can I do about the situation? I can do 1, 2, 3. Okay.
This is a road where people drive very fast. That’s why, maybe some people drive drunk. I’ll drive more slowly.
I might take a different road. Or whatever. We can find out the practical steps over there.
So, the panic attack will be triggered by something which is different for different people. But when that happens, if you could just separate between the situation and the emotion, situation and the imagination. The emotion is naturally going to come because of the stimulus, whatever we have seen or whatever we have felt.
But, along with that, the imagination is what will aggravate it. So, fear is not the problem. What comes after fear is, what comes after fear is, if all the imagination comes over there, then that is where the problem comes.
So, one way to do this, I said, distinguishing between the situation and the imagination and distinguishing between possibilities and probabilities. One way to do it is, in advance. Because at that time, we may get very overwhelmed.
So, in advance, if we know, these are the situations when I tend to become panicky. So, if we can plan out, sometimes the panic attacks may come unpredictably, but sometimes they are predictable. That means, I know when I go along this road, there is a bump over there.
When the bump comes, I slow down. So, if we look at our own lives and try to see patterns, when the panic attacks come and how the thoughts work at that time. This may happen, that may happen, that may happen.
So, we can plan in advance. When this particular thing happens, then my mind goes off in the spiral. How can I check that spiral? So, I write down my thoughts.
This is unrealistic. This is just a possibility. This is what has actually happened.
If it happens, I’ll deal with it. So, if we plan in advance, if we observe the pattern of our own thinking, recognise the situations when we tend to become panicky and then plan in advance. And that can help us to deal with it very effectively.
And, as I said earlier about connecting with the spiritual reality, so, one of the easiest ways to connect with the spiritual reality is through the mantra chanting. So, if we can just, either as a repetition or as a musical recitation, just chant mantras when the panic attack starts coming. Or we make a habit of chanting the mantras.
We find out the panic attack when it comes. It may still come, but instead of its intensity being like this, it’s become lesser. It’ll be there, but the amplitude will become lesser.
So, when we raise our consciousness to spiritual level, then the panic attack seems to be, a panic attack doesn’t seem that big. By spiritualising our consciousness, we can deal with that more effectively. Any other questions? Okay.
Yeah, that’s true. So, thank you for asking this question. When you talk about depression, do we consider brain chemistry, brain biology, brain medicine? Yes, definitely we need to.
There are two extremes which we need to avoid. One is to think that every mental problem needs a medical solution. The other is to think that no mental problem requires a medical solution.
It’s all simply in the mind. Just deal with your thoughts, everything will be alright. Both these are extremes.
And both need to be avoided. I’ll explain this more from a conceptual perspective now. As I said earlier, the soul, the mind and the body.
These three are there. The mind is like the software, the body is like the hardware. The brain is a part of the hardware.
It’s like the central processing unit of the device. Now, whatever we do, it originates from the soul, it’s rooted through the mind and it comes to the body. For example, right now I raise my hand.
So, I had the thought of raising the hand, it came in, it channelled through the body. Now, if this hand is paralysed, then although I have the intention to raise my hand, I just can’t because it’s damaged over there. Similarly, if, just as the hand is a tool for movement, similarly the brain is a tool for consciousness.
Now, if that tool is damaged, if there is some structural damage in the brain, if there is some chemical imbalance in the brain, then that cannot just be wished away. That has to be dealt with by medical means. So, if there is, if a person is repeatedly depressed, person is chronically depressed and it is found that there are, there is a structural or chemical issue in the brain which is causing the depression, then taking medicine, medication is essential at that time.
Now, the challenge comes over here that taking medicines can become a shortcut. So, whenever I feel, whenever I feel worried, whenever I feel fearful, whenever I feel negative, I just take a tranquillizer. I just take antidepressant.
So, there are even psychologists, psychiatrists themselves who have written books pointing out the problem with this approach. There is a book written by a prominent psychiatrist called Cracked, Why Psychiatry Makes Things Worse. And he gives an example.
That’s a case which is given in many other places. There was a subject who was told to go to six different psychiatrists. And he was told to describe a set of symptoms which he did not have at all.
I see images, I hear voices, I feel depressed, I have palpitations, like that. And he went to six different psychiatrists and all six of them diagnosed him differently. And they prescribed different treatments.
And actually he had no problem. He was just faking it to test it, basically. Now, why did it happen like this? It’s not that the psychiatrists were bad or manipulative.
It is just that psychiatry is not as tangible a science as, say, surgery or if I have a fracture. I can see it. If I have an infection, if I have an infection, I can actually do a blood sample and find that this particular germ is there in your body.
But when it comes to problems with respect to emotions and the brain, mental health issues, the subject described the symptoms and among the symptoms that were described, the psychiatrists have to infer based on this what is the probable malady. And if one particular symptom is emphasised by one psychiatrist, another symptom is emphasised by another psychiatrist. And the two can hear the same symptoms but based on what they emphasise.
Now, again, it may not be that they are, again, doing it because of any bias. It may be. But it may be that the subject while narrating itself may emphasise one symptom at a particular time.
So, it’s a lot of guesswork involved over there. And that’s why sometimes people just get caught in the medicines. And this doesn’t work.
This works a little bit. But then they become dependent on the chemicals. And then after sometimes, the medicine doesn’t work, they need a higher dosage for that.
And it can become the medicine can become a problem worse than the disease. So, we cannot expect chemical solutions to human problems. Going through anxiety, going through loss, going through adversity, going through bereavement.
These are human experiences which are just a part of being human. We can’t expect a chemical to solve this. When we do that, when we try to avoid the normal problems of being human by taking some chemicals, then we become, we set ourselves up for greater trouble.
So, that’s why I said the first step is decrease expectations. We expect that I should not have anxiety. We expect that I should not have any loss.
I should not have any bereavement. I should not have any betrayal. No.
That is the way of the world. So, as I said, one extreme is to think that there is no problem. The other is that everything is in the mind and no medicine is needed.
But the other is to think that everything can be solved by medicine. So, both extremes we avoid. So, we understand that the brain is the tool through which the consciousness is being rooted.
And, if that tool is damaged in particular, damaged in a tangible way, and it can be quantified or measured, okay, this chemical is less in quantity, or this particular part of the brain is damaged, then medication is essential. But, for normal human problems, trying to expect that a psychiatrist will solve the problems, or even a psychologist will solve those problems. Many people go to psychologists not so much because psychologists don’t give medicines.
Psychiatrists give. Psychologists, they go just because they want someone to hear them. Someone to hear them non-judgementally.
So, now, that’s also happened because relationships have become more and more strained. Earlier, relationships were more enduring, people could trust each other. Now, when that doesn’t happen, people started going to psychologists.
They pay them so that somebody will hear them. But then they found that in a psychologist you have to pay so much money and you have to speak everything out. I can just take a pill.
I feel better. But, so, I’m going to talk this in a future session about, I talked about decreasing expectation. Does this mean not having any ambition? No, that doesn’t mean that.
No, actually, instead of expectation, we replace expectation with contribution. Expectation means what is going to happen to me, what others are going to do to me. Contribution means what I can do.
So, that shift in focus if I bring. So, then, we get a sense of achievement. We get a sense of purpose.
The context which I’m using over here is that in the past, there were committed relationships. And when we commit to a relationship, others also commit. So, there’s a contribution from my side and there’s a reciprocation from the other side.
But for whatever reason, the relationship has crumbled now. So, then, we expect that same support which we earlier got from a loved one, now we expect it from a psychologist. So, the only commitment I make over there is I give some money.
But now, as things have gone down further, I think that, why do I go and tell everything to someone? I’ll just go and take a pill. So, even that commitment of revealing my heart, that also I don’t want to do. I just want to take a pill.
So, basically, that ethos where we think that I should not have any problems. And if I have problems, medicine should be like a magic wand which removes the problems. That unrealistic expectation can cause greater distress.
So, certainly, medicines, if they are a tangible problem with brain function or brain chemistry has been detected, brain structure or brain chemistry is detected, then medication is required. But we shouldn’t expect that medicine itself will solve the problem. We need to solve every problem.
We need to ourselves grow up. And that growing up happens through our intellectual evolution, through our spiritual evolution. And that is the sustainable way by which we can grow beyond depression.
Does that answer your question? Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Yes, please. Yeah, that’s a very good idea.