WHY DEPRESSION

“You are not the doer.  You are not the enjoyer.  You are an observer. You are different.  Your body is different.”

This is the highest philosophy advocated by Upanishads.  I have derived great benefit by reading Upanishads,  although my understanding is not great.

But it is very difficult to treat myself and my body to be different.  Our mythology speaks of Jadabaratha who when beaten could laugh and say that it is his   body it is beaten and not himself.  This is too great a philosophy for me to  understand, accept  and  to  live.

When the body is sick the mind refuses to work properly.  Mind could get into sickness and man may develop depression. I can appreciate this. As I cant yet say that I am different and body is different I accept depression of bodily sick person. Let us speak of those who are bodily healthy.

Depression is a mental disease.  I do not understand as to why any person should have depression when he is bodily healthy.

We have no right to call ourselves healthy if we get into depressions.

Most often we get into depression for no obvious cause.  If we analyse the reasons for getting into depression often we can’t find any reason,  let alone a good reason.

Sorry, there can be no good reason to get into depression at all.  There can be no reason to get into depression.

Depression is caused for any one of the following reasons:

a.      You have come down in the eyes of others.

b.      You have financial problems.

c.      You are not happy with the situation of your loved one.

d.      You yourself is not happy with your achievements.

e.      You feel lonely not wanted by any one having no company.

You can’t get depression for the first reason because it is improper for you to evaluate yourself through the media of others.  You have to evaluate yourself by yourself.  You are the ultimate judge of yourself.  You must live that life where you respect yourself.  When you respect yourself what others think of you is of no value or concern to you.  It is the society which with ulterior objects has developed this concept of you having to be respected by others.  I am not advocating that you should live a life where no one respects you.  What I am telling is when you live well, others would automatically respect you and it is of no concern of yours even to know whether others respect you or not.  To get depressed for the first reason is meaningless.  The day you understand that your judgment of yourself is the ultimate, you would live a good life.

Coming to financial problems.  Here also more than the problems created by want of finance, the real problem is,   you estimate yourself in comparison to others who have better finances.  The society would look at you depending on your financial capacity and when you are not financially well, you are looked down.  The real reason for which you get hurt for want of finance is not want of finance but your worry as to how you are looked upon in the society and your own estimation of yourself depending upon finance.  The real impact of the difficulties for want of finance is much lower compared to the social value of the finance. Again the day you realize that you are not  to be estimated by others, the problem to the extent of social image would automatically get solved.  The extent to which you are hurt for want of finance is not very great.  Whether you have a two wheeler or a maruti car or BMW would make no difference to your living.  Whether you wear branded clothes, shoes and watch or normal ones do not make any difference.  Whether you live in a most artistically built sophisticated house or in a normal house makes no difference.  It would make difference if you do not have money to have two square meals.  Once you have basic minimum things, finance will not make any difference.  Hence to get depressed for financial strength is only  due to you having  misguided   yourselves and it is caused more for social stigma rather than a person being really affected.  The day you learn that what others thinks of you is no consequence to you, finance would not cause depression.  

The third reason is again a mental outlook.  Whenever a problem comes we ask question “why to me”.  When problem comes to others we don’t ask “why not to me”.  In this world future is uncertain.  We live in a chance world, things go right, things go wrong.  We as well as our loved ones are equally liable for great misfortunes and are equally entitled to great fortunes.  Our mind should be trained to look at good and bad with equanimity.  This is what I had said earlier viz. “renouncing is having or parting without the idea of having or parting”.  If we can look at life objectively, accepting the reality and true colour of nature,  hurt to ourselves or to our loved ones, should not result in depression.  We must learn the concept of renunciation meaning not to jump with joy on the happening of good and not to get bogged down when things go wrong.

With respect to the fourth reason.  In the previous blog I wrote “Your concentration is on the efforts of today with a passing thought of the efforts  giving fruits on a future day”.  As long as you live in the present, neither in the past nor in the future you can have no depression on the ground of achievement. Achievement is past.  It is over.  Non-achievement is also past.  It is over.  Your achievement or non-achievement is of no consequence because you are not worried about what others think of you and you are judging yourself by yourself. Once you have this outlook whether you have achieved or not achieved even according to you is of no consequence because your concentration is on efforts of today and neither on what you have reached or achieved nor  on  what you are going to get in future.  The concept of achievement divorced from the concept of you being judged by others has no meaning.

The fifth reason is probably the main reason for which most people get depressed.  The problem arises due to not knowing that loneliness is different from aloneness.  When you are alone, there is no need to feel lonely.  We are all social human beings.  All of us want society.  All of us want friends.  It is wonderful to have good friends and to be with them, spend time with them.  This does not mean that aloneness is bad.  Only when you are alone, you have time to think, you have time to evolve, you have time to assess, you have time to develop art, you have time to look inside you, you have time to apply your mind to find what action in the present is good.  Aloneness is a great gift of God.  Only thing is you must learn to use aloneness.  The day you are able to appreciate aloneness, you will never get depressed for want of company.  I am very clear that I am not advocating that you should not meet friends and you should not have company, I am only telling aloneness has great features if you enjoy being alone and using alones to its full extent not only you would not feel lonely but also when you are in company you would enjoy better.

Wife  and   children who are not given freedom, who are kept under rigorous rules feel depressed.  This cause I did not list earlier because this requires a very special treatment.

When you are helpless under the clutches of persons in authority may be husband or father, you would naturally feel depressed.  There is very little one can do to avoid depression in this circumstance.  The remedy here is in removing the cause and for that you have to become strong.  It cannot be dealt with in this blog.  We shall look into it some time.

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