Vishaad
And your running, and your running, and your running away, but from your Self you know you cannot hide… well everybody would you rise and focus your mind, search for the Truth and learn to be kind…
– from the song “Om Numah Shivayah” by the artist Apache Indian
In just the last two years I’ve seen five people suffering from depression (three depressed, two semi-depressed). Is it just something in the food or is society breaking down that bad? Just listening to them, got me wondering, is depression just a very deep calling towards spirituality, i.e. to stand on your own two feet, to take charge, to take control of yourself, i.e. to shake you out of falling repeatedly into the trap of maya.
I guess if you’re intellectually inclined, then depression simply becomes something more like intense philosophical pondering — which if not buffeted by real yoga, also has its own dark alleys now and then, like you might also enter into what in control systems theory is known as a “hysteresis loop” — i.e. get deadlocked between conflicting thoughts.
The best part is when you have dissatisfaction with even your successes, then you really know you were meant for something else! That’s when you start searching for something more deeper, more Real.
It’s like the story of a Westerner who comes across an sadhu for the first time, and makes the comment “I pity you”. The sadhu replies, “it is you that is to be pitied for being trapped in maya, instead of seeing your much larger and vast cosmic self”.
Conversely it’s like a Westerner who comes across a sadhu for the first time and makes the comment “you are great for making such a sacrifice”. The sadhu replies, “no it is you who is great, to be able to sacrifice your life for all sort of superficial and transient pursuits.”.
It’s no small wonder (and wonderful foresight) that the first chapter of the Gita is Vishad Yoga (the Yoga of Disillusionment to the point of Despondency; the Dilemma). For when you’re fully extroverted and attached to life and fully content with it, why would you to turn inward, to look for the “higher path”?
So it’s good to be proactive and listen to your spiritual yearning for a deeper experience — and do something about it pro-actively, rather than wait for yourself to fall into a spiritual rut. A mistake would be to chase after this deeper experience in two extremes: either totally away from life, or in life itself. The corrective would be to seek it in yoga, but applied to life. That is to engage life with yoga.