Essay for
Oct 2003

Depression

The World Health Organization has stated that depression is the greatest of all global afflictions. It is a gender equality plague that attacks all within the human species from children to the elderly regardless of individual wealth or poverty. One cannot be immunized against it nor create a secure place to hide from it. It does not spread from human to human, nor can it be specifically located within the body.

Depression is an individually created mental affliction causing more pain and anguish than physical wounds. A physical wound can self-heal but depression is a continually festering pain the body cannot heal. Depressive states of existence are not body centered; they are mentally centered that in turn affect the body. The body has no inherent ability to repair or remove mentally created afflictions and rid itself of the oppressive and constrictive darkness depression creates. The body is not the direct cause of the malady: it is only afflicted or the body can be seen as an ancillary cause. This is a generalization that is normally true, but individual genetics, electrochemical imbalances and even nutrition can be potential initiating elements.

Depressive states of existence create such dark pits of despair and despondency that a deadly option easily enters as a way to rid oneself of the endless pain. The body having no tools to repair this malady can do nothing. But the body is not the problem even though it is the recipient of this malady — the problem is normally one hundred percent mentally created. And where this dis-ease was created is where it must be hunted down and removed or neutralized.

There is no immunity from depression. It will strike young and old, rich and poor alike. Depression in some form will attack everyone in varying degrees of intensity at different stages in their life. It can be so well hidden that one may never be able to detect it in another. But for those, whom it has besieged, it is always present and working through interior dark corridors with little or no appreciable light at the end of the tunnel.

In today's speedy society the normal treatment for many depressive states are various forms of medication, and if affordable psychoanalytic work to follow. For all the possible value psychoanalytic work may provide it ultimately creates a new pattern to believe in or use that is more personally or socially acceptable. Various forms of medication most certainly work, but may also remove or block the very thing required to self-heal. This is not discounting the valuable work of medication and analysis, but it does have as many untold failures as success stories. The failures pass into family history while the successes normally go about their business as usual. But those successes require constant monitoring and sometimes reconstruction of their new pattern of living.

Examining all the probable causes of depression — and they are endless — there is one ingredient that runs through them all. It is this one ephemeral factor that permeates through all the possible causes, and is the one that is normally overlooked: hope. That may appear relatively simplistic, but within all forms of mentally created depression hope is depressed. In its simplest distillation depression arises upon hopelessness. If all forms of hope are missing, depression is the natural result. But allow one tiny glimmer of hope to enter and depression begins to melt away.

Hope is a self-created energy form that can miraculously destroy the dark clouds of despondency and depression. Hope, in its narrowest definition, is achieving what you desire. In its larger definition it encompasses the totality of your existence. Hope is the springboard to continue, as hope provides a light at the end of the dark tunnel, no matter what the tunnel is constructed from. Without hope that dark depressive tunnel is self-contained with no way out.

Without hope, or if hope is curtailed, individuals and nations can turn violent and destructive to others and themselves. Teenagers struggling with puberty, peer group pressures and future direction are easily crushed by rejection or elated by acceptance. If they cannot envisage themselves accepted in their peer group or if their future appears bleak and dismal, as they cannot see themselves anywhere in it, hope is heading on a downward spiral that can have devastating consequences. Normally very few are aware of the transfiguring suffering percolating in another, as rarely if ever is it discussed. It is a closed door of personal pain. That pain can be so well hidden and controlling, not even those closely connected can see it. If there appears to be no hope in any direction, that dark, depressive corridor becomes their existence. And within that darkness there is no life, and so life is easily extinguished.

If one survives the scourge of teenage issues, adulthood arrives with adult toys to amuse and entice. After years accumulating things: wealth, status, knowledge and seductive toys one eventually concedes to the growing realization that all the accumulation simply never ends, as there is an endless supply of more of the same. Or it is perceived that the jar is full, and putting more in does not make it fuller. When that occurs, accumulation has run its seductive course, and the joy of endless accumulation begins to falter. That accumulation no longer creates the joy it once did, even if new and better toys appear, and new and better toys will always appear. The dark tunnel is beginning to form and the light at its end is receding and diminishing.

Running parallel to those that can accumulate are those who for whatever reason cannot. The inaccessibility of those seductive toys creates a tunnel that is not darkened by excess but by deprivation. The darkness of the tunnel is fed by inaccessibility and grows in intensity, resulting in self-created blocks forming a prison that pushes the existing light to the end of tunnel.

Excess and deprivation are major aspects of the duality of non-restriction and restriction. Although this duality like all dualities exist in opposition the functional results are identical. Both ends of this duality ultimately create tunnel vision of individual existence by seduction of what is transitory both outside and inside that individual. The moment one focuses or places existence importance on anything transitory, problems will ultimately follow. That problem is one the first stones in the prison wall that eventually forms the tunnel, shutting out or diminishing the light to see with clarity.

If one places hope within anything that is transitory, hope will rise and fall with the coming and going of the transitory. Absolutely everything in the transitory potentially creates tunnel vision. The more one accepts or believes that that tunnel exists, the narrower it becomes, which becomes the darkness of both excess of non-restriction and deprivation of restriction.

Everything in physical existence fits into either restriction or non-restriction, which is the major learning duality of life. Both restriction and non-restriction ultimately create the darkness of the tunnel, and depression is the possible result of that darkness. Putting individual hope in the transitory is false hope that creates false results. The result of false hope is felt as non-substantial or unfulfilling, even if the object of false hope is attained. Ultimately, the attainment victory will feel insignificant or of less importance. And the darkness remains, slowly closing the tunnel allowing no light to penetrate.

False hope exists within the transitory and will in some fashion come back to bite you. It is a resolution consequence of creating false idols; and you do it all to yourself, as there is no entity outside yourself that does it to you. The resolution is your own self-created darkness, a positive indicator of your faulty chosen direction, even though that positive pointer is negatively felt. You have created it and you are responsible for it. If you cannot rid yourself of the false idol, the false idol will do it for you in ways that you may not recognize the false idol as the cause. If you do not trust that last statement take an honest look at what has caused you the greatest pain, and there you will discover false hope in something that was transitory.

True hope only exists in permanency. It is here where the darkened corridor of your own making can instantly disintegrate, allowing light to flood into your existence. With the demise of the corridor the darkness creating the depression has no place to live, and dissolves with the disintegration of the corridor. The real problem or issue then becomes what is permanent and what is transitory?

The body is obviously transitory, so it and anything it attaches to is eliminated. That elimination takes care of a good majority of what you may have felt was important. What then has permanency? It is here that spirit logic, spirit psychology and experiential investigation enters: for without that you are locked within created or adopted constructs and beliefs. This does not discount constructs and beliefs, as both are vital learning tools. If those constructs and beliefs restrict you to within their borders, the border itself will create the darkness to maintain the tunnel in a new disguise. This results in a constant struggle requiring continual defense or attack to maintain those borders. It goes nowhere except in endless circles. If those constructs and beliefs are open-ended you will be lead to the ultimate question, what has permanency without constructs and beliefs?

Whatever pathway you choose, you will always end somewhere in the study and evaluation of consciousness. If you diligently follow your chosen pathway you will ultimately discover the only thing that could possibly have any form of permanency is consciousness. Your investigation then becomes introspectively personal, as that conclusion must be personally confirmed by your own experience. If not, it forever remains within the confines of a construct or belief. If you are satisfied with a construct or belief you will discover that that satisfaction is a restriction and that restriction, like all restrictions, will somehow and somewhere come back to haunt you. Then you wonder why your self-created pain is afflicting you. Restriction, no matter in what form, is restrictive and that restriction is in opposition to what consciousness is — totally unrestricted.

The acceptance of a duality will always end up biting you. This includes the acceptance of the duality of total non-restriction as a conclusive fact without a personal confirming experience. Consciousness is absolute non-restrictive, but that non-restriction does have direction, and that direction takes experiential effort to discover. The discovery makes it experientially personal, taking it beyond the borders of a construct or belief. When directional non-restriction is experientially uncovered, it will be discovered that that direction — although absolutely non-restricted — lives and is expressed with equanimity of restriction, which is strangely enough unrestricted. It is a paradox that is only discoverable with personal experience, as no one anywhere can give it to you.

All forms of depression ultimately arise from living in one or other duality of restriction or non-restriction. Both will cause pain, as both are going counter to the directional nature of consciousness that is impersonally embedded within consciousness. It takes personal effort to make the impersonal personal, which is the creation of experiential equanimity living within non-restriction.

False hope is restriction, while true hope is absolute non-restriction. True hope and the non-restrictive nature of consciousness have no borders. They exist together in perfect resonance and harmony. It is this perfect resonant harmony that creates an energy that you can feel. This very directional energy can instantly remove the dark clouds self-created by any form of false hope or restriction, equally thereby instantly removing the depression. You may have felt this form of hope many times and have been aware of the power it contains. That power is not self-created; it arises within the harmonic resonance of true hope in perfect alignment with your consciousness. The alignment points directly at what your consciousness nature is, as the created sensation of that harmonic resonance simply feels good and utterly expansive.

All forms of depression arise from your own self-created false alignment with transitory restriction, becoming a false idol that you worship. If the false idol is or becomes unattainable the dark clouds begin gathering. The tunnel is formed by the false idol and clouds create the darkness. The tunnel is false, as it does not exist. The longer the illusion is maintained the narrower the end of the tunnel grows. When or if the tunnel's end ever fully closes, there will be no light. Everything remains in overpowering darkness that compresses into pain. No matter what form of light is shown, explained or demonstrated by others the darkened closed tunnel allows none of it to be seen. Unless something very unusual enters to break the tunnel open, medication may be the only alternative. It is not a good alternative, as the medication may also block the necessary investigative power to break the tunnel open. Medication contains the potential to suppress the dark clouds creating a space to rebuild, but can equally destroy what is has constructed. With continually healthy input from friends, medication may be a temporary and supportive bridge to get one over the flood of despair and despondency. But if false hope is given or created to open the dark tunnel, the tunnel will eventually, sometime and somewhere, once again close over.

Children, adults and societies require directional input in order to gain or learn the tools to evaluate the structural and practical differences between true and false hope. This of course is education, which is universally lacking, as presently only false hope is taught with a good portion of false hope presented as true hope. What chance do children and future societies have if the adults of today are totally self-immersed in false hope? Children from their first day are programmed with constructs and beliefs that slowly become subliminal patterns of living. When everything around them ends in some form of dissatisfaction, the tunnel is under construction. Because there are no tools available to self-repair, the darkness of the tunnel begins to diminish their self-existing light.

Depression in all forms can be eliminated by correct direction that is not construct or belief laden. It is simply a matter of teaching, using and being a force for true hope, which is ultimate trust and that trust is faith. Correctly presented, true hope works by osmosis, permeating the darkness of any self-created restrictive tunnel vision of another, allowing light to filter in where darkness was. Teaching by osmosis allows the learner to self-heal. In turn, by reverse osmosis the teaching becomes a personal revelation for the teacher, and potentially for those taught.

Depression is simply hopelessness. If despondence and depression has attacked you or others close to you, simply follow the direction hopelessness is pointing. It is there you will discover the cause of the depression. If the depression is attached to anything that is transitory, establishing a new more socially or personally acceptable pattern my work in the short term. But, eventually, even that new pattern will come under attack or will have to be defended, potentially establishing new forms of hopelessness.

If you are really intent upon getting to the individual cause of depression, simply work with the hopelessness that initialed it. Nothing ever stands alone and within the restrictive duality of hopelessness there exists the unrestricted duality of hope. But if that unrestricted duality of hope is lodged within anything transitory, hope can once again slip into hopelessness, and the cycle just continually repeats. The trick is to establish hope upon permanence without using constructs or beliefs, and that is where teaching by osmosis enters. That form of teaching requires one to know how consciousness is formed and functions, then potential can turn into actualities. True hope will then arise of its own accord, and that form of hope is contagious. This is teaching by osmosis.

Depression can ultimately only be defeated by individual resonance with ones own consciousness construction. To know that construction takes effort and education, both of which are lacking, having been replaced by constructs and beliefs that can be grasped and held, requiring constant defending or are used to attack. It is a dangerous and deadly cycle, and the cycle itself creates hopelessness. To end the cycle takes personal effort. The effort itself creates hope, which begins the destruction of hopelessness and depression.

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