Hi everyone
Just a minor input:
Depression = de-pression = pressed down. No matter what the cause of the depression; the result is the same: I lose contact with my source.
When I meditated on my dark days I would feel terrible.So terrible that I would drop meditation. This may have given me instant relief; but it was not constructive. Later on in my process towards the light I understood (and here is where A.H.Almaas and The Diamond Approach really clarified things for me)that the reason the depression got worse was not the fact that I meditated, but simply that the awareness nourished during meditation made it explicitly clear how terrible I did feel. And I resisted that feeling. The feeling was telling a truth about my life that I couldn’t take.The truth had implications that I was not willing to face. I didn’t consciously know that I was in resistance; but later on I learned to watch more closely, and I saw that something significant happened PRIOR to the worsening of the depression. It only takes a split second to repress something. And that something is always between me and my source. If I don’t acknowledge it; it will drag me down. Eventually I worked up enough selfcompassion and understanding to let myself feel the depth of my misery (surprisingly enough it didn’t kill me) - exactly when it took place. When I meditated then, I would immediately start crying. Sometimes I had no idea why. Later I understood that being cut off from being always brings me in deep greef- it is devestating, and it takes time to allow for that feeling. After the crying came emptiness. Then emptiness changed into spaciousness - and this way I slowly - over time - opened up to life.
It is therefore my experience that AWARENESS is what eventually breaks the circle of depression.
May all your Nows be Here
hi Alvin,
By God, i meant a god with form or without form. It is a feeling which gives us hope. A feeling that something or someone above us is watching us, guiding us, and leading us. I really meant to pray to this force or being to get out of the problem.
There is a film song i heard long ago. Its meaning goes like this:
Nobody knows where life starts,
Nobody knows where life ends,
Nobody knows which is the path and where is the journey going.
But,
The path will change and the journey will end.
One who can understand the change will get out of the trouble.
So what you went through is true for everybody. The change is inevitable. Whatever has gone is gone, it will never come back. The past mistakes are to be forgotten for a getting a new life on the way. Choose a path which your mind judges the best for you because whatever we say or give, at last you have to face the situation. So, even if we all give hands to help you out, it is for you take the best and get out of this. May all our loving hearts get you out of your depression.
Etherfish said:
If meditation seemed to make someone’s depression worse, it may not be a stop sign for others. The soil of the mind might have been cultivated deeply without enough planting of meditation, or maybe not enough resting time afterword, or maybe (most likely) not enough going out into the world to interact and equalize the benefits.
I agree fully. I certainly did not mean that to be a general-purpose stop sign for others. Ultimately in my case, I believe I did not have enough ‘going out into the world’ behind me at that time and was actually going too far in meditation for where I was in life-development.
My needs at the time to get out of depression were purely behavioral. I needed to get out and into life. I didn’t actually have negative thinking or trauma behind me as a cause of depression. You can have too much of almost any kind of good thing.
Anthem said:
I don’t see where else depression would come from other than from within.
Anthem, I have a difficulty engaging that because I just don’t quite know what that means in the context.
It seems to be a challenge to my claim that not all depression can be stopped by stopping depressing thoughts, or that not all depression can be stopped by developing a more positive perception of life. Is that what it is?
[quote=“Anthem11”]
You bet! but not this one, I think. Though, again, I certainly take Yogani at least as seriously as any other yoga authority.
Other replies:
Yogani, yes, AYP encourages practitioners to “go out there and engage!” after meditation. That doesn’t balance a thing, and if you think it does, that shows your (extremely fortunate) lack of experience with severe depression.
Depressives shouldn’t go internal, turn away from the external, and lower their metabolism. To encourage this for severe depressives (a condition always accompanied by compulsion to suicide) is reckless in my opinion. As is the suggestion that they ought to try it and see for themselves. Depressives don’t have a lot of compass, and they’ll jump at anything they hope might work. And since they tend to go overly internal anyway (that’s the problem!), they’ll be drawn to the practice. Depressives instinctually draw toward the flame of their demise. That’s why it’s called mental illness. It’s not like heart disease or liver disease. Your mind is the problem, and judgement is poor.
As to what “severely depressed” means, David, if you’ve got it, you know it. Not a problem. Schizophrenics don’t always know something’s wrong. But, boy, depressives sure do.
If you’re severely depressed - or tend toward the condition - resolve that issue with exercise and asana. Then, and only then, do AYP. That’s the tack I took, and my progress in AYP has been ridiculously fast…and I’m sure it’s in large part because I worked so hard on the coarse blocks via asana. Meditation is for resolving finer issues. Using meditation to resolve coarse blockages is like digging a well with a teaspoon.
Yogani, the last thing I want to do (or set an example of doing) is to use your forum to strongly argue and advocate a point of view counter to your noble desire to get as many people as possible practicing AYP (a goal I share and have supported in several ways, as you know). Would you consider being a bit more circumspect about recommending AYP for the mentally ill (or, alternatively, make a serious study of mental illness issues, which are very clearly not, thank goodness, issues with which you’re acquainted?)? I feel obliged to create this friction each time I see you making this point, and it pains me greatly. Ahimsa precludes this sort of contentiousness, but it more strongly precludes my allowing depressives and schizophrenics to follow what I believe to be poor advice. So I feel stuck being the bad guy here…and that’s depressing! 
I had a little surf around the net and found a few interesting things. Some seem to agree with you Jim that meditation should not be done when the depression is severe, except maybe with special guidance.
However, this site is promoting meditation for depression in general, when it is not so severe.
See:
http://www.wildmind.org/meditation/depression/help.html
and in particular at:
http://www.wildmind.org/meditation/depression/depression.html
I’ll quote some (my emphasis):
When not to use meditation
Although meditation can be very helpful in relieving depression or in preventing depression from arising, the act of focusing inwards can actually heighten feelings of despair. I would suggest not trying to meditate when you are extremely depressed, and especially not at times that you are having any thoughts of self-harm.
As one experienced meditator said, “Meditation while clinically depressed can result in intensification of feelings of despondency, hopelessness, and negativity generally. The metta practice is theoretically a good thing, but in practice it can be a nightmare if all you feel is self-hatred!”
I agree, and if meditation seems to be making things worse, then I would advise you to stop immediately.
However, I have worked with extremely depressed students who have benefited from meditation when they have had constant guidance and feedback from an experienced teacher to make sure that they are using meditative techniques in a helpful way.
Although such opportunities are unfortunately very rare, a very experienced meditation teacher who is on hand to give you step by step guidance can probably help you even when you are experiencing severe depression.
I hate to keep hyping the Iyengar system (I do it too much already), but BKS Iyengar (who understands human energy as well as anyone ever, IMO) strongly strongly cautions that depressives not meditate or even do introspective poses like forward bends. He prescribes backbends and inversions…energizing, invigorating, outward poses. and any sort of chest openers. This, I believe, came directly from Krishnamacharya (I have an interview with Iyengar on the topic somewhere…will try to dig it out). I got lucky, and struck upon a rigorous backbend/inversion practice before I’d even heard this advice from him. It worked beautifully. And then, having gone through that, AYP worked super beautifully.
Opinions on depression and meditation are scattered. But my central point: that asana fixes coarse blockages and meditation addresses finer ones, is part/parcel of yogic practice. I believe Yogani himself makes this point in the lessons. And my own experience convinces me that if you’ve got any sort of condition that even MIGHT make meditation dangerous, and you do plenty of asana to relieve that situation before going into the fine-tuning of meditation, you’re not only good to go with meditation, you’re extra good to go! I’ve certainly made up for lost time with my AYP practice. I’d not have done it any other way.
Hi Jim:
I’m grateful that you came back and further expressed your views. That is what the forum is for.
Am I going to change my position on deep meditation and depression? No. That is because self-pacing already addresses the downside for anyone who runs into difficulties with deep meditation, or anything else in AYP. Nowhere in AYP does it say that one size fits all, or that everyone ought to be doing a particular practice regardless of the outcome.
I do not disagree with the cautions and downsides presented by you and others in this topic. Points well taken. But I do not agree on making deep meditation taboo in depression situations. There are also successes mentioned in postings by others here on using deep meditation with depression. With your approach, would they have had the opportunity for that kind of progress? Perhaps with the use of asanas as you recommended and moving to meditation later. It worked for you. While, obviously, I do not oppose it, will everyone have the time and inclination to go through a focused asana program and hold off on meditation? Is waiting to meditate the best thing? Maybe for some (in your case it worked out). But clearly not in all cases. And maybe if you had known about deep meditation “back in the day,” it would have been a wonderful complement to your asana strategy, and you’d be even further along than you are now. We’ll never know, will we?
I can remember many years ago going through some pretty serious depression a few times. I was doing asanas, pranayama and deep meditation. There were times when I was too depressed to do any of the practices. But every time they all came back, and deep meditation always came back first. It was automatic self-pacing.
If we are in chronic debilitating depression, then seeing a doctor is the thing to do. That I do recommend. Then we can ask the doctor about means for relief, including meditation. AYP is one of the resources for that.
An underlying principle of AYP is that people are entitled to have access to the means for human spiritual transformation, and apply them as they see fit. It is a radical departure from the secretive highly parsed approaches of the past. Until the government decides to regulate the availability of spiritual practices, I’d like to keep the information open to everyone. It gives the most people the best chance to derive some benefit. Does it involve some risks? Yes, all information does. The risks in AYP have proven to be far less than the gloom and doom scenarios that have been preached. And the benefits have been very good, off-setting the risks by a wide margin.
Even for those who have contacted me with severe emotional problems, the benefits have exceeded the risks, so I will not rule out deep meditation as an option to be considered by anyone. Due to the unfathomable nature karma, it is impossible to know who will take to spiritual practices easily and who will not. We never know until we try. Therefore, in my opinion, with self-pacing solidly in the picture, trying deep meditation is worth the risk for anyone.
The guru is in you.
When I was depressed, learning to stop my thoughts helped me more than anything. But AYP meditation does the same thing and is SO much easier to learn.
Hi David,
No challenge here, I am simply stating my perspective, I will attempt to elaborate.
I perceive depression to be a function of a multitude of negative thoughts and perspectives which accumulate over time,(pre-cursors to emotional reactions which lead to physical energy blockages) on the life situations and circumstances that a person has experienced in the past.
Metaphorically to me: the experience of perceived pain of a thousand cuts, impeding the flow of energy, drawing the consciousness ever downward to lower and more dense emotional energy patterns ever while giving life energy to the thoughts of pain and suffering and clouding the innate ability to know one’s true nature.
That’s the way I see it at the moment, who knows how it will look after another 10 years of AYP!
Anthem
This reasonates much in my case. Except that in stead of stopping for a while, I hold on to meditation and other yoga practices, even to the point of being obsessive. Sometimes I am too irritable during meditation, and I don’t want to do it at all. But I insist that I should keep the practice. Don’t know how to express it: the feeling could be terrible and I want an instant relieve, but not by means of droping it or forgeting it altogether. Meditation seems to increase both my sensitivity/receptiveness and threshold of handling life issues.
This again sound like my experience. Except that after the emptiness came, again, crying.
Alvin; you wrote:
This is exactly what it was like for me too. For a long time (months/years) I would not experience that the emptiness changed into spaciousness. This happened only when the issue I was dealing with reached its end - or rather; when the consequences of the repressed experience was fully exposed and understood. Completely metabolized.Before that, I went back and forth between crying and emptiness.
David; you wrote:
I fully agree. I think this is the exact spot to look into. If I hadn’t found A.H.Almaas at the time I did - I don’t know what would have happened to me. I never met him, but his presence speaks to me through his books. I simply UNDERSTOOD my misery through his words (or maybe the lines between them?). I think an experienced practionioner IS needed until your connection with your inner guru is strong enough.
Yogani does the same for me. His presence touches me.
However - realized human beings don’t grow on every tree. And even fewer of them have the capability of expressing themselves the way Yogani does.
So yes - I do strongly recommend meditation. AND guidence. This forum may not be enough; but boy, it is a huge contribution.
Thank you, everyone of you. I enjoy this immensly 
May all your Nows be Here
I am glad to hear your experience, Katrine. And I look forward to my event being fully exposed and understood.
David wrote:
Sorry for my careless conclusions, but I think the main reasons such opinions appeared are:
- Some (actually nearly all) meditation teachers/guru want you to rely on them, and make meditation respectable but mysterious; so that their income can more safely rely on you.
- As WARNINGS AND DISCLAIMER to protect themselves (and the practice of meditation) in case any accidents really occur.
Their warnings are thus respectable, especially when they have the motive to protect the fame of meditation. The same precautions also appear in the practice of asanas. But in both cases, when the practioner is careful enough not to “push too hard”, the risk of hurting oneself by yoga is smaller than using a knife in the kitchen. (btw, I tend to push myself hard in yoga. Fortunately what’s hurt so far are minimal, mainly just over-stretching of many muscles. Still, I take those warning seriously now, though it doesn’t mean that I’ll give up my practice.
)
Anthem said:
No challenge here, I am simply stating my perspective
By the way, challenge is not a bad word in my vocabulary! Challenges are welcomed. It might be a bad word in some vocabularies, but then Obsidian is surely a bad word in their vocabulary too!
Anthem, what I am trying to say is that these ‘models’ that you are using are very useful and accurate for many, and maybe even the vast majority of depressions. And it may be true that it fits very well to your own experience. But I am saying that they don’t fit for all of them.
What I am saying is well known and not controversial in the least among the professionals. I think I’ll convince you in a minute.
>> giving life energy to the thoughts of pain and suffering and clouding the innate ability to know one’s true nature
When this happens, eventually an organic, clinical condition of depression is reached. However, the organic condition of depression can be reached without such a downward thought-related spiral happening as its cause.
For example, there are many substances which cause depression ( just as there are some which help it). Some women, for example, get depressed when they go on the pill. The depression in that case is not caused according to your model, but rather by the pill. It cannot be fixed properly by using your model – it’s fixed by taking them off the pill.
Likewise, true ‘post partum depression’ does not fit your model. People who have SAD (seasonal affective disorder — more serious in the scandinavian countries) get an organic depression that is caused by lack of exposure to sunlight. This is cured simply by exposure to sunlight, and cannot be fixed satisfactorily by other means.
>> That’s the way I see it at the moment, who knows how it will look after another 10 years of AYP!
If I still haven’t convinced you, and medical science can’t either, there is a shorter path towards convincing you than 10 years of AYP: let’s give you a good daily dose of progesterone, reserpine, larium, a testosterone inhibitor, and a few more mood nasties.
You’ll quickly come to your understand that your condition of deep pain, despair and misery are not caused by ‘giving life energy to the thoughts of pain and suffering and clouding the innate ability to know one’s true nature’ and are not fixed by reversing such a pattern. It’s caused by upset organic factors, and stopping taking those drugs will be the only way to fix it.
I think this view of you are taking of mood problems and their causes is over-simplified and/or over-generalized. By the way, I have never known a single woman to take this over-simplified view, though I have known numerous men to do it. Perhaps that is because women have a menstrual cycle, and are generally familiar with mood swings having causes unrelated to thought patterns.
I disagree Alvin old boy, and with much respect too! It is true that this kind of thing goes on, but not in particular in the depression-related warnings. If they were making that warning to make people rely on them, why would they limit it to depression?
Hi David,
We will have to agree to disagree on this. I am no expert, it is simply the way I see the human condition.
There is no doubt the pill, seasonal affective disorder drugs etc. all have an impact on a person’s moods. To me these external factors are all simply attaching to or emphasizing whatever is already there on the inside of a person’s mind (no matter how latent or subtle) and magnifying it and bringing to the surface. To me this is why some are impacted by these things and others are not. All we have to do is meditate too much or apply a little external pain to ourselves to see what’s hidden inside!
All the best,
Anthem
I haven’t quite given up on ‘showing you the light’ about this aspect of depression, if I may speak presumptiosly.
Anthem said:
To me these external factors are all simply attaching to or emphasizing whatever is already there on the inside of a person’s mind (no matter how latent or subtle) and magnifying it and bringing to the surface. To me this is why some are impacted by these things and others are not.
I really would suggest a closer look at this: Before Sally and Mary take the pill Sally is happier, more optimistic and more bright-eyed than Mary.
When Sally gets depressed because she goes on the pill and Mary not, you would seem to be saying that there was some negativity ‘there’ in Sally and not in Mary which the pill is bringing out. What in earth would it have been, if Sally was happier than Mary before they went on the pill???
This is not hypothetical. I personally know of a very happy and positive woman who got depressed when she went on the pill and had to stop it. And other not-so-happy, not-so-positive women who had no such problem.
There is indeed something there in Sally not in Mary, and that is that, by whatever mechanism, Sally’s body cannot tolerate the pill and responds with a depression of mood. This could easily be some very technical mechanism. Perhaps it disturbs some deep neurological mechanisms of sleep. Perhaps the effect is like a permanent PMS (just guessing).
Did it occur to you that these simple differences in body function might be the reason why one person might not have mood problems with the pill and the other not, rather than underlying differences in perspective? Differences that have no more ‘meaning’ or psychology behind them than say a food intolerance or allergy?
Likewise for S.A.D., post-partum depression and so on. We might find that Mary is susceptible to S.A.D. and Sally not – the reverse of the relationship regarding the pill, where you might have attributed Sally’s problems with the pill to be some ‘negativity’ that Mary does not have.
But one thing that has come out of research on S.A.D. over the years is that it seems that some people have a sleep-cycle (circadian rhythm) that is more heavily dependent on sunlight to keep it in order. These people can get S.A.D. This is probably genetically determined. Without the sunlight, their body gets all confused about night and day and their sleeping function and waking function gets all messed up, and they get depressed.
The reason that this happens to one person and not another, is not that one person has latent negative thoughts that the other does not – it is because one person’s sleep cycle is messed up by the lack of sunlight and the other’s is not. And it probably goes down to some extremely technical and arcane mechanism in the body clock. Most peoples body clocks are more robust and do not get confused in this way, and they do not get S.A.D., while other’s do and they get S.A.D. Perspectives and thoughts are not involved in the primary mechanism.
Noone can be in a good healthy mood when their sleep is destroyed. No-one. You take those drugs I mention and your serotonin levels will plummet and your sleep will be destroyed and your mood will be destroyed. You will be depressed. You can deny it, but it is true.
Maybe I shouldn’t be trying to push people out of their flawed models when they don’t want it, I don’t know. But I like to make a good case for other people reading if other people are holding the same mistakes. Because I believe it has importance.
You seem to be holding onto something like a ‘hermetic’ view of the mind and its moods, where it is believed to have a complete potential independence from ‘the world’ and the state of the body. This was a mistake many of the ancient greeks had, and Descartes too. I believe this mistake is very rare in ‘the East’ and it is certainly not part of the Yoga tradition. Modern Science, the mental health professions, and experimentation can decisively prove that mistaken.
That is, a person who can keep a good mood regardless of organic ‘external’ factors (such as complete destruction of their sleep), will never be found. It is a mythical person.
P.S. For spiritual reasons also, I would not recommend a belief in that kind of independence of the mind from the body and the world.
i think chemical stuff and inner emotional stuff are all interrelated. I had a girlfriend years ago who used to flip out about once a year. Sometimes we put her in the mental hospital, and sometimes it wasn’t so bad. Then one year they gave her lithium and it cleared up. She’s been on lithium ever since as far as I know.
But that doesn’t mean she had a lithium deficiency. There was some sort of chemical imbalance inside that was put back in balance by the lithium. I think the imbalance was caused by thought patterns and energy imbalances. She used to be fanatically into god and the bible and praying.
Then when she flipped out she thought she was the cause of all evil. She had christian friends running a commune in another state and went there where they prayed over her, layed hands on her, annointed her etc. for weeks. But she wouldn’t eat anything. I flew down and got her out of there before she died. Her doctor said she was within two weeks of dying by starvation, and put
her on an IntraVeinous drip for nourishment. He put her in the mental hospital, and that’s when they eventually tried the lithium.
Funny thing is, when she was well she was very intelligent, balanced, and positive thinking.
I could see no negative patterns at all other than her fanatical bible reading. We lived together and when she talked it wasn’t fanatical at all, it was just everyday talking.
When Jehova’s witnesses came to the door she would offer to talk with them if they left the bible in the car and didn’t quote any verses! Her thinking was so level headed that she had clients whom she did counseling for. She didn’t meditate except for prolonged praying, but I suspect AYP could have helped because there was probably prana flow problems, and a lot
of fear. As it was though, the chemical helped.
Hi David,
I never suggested there is independence between the body, mind and world. On the contrary I think we all agree that there is complete interdependence. The world in any form reacts differently within each one of us as you point out in your examples above.
Every human being is unique, different energy blockages in the body making for different physical variables too infinite to predict. One has more of this chemical, another less etc. does the physical impingement of certain muscles on nerves prevent the flow of blood, oxygen and energy to certain glands yielding in more or less of various hormones etc. in the body affecting thoughts and emotions? I am sure we all agree they do and that it is all inter-related. Do certain thoughts we have affect the production of chemicals like serotonin in the brain or other autonomic nervous system functioning, modern science would suggest that they do.
Yogic lore is full of examples of allegedly enlightened yogis who drink this or that poison and remain unaffected or are unaffected by many aspects of the world like, oxygen, sleep, food deprivation, living on sunlight or overcoming many accepted limitations of physical reality. Is it true? I personally have never seen it and modern science has yet to prove it, but does that mean that we can say with all certainty that it does not exist?
Science is yet to prove a lot of things in life that we know exist. One has to look no further than the world of quantum mechanics and the paradox of wave-particle duality to see the limitations of modern science. Many used to say with certainty that the world was flat or that or that the universe would expand and then eventually contract. Science is not the final arbiter of truth though it is certainly a much clearer lense to look through then what the world has used before.
Is a person wrong because they hold one perspective or another or believe in something you do not? Nobody can say with absolute certainty.
There are no absolutes.
Thank you for “trying to show me the light” but as I mentioned above let us agree to disagree. Enough discussion on this for me, time to move on to more interesting things like AYP and our collective spiritual paths!