Last night, I looking back at my life I realised that I've always suffered from depression and anxiety. It just seems more acute nowadays...maybe the older you get the more you notice it?
I'm going for psychotherapy and am uncovering all sorts of things from my childhood...some things too hard to believe. I'm starting to think that perhaps I have made up things, like I let my imagination run wild just so that I can justify the condition that I am in. But, maybe I just have a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Who can really know for sure what is wrong with me. I've taken medication and I was high as a kite. Felt great, yet artificial and there was weight gain and then some depression after my body got used to the meds. Hmmm, not really into upping my dose...what will happen to me after 10 years of this kind of carry on?
There's a beautiful lady I know in the town that I live in. She must be in her early thirties and she is battling cancer. She tried natural medication for 2 years and the cancer has only become worse, but she soldiers on. To me it seems like she has accepted her cancer. She has accepted her fate. That was inspiring to me.
So instead of me feeling sorry for myself sometimes and frantically trying to find this miracle natural and fantastic cure for my depression and anxiety, I've decided to accept it. Maybe even embrace it. "Hello Depression and Anxiety my old friends. How can we work together so that we can make it to the end in God Consciousness?"
This made me feel more sober in mind...the kind of sobering feeling you get when you go to a funeral and look at a corpse. "Yes, it's a fact, I. AM. ALSO. GOING. TO. DIE. ONE. DAY. Best I get prepared."
So..preparing for death...sounds a tad morbid I know, but death is really just like the changing of an old garment to put on a new one...and if you are well prepared for death, you may not even have to take on another material body, but rather enter into the spiritual realm, as your true self, you, an eternal spiritual being apart from the gross and subtle body. Nice! No more depression! BONUS!
Okay, so I have this fragile glass jar, and I can fit one rock into it. This rock is my spirituality. The pebbles and sand in this fragile bottle are needed but not that important. My main focus should be spirituality.
There are examples in the vedic scriptures, like Prariksit Maharaj, who was cursed by a naughty Brahmana boy to die in 7 days. So instead of trying to counteract the curse (which Prariksit Maharaj easily could have), he accepted the curse and spent 7 days and nights listening to the sacred texts of Srimad Bhagavatam from the great Sage Sukadeva Goswami. He attained self realisation and left his material body when the seven days passed. He attained pure love of God. He was completely successful.
Had he counteracted the curse, who knows what may of happened to him. He may have lived a long life, but may have become distracted by the illusions of this material world.
We all have our lives put out for us. In my case, it has not turned out the way I thought it would. I always thought that my mental problems would get better, that I would become this amazingly functional person full of confidence and ability to achieve things in life. I wanted to do so many things in the entertainment industry, I wanted to serve Lord Krsna and my Spiritual Master very expertly and I wanted to help people. But the reality is, I can hardly even help myself. Cooking a meal for myself can take weeks to achieve. Tidying my room is the greatest mission in my world. Getting myself out of the house takes so much energy for me.
Some days are better than others. Some days, even weeks or months, I can soar through life like an eagle and then something happens...who knows what it could be, the change of direction of the wind perhaps, and I'm down, low down, I feel like I can't survive. I feel as though I need to book myself into a mental institute because I can't cope with another day. I lose my grip on reality. I panic. I feel alone, hopeless, grief and deep despair take over. And it feels like an eternity.
Up and down, up and down. There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, where Lord Krsna says:
"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."
...Tolerate, without being disturbed. Equipoised. Finding the balance.
So to me this means, no matter what my material body is going through, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxiety, happiness, I must learn to tolerate it. Find the balance...and not be disturbed....i.e no self harming or suicide attempts. But when I'm happy I should not become manic with over happiness and become super attached to this wonderful feeling of happiness, because then, I go on a really low, low when the happiness is not there anymore to make me feel good. What goes up...must come down...unless you are a tight rope walker...finding the balance.
This means my attachment to God is to be made strong, through chanting His names, serving Him as best I can and reading about Him as best as I can.
The Lord preserves what we have and carries what we lack.
I have to live a deep internal life, apart from the external material world with it's pleasures and pains.
Spring is approaching, the birds are singing, the Jasmines are blooming and giving off their wonderful scent, that makes my head want to explode with pleasure when I inhale it. I love offering these amazingly fragrant flowers to the Lord and my Spiritual Master.
Now there is happiness externally, all around. I love Jasmines, and wait all winter for them to come into bloom again. I observe and experience it today with a sober mind. Trying to experience the deeper happiness and security within my heart knowing that I am not this temporary body, I am not this temporary mind and senses, but that I am a spirit soul, apart from the gross and subtle and that I am protected and loved by the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna of whom I am an eternal servant to.
I'm going for psychotherapy and am uncovering all sorts of things from my childhood...some things too hard to believe. I'm starting to think that perhaps I have made up things, like I let my imagination run wild just so that I can justify the condition that I am in. But, maybe I just have a chemical imbalance in my brain.
Who can really know for sure what is wrong with me. I've taken medication and I was high as a kite. Felt great, yet artificial and there was weight gain and then some depression after my body got used to the meds. Hmmm, not really into upping my dose...what will happen to me after 10 years of this kind of carry on?
There's a beautiful lady I know in the town that I live in. She must be in her early thirties and she is battling cancer. She tried natural medication for 2 years and the cancer has only become worse, but she soldiers on. To me it seems like she has accepted her cancer. She has accepted her fate. That was inspiring to me.
So instead of me feeling sorry for myself sometimes and frantically trying to find this miracle natural and fantastic cure for my depression and anxiety, I've decided to accept it. Maybe even embrace it. "Hello Depression and Anxiety my old friends. How can we work together so that we can make it to the end in God Consciousness?"
This made me feel more sober in mind...the kind of sobering feeling you get when you go to a funeral and look at a corpse. "Yes, it's a fact, I. AM. ALSO. GOING. TO. DIE. ONE. DAY. Best I get prepared."
So..preparing for death...sounds a tad morbid I know, but death is really just like the changing of an old garment to put on a new one...and if you are well prepared for death, you may not even have to take on another material body, but rather enter into the spiritual realm, as your true self, you, an eternal spiritual being apart from the gross and subtle body. Nice! No more depression! BONUS!
Okay, so I have this fragile glass jar, and I can fit one rock into it. This rock is my spirituality. The pebbles and sand in this fragile bottle are needed but not that important. My main focus should be spirituality.
There are examples in the vedic scriptures, like Prariksit Maharaj, who was cursed by a naughty Brahmana boy to die in 7 days. So instead of trying to counteract the curse (which Prariksit Maharaj easily could have), he accepted the curse and spent 7 days and nights listening to the sacred texts of Srimad Bhagavatam from the great Sage Sukadeva Goswami. He attained self realisation and left his material body when the seven days passed. He attained pure love of God. He was completely successful.
Had he counteracted the curse, who knows what may of happened to him. He may have lived a long life, but may have become distracted by the illusions of this material world.
We all have our lives put out for us. In my case, it has not turned out the way I thought it would. I always thought that my mental problems would get better, that I would become this amazingly functional person full of confidence and ability to achieve things in life. I wanted to do so many things in the entertainment industry, I wanted to serve Lord Krsna and my Spiritual Master very expertly and I wanted to help people. But the reality is, I can hardly even help myself. Cooking a meal for myself can take weeks to achieve. Tidying my room is the greatest mission in my world. Getting myself out of the house takes so much energy for me.
Some days are better than others. Some days, even weeks or months, I can soar through life like an eagle and then something happens...who knows what it could be, the change of direction of the wind perhaps, and I'm down, low down, I feel like I can't survive. I feel as though I need to book myself into a mental institute because I can't cope with another day. I lose my grip on reality. I panic. I feel alone, hopeless, grief and deep despair take over. And it feels like an eternity.
Up and down, up and down. There is a verse in the Bhagavad Gita As It Is, where Lord Krsna says:
"O son of Kunti, the nonpermanent appearance of happiness and distress, and their disappearance in due course, are like the appearance and disappearance of winter and summer seasons. They arise from sense perception, O scion of Bharata, and one must learn to tolerate them without being disturbed."
...Tolerate, without being disturbed. Equipoised. Finding the balance.
So to me this means, no matter what my material body is going through, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxiety, happiness, I must learn to tolerate it. Find the balance...and not be disturbed....i.e no self harming or suicide attempts. But when I'm happy I should not become manic with over happiness and become super attached to this wonderful feeling of happiness, because then, I go on a really low, low when the happiness is not there anymore to make me feel good. What goes up...must come down...unless you are a tight rope walker...finding the balance.
This means my attachment to God is to be made strong, through chanting His names, serving Him as best I can and reading about Him as best as I can.
The Lord preserves what we have and carries what we lack.
I have to live a deep internal life, apart from the external material world with it's pleasures and pains.
Spring is approaching, the birds are singing, the Jasmines are blooming and giving off their wonderful scent, that makes my head want to explode with pleasure when I inhale it. I love offering these amazingly fragrant flowers to the Lord and my Spiritual Master.
Now there is happiness externally, all around. I love Jasmines, and wait all winter for them to come into bloom again. I observe and experience it today with a sober mind. Trying to experience the deeper happiness and security within my heart knowing that I am not this temporary body, I am not this temporary mind and senses, but that I am a spirit soul, apart from the gross and subtle and that I am protected and loved by the Supreme Lord Sri Krsna of whom I am an eternal servant to.
