Kundalini Yoga - 16

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DEALING WITH DEPRESSION MEDITATION IS MEDICATION FOR THE SOUL

 

The purpose of this article is to redefine depression as our psyche's

response to disconnection from our souls and to help us use this

response to cultivate and reconnect with our own inner light.

 

DISCONNECTION FROM OUR SOULS

 

Depression is a call from the soul to learn how to deal with the

emotion of sadness. At the very core of sadness is the message that

we are disconnected from our own soul. We have closed off our hearts

to ourselves. To deal with sadness we must go within. Sadness is a

very personal emotion. We think that events outside ourselves make us

sad. But in reality, no one can make us sad but ourselves.

 

To deal with depression requires embracing our feelings of sadness.

We are sad because we are not experiencing the love that we came here

to experience in the human form. We must find out why we are not

experiencing love. We must learn how to open up our hearts and our

psyche to universal love. We must train ourselves to embody this

love. This is one of the basic reasons that we come to planet Earth-

to learn how to release resistance to love and to fully allow this

universal energy to flow through our being.

 

Depression is one of the means to get our attention and to remind us

of this basic human endeavor. Depression is initiated by the soul to

oblige us to confront and resolve our inner conflicts that prevent us

from experiencing universal love. The alchemy of the soul requires

us to transform the energy of sadness into bliss. This is, of

course, no easy or carefree process. It doesn't feel good and it

takes patience and disciplined work. Welcome to Planet Earth!

 

We are obliged to experience grief, sorrow, pessimism and

loneliness. The trick is that we are not obliged to indulge in these

feelings. They are there to teach us. But they are not there to

torment us. The key to understanding all these feelings is the

realization that they are a reflection of our separation from

Source. They are a response to a closed heart. They are generated

by a lack of self-love and a fundamental misunderstanding of who we

really are. To understand our divine nature we must have the

experience of our own soul. We will not love ourselves simply by

having someone tell us we are beautiful and great. We have all

witnessed how transitory the elation from even honest complements

are. For the remedy cannot come from outside ourselves. The remedy

is found within our own hearts.

 

The problem is, of course, that our hearts are closed - blocked off

by negative experiences, unexpressed emotions from traumas and bad

programming. We must revisit these experiences, express these

emotions and reinstall new programming in order to make our way back

into the core of our soul where divine love resides. Depression is

an invitation to this inner journey. Not the most popular journey, we

often choose to avoid it with denial, blame, medication and outward

preoccupations. But my observation is that like other soul lessons,

some form of sadness and depression never really goes away until we

find the gold of divine love in our own hearts. Actually we wouldn't

want to be able to totally deny the painful messages and thus avoid

the process that produces the alchemy. For we are here to experience

love. The human journey ensures that we will be prodded to do what

it takes to have this experience.

 

AN INVITATION TO TURN INWARD

 

Depression invites us to turn inward so that we can discover the

cause and source of our pain and find resolution, freedom and

empowerment. Although the basic cause of depression is disconnection

from universal love, there are many human explanations that cause us

to be depressed. They are all mechanisms to remind us of how we have

shut off ourselves from our divine identity and effectively keep

ourselves separate from Source. Some of the most popular ways that

we have learned to use to sever our connection with our souls and the

Divine include

 

1. unexpressed and unhealed emotions 2. negative thoughts and

limiting beliefs 3. attachments to persons and things that do not

promote our identity and enlightenment 4. a lack of purpose and

commitment to our own spiritual path and life 5. lack of appropriate

outlets for our personal creative expression 6. unresolved conflicts

that we let rule our minds and behavior

 

Some of the above are easy to identify. We know when don't like our

job and feel abused in our relationships. However, other problems in

our psyche lie outside our conscious awareness. The result is that

we think our problem is our depression. However, depression is a

symptom of a deeper problem that we can't consciously identify. Our

inability to connect with our own self-love and experience our

connection with the Divine is the most fundamental of these

unidentifiable problems. And even if we identify it consciously, as

we are now doing, we cannot access the connection and thus the

solution through our conscious rational mind.

 

THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF LOVE

 

The good news is that there is something that we can consciously do

to cultivate this connection. Yoga and meditation were designed to

cultivate the inner connection with our soul. Meditation is

medication for the soul. In a very real way meditation is a

medication because it changes the biochemistry of our body and brain.

All life experiences are dependent upon our biochemistry. Human

consciousness is biochemical. The human psyche is an expression of

biochemistry. Biochemistry makes our different human experiences

possible.

 

The pivotal question thus becomes how can we impact and change our

biochemistry? For as we change our biochemistry, we change how we

feel. We change how we think. And we change how we perceive what we

experience. It is very easy to monitor how we change our

biochemistry. How do you feel after you have eaten sugar vs. had a

balanced healthy meal?

 

There are many ways to change our biochemistry. They include diet,

physical activity and exposure to light. We can also change our

biochemistry with nutritional supplements, herbs and chemical

medication. The good news is that we do not have to become dependent

upon chemical medication to deal with depression. The good news is

that we can also change our biochemistry through yoga and meditation.

 

Yogi Bhajan has given us Kundalini yoga and specific meditations to

change the biochemistry of our bodies and brains. These practices

promote pleasurable states of being - joy and bliss. We feel happy

for no apparent reason. This happens because the channels of the

brain that connect us with higher states of experience and love are

accessed and opened. As we practice these exercises and meditations,

we experience who we are really are. We open up a field of

consciousness within ourselves whereby it becomes easier, or at least

possible, to confront the hidden agendas that we have allowed to cut

off our divine connection.

 

These exercises and meditations are powerful tools for breaking up

the stuck energy in our bodies and psyches that have so tenaciously

created and maintained separation and depression as a status quo. An

initial goal is to stop and then reverse the descent into deeper

states of immobility, self-abuse and pain. The meditations then

create a safe inner space of acceptance, which allows us to look at

how we disconnect and then be able to reverse the process. Over time

we generate an ongoing experience of our own inner light and

connection with our own soul.

 

MEDITATION TO GET OUT OF DEPRESSSION

 

The following meditation is on page 135 of Relax and Renew, which

contains many meditations to relieve stress and depression. Yogi

Bhajan taught it in 1979. This meditation totally recharges you and

is an antidote to depression. It builds a new biochemical system,

gives one capacity and caliber to deal with life, and establishes a

direct relationship with the pranic body.

 

(A diagram to help you with this meditation can be found at

kundalini yogakyt16.html)

 

Instructions:

 

Sit in Easy Pose with a straight spine, extend the arms straight

forward, parallel to the ground. Close the right hand in a fist,

wrapping fingers of the left hand around it, bases of palms touching,

thumbs together and pulled up straight. Eyes are focused on the

thumbs.

 

Inhale for 5 seconds, and, without holding the breath in, exhale for

5 seconds, and then hold the breath out for 15 seconds. Continue the

cycle, starting with 3-5 minutes and working up to 11. Progress

slowly. You can also work up to holding the breath out for 1 full

minute.

 

Testimonial by Sadhant Singh

 

I have found this to be a very quick and powerful way to change my

emotional state. It seems particularly effective against depression

and sadness, and just three minutes can completely alter my state of

mind. Another nice thing about this meditation is that it is a quiet

one, so I can easily duck into a bathroom stall and, in just a few

minutes, raise my consciousness and prepare for something new or

recover from something trying.

 

(by Gururattan Kaur Khalsa)