Dharma Journal - May 28th, 2007

[Guest guest]

Dharma Journal

Authentic Dharma for Today's World

___________

May 28th, 2007 - Founded in 1998

 

 

 

 

The Teachings of the Bhagavad Gita

 

Marks of a Self-Realized Person

 

Lord Krishna said: When one is completely free from all desires of

the mind and is satisfied with the Supreme Being by the joy of

Supreme Being, then one is called an enlightened person, O Arjuna.

(2.55)

 

A person whose mind is unperturbed by sorrow, who does not crave

pleasures, and who is completely free from attachment, fear, and

anger, is called an enlightened sage of steady intellect. (2.56)

 

The mind and intellect of a person become steady who is not attached

to anything, who is neither elated by getting desired results, nor

perturbed by undesired results. (2.57)

 

When one can completely withdraw the senses from the sense objects as

a tortoise withdraws its limbs into the shell for protection from

calamity, then the intellect of such a person is considered steady.

(2.58)

 

The desire for sensual pleasures fades away if one abstains from

sense enjoyment, but the craving for sense enjoyment remains in a

very subtle form. This subtle craving also completely disappears from

the one who knows the Supreme Being. (2.59)

 

 

 

______________

 

Overcoming Depression with Meditation

 

by Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.

(Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya)

 

 

Modern America is a land of many interesting, and often painfully

ironic, contradictions. On the one hand, we supposedly enjoy more

prosperity, longevity, comforts, and conveniences in the United

States than any other civilization has even dreamed of in previous

history. Supposedly.

 

On the other hand, however, America is currently going through one of

the biggest mental health crises that any nation in history has ever

experienced. Various forms of depression, anxiety disorders and

neuroses are affecting millions of Americans. Depressive disorders

affect approximately 18.8 million American adults, or about 9.5% of

the U.S. population age 18 and older in any given year. For those

cases of depression that are reported, many more remain unreported,

and thus unknown. This current mental health crisis includes such

ailments as major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and

bipolar disorder.

 

What is especially disturbing is that depression is increasingly a

common occurrence among the nation's young, a demographic that should

be enjoying the fun and carefree life usually associated with

childhood. Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for

antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers -- over a

million! -- are considered clinically depressed. CNN recently

reported on a study that revealed that as many as 3 million teenagers

contemplated suicide in 2006. The rate of increase of depression

among children is an astounding 23%.

 

30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to

be half that of women, but new estimates show that the actual figures

are higher than at first suspected.

 

Depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease by

2020 -- and medical studies have shown that depression is a

contributory factor to fatal coronary disease.

 

Depression results in more absenteeism and loss of employment than

almost any other physical disorder, and costs employers more than

US$51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost productivity, not

including high medical and pharmaceutical bills.

 

The treatment modalities often used in the attempt to combat

depression are diverse and have varied results. Some of these

treatments include talk therapy and anti-depression medications.

Currently, several million Americans are on various anti-depressants,

including Prozac, Lexapro, and Amitriptyline. Many of these anti-

depression medications have had only mixed results.

 

Antidepressants work for 35% to 45% of the depressed population,

while more recent figures suggest as low as 30%. Standard

antidepressants, SSRIs such as Prozac, Paxil (Aropax) and Zoloft,

have recently been revealed to have serious risks, and are linked to

suicide, violence, psychosis, abnormal bleeding, and brain tumors.

 

Though most doctors advise a combination of therapy and

antidepressants, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has an 80%

relapse rate in the long term.

 

While medication and therapy can often take the edge off of the

experience of depression, they are far from successful in all

instances. The only truly effective cure lies in going to the root

of depression. That root is ultimately spiritual in nature.

 

Depression is itself only a direct symptomatic manifestation of the

radical secularization of human society. Previous to secular

modernity, depression was a much less prevalent phenomenon. And when

it was experienced, the reasons were more clearly environmental and

causal than they are now. In the past, depression was directly

associated with a specific event or occurrence in the person's life

that directly caused the depression. Today, however, an increasing

number of depressed persons are experiencing more generalized

depression, a type of general existential angst, the exact cause of

which it is difficult for them to pinpoint. Some of the leading

causes of depression today include a sense of meaninglessness;

consuming and generalized fear; spiritual crises, and the high

degrees of stress and anxiety that has become accepted as normal in

modern, radically secularized, everyday life.

 

For younger people, especially, when asked why they are experiencing

deep depression, many youth will point to a complete sense of

meaninglessness in their lives. The don't know why they are here,

what their purpose in life is, why they are bothering to learn and

work hard, and why our present-day, materialistic society is geared

in such a way as to provide them with no real answers to their quest

for meaning. While pop culture, technology, and the youth scene

serves as a temporary outlet for many teens, more often than not it

only serves to tremendously exacerbate the problem of depression.

 

Secular modernity presents us with a social-philosophical construct

that is artificial, anti-natural, and ultimately destructive and

unhealthy in nature. In our society, we have been deprived of the

age-tested, fundamental vehicles through which we can excel

spiritually, intellectually, and culturally. Spirituality and

Dharma, which form the basis of all meaningful human growth and

progress, has been systematically and viciously erased from modern

secular societies to such a radical extent that hundreds of millions

of persons worldwide are vividly feeling the ill effects of a life

devoid of meaning, value, nobility, goodness, heroism, and the quest

for Truth.

 

The search for truth has been replaced in the lives of billions with

the search for entertainment.

 

Rather than encouraging such spiritual values as courage, nobility,

and heroism, the modern world today encourages the coldly

unsatisfying propaganda of radical egalitarianism. Rather than

encouraging the nurturing of the inner life of the spirit, and the

natural joy, peace and fulfillment that results from a healthy

spiritually-centered life, today it is only selfish economic

advancement and the value of purchasing power that is advocated.

Rather than a lifestyle of mental, physical and spiritual health,

today lifestyles of selfish hedonism, consumerism, greed, fame, and

lust are upheld as the ideal course of behavior, and the values

toward which all should aspire.

 

Dharma, the principle of living one's life in accordance with Natural

Law and God's will in a manner that is healthy, fulfilling,

nurturing, and truly progressive, has now been replaced with an

artificial and life-denying lifestyle that only produces a profound

sense of meaninglessness and anxiety.

 

The ultimate cure for society's present crisis of depression and

meaninglessness is to re-embrace a life of meaning, a life of

Dharma. Dharma, by its very definition, denotes the sustaining

foundation of all reality. Dharma is the concept that all that we

experience in this world is based upon a higher, spiritual reality

that provides the ordering principles necessary for the proper

function of the world. To understand Dharma is to understand the

world, and the natural laws behind all things that make life a

meaningful and beautiful expression of the Divine in spacial-temporal

reality. To know Dharma is to know life's ultimate meaning. And the

way to fully know Dharma is through the process of meditation.

 

For millennia, a spiritually based practice of meditation has been

shown to be very effective in combating such problems as stress,

anxiety, fear, and feelings of meaninglessness. Because meditation

addresses the root causes of depression and anxiety, the time honored

techniques of meditation can be a much more effective cure for

depression than either talk-therapy or medication.

 

Meditation is a natural, easy and proven method that has been shown

in hundreds of clinical studies to bring about deep states of peace,

calm and mental clarity. In addition, a specifically spiritual

regimen of daily meditation can help to foster a deep sense of

meaning and spiritual comfort.

 

Meditation has been shown to work on two distinct levels: a) the

cognitive level, and b) the spiritual level. On the cognitive level,

meditation helps to bring about a deep equipoise and a calming relief

to one's overactive mind. Today, especially, the mind is constantly

bombarded with an unending stream of diverse information - some

valuable, most useless. As a direct result of such information

bombardment, the mind is in an almost constant state of agitation and

confusion. Meditation serves to calm the mind, allowing our

attention to shift from the storm of external stimuli to the deep

inner peace that is the natural state of the soul. As a consequence

of having a calm mind, we then find that we can think and make

important decisions with much more clarity, insight, and power. We

are now able to process information in a way that serves us, rather

than merely being the victims of myriad sensory impressions and

information overload.

 

On the more spiritual level, meditation has the ability to provide us

with deep levels of self-realization and God-realization that, up

till now, may have seemed to be impossible attainments to many of

us. By meditating with the expressed goal of making spiritual

progress, and knowing God and self, we then traverse beyond the

merely cognitive and mental, and begin to penetrate the inner realms

of eternal spirit. When we have self-realization, we now experience

the transcendent peace and calm that is the natural result of living

in spirit. When we have God-realization, we are now in communion

with the very source of our being, the eternal, loving Absolute who

is our very best of friends, and greatest of well-wishers. In such a

transcendent state of spiritual attainment, no anxiety, stress,

depression, or fear can ever burden our minds or hearts again. For

we have now, through the process of spiritual meditation, realized

the infinite well of spiritual peace that lies naturally within.

 

The root cause of most depression today, then, is the pervasive sense

of meaninglessness that naturally accompanies life in a radically

secularized, materialistic society. The cure to such existential

meaninglessness is to partake profoundly in the spiritual nature of

our true selves and the spiritual foundations underlying our everyday

concerns. The artificial construct of materialism needs to be

replaced with Dharma, and the natural lifestyle and spiritual way of

being that Dharma teaches us to embrace. The most effective way of

accessing the spiritual reality that is our true self, and thus to

over-come the unnatural state of depression, is God-centered

meditation as taught in the ancient tradition of Sanatana Dharma.

 

Moderator: We are not encouraging anyone to use this message board to promote

specific organisations. Thus we have withheld some information contained in this

article.