Meditation for Depression
Q: "Can meditation help me with my depression?"

A: Definitely. There are four kinds of common depression, and a different kind of meditation for each one. The four depressions are (1) the darkness: the inability to understand what's happening to you or why it's happening, the breakdown of meaning, (2) the pessimism: powerless to effect change or accomplish your desires, helpless against exploitation by others, (3) the loneliness: being disappointed or betrayed in love, isolated or separated from others, and (4) the dreads: having to do something against your will, principles, or health in order to fulfill your duty or to survive. A person is not susceptible to all four kinds of depression; the kind one suffers from is an indication of the kind of heart one has.

These depressions can occur at four different levels, and a depression at one level can spread to a neighboring level: (1) the physical level: chemical imbalances, weak immune system, fragility in the heart, stomach, intestines or nerves, or other physical symptoms that can be cured by chemicals, nutrients, or exercise, (2) the mental and emotional level: a numbness that inhibits creativity and enjoyment of life and represses concern and caring for others, that fades briefly during distractions or complete changes in environment, (3) the energy level: a tiredness that seems to have no end, aches that move around your body, detachment from all that should be your interest and concern, and often the inability to sleep normally, that can only be somewhat ameliorated by bed rest and withdrawal from all the stresses of life, and (4) the soul level: a profound cynicism and generalized disgust that cannot be treated or relieved by anything in life, except the discovery of sacredness.

Basically, a person faces the challenges in this life of (1) understanding how to live responsibly in their body and in harmony with their environment, (2) finding their heart, learning how to purify it, honoring its desires and experiencing its power, (3) choosing productive ways to spend their time that contribute to that purpose that gives meaning to their life, and (4) finding the connection that exists between all parts of life: the interfusison of spirit and matter, mind and heart, one heart with another, and the individual with the divine. When we are not successful with the ongoing challenge of life, which gets harder in step with our ability to handle it, we become depressed at the corresponding level. But the depression can help us if we recognize it as a signal. Teachers and practitioners of meditation learn to trust in the unconscious, which is continually trying to speak through our heart. Depression is the result of a signal from the unconscious that has not been heard or heeded.

Meditation can help because it makes some of the unconscous, conscious. Meditators are less likely to get depressed because they look for, and value, the signals that emerge from their unconscious and the deep currents of emotion that run through their hearts. Meditation also helps because it moves the breath, a current of life that runs through all the levels of one's self, carrying the innate longing of our spirit into action. In depression, this current is inhibited, which one feels as a lack of desire and energy. To treat depression without using breath is like treating malnutrition without food. (To be continued.)

By Puran Bair, author of "Living from the Heart" (Random House, 1998)
© 1998 by The Institute for Applied Meditation, Inc.
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