Depression and the Spiritual Search

I had my fair share of depressions throughout my high school and college years. I rarely felt comfortable around other people; rarely felt that I “fit in.” As a consequence, personal failures such as a difficult class or rejection by a girl were amplified by an already uncertain sense of self. Truly, though, I have to thank these periods of unhappiness for driving me to question the meaning of life. That questioning left me open to the message delivered by Richard Rose one evening in 1990, in a lecture called “What is Enlightenment?” A happy man might have walked out unimpressed, but I was intrigued.

If we observe our depression, we can, at least in retrospect, see it often points to false promises made by our dreams, desires, egos, or societal values: that love will make us happy, security can be found through money, good works will insure us against evil, and dozens of other usually unexamined beliefs. Unexamined, that is, until they fail and bring us low.

Embarking on a search for Truth (expressed at the time as simply desiring less misery), I quit playing a lot of the ridiculous games of life. Those points of pride became less important; were seen as erroneous. Depression continued, however, for new reasons. These new depressions centered on a lack of faith in my ability to find an answer. Enlightenment was seen as the highest and hardest goal in life. I had a strong sense there was an answer – that I could know the truth about my self – but little sense that I was smart enough, strong enough, determined, intense, and unwavering as I needed to be.

Looking back, I don’t see much value to this type of depression. I didn’t emerge from it a stronger person. It didn’t inspire me to work harder. As a meditator and observer of moods, I could see the depression happening, but that provided relief of no measure. I just remember being glad it was over, like when the lights come on after a blackout. You might argue that, like my pre-search depressions, it kept me unhappy and therefore kept me searching. However, these depressions made me want to give up the search; to go back and try to live a “normal” life. Only the realization that there was no escape from my questions kept me searching.

I developed a couple of tactics to deal with this sort of depression. I recognized the value of being around friends when I was depressed. This was difficult to execute, of course, since I didn’t want to be around anyone when depressed – an unfortunate reaction to depression and the opposite of what we need to do. I also decided to not make any important decisions while depressed. This is, in essence, treading water until the depression passed and is described further in the essay “Moody Decisions.” A change of scenery sometimes helped shorten the depression, or some mild diversion like going to see a movie. These tactics shortened depressions, but never eliminated them.

It took finding an answer to the existential questions that plagued me to eliminate depression. I don’t claim to be immune from it, just that I haven’t been depressed in the ten years since a “realization” descended upon me. Oh, I’ve had a few disappointments, just as I’ve had pleasant surprises. In fact, in a sense, everything seems surprising. Who knows, I might be singing sad songs in my swill a few years from now, but that’s okay.

We’re in the midst of a decades-long pharmacological revolution which may eventually eliminate depression, though I have a feeling depression is a bit like cancer – always mutating, changing to adapt to our measures. Our brains are problem-solving machines and will create a problem where none exists. The happiness baseline is always shifting, leaving us satisfied only for moments. Despite my doubts about a medical solution to depression, there is a variety of depression which benefits from medicine.

I know a few people on whom depression descends like a shadow with no cause. When asked why they are depressed, what triggered it, they find no reason. I used to think they simply weren’t aware of the cause, but now I suspect it is a medical reason. They have a chemical imbalance whose trigger is not a psychological event. A switch is flipped and they plunge into depression. These people should seek out a good doctor – someone who will work with them to find the right amount of medicine to control their depression, yet not take the fire out of their desire. The patient, too, must be aggressive in determining what level of medicine works for them. I know one person who wound up taking slivers of a single pill because, through experimentation, she found that worked for her.

There is depression brought about by blows to our ego, and there is depression brought on by a chemical imbalance. There are lessons learned from every experience and a time to move beyond repeating the same patterns again and again.

There is a third variety of depression alluded to by Richard Rose when he spoke of depression as a truer state of mind and of the suicide as similar to a person on the verge of enlightenment.¹ This is the tension between our will to live and the undeniable fact that everything will die. It’s the-Sun-will-become-a-ball-of-ice depression, the weight of time, the endless expanse of infinity, the graveyard clock – all things end; nothing is permanent. This is a truer perspective and depressing to the little man staring into its unblinking face. There is nothing to do when this descends – it’s the ego being honest about its fate. You’ll probably recover, but if not, so much the better.