Solution for Depression🔗

The depression that happened one month ago, the depression that happened one year ago, and the depression that happened three years ago are independent, individual, unconnected, and unclutched. The problem is the same as with physical pain. You start connecting them and concluding that you are having the same depression continuously. You create an idea that your life is depression. Then you start fighting with it. That only gives more life to the depressive thoughts.

When you strongly believe that your last ten years have been filled with suffering and depression, you create a strong mental setup surrounding it. Naturally you start thinking that your future is also going to be painful and filled with depression.

Suppose there is a person sitting in front of you who you think is an enemy. Suddenly if you notice that his head is separate, his legs are separate and his hands are separate, would you even feel like fighting with him? No! He is not even worth fighting! He doesn’t even have a solid existence, as you imagined him to have. So what is there to fight?

In the same way, only when you imagine you have a huge problem in front of you, that a big person is in front of you, you start fighting and getting into more trouble. Your depression is not the huge enemy that you think it is. It is just like the person with disjointed body parts. It is you who joined the parts and gave it life. Your fighting with depression is the root cause of your depression.

In Ramayana^Ramayana there is a beautiful story. Whoever stands in front of the monkey king

Vali^Vali and fights with him, loses half of his power to him. In the same way, whoever stands in front of the thought shaft and starts fighting with that shaft, half of their power will go away to that shaft.

The moment you unclutch from the shaft, you experience the neutral space, and inner healing starts. The moment inner healing starts, physically also you are healed.

Do not try to renounce your depression, because by your very nature it is getting renounced, flowing away from you. By your very nature just as joy disappears from your mind, depression also disappears from your mind. The moment you try to eliminate the depression, you will extend it and give it more life.

See, if you have a deep depression, will you stop going to the office? No! You may carry the depression in your mind but your body moves. You work. You may not be that productive or efficient. But your body still moves.

Instead of 'living depression', I am saying, 'live unclutched'.

When we live in depression, we don't have all these questions, 'If I am depressed, how can my body move?' We don't have such questions. The depression becomes part of our life. In the beginning you may have questions, 'How can I live unclutched? How will I even move my body?' Understand that the constant remembrance of unclutching does not interfere with your mind or body movements. It only removes the depression because it lets the depression thoughts rise and fall without clutching to them.

What is addiction? It is a behavior or action that if you don't do it, you will feel terrible that you are missing something. But, if you do it you won't feel any joy, it will only be mechanical. Addiction means believing that joy or ecstasy happens due to some object, person, or situation.

Understand that this is the definition of addiction: trying to elongate the joy shaft by recreating it. You bring the same persons, situations, incidents, or happenings into your life again and again, knowing that the same joy is not going to happen. Some people are addicted to partying, some to smoking, and some to drinking – there are so many addictions.

Remember that anything you bring to your life again and again will not give you the same excitement as it gave you the first time. It can only lead to addiction, not happiness. The first time you enjoy a sweet, it is a wonderful experience. The excitement is totally different. But if you keep eating more of the same sweet, the same experience is not there anymore. Eventually if you eat enough sweets you will not even like the sight of them. You

will look at them and say, ‘Oh no, not more sweets. They make me feel terrible.’ In the same way, when meeting a person for the first time, the excitement is totally different. Later on, the excitement falls off.

People come and ask me, ‘How can I break my habits?’ See, habit is a beautiful word. If you remove ‘h’, ‘a bit’ will remain. If you remove ‘b’, ‘it’ will remain. Only when you remove the ‘I’, the shaft ‘it’ will die. Only when you remove ‘I’, only when you throw ‘I’ away, will it completely die.

Be very clear, your smoking two days ago, ten years ago, and twenty years ago - all these three incidents are completely independent. They are not connected. Mentally, when you start connecting, when you start believing that you have the habit of smoking and that you are addicted to it, the belief creates a shaft. Then you start fighting with it. That is what I mean when I say the ‘I’ has to be dropped. It is your belief that makes it a habit. If you drop the belief, the habit drops.

If you believe it is a joyful experience, you continue to smoke more and more. If you believe it is a painful experience you start fighting with the shaft. Either way you don’t win. Even if you believe that smoking is joyful, try to smoke without restraint and see for yourself how you feel. When you smoke and inhale, it can never be a pleasurable experience. It is never really joyful.

When you smoke, in that moment, just see what is happening in your inner space. You are not enjoying anything. You are just trying to escape from something. You merely believe that smoking is joyful. Even if you don’t feel joyful when you are smoking, you try to squeeze joy out of it.

If you deeply scan your life and see, you will understand that whether it is smoking, or sex, or money, or any other pleasure, even if you don’t feel the same joy as you felt the first time, you try to squeeze joy out of it. You try to console yourself, ‘No, this is joy. What else is joy?’ You try to cover the frustration by believing it is joy. You want to believe it is joy.

Try your best to drop some addiction. You can never be successful. Even if you drop it you may be dropping it out of some fear or greed, which is a much bigger addiction. If you drop smoking out of some fear or greed, you are not doing anything good to your consciousness, to your inner space. You are only damaging yourself more.

You might have dropped smoking, but the fear or greed that made you drop it will be added to your inner space. At least with smoking, you will destroy only this body. With fear or greed you will destroy your whole being, life after life! In the next body, you will carry over the fear and greed. The smoking habit may not carry over to the next body but the emotions of fear and greed will be carried with you to the next body. So the best way is to drop the idea that you have an addiction, and it will drop.

The moment you hear you are unclutched, the first fear that arises in you is, 'If I start living without connecting my thoughts, who will pay my bills? I could lose all my wealth. I could forget where I keep all my money. I may not be able to live successfully in society. How will I do my job? How will I take care of my things? Won't I not just lie down in my bed without doing anything? Why would I want to go to my office?'

I ask, 'Why wouldn't you go to your office?' The moment you ask that, it means that you inherently have a little hatred or a little vengeance against your office work! This is why the moment you find some excuse you want to escape from your work. By asking this question, you are only expressing your anger, your violence against your routine, nothing else! The question has nothing to do with unclutching.

If you have such questions, just unclutch and sleep for ten days. There's nothing wrong with that. Have a vacation for ten days. Decide, 'I am going to unclutch from both the identities.' How many days do you think you can sleep? How many days do you think the cessation of activity can continue in you? Only until the tamas^\* energy in you is exhausted. After that you will automatically start doing something.

So, even if you feel it is a lack of responsibility or defeatist behavior, be unclutched for a few days. You will then understand and experience that when you are unclutched you will not have a lazy or passive attitude. Mentally you will be silent, but physically you will be active and alive.

When you are in that space of irresponsibility or defeatist attitude, mentally you are very active but physically you are tired. When you are unclutched, physically you are active and alive, but mentally you are silent.

You see, 33% of the body is sattva*, pure silence. 33% of the body is rajas*, restlessness and 33% of the body is tamas*, deep sleep, laziness. Right now the first fear that happens in you is if you unclutch, you may become tamasic, a lazy person.

Unclutch. That 33% of your laziness will quickly be exhausted. It will disappear from your system within a few days. Then you will automatically start working from your innate intelligence. You don't have to be driven by fear and greed to live your day-to-day life.

I am not saying you should stop thinking completely. I am only saying, when you are unclutched, whatever thoughts have to happen will happen automatically. Initially when you are unclutched you will feel as if no thoughts are happening. Later you will understand, even

Sattva - One of the three gunas or attributes of nature. Attribute of passive action. Rajas - One of the three gunas or attributes of nature. Attribute of aggression.

after unclutching, whenever thinking is necessary, the mind is clutched. Whenever thinking is not necessary, the mind is unclutched. Your mind is being used as an instrument, not as a master.

We can live purely from inspiration. But the problem is, we are never given that confidence. We are never given the courage that we can live simply by inspiration. Sometimes you can see that for no reason you radiate excitement; for no reason you radiate intelligence. That is what I call inspiration. It may last only for a few moments, but you need to realize that those few moments can become a way of life for you. If we remain unclutched, then continuous inspiration will happen in our lives. Unclutching directly kindles the energy of the being. This energy is the energy of inspiration, the energy of unclutching.