Depression

1. The first thing in life is to find meaning in the present moment. The basic flavor of your being should be of love, of rejoicing, of celebration. Then you can do anything; dollars will not destroy it. But you put everything aside and simply run after dollars thinking that dollars can purchase everything. And then one day you find they cannot purchase anything — and you have devoted your whole life to dollars. This is the cause of depression.
2. In the East depression has never been a problem. The poor learned to enjoy whatsoever little they had, and the rich learned that having the whole world at your feet means nothing — you have to go in a search for meaning, not for money. And they had precedents: for thousands of years people have gone in search of truth and have found it. There is no need to be in despair, in depression — you just have to move into an unknown dimension. They have never explored it — but as they start exploring the new dimension, it means a journey inwards, a journey to their own self. All that they have lost starts returning. The West needs very urgently a great movement of meditation; otherwise, this depression is going to kill people. And these people will be the talented ones — because they achieved power, they achieved money, they achieved whatsoever they wanted… the highest degrees in education. These are the talented people — and they are all feeling despair.
3. Depression means that somehow anger is in you in a negative state: depression is a negative state of anger. The very word is meaningful — it says something is being pressed; that is the meaning of depressed. You are pressing something inside, and when anger is pressed too much it becomes sadness. Sadness is a negative way of being angry, the feminine way of being angry.
4. Only understanding flowers, never depression, and if you cannot flower, existence is not going to shower flowers on you. Existence simply responds to you: whatsoever you are, existence gives you more of that. If you have many flowers within your being flowering, a million times more flowers will shower on you. If you have a deep depression, the existence helps that too — a million times more depression will come to you. Whatsoever you are will knock at your door. Whatsoever you are will be given to you more and more.
5. To be a sufferer of depression simply means he has repressed too much. Depression is nothing but repression. He is depressed so much because he has not been allowed to express himself. Dynamic Meditation is expression. In expressing himself, in catharting all that has been repressed in his unconscious, he will be unburdened, he will become saner, healthier.
6. Man’s ego is the source of all his problems, all the wars, all the conflicts, all the jealousies, fear, depression. Feeling oneself as a failure, continuously comparing with others makes everybody hurt — and hurt tremendously, because you can’t have everything. Somebody is more beautiful than you, that hurts; somebody has more money that you, that hurts; somebody is more knowledgeable than you, that hurts. Millions of things are there to hurt you, but you don’t know, it is not those things that are hurting you, because they don’t hurt me. They are hurting you because of your ego.
7. Ego is surrounded with depression, with anxiety, with anguish, with all kinds of sick ideas.
8. If you compare yourself with the people who are greater in some way than you, you will become bitter, very bitter. Your life will become poisoned by the comparison. You will remain always in a state of depression, as if God has deceived you, betrayed you, as if you have been let down. Or if you compare yourself with people who are smaller than you, in some way lesser than you, then you will become very egoistic. This is one of the reasons why politicians are always surrounded by people smaller than themselves. They collect them; that is their joy. They collect smaller people around themselves so that they can look bigger than they are by comparison. It is stupid, but one cannot expect anything more from a politician.
9. Make it a point: whatsoever — sadness, anger — whatsoever — depression, unhappiness — be with it. And you will suddenly become surprised that if you remain with sadness, sadness changes into a beautiful thing, sadness becomes a depth. If you remain with anger, not thinking about, just being with, anger is transformed; it becomes forgiveness. If you remain with sex, sex takes on a different quality; it becomes love.
10. Meditation is the only answer to all the questions of man. It may be frustration, it may be depression, it may be sadness, it may be meaninglessness, it may be anguish: The problems may be many but the answer is one. Meditation is the answer. And the simplest method of meditation is just a way of witnessing. There are one hundred and twelve methods of meditation, but witnessing is an essential part of all one hundred and twelve methods. So as far as I am concerned, witnessing is the only method. Those one hundred and twelve are different applications of witnessing. The essential core, the spirit of meditation is to learn how to witness. You are seeing a tree: You are there, the tree is there, but can’t you find one thing more? — that you are seeing the tree, that there is a witness in you which is seeing you seeing the tree. The world is not divided only into the object and the subject. There is also something beyond both, and that beyond is meditation.
11. Remember this: Whenever you are depressed, wait for the moment that the depression goes. Nothing lasts forever; the depression will go. And when it leaves you, wait — be aware and alert — because after the depression, after the night, there will be a dawn and the sun will rise. If you can be alert in that moment. you will he happy that you were depressed. You will be grateful that you are depressed because only through your depression was this mint of happiness possible
12. When depression is there, allow it to be. Don’t get depressed about it. If you want to remove it sooner, you will get depressed. If you fight it, you will create a secondary depression that is dangerous. The first depression is beautiful, God-given. The second depression is your own. It is not God-given; it is mental. Then you will move in mental grooves. They are infinite. If you get depressed, be happy that you are depressed and allow the depression to be. Then suddenly the depression will disappear and there will be a breakthrough. No clouds will be there and the sky will be clear. For a single moment, heaven opens for you. If you are not depressed about your depression you can contact, you can commune, you can enter this heavenly gate. And once you know it, you have learned one of the ultimate laws of life: that life uses the opposite as a teacher, as a back-ground.
13. Hope means simply a hopeful attitude about everything. About everything. An optimistic view, a hopeful attitude. Looking at the golden side of things. Whatsoever happens you remain hopeful, you are not depressed. Depression comes only if you look at the wrong side of things. Everything has two sides: the wrong side and the right side. You can look at the wrong side and then you will be depressed, or you can look at the right side, the golden side, and you will be happy. So, it depends. The person who is hopeless always looks at what is wrong. The first thing he tries to find is what is wrong.
14. It all depends on you, whether you live in hell or you live in heaven. Living in hate, in anger, in jealousy, in depression, you are living in hell. And living in love, in compassion, in truth, in sincerity, you are living in heaven.
15. If you are depressed, so be depressed; don’t do anything. And what can you do? Whatsoever you do will be done out of depression, so it will create more confusion. You can pray to God, but you will pray so depressingly that you will even make God depressed through your prayers. Don’t do that violence. Your prayer is going to be a depressed prayer. You can meditate, but what will you do? The depression will be there. Because you are depressed, whatsoever you do the depression will follow. More confusion will be created, more frustration, because you cannot succeed. And when you cannot succeed you will feel more depressed, and this can go on ad infinitum. It is better to remain with the first depression than to create a second circle and then a third circle. Remain with the first; the original is beautiful. The second will be false, and the third will be a far-off echo. Don’t create these. The first is beautiful. You are depressed, so this is how existence is happening to you at this moment.
16. You are depressed, so remain with it. Wait and watch. You cannot be depressed for long because in this world nothing is permanent. This world is a flux. This world cannot change its basic law for you so that you remain depressed forever. Nothing is here forever; everything is moving and changing. Existence is a river; it cannot stop for you, just for you, so that you remain depressed forever. It is moving, it has already moved. If you look at your depression, you will feel that even your depression is not the same the next moment; it is different, it is changing. Just watch, remain with it and don’t do anything. This is how transformation happens through non-doing. This is what is meant by “effortless effort.” Feel depression, taste it deeply, live it. It is your fate. Then suddenly you will feel it has disappeared because the man who can accept even depression cannot be depressed. A man, a mind, who can accept even depression cannot remain depressed! Depression needs a non-accepting mind. “This is not good, that is not good; this should not be, that should not be; this must not be like this. “Everything is denied, rejected — not accepted. “No” is basic. Even happiness will be rejected by such a mind. Such a mind will find something to reject in happiness also.
17. Only lovers know what depression is. If a person has not loved, he does not know what depression is, what despair is, what frustration is. Only lovers know — because they have tasted something which can become a criterion. They can judge that there are moments so high… only lovers know the high moments, but then they have to suffer the low moments.