Meditation and Medication in Depression?

The Dail Mail UK rag ran the silly article below today…. The real research should be around talking therapies and community building.  But raising money for such research ain’t easy. Instead here more research around the drug company products….. and no reference to side -effects….

Things like talking therapy address in a human way the so-called problem of depression.  Clearly we still need meditation not medication… but the tilt seems the other way

Daily Mail Article:

Millions MORE of us should be taking antidepressants: Largest-ever study claims the pills DO work and GPs should be dishing them out

  • Study examined 120,000 people in more than 500 trials across three decades 
  • Experts at Oxford University declared anti-depressants are helpful to the ill 
  • They hope findings will encourage GPs to prescribe the drugs for more people

 

Antidepressants are highly effective and should be prescribed to millions more people with mental health problems, researchers declared last night.

After the largest-ever study, the Oxford University-led team said they had wanted to ‘give the final answer’ to the controversy of whether or not the pills effectively treat depression.

Their study, which examined 120,000 people in more than 500 trials across three decades, concluded emphatically that antidepressants do work.

Antidepressants are highly effective and should be prescribed to millions more people with mental health problems, researchers declared last night (above, the most effective drugs revealed) 

Antidepressants are highly effective and should be prescribed to millions more people with mental health problems, researchers declared last night (above, the most effective drugs revealed)

And although prescription rates have soared in recent years – with 10 per cent of British adults now on antidepressants – the researchers warned that only one in six people was receiving effective treatment for depression, suggesting that millions more should be given the pills.

They hope their findings will encourage GPs to prescribe the drugs for people with the more severe forms of the illness.Their study, which examined 120,000 people in more than 500 trials across three decades, concluded emphatically that antidepressants do work

The researchers looked at the effectiveness of 21 antidepressants. The study, funded by the research arm of the NHS, found some were more effective than others, but concluded they all reduced symptoms of depression more than a placebo.

It found that half to two-thirds of patients – typically suffering with symptoms including loss of self-worth, tiredness, sadness and disturbed sleep – would benefit from treatment.

Professor Carmine Pariante, spokesman for the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: ‘This analysis finally puts to bed the controversy on antidepressants, clearly showing that these drugs do work in lifting mood and helping most people with depression.’

The report comes just months after a report ranked the UK fourth out of 29 Western countries in a league table of antidepressant use. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found people in the UK take nearly twice as many antidepressants as those in France, Italy or Holland, five times as many as those in Korea and eight times as many as in Latvia.

Glyn Lewis, professor of psychiatric epidemiology at University College London, said: ‘Antidepressants often receive a bad press but this paper shows they have a role in the management for people with depression.’

The researchers looked at the effectiveness of 21 antidepressants. The study, funded by the research arm of the NHS, found some were more effective than others, but concluded they all reduced symptoms of depression more than a placebo.

 

This entry was posted in Discussion, News. Bookmark the permalink.

137 Responses to Meditation and Medication in Depression?

  1. shantam prem says:

    It seems editor has typical neo-sannyas mindset without looking at the drawbacks of one´s own belief system and condemning what others are offering. For example, therapies and community building is the work of Osho people and here they have failed themselves, their late master and his products.

    It is a sad reality, sannyasins now most of them in their twilight years, have taken medication like average Joe.

    I don´t blame them. On a continent where one does not see the sun for months and other than fucking royals and some showbiz celebrities and blood- =sucker investment bankers and Muslim immigrants, everybody else in Britain is working for surviving in a gloomy atmosphere and broken families. Osho lifestyle would have given a necessary inner and outer warmth, but that lamp has been blown off. God Bless those scientists who have given all kind of medications.

    • satyadeva says:

      “…other than fucking royals and some showbiz celebrities and blood-sucker investment bankers and Muslim immigrants, everybody else in Britain is working for surviving in a gloomy atmosphere and broken families.”

      Seems you’ve been paying far too much attention to the stupid British Press, with its vested interests in presenting particular, biased versions of ‘reality’. Shantam. Stick to things you actually know something about rather than taking such trash as gospel truth and lumping it on to others here.

      As for “Osho lifestyle would have given a necessary inner and outer warmth, but that lamp has been blown off”, are you seriously suggesting Sannyas etc. would ever have had a significant effect upon the 60m. population of the UK? My God, man, what medication are you on?!!

      Basically, you’re consoling yourself by choosing to see the reflection of your own emotional hardship in the collective (or rather, the skewed media version of the collective) and vice versa. I’m not denying your suffering, but this sort of way of dealing with it is a dead-end, the refuge of the ignorant and unintelligent.

      If you yourself are still on anti-depressants, which I recall you said was the case a few years ago, then spewing out such garbage here hardly amounts to an endorsement of your treatment.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        In deep appreciation, Satyadeva, about that – and how you found time and space and took the effort, ´holding the (SN/UK Chat ) line´!

        There´s more to regret than this horrible Daily Mail article as such, as the Team who posted it today have already been stating in their introduction to the topic.

        Thanks for your contribution.

        Madhu

  2. shantam prem says:

    What a comfortable zone, Satyadeva, you are living in; someone who prefers to live and die with all the little secrets of his life closest to his chest gets liberty to quote other people´s fictitious facts.

    Britain is great because of its generation of scientists. They are the ‘salt’ of the earth and messengers of God.

    • Parmartha says:

      I think some days you get up the wrong side of the bed, Shantam.

      You have never been to the UK, as far as I know, and I am surprised the moderator has allowed you to say such stuff based presumably on publications like the Daily Mail.

      UK society is actually much better than anywhere else I have lived in, which includes quite a lot of places, and proves attractive to many from around the world because of its civilised manners and customs, illustrated by the many who make great efforts to come and live here.

      I support the meditation/talking therapy side of any debate around mental health. It has nothing to do with Osho. You sometimes get into a grandiose unconscicousness around Sannyas and Osho.

      The view that medication has wide side-effects, and they are often not properly discussed with patients, and that many mental health issues are to do with quite simple matters like isolation and lack of the affordable availability of talking therapies or community initiatives, both of which help very greatly in such matters, is widely held amongst those who work in such settings.

      Oddly enough, just today in a newspaper that is a good example of civilised British values, The Guardian, appeared this article. It is about a town in the west of England called Frome where major benefit has been seen through community initiatives.
      Link:
      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/21/town-cure-illness-community-frome-somerset-isolation?CMP=share_btn_link

      The Daily Mail article is a shameless attempt to get doctors to use that ridiculous range of zombifying drugs to destroy the inner lives of those who suffer.

      • shantam prem says:

        Sorry, Parmartha, for using too harsh words to describe some epidemic-like situation in western world. Social loneliness is increasing day by day. The Guardian article is also a proof.

        For this reason, one can remember the insightful approach of Osho to make meditation part of social life. Meditation is the cure, and replacement of medication is too much a false expectation.

        And I have been to England for two weeks 22 years ago. With my son and his mother we were visiting various cities with the idea of living somewhere. I felt my heart is not ready yet to let go of being six months in Pune and also I felt lack of courage and commitment in me to get settled in a new country.

        • Bong says:

          As we recall the passing of the Reverend Billy Graham, he himself wishes he had spent more time in “meditation and prayer” – his words. Especially before going to conferences where he was expected to present an inspired opinion. My advice: do the hard work first.

    • satyadeva says:

      Shantam, not all medicine is necessarily good medicine, a major problem is that ant-depressants are often prescribed on a ‘one size fits all’ basis, or, varying dosages tend to be very much hit-and-miss. Then there are the side-effects, which can often lead to more drugs being prescribed, and so on, in a never-ending spiral.

      As an eminent Chinese acupuncturist and founder of a thriving clinic in London, recently said to me, what western medicine fails to recognise is that every body is different – and therefore requires individual treatment.

      I was given anti-depressants last year as I had been having difficulty recovering from an operation – but when I looked at the comments from people who’d taken the one I was given I refused to take them.

      So, Shantam, here are some responses to the news about that so-called Research Study on anti-depressants…

      SornSorn
      Wasn’t there some story about them making people more suicidal after taking them a few years back?

      Lisa
      Lisa
      I know people who have been on them for years, along with counseling. Not a cure.

      “Antidepressants do work”… well, yes and no. In more than maybe any other area of medicine and healthcare, it is a very ‘case by case situation, and in many cases – and I speak from personal experience – they can also do more harm than good.

      Part of the problem is that mental health in this country is yet to be fully explored or recognised, and they our very lottery-like health service for it (just what help you’ll be given, and how competent, varies from area to area), and all too many doctors are too quick to prescribe them as a ‘fix’ when it is totally the wrong course of action. For me personally the antidepressants I was forced into for years, very much against my will by an over-persistent “It’s the only way doctor” and who I told wasn’t right for me, they made me find it impossible to sleep, impossible to stop fidgeting, impossible to properly concentrate, caused me to lose enthusiasm in most things, and even had the side effect of even giving me a dry mouth and having a very vague sense of taste.

      Only after some years of this did I completely walk away, stopped taking the tablets over a four day period (very unrecommended as it puts strain on heart) which led to me becoming healthier than ever, fitter than ever, losing 8 stone in weight within months (they can also pile on the weight), do things I’d never tried before, find a whole new line of work and very much turned my whole life around.

      Anti-depressants can be used as an aide, and are very successful in some cases, but I think we are yet to come to a time when they are learned to be prescribed properly by over-keen “get rid of the problem” doctors, considering mental health is a very broad and complex spectrum. Just as not everyone who goes to the doctor’s complaining of a bad knee wouldn’t expect to have their leg put in plaster. I have to say, for me, finally getting rid of them and doing was out was the best thing I’ve ever done, as they made things worse, not better.

      De

      Report from Oxford University and published in the Lancet and now wider as usual to the public. Would have appreciated a note as to just who funded this Oxford report eg yet another Pharma sponsored report led by Pharma pro drug profs

      james

      Timely article, is big pharma nervous because mass murderers take their anti depressants to get better and end up killing people?

      Hamm

      Don’t downplay the side effects. Some people have very serious reactions, some essentially fatal because if the one you’re on doesn’t mesh with your brain chemistry it can augment your depression and turn what may have been mild depression into a suicide attempt. I was prescribed an antidepressant to control migraines (I wasn’t actually depressed) and it worked for a while until it didn’t – then it gave me drug induced bipolar disorder and I almost killed myself. I’m fine now completely off of meds. Never again.

      kornandez

      If Yahoo wasn’t such an organization of high integrity and completely trustful, I would think this was a bit of paid propaganda.

      Zoe

      ‘Proof if ever it was required that antidepressants are an effective treatment for people with mental health conditions…’ Actually, no, it isn’t. At most, it is proof that antidepressants are effective at treating the SYMPTOMS of mental health conditions. As for treating the conditions themselves or the causes of them, far more has to be taken into account and offered in terms of treatment. Masking symptoms is not the same as curing a condition.

      Put quite simply, if antidepressants were a magical cure then the rates of depression/anxiety etc. wouldn’t be skyrocketing along the the rates of use of the drugs.

      Kevi

      I’m sure the trust in pharmaceutical companies being at an all time low has nothing to do with it.

      Terry

      if i were to recommended anything for mental illness. i would say psychedelics… taken in a prescribed dose under supervision of a mental health professional has been show to be of benefit to even the most persistent depression cases. recent studies have shown just 3 doeses over a 6 month period can have lasting benefits. ask your doctor

      A man

      Because they are a temporary fix. They make peoples crazy. Doctors over prescribe them and they get profits = Always about the money;

      Paul

      Happy pills, what next? The root of the problem does not magically disappear with a happy pill, end of.

      Terry

      As someone who watched his mother be used as a lab rat for 20 years i can attest to the fact that way to many people are given anti depressants as a cure-all.

      You want to cure your depression? Well, if the meds didnt work and they often dont… get out more, do exercise, visit friends, go out with friends… do anything you can to break your routine/funk. you wont notice straight away. but after a while you will notice things dont seem as bad as they did… yeah i will take some discipline but if you can take a the first few steps you will start to run from your depression and in 6 months will likely be wondering what all the fuss was about.

      helli3yte

      Because an antidepressent only masks whats making you depressed in the first place. best course of action to remove depression is to cut out whatever the hell it is that is depressing you . if its family so be it, if its a job so be it, just do whatever it takes to get rid of that depression. taking a pill for it doesn’t solve your problem. it just covers it up

      kate

      Eventually you need more & more to not go through ” withdrawal” & the high doses cause STROKE !!!!!!! They’ve RUINED my life !!!!!

      Termite

      This is rubbish, if they are so good why do so many patients never recover, they cause more problems than they solve, they make make you unable to function due to side effects, which some stupid old shrinks may see as progress because you are too ‘zonked out’ to do anything, but they are a lifetime of a millstone around your neck.
      Why do shrinks only treat symptoms but never look for a cause?
      Anyone can be a psychiatrist, just buy the ICD 10 and a BNF and you have all the tools needed to make a diagnosis.

      • shantam prem says:

        What alternatives you will suggest?

        • satyadeva says:

          As I said, last year I was prescribed an anti-depressant, Sertraline, which I refused to take after reading others’ experiences of the drug. Here are some recent accounts:

          “Was prescribed for bipolar depression. At first it helped with insomnia (& relieved constipation!) which was a godsend, but faded faded after a few weeks. After 1 month I had crippling fatigue & it seriously jacked my heart rate up, so lowered from 75 to 50mg. Spent another month developing akathisia before finally ditching it. I’m sure it’s great for some, but my body hated it. Not to mention it did squat for my mood.”

          Zoloft (sertraline): “I was put on 50mg of Zoloft for depression, anxiety, and panic. By the third day my anxiety and depression were both outrageous, I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I was vomiting. I ended up losing so much weight and having such advanced anxiety symptoms that I ended up in the ER. That was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. I had to stop taking it immediately. This is the worst medication I’ve ever been on. But even with my harsh critique people still have to realize that medications work differently for everyone. This was horrible for me but there’s plenty of other people that have had success with it so keep an open mind. Depression and anxiety are absolutely terrible but please don’t give up until you find something that works.”

          Zoloft (sertraline): “This medication has not helped me in any form. I lost a lot of my appetite, and slept all the time, and was still tired. My depression worsened on Zoloft. I do not recommend Zoloft for depression.”

          Zoloft (sertraline): “I was prescribed 50mg by my GP. 1st day felt like I was on speed lots of energy, jittery. 2nd day I felt neutral, anxious. 3rd and last day of taking, I woke up in the middle of the night with suicidal thoughts which was very overwhelming and scary. Also lost appetite and 2kg in just 3 days. Terrible stuff.”

        • satyadeva says:

          Here’s the response of a leading UK mental health organisation, MIND, listing several alternatives to pills:
          https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/minds-response-to-lancet-antidepressant-study/#.WpVSlai5uyI

          Thing is, Shantam, there are various causes of depression, from adverse external circumstances, to wanting what one doesn’t have or can’t get, to fundamental ones like loneliness, lack of love, and, often crucially, a blocked capacity for self-expression. And one or more of these might well also indicate a ‘spiritual crisis’, a lack of meaning or purpose, and consequent despair.

          If whatever drug you’re on (if you are on one) is really helping then you’re fortunate – and so no wonder you praise “British scientists”. But you don’t see the whole picture.

          That sort of treatment has serious drawbacks for many people and far more emphasis should be put on other modalities, eg therapy (one-on-one, support groups and ‘alternatives’, eg dynamic meditation for those so inclined), holistic medicine, eg Chinese acupuncture and herbal remedies, and social support networks.

      • satyadeva says:

        A friend of mine with mental health problems, living alone and with no friends, committed suicide (driving into an oncoming lorry) two years ago after being refused re-entry to his local mental hospital and then being prescribed the wrong medication, a mistake that was discovered too late.

        An extreme case, but it highlights the dangers of chemically-based treatment.

        I also recall taking Prozac one evening, back in the 90s, the first dose in a home-based medical trial I’d joined, but which precipitated the worst night of my life: sleepless, combined with high anxiety. Never again.

        • shantam prem says:

          This is such a theme, one can never stop discussing.
          One who is suffering has no choice but go on trying various alternatives, including faith healing.

          • satyadeva says:

            There are few, if any, more important topics than mental health, surely? Hopefully, future times will see this reflected in the amount of resources available to help people. Ideally, that would go together with a far more widespread genuine spiritual perspective, not the established nonsense we still seem to be stuck with today.

            Then, people are likely to look back at us and wonder how we could ever have managed with such primitive methods as drug treatments for mental/emotional problems.

            • Kavita says:

              Somehow, after reading the above comments, I think & feel that there can never be a perfect eternal emotional/mental state. If we can accept this we can probably help each other better. .

        • swamishanti says:

          Having escaped from a nutcase living above me, who a neighbour told me was bi-polar…

          It started off with marching up and down the bedroom above me for an hour late at night every night, and ight, and then one summer she seemed to go a bit madder and started making loud sexual sounds (whilst alone) for a couple of weeks, which everyone in the flats could hear.
          This then changed into a wild, uncontrollable laughter (a catharsis? I thought).
          Funny at first, but after a while starts to become irritating.
          Its not Mystic Rose, after all.

          Then I wondered if it was attention-seeking after one particularly loud weekend, with lots of cackling on her own up there and shouting “Wooo!!” and jumping up and down in the kitchen.
          This was very noisy and that’s when I wondered if she had been given some new medication.

          The laughing was uncontrollable and constant.

          But it didn’t stop there.
          She also shouted one day out the window at my biker neigbour’s girlfriend, “What the fuck are you talking about me for?”
          They didn’t know what she was on about and then one day, out of the blue, whilst I was on the phone to someone, I got a knock on the door from the local police.

          They explained to me that my neighbour had phoned them and told them that I had been “shouting up at her” and giving her “racist abuse”.

          I was surprised at this accusation as I had only been having a conversation with someone on the phone, which was in no way aggressive. Also quite a large amount of reggae and Jamaican music in my collection and I was surprised that she would think that I was a racist.

          Another neighbour told me that she had told them to “fuck off” recently when they had offered her a lift home, and told me that since I had moved out, another person had since moved in and then out again.

          She used to have a stony look in her eyes. Some sort of medication, no doubt.

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Did you ever talk to the woman yourself, Swamishanti? Or was it more or less all neighbourhood talkative stuff?

            Hopefully, you didn´t only change your location by now, but with it some (well known everywhere) neighbourhood´s talkative habits, you´ve been describing here so accurately!

            • swamishanti says:

              Yes, I did indeed talk to the woman myself, Madhu, and was living so close to her that I was probably the first one to realise some strange goings-on.

              In fact, we were on friendly terms at one point until she started going more crazy, and I made the effort to try to explain that she was imagining things and was being creative with her mind. However. she got worse after that so it didn`t really help.

              I was told very recently by someone who lives nearby that someone has since moved into my old flat and then moved out again, and that my old neighbour had behaved in a strange way with her.

          • Parmartha says:

            Sounds like a real nightmare, Shanti….

            • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

              Could most probably be, Parmartha, that Shanti, with all his networking neighbourhood connections and exchanges about that woman in the escalation of this indeed nightmarish stuff, is not that ´innocent lamp´, he himself as well as the other contributors (neighbours) in this story prefer in their roles to see themselves.

              I´ve been reading his story very thoroughly before commenting.

              And it is one of very common everyday similar stories happening everywhere, telling significant issues of interactions in human fields.

              Compassion, and what that really is or could be, is, when opening the heart with the mind, a hopefully endless growing phenomenon.

              Madhu

              • swamishanti says:

                Madhu, I wonder whether you are yourself somehow identifying and sympathising with the woman in the story, as if it were some reflection of how you perceive your relationship with your own close neighbours, who you perhaps mistrust? If you yourself have some kind of issues with your own neighbours?

                Otherwise, why the suspicion?

                • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                  It’s no ´suspicion, Swamishanti, as you say. I´ve been reading what you wrote about yourself very thoroughly.

                  I wrote a lot here, I guess in course of these years, about what I´m feeling sporadically re neighbouring gossiping habits which can be very awful (for the targeted), as well as cyberstalking or stalking in the streets can be quite a sickening trigger.

                  I´m not going to make that fuss up again at the moment here.

                  I just wanted to make clear that if some nightmarish stuff is happening it needs to be looked at from as many angles and nooks and corners (and personally involved people) as possible…to avoid that any conclusion is one-sided.

                • swamishanti says:

                  I remember your tales of the streetstalking gangs and the nazi skinhead thugs who spat on you, and your neighbourhood just sounded awful.

                  Unless, of course, there is something you love about it.

                  There is a time to move.

                  In my case, it was quite different, I lived in a beautiful area right next to forest, and I did not really want to move. A lush, eddwild garden, owls chirping away at night and the sound of wind blowing through the pines. And very close to wild deer and groups of pigs roaming through the jungle.

                  I still live nearby to this environment, however.

                  But perhaps a move could do you good if you really dislike your neighbourhood.

                  MOD:
                  eddwild, Shanti?

  3. Lokesh says:

    Gimme Spain, any day of the year. Great country, lots of sun and fiesta is a big word in these parts. Although the Spanish are notorious for postponing things to manana – try getting hold of a plumber when you urgently need one – the Spaniards enjoy living today and are not shy about it.

    One sannyasin friend of mine on Ibiza went through a tough patch a couple of years back. Doctor prescribed him anti-depressants. Helped him through the hard times and he is now coasting without them. One thing he told me which stayed with me was the following: A large percentage of the general population is running on anti-depressants. Thing is, you don’t really notice that till you are on them yourself.

    This is not limited to the working classes. Wealthy people also become depressed. Perhaps for different reasons than their less wealthy counterparts but depression is depression is depression.

    • preetam says:

      Yes, also wealthy people get depressed. Maybe because they love money, but money can’t satisfy.

      Often not known that many side-effects of brain system medications come up if patients try to reduce them again.

      If I remember right, but it’s long ago, in old China a doctor lost his permit if a patient had still to take medicine after 3 years of cure.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        Yes, Preetam, ancient Chinese Health Culture; Myths deserving the label ´Culture´.

        Rediscovered last Century is the Beauty that is when a masterly medicine-man is also socially honoured by His very skills, to deal with sicknesses and imbalances re the system of bodymind psyche before a sickness can manifest.

        When I read, heard about and finally experienced for a tiny little while in the seventies and eighties last century, acupuncture and some talks with one who´s been studying in China for a longer while, my heart was dancing in joy as it always does when feeling on a right track of understanding.

        I´m very sorry that I can´t afford such treatments nowadays. But these memories are still living ones and I´m very grateful having been able to have glimpses of that.

        So nice that you mentioned that Chinese ´track´.

        Madhu

        • preetam says:

          Yes, Madhu, catching the imbalance before it manifests as sickness, it would be ideal.
          Though if stress from outside continues, even it’s subtle, it will keep us up in stress and it can create an chronic disease.

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Yes, that´s true, Preetam, what you say; we are inter-dependent.

            A mobmurdering neighbourhood can use induced stress as a killing agent (white torture) to treat an outsider, clerical fanatics use permanent stress on non-believers of their catechisms, often as an undetectable stress-killing agent, and some military operating troops or secret service professionals use such white torture stress for killing by brainwashing.

            Yes, all this can create a chronic stress disease in a thus afflicted victim.

            “Civilisation”, I´ve heard Osho once say, “hasn´t happened yet”; that´s one reason amongst many, why I felt at ´home´ with the Master and the Sangha.

            It’s so good when someone ´calls a spade a fucking spade´, you know?

            Madhu

            • preetam says:

              Not only stress from torture destroys our psyche. Just an example: how sensitivity to noise is rated:

              The population is classified according to sensitivity to noise, from P1 to P100. P1 is most sensitive and P100 is the opposite.

              Here it comes…the standard is based on Person 50. Imagine you are just P10, that means lots of anti-depressants.

          • preetam says:

            Iodized salt seem also a health risk. Because iodine is a poison, it depends on the amount. Germany has forced iodization, it’s in almost every food, even in bread. It can provoke thyroid problems in healthy people. Which leads to hormone fluctuations, and chances of possible depression can not be excluded. But if for this we are treated with anti-depressants it’s from my standpoint very superficial and careless.

            • shantam prem says:

              Preetam, do you have some professional education and job? To me, you seem to be one of the leftists who see conspiracy in every progress and feel biggest breakthroughs in health management are Reiki and Aura Soma!

            • Bong says:

              Everyone should regularly take colloidal silver and cut fluoride from their diets whether in the water, toothpaste or otherwise. There are good salts and salts which should never go near the human body. Dosage is a significant factor also.

              Fascinating revelation in Ayurveda is fruits and vegetables and herbs often look like the organs they are supposed to support.

              Vitamin B17 or the inner pits of stonefruit are wonderful as a combination therapy with colloidal silver, for example, to combat things which anti-depressants and often antibiotics can no longer cure.

              Fight the cause, not the effects.

  4. Kavita says:

    “depression is depression is depression.”

    Thrice in my life I went through a bout of sleeplessness which the doctors diagnosed as depression and all three times I was given some drugs to put me to sleep. Somehow, whenever I was conscious/wakeful after some good sleep I have discontinued any drugs.

    I think in general we humans can’t live without giving any names!

    I think depression as such exists in all humans just as much as any other emotion, only thing is it is diagnosed/detected when it affects the daily routine of the person, sleep in my case .Frankly, I think if the affected person feels better with drugs it’s ok with me.

    • preetam says:

      ‘Humancapital’ has to be productive…but anyway, it proves a disharmony – the person is unsatisfied here and now. Now a doctor tries to cure the person in an unnatural way. They give a pill instead of reducing stress.

      • Kavita says:

        Thanks, Preetam, good sharing & for mentioning “Humancapital”.

        ‘Humancapital’ -I have wondered every time this comes up while discussing ‘depression’ as a disease; my query has always been why is the saleability of the person a problem if they are financially & physically independent? I have not got a good enough response which can convince me about this.

        A person is unsatisfied here & now, so that does mean the here & now keeps fluctuating. To me, that’s ok as long the satisfied here & now is maximum quotient!

        But in any case, the ‘unsatisfied here now person’ has to do some self-help to change that if that needs to be changed.

  5. madhu dagmar frantzen says:

    There has been this kind of ´romantic´saying : ” wherever you taste the ocean, it will be salty” ( and some of the ancient or even contemporary mystics may have taken it , or may still take as a synonym for conciousness as such – which is – for sure a universal stream of energy – manifesting in myriads and myriads of forms and expressions .

    The apparently very sick and unadapted described individual re today´s circumstances may be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow – one , who is declared then by ´History´s social economical changes and their acknowledgement – as one(s), who foresaw a collective calamity and just
    couldn´t deal with such as an individual in terms of communicating it.

    We came to know this by some studies and scientific research about the
    Pre-Fascist Aera and Pre World War II in Europe, where and when Pandora´s Box , already wide opened , had left their mental and psychological ( and social economical )plagues .
    Before the time, the Holocaust Mongers took over in these times , more than just a few of these ( non-adapted) people , who gave some warning by and with their ´symptoms ( fear , panic attacs, trauma of any kinds and/ or other personality distortions – in resistance of the ongoing ´wave adaptation to a majority´s mental standard).
    Many have been disappearing into mental ´health´institutions ´of these times being later been misused for medical-experiments or even a bit later, have just been murdered.

    Including such in our looking inside-outside- meditation , and the topic- issue of this horrible Daily Mail article, is somehow calling it in me , one could also say:

    ” however and wherever one tastes the ocean , also the ocean of conciousness in a more realistic , earthbound taken way , one is bound to taste the salt as well as the plastic and otherwise many-manyfold pollution of the latter”.

    When , times ago : ” Meditation is the only Medication” was noisily – proudly promoted in an often arrogant and naive way or in a kind of executed ´Hybris when facing the pain of others , that does not at all mean, that the statement as such is wrong !

    It just means that we may have a lack of understanding the latter and need to open the mind and the heart with the mind. And evolve in that spirit.
    And shows the need to find better and creative ways of coming together than those which are precribed ( or taken habitually) today.

    Madhu

    PS
    there´s much more to say about some institional pollution of the social mental Health care , wherever ! ( like corruption , intransparency, the digitalization of humans etc and/ or the truth, that nobody is an island , also those who proclaim to be in a better situation, because of living on an island etc…) – but as for her-now today , it´s (for me) that´s, what´s I´m able to share.

  6. satchit says:

    I have heard you have problems in your health system in U.K. For example, it takes long to get an appointment for a specialist. So giving pills is the easy way.

    For using meditation as a substitute it functions only in my opinion if the depression is not strong, if there is already a distance available.

  7. shantam prem says:

    Depression till enlightenment seems to be part of the same whole as autumn and spring.

    Naturally, enlightened people will like to keep themselves not part of any grouping, fear that it will take away their hollow.

    Being son of a father who was clinically depressed or excited most of his life, it is almost a lifelong process for me to be reasonably balanced even though I am well aware there are not those apps in my brain which create zest for success as one sees in Donald Trump kind of alpha males in each and every sector of life.

    Average disciples meditate to remain healthy and feeling gratitude, whereas few get the feeling of being some kind of Avatara; they are living the spring phase if depression is autumn. Both are interchangeable.

    As humanity is evolving, I am sure much, much research will be done on human brain and its happy chemicals and non-happy secretions.

    • Lokesh says:

      Shantam, humanity is not evolving.

      • shantam prem says:

        “humanity is not evolving.”
        Because it has stopped changing names or is there some other reason?

        • Lokesh says:

          Human evolution is a very slow process. Can you really say you are more evolved than someone who lived 2000 years ago? You can’t.

          The only really noticeable evolution that takes place is individual. Given the right circumstances, inputs and influences, personal evolution outstrips human evolution every time.

      • Bong says:

        Unconscious evolution has stopped, or at least slowed to a degree we are switching genes on and off. Conscious evolution is much more exciting and for most people only just the beginning despite it being life’s purpose in the sense of Buddha, Christ or any realised enlightened soul.

  8. shantam prem says:

    In December 1999 I was in Pune. It was supposed to be biggest event in the history of Pune Ashram, so I rented one luxurious flat for six months for renting rooms and have some profit.
    During this time I got call from my family that father has got fractured in road accident and was in intensive unit.

    When I reached hospital and saw my daddy in bandages I was happily surprised to see him in a very uplifted spirit. Just two, three weeks before the accident he came out from the two, three years circle of depression.

    Many times I remember that scene and his statement, “Fractured bones are nothing. I am not afraid to be handicapped or die, I just don´t want to be in depression again.” My mother used to call this “excitement phase”. During this phase he was simply power and light, no fear, no worry, being the blessed son of God.

    He was simple, rustic, religious person without any idea of enlightenment stuff. India is full with such people who declare themselves Saints in such energy state.

    Some kind of articulation is needed for godly work too.
    When in depression, he used to spend days and weeks sitting on a chair in the same posture in a fearful state, “What will happen?”

    In excitement, he will get wings and will visit all the relatives and colleagues on his bicycle. While on bicycle tour he will go on chanting Sikh Mantra, “Satnam Waheguru” (Thy name is true, O wonderful divine).

    Interestingly, a few times some strangers were ringing our door bell. They wanted to have Darshan of Baba Ji. Few people brought sweets because Baba Ji had blessed them. A few got jobs, someone who was not getting married got good relationship because she asked my saintly father for his blessings.

    Now my mother was afraid. She wanted him to consult psychiatrist again. Who wants to take medicine when in such euphoric state?!

    • satyadeva says:

      Wasn’t your father ever diagnosed and treated, Shantam? His was an obvious case of bi-polar disorder, manic depression.

      I wonder whether he’d have been prepared to lose the manic ‘highs’ as well as the dreadful depressions by taking prescribed medication? Possibly quite a ‘sacrifice’, but perhaps his answer would have depended upon which phase he was in when asked that question?

      https://www.encompassdorset.co.uk/Blog/What_is_Manic_Depression.html

      • shantam prem says:

        When we talk of depression, mostly we ignore those depressive stages which arise when intense love chemicals fail us. Depression arising because of betrayal of Trust and feelings is one of the silent killers of our time.

        Founder of Neo-Sannyas is the only one who tried to create a holistic system around.

        • satyadeva says:

          “Depression arising because of betrayal of Trust and feelings is one of the silent killers of our time.”

          Such circumstances and reactions are not restricted to “our time”, Shantam, they’ve been happening to people for centuries, or even millennia.

          What makes you think you or anyone else thus afflicted is somehow ‘special’ in that respect?

          Has it ever occurred to you that there’s a direct correlation between excessive, ie essentially unhealthy dependence upon particular outer conditions and the suffering once such conditions change or are taken away?

          Also, has it ever occurred to you that the purpose of an ashram might not merely be to provide some sort of convenient, entertaining rest home-cum-social centre (which is how you often portray your experience of and aspirations for the one in Pune)?

          • Tan says:

            Satyadeva, what an accurate observation!
            What a reminder! XX

          • shantam prem says:

            Satyadeva, problem is you did not see the final phase of Osho´s ashram and those who have seen are playing dumb and numb.

            It is too demeaning: master´s own creation as “convenient, entertaining rest home-cum-social centre”.

            Will Madhu agree with this description, or others who have spent considerable time in Pune?

            • satyadeva says:

              “It is too demeaning: master´s own creation as “convenient, entertaining rest home-cum-social centre”.

              No, Shantam, as I said, that’s the impression you often give of your experience of and aspirations for the Pune ashram.

              • shantam prem says:

                Even I don´t give this impression though it is not my prerogative to control other people´s perception.

                At least I am trying again and again to bring in focus the creation of Osho and trying to describe lifestyle around Him. Surely it was not the same as around Buddha or other Indian gurus of then and now.

                MOD:
                PLEASE KEEP TO THE TOPIC NOW!

                • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

                  You say, Shantam Prem:
                  “At least I am trying again and again to bring in focus the creation of Osho and trying to describe lifestyle around Him.”

                  Sad, sad, sad enough that I need to say: NO, you don´t do what you imagine to do here on this website, visiting the caravanserai.

                  Sad, I say, as I really know how that feels, if one (often me too) is obsessed with one´s own pain and hurt. Thus, more than less unable to truly relate to somebody else´s story or contribution. And in that inability to relate you are not alone here, but you are – for me – the most dominant trigger of pain, when I look at it.

                  Last but not least, I´d like to recommend you one of the rare Q&As which appeared on youtube with Rashid Maxwell, October, 31st 2013 and is titled: ‘Fragrance of Meditation’ – Interview with an Osho Disciple.

                  Watching it, you´re probably not only able to LISTEN to someone of the Sangha, who knows how to share and relate to a questioner and listener (re the points you verbalise as your ´intention´) but Rashid can be also a heart touching integer ´model’ too, how to walk the (own and unique) spiritual path with dignity.

                  A path which – like for anybody of us – has had also for him its ups and downs.

                  Enjoy, if you like to watch it, and to listen. (And maybe others are interested too?).

                  Madhu

                • Bong says:

                  I think the dynamics of Osho commune are fascinating. Meditation over medication for me too. The various types of meditation are very much on topic. Most meditations are solitary seeking the divine whole. Cliche is the communal seeking the solitary (fuck).

                • Kavita says:

                  Thank you, Madhu, video you mentioned is interesting.

    • Lokesh says:

      You know, without going into it too much, I’d say Shantam is coming apart at the seams. Browsing his posts I get the impression of someone’s mind running amok and out of control, indulging itself in delusional fantasies and so on. Such a mind is the very product of a life lacking in any true form of meditation that functions as a disengager from life’s dramas. Instead, we have total identification with a whole pile of mental fabrications, dreams, inflated ideas and whatnot. If you try and make sense of it, none of it really adds up to anything more than a load of utter nonsense.

      • shantam prem says:

        Lokesh, why not we the bloggers go for a psychological and spiritual evolution? It will be a good service to our own self as well as humanity. I am curious, Madhu will come in burqa or will skip the meeting?

        I know it won´t happen, yet it is no harm to visualise whether one is ready to face the mirrors.

      • Bong says:

        What a waste of a post, Lokesh. Enforcing your tidy, tiny mind to the stream of limitless consciousness. If you want Shantam to STFU or filter his thoughts, perhaps you would benefit from the sort of Oshodham Shantam is describing, but at least have the courage to say and acknowledge it, man. Rest home social club sounds pretty good right now!

        • Lokesh says:

          Bong, I have not a clue what you are talking about.

          What I was referring to in Shantam’s posts is that they simply do not add up. On one hand, Shantam visualizes himself as one day running the Resort, one of the biggest international meditation schools in the world. On the other hand, he expresses racist sentiments that could not possibly fit in to an international scene like that which exists in the Resort.

          Basically, Shantam is not in possession of anything that would qualify him to even give him a small position in the Resort, other than over-inflated ideas about his understanding of Osho’s vision more than anyone else, which is ridiculous. Yet in his imagination he thinks he is the man for the job. This is delusional thinking. No more, no less. A candid observation.

          I am cool with Shantam, I like him. I do not compare myself with him or anyone else, because we all are who we are. That said, if someone is talking what you think is bollocks, then on an open forum like SN it is fine to say bollocks.

  9. Levina says:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1R0qLh61Yw
    I am touched by this little film, somehow I find it symbolic in the sense of destruction and resurrection.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Hi Levina,
      Does the little clip you recommend relate to something in your own life experience?
      Just asking…(as you use big words like “destruction” and even “resurrection”).

      Madhu

    • Parmartha says:

      I like the cartoon, Levina.
      But it is simplistic, basically saying that the cure for depression is finding a relationship…many people find themselves very depressed within the confines of long-term relationships.

      • Levina says:

        Hi Madhu and Parmartha. No, I don’t think a human relationship will solve depression, anxiety or more of today’s “mental” illnesses. It slowly starts to dawn out of my own experience of depression that the root cause of it is the belief that I’m separated from who I really am and that nothing works to “fix” that! So for me, the black cloud (above the man) in the cartoon was the symbol (belief) for the I thought.

        He tries drugs, booze, therapy, and you could add meditation, self-inquiry, but nothing works. Then he meets woman – for me, symbol of the Beloved (also with black cloud)…That doesn’t really fit in my story, but anyhow, both clouds (or energies) merge, there is a lightning force and Wham! His egocloud gets demolished (destruction) and when he slowly re-emerges he sees Her, the Beloved, She walks up to him, reaches out, he takes her hand, She helps him stand on his feet and he realises the One, both in Himself and Herself (resurrection)!

  10. Parmartha says:

    Osho suffered from mental illness and severe depression for more than a year when he was 19/20-odd.

    His father took him to many Doctors in India, but Osho rejected the ‘cures’ of all, including medication. To the great credit of Osho’s father he did not press any of the medications on Osho, who did not want them.

    At some point Osho adopted running morning and evening to stay, as it were, in the body, and it is said that he began to recover. It would be good if a member of the family were to give us more details.

    Aged 21, Osho is said to have gained the final realisation. I am sure he would not have ‘realised’ had he not ‘been through’ this mental suffering, and seen it through without medications, both east and west.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Yes, I remember that story of Osho´s lifetime too, Parmartha.
      And what I remember about it is, that one of the counsellors (Indian Doctors) had ´eyes´ to see into the Soul of the matter and left a gentle counsel to see what happened there not as a ´mental distortion´, but a necessary phase of the Soul. Good support, that was.

      I remember how touched I´ve been to hear the story (and then years later (long ago) also to myself experience such with an Ayurvedic Doctor: India´s cultural wisdom heritage of ´eyes to see´ and how I how I did miss such here, where I grew up. Still do.

      However, don´t know now – amidst all these radical accelerations of social and economic changes in the Indian society too – if such a beautiful part of a heritage still has its good, honoured place and is practised today?

      Madhu

      • Bong says:

        Running is very meditative and hard work. I ran a lot when I was younger. Then I did a lot of mathematics and karate and kung fu. Meditation and prayer transcends all. Pretty Taoist actually, despite being a Christian. I get the impression Sufism is an effective ‘catch all’.

        Take what works, throw away what doesn’t and add what is specifically your own (Bruce Lee).

        • Bong says:

          Swimming replaced running for Osho in later life. All swimming is breath meditation! Free diving and Scuba also!

          O2 at increased partial pressures is very good for the body/muscle growth and recovery in its natural state of health, up until O2 toxicity that is…dosage again!

    • Kavita says:

      I remember reading about this episode on SN before, here’s the link –

      http://sannyasnews.org/now/archives/1594

    • satchit says:

      Parmartha,
      Depression is not something that falls alone from the sky.
      If there was depression then there was also the desire to get something. If one does not get it, then it becomes frustration. And if the frustration becomes chronic, then it becomes depression.

      In Osho’s case, there was the desire to become enlightened that made him depressive. Until he realised that he was already enlightened.

      • satyadeva says:

        “In Osho’s case, there was the desire to become enlightened that made him depressive. Until he realised that he was already enlightened.”

        Sounds a bit of a superficial explanation, Satchit.

        From what I’ve understood from various accounts of advanced spiritual stages pre-enlightenment, to say that wanting to become enlightened caused Osho’s depression is over-simplistic, leaving out the apparently agonising final processes of emotional and psychological death, the precursors of ‘ultimate realisation’.

        Similarly, to suggest it was ‘really’ all very simple and straightforward, just a question of realising “he was already enlightened”, makes it sound rather like a walk in the park, as if Osho had made unnecessarily ‘heavy weather’ of it all, instead of what must have been the extraordinarily intense, terrifying experience of finally allowing his ‘self’ to dissolve and die.

        At that level, it ain’t no walk in the park, it’s Life or Death, or perhaps more accurately, Dying for Life.

        • satchit says:

          “At that level, it ain’t no walk in the park, it’s Life or Death, or perhaps more accurately, Dying for Life.”

          Or perhaps, SD, it’s your ego who wants to make a drama out of it.

          No, it cannot be as easy as making a walk in the park or drinking a cup of tea or touching the own nose. It must be a thing of life and death – wow!

          • satyadeva says:

            Satchit, I suspected you’d find something to deride in that post of mine. However, just read what I actually wrote, rather than the version that’s convenient for you:

            “From what I’ve understood from various accounts of advanced spiritual stages pre-enlightenment…”

            Do you see where I’m coming from? I’m writing about what various individuals have reported re profound crises that confronted them, not from my personal thoughts and preferences.

            Among such accounts I can immediately think of three such ‘spiritual heroes’, Osho, Barry Long – and Jesus Christ (when on the Cross).

            • satyadeva says:

              More profound insight into psycho-spiritual crisis, including depression, well worth a look (though not necessarily directly related to final stages pre-enlightenment)…
              http://www.sandraleedennis.com/dark-night/

              For instance (Shantam, this might be relevant to you?):

              THE THRESHOLD & DYING BEFORE WE DIE
              Without a commitment to wake up to the truth about ourselves, “there is no dark night of the soul – just a depression,” that most of us can’t handle without Prozac. We may linger for a long while at the threshold of the dark passage, paralyzed by fear of dying in one of its many disguises. Awakening to the deeper heart requires that we move beyond these boundaries of fear into the unknown, a journey that does not happen until we are ready and willing to endure it. A true dark night descent gradually lessens the grip of ego, liberating spiritual awareness; while a depression mires us more deeply in believing we are these states of misery.

        • shantam prem says:

          Satyadeva,
          In which stage of “dying for life” you are at present?

      • Parmartha says:

        Osho’s depression and desperation was no different from anyone else’s, and that is what makes it even more valuable for him as a teacher/Master.

        As he said to one of my friends, Yatindra, when he complained in darshan of some disturbances, “I know all about it because I have been there myself. I am with you in it.” Satchit, you are trying to make Osho’s illness as something different. A dangerous road to go down.

        In Christianity, this has been the major bugbear for centuries, that early commentators, gospellers, made out that somehow Jesus was not really of us, some kind of son of God, or whatnot. My feeling is that such gospellers just could not stand the ultimate truth that the human condition is totally shared, and a few have found ways out of THEIR OWN EFFORTS, to transcend it.

        • satchit says:

          “As he said to one of my friends, Yatindra, when he complained in darshan of some disturbances, “I know all about it because I have been there myself. I am with you in it.” Satchit, you are trying to make Osho’s illness as something different. A dangerous road to go down.”

          Is this already a dangerous road for you, Parmartha?

          Basically, my contribution was only half-serious.

          But what is fact in the end? We all have our personal perspective and experience of Osho.
          As El Loco said lately, we all live in our little world. So how can two perspectives be the same?

          If you want to see him human, this is okay for me. For me, I can only say, “I don’t know” what kind of being he was. Maybe he had only more charisma than others.

  11. preetam says:

    This morning I saw a lecture of Dr. Irene Haberland about ‘the fountain of youth’. It’s assumed the fountain was being there where Adam was thrown out of Paradise. Health resort and wellness centres seem to be a result of the old desire for everlasting youth or immortality. The Idea is not far from that of enlightenment. In the East it is called ‘Ashram’, in the west ‘Sanatorium’.

    How close are these desires of everlasting youth or immortality in relation to depression? It is perhaps a very deep desire within us for going further. Out of it occurs the desire to heal the frustration. People start thinking of enlightenment or a fountain of youth. But how humanity can follow its desire for growth, if by everlasting wars and selection we can not get the needed peace to realize our self?

    MOD:
    Preetam, WHAT’S selection, PLEASE (LAST SENTENCE)?

    • preetam says:

      Hey, Mod:
      It is proved in studies that children from so-called ‘better’ families get better school grades and even with less abilities, the better jobs.

    • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

      Preetam, you say:
      “How close are these desires of everlasting youth or immortality in relation to depression?”

      Could be that greed is the missing (not mentioned and not individually investigated) link? And ´greed´ seems to be always related to fear; they are ´brothers and sisters’, often in an inconvenient (unhealthy) family constellation…

      Then you ask:
      “But how humanity can follow its desire for growth, if by everlasting wars and selection we can not get the needed peace to realize our self?”

      That reminds me of a woman, Preetam, a Presence, I´d say, whom I´ve been happy to meet once or twice. She is travelling worldwide to meet people, visiting also hospitals (and the sick), prisons (and the incarcarated) or people who survived or are panicked by terror attacks
      (like in Paris, 2015 – if I remember that rightly)) and so on…

      And she shares with all of them her only apparent suggestion:
      “Put all the wars on paper” – ´and investigate it yourself by a couple of self-inquiry questions. And find the answer yourself!´

      Her name is Byron Katie (US) and you can find inmidst of the whole insanity of the WWW innumerable youtube instances of Her work with those who became affiliated to that.

      Madhu

      • preetam says:

        Hey, Madhu, as you ask – cuts it a bit into pieces.

        In our world exists a group of people who are badly afraid to lose something and quite angry because of truth and gods. These People do not want any change, at whatever price.

        So if we can create something above them, as Osho tried, it’s an provocation for them. Not easy to find answers under pressure, but it works, a kind of yoga.

        MOD:
        because of truth and gods, Preetam? DO YOU MEAN THEY DON’T CARE FOR TRUTH AND ARE ENSLAVED BY THEIR RELIGIONS?

        • preetam says:

          From tradional Upanishad:
          “The gods and the demons, wishing to know the Self, went into the presence of Brahman (their father, Pragâpati). Having bowed before him, they said: “O blessed one, we wish to know the Self, do thou tell us.”

          Then, after having pondered a long while, he thought, “These demons are not yet self-subdued; therefore a very different Self was told to them (from what was told to the gods). On that Self these deluded demons take their stand, clinging to it, destroying the true means of salvation (the Veda), preaching untruth. What is untrue they see as true, as in jugglery. Therefore, what is taught in the Vedas, that is true. What is said in the Vedas, on that the wise keep their stand. Therefore let a Brâhman not read what is not of the Veda, or this will be the result.”

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          Hey Preetam,

          Sometimes, a portion to swallow and digest is all too big and too much; and to cut such into pieces the only way to deal with it, I´d suggest.
          So far re an apparently material viewpoint.

          However, when people become really obsessed, up to being fanatical with immaterial ‘big portions’ like ‘God’ and ‘Truth’ and you happen to end up temporarily in such an energetic field as an individual, the ´work, to break down ´big portions´ into ´pieces´, and/or do your very best to find peace in the midst of it all, seems to be the way not to lose any zest for Life.

          And I speak of experience here.

          Would like to add for a special reason responding to your lines, money and power issues here too, as ´big portions’ (the latter not unlike financial transactions and how they are algorhythm-wise managed nowadays) – often linked with so-called ´Real-Life in an obnoxious, completely untransparent way.

          And even then, the inner work mentioned seems to be same-same…

          It often seems for an individual just toooo much, doesn´t it?
          Here – in comes the beauty of human sharing.
          Sometimes in words too….

          Madhu

      • satyadeva says:

        Yes, Madhu, Byron Katie’s work is very powerful.

        I’d like to ask Preetam:
        Where are these wars you complain about, in your own experience, right now? Likewise, all the other adverse, ‘unjust’ external circumstances you often mention?

        • preetam says:

          SD, I don’t complain, just mention. It is asymmetrical warfare, to keep the hands apparently clean, and it works for the volk.

          MOD:
          volk MEANS, PLEASE, Preetam?

  12. Bong says:

    Desire is insatiable. One must transcend it.

    On paths to realisation of enlightenment there are two: suffering and practice. The two may merge, but more often than not, suffering provides the path by which we must attain. If we are prepared to do the work.

    Rather than growth, strive for balance. Depression is an imbalance, mania an imbalance.

    You can choose to be happy or choose to be sad but you must choose. To realise this is a significant step. To choose wisely and maintain balance is mastery.

    • preetam says:

      Bong, but hard just to drop it if our life is dependent on rules from people with an unquenchable desire for power and money. How transcend, even if we are dominated by this kind of need? Does Osho say: “You have to stand alone against the whole world”?

      What is the final clue, before real teaching begins?

      • Bong says:

        “For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of self-discipline.”

        Re-read the Bible and the 1972 discourse, ‘Psychology of the Esoteric’.

        1. Conquer your fears.

        Marcus Aurelius – Meditations
        https://youtu.be/tPFsMeShCTeE

        Emperor Constantine
        https://youtu.be/EIxE332XQqA

        Spend your entire effort in meditation and prayer. Be fearless and on encountering the higher body of consciousness so described in ‘sleep’ destroy anything you meet there immediately, much as Jacob fought Israel in his dream.

        We are all one. There is no room for Ego in the higher realms after realisation, and realisation must become the only goal. To desire only the truth of realisation is to transcend desire. You must, in leaving lucid dreaming and Ego behind for the higher realms in deep meditation, sleep, let breath take care of itself.

        I speak as a Christian, and have experienced the journey of which I speak in its entirety. I too struggle financially against powers and principalities and yet I am considering writing a book if I find a patron or three. Money is a construct. Meditation is real. Life is precious. Peace is achievable.

        • Lokesh says:

          Bong, why limit your potential as a writer by needing the help of patrons? Writing a book costs nothing, apart from time.

        • preetam says:

          Thanks for the answer, Bong. What did you encounter while sleeping, if I may ask?
          Lucky for me, I don’t have to fight – I’ve being a very good wrestler since youngest life, the angels have respect.

          • Bong says:

            Most recently, I gave Satan himself an uppercut while in Singapore.

            As for the realisation, I think that was adequately described in my previous posts going back several years. Realisation is not something one can put into words, just aspects and parable.
            Astral projections akin to Jacob versus Israel ‘dream’ are easier to describe.

    • Kusum says:

      Why one must transcend desires? Why one is born with all the senses if one don’t enjoy them?One must have bucket list before finally one kicks the bucket.

      There comes a time when one is not happy nor sad. Just is, like a watcher on the hill.

      • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

        ´Kusum´, appearing here on a website as ´one´ ( at 7:16 pm).
        There´s ´one´who is a bucket, there´s ´one´, appearing in form of a bucket list, there´s ´one´, who finally kicks the bucket.
        Just human senses, I cannot discover neither in this contribution nor in most of your others,
        And the reason may be, last but not least, the ´one´, playing a watcher on a hill´, without any human GPS or any human IT-ID ?

        Some parts of the net are called ´Darknet´; a gathering of real people, being very proud of never to be discovered as human beings , while playing anything – like perfectionists.
        I call those often ´fanatics too.

        • Kusum says:

          Madhu, your writing is too complicated for simple mind to make sense. You seem to twist everything in very strange way. Life is wonderful & simple really.

          • shantam prem says:

            Kusum, you have good insights. Only problem, your masked personality. It is not a sign of feeling life as simple though wonderful, it is always when one operates from within a capsule.

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            Feedback received, Kusum, and you are right, my provocation and above all. totally fruitless approach (25 February, 2018 at 8:50 pm) to find out about your intention(s) or the urge to join a Chat-Caravanserai (SN/UK) was indeed ´twisted’. And no surprise about its failure.

            You say, Kusum: “Life is wonderful & simple really.”
            ´Simple´: yes, we eat, excrete, sleep, die.

            And a majority worldwide builds families and reproduces (has kids) in that short lifespan.

            Some love what they do for earning their living and the living of their offspring. Guess most of them, do not love what they are doing for that purpose.

            “Simple”? Yes.
            “Wonderful”? I don´t know.

            A very much neglectable minority at any time, btw, got and gets hooked into looking in another way re the mystery of Living amidst the human species.

            Even much, much more rare are those who didn´t get lost, but come back after a longer or shorter ´walkabout´* into this Mystery of the Living, and from them, only a few have been like a magnet then to attract (for a time being) a bunch of fellow-traveller-friends, of seekers.

            Excuse me, Kusum:
            If Osho said: “Life is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved”, while Being and Sharing His Being in His Sangha of Lovers, it’s quite something else than reading a two (or more than two) liner in a viral, quite anonymous Chat.

            Is that un-twisted enough? I hope so.

            Madhu
            PS:
            *’Walkabout’ is an Autralian Aborigine ancient synonym for finding one´s way Home. And as a deeply felt belonging to Existence; you can google that (same as ´songlines’) – if you’d like to.
            I use it sometimes to express that a path of this kind is not always bound to be easy….

      • Bong says:

        Indeed, but can’t you smell a flower without the desire to possess it? Must you smell the flowers in your dreams? Why dream of flowers? Why dream of anything at all if one can experience the truth in realisation of being such that the ‘dream’ is thousands of times more real than talking while ‘awake’?

        Consciousness is a very deep well. At ‘enlightenment’ or realisation therof its like a light being turned on. It’s dazzling, but when awake, it fades. Still you realise there is a well, but it is very deep, you have seen it, and it is you and all is one.

        • preetam says:

          What significance has devotion and respect before ‘self-realisation’?

          • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

            ” Respect” , Preetam ( you are a german mothertongue native, are you ?) –
            Respect in the sense of re-aspecting has a premium significance – at any time, I ´d say; before , during and after so called “realisation”-
            There´s quite a fan club of Big ´G. ( Gurdjieff) here gathered in UK/SN, and those might know that story G. once told about His grandpa and father too : they did recommend the boy ( when Big G. was young) to always wait for at least 24 hours , if not more , before re-acting to a situation .
            Using some valuable time with Himself and alone to re-aspect , looking again =re-aspecting the situation and himself in it.

            He appreciated that, He said later and was grateful for that counsel.

            Significance of ” devotion” then ?

            That´s a difficult one nowadays :
            In times of suicide bombers, terrorists and fanatics of all kinds to go on a ´martyr´s ´trail or in times of some religious fanatics ( of all kinds btw ) , who murder for their religious ´sake´ and call that ´devotion´, it has become quite difficult (loaded word) now to even use it- the word so often misued by now and in the recent decades in particular.

            When somebody is realized , this word may not be having any meaning at all, I guess ?

            When coming across an attitude, which includes violence in whatsoever form ( be it violence against yourself , be it violence against others) and is as attitude then declared or even promoted as ´devotion´, I ´d prefer to re-aspect and take a distance; and go on a Quest in meditation.

            Madhu

            • preetam says:

              Hey, Madhu, sure German…also my German is really bad (something like dyslexia), so I try English, but it’s worse.

              Devotion and respecting Truth (self)…yes, but what for? Maybe to get attention from Truth itself. Like building a golden temple where no walls are?

  13. Kusum says:

    Some people talk and talk and never say a thing.
    Some people look at you and birds begin to sing.

  14. shantam prem says:

    Whole day I ws thinking over those who think they are meditating. My conclusion about their meditative state lies in this short story:

    Santa asked his wise friend Banta, “Who is meditating and getting closer to God, in your opinion?”
    Banta replied, “My wife Banto?”
    Santa was surprised. He asked, “But just the other month you were complaining about her quarrelsome mind.”
    Banta said, “With grace of God, transformation happened. She has become good in bed and better in kitchen.”

  15. sw. veet (francesco) says:

    Mental health is the effect of a choice that happens at a deeper level than opinion, even if it were the most sophisticated one can have about the reality (not just about the mind).

    The point is not to understand reality by adapting the ideas that best explain it, but to choose the existential values (the core, the heart, the essence) around which to organize reality, about ourselves and the world, which we judge to be satisfactory, significantly joyful (there are those who are content just to grin about the difficulties of others).

    Feeling good is an expression of this responsibility, a claim to the right to be happy (as the old guy taught us), the way of the rebel, free and light as clouds.

  16. Lokesh says:

    Veet, as I understand it, everyone has already chosen a core around which to organise reality. That is what being born means.

    • sw. veet (francesco) says:

      Do you mean, Lokesh, that some of us choose to be born depressed?

      In a certain sense you are right, if it is true that by being born in a state of trust, integrity or ecstasy we could hypothesize that the choice to be happy coincides with being born.

      Then the choice should be understood as a reminding, that is to distinguish between the content and the container of our memories, between the finger and the moon.

      I spoke as sannyasin, nothing new for you, although sometimes it seems that other memories are crowded in your vivid, creative mind, something that does not happen to me by cutting wood or hoeing in the Maiella area.

      http://agricanditella.it/foto.html

      • shantam prem says:

        Sw.Veet, are you the one with the white beard in the photos?

      • satyadeva says:

        “Do you mean, Lokesh, that some of us choose to be born depressed?”

        In a way, yes, Veet, strange as it may seem. Although born with certain conflicting tendencies and challenges would be a more appropriate description. Including difficulties or trauma from even before birth, birth itself, or via early life influences, as well as ongoing inner conflicts that are somehow embedded in our make-up. To come to terms with or dissolve which might well be significant aspects of one’s purpose or ‘task’ in any given life.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          True, Satyadeva, in some cases the choice of which I speak about does not arise, if it is also true that biology and genetics has its own weight, even in the case of neurological damage from trauma. I think, for example, of Brit Milah (circumcision) but meditation makes miracles, especially if one has the courage to observe in the darkest corners of his history.

          Speaking to my Sangha who knows that meditation is a luxury, I also assume that we agree that some therapy can help in the choice-responsibility to be happy, distinguishing the glimpeses of a golden childhood from the stars for the slaps received.

          In my case, the therapy came after that choice-responsibility, I just had to understand why sometimes I disconnected from my core, which also happens today when you piss me off.

      • Lokesh says:

        Hi Veet,
        When I was younger I entertained ideas about dying consciously. Then I almost died and everything changed.

        All this talk about choosing our birth etc. is just that, talk. So I don’t think any of us choose to be born depressed.

        Also, there are different categories of depression. Some people are clinically depressed because, for one reason or another, depression is hardwired into their brain. It’s depressing.

        • madhu dagmar frantzen says:

          What a refreshing cool response-breeze , Lokesh ( 28 February, 2018 at 6:38 pm)
          I can relate to that. By experience.
          All of it .
          Thanks,

          Madhu

        • shantam prem says:

          Lokesh, do you think the Lady disciple who was closest to Osho was clinically depressed or circumstances made her depressed?

          One thing is clear, living in closer quarters with any master, doing any kind of meditations and all kind of faith healing, as well as medications, have their limitations.

          We as collective, as well as Individuals, are all candles in the wind.

        • satyadeva says:

          As I said earlier, my sense is that “in a way” it might be said that we choose to be born “depressed”, or at least into certain circumstances, to confront specific issues and, hopefully, learn and increase our store of wisdom (do some call this something like ‘soul knowledge’?).

          Although it might well be more existentially accurate to say that our circumstances are initially ‘chosen for us’, as it were, given that the one(s) we usually refer to as ‘I’ or ‘we’ or ‘us’ clearly have nothing at all to do with this mysterious process.

          • satyadeva says:

            One contemporary master used to say that each of us takes on “a load” that others (now dead) have left behind, unfaced, unresolved. Thus, in a way, in dealing with whatever our “load” might be, we’re not only purifying ourselves but also doing something, however small, for all humanity.

            • swamishanti says:

              Was that contemporary master Barry Long, by any chance?
              And if so, can you tell what the talk was, if it is recorded?

              • satyadeva says:

                Yes, BL it was.

                Here’s a relevant part of a talk he gave in 2000:

                “Consciousness is always here – the light behind the life, behind the living body. You are a light. And sometimes you live very dimly, like we all do, because you are loaded, saddled with circumstances beyond your control – except that you face them as best you can. This is what being born is about. You have to carry some of the load left behind by your mother and father and all the people who preceded you. You have to take some of that negativity. Because, you see, the light of humanity has to light up. Humanity is in a dreadful mess. The light is not very bright at all, as you can see from the stupidities of us all.

                Consciousness is somehow or other involved in all this whole wonderful cycle of life – living life and death – and going deeper into the psyche. This is an amazing journey. But of course you can’t know it. It would be great if you could, wouldn’t it? … If we could just snap our fingers and know it. But it’s not built like that. It’s a journey and you can’t get to the town before you’ve travelled along the road. That’s how it is.

                And what is the road? The road is living and it’s a bumpy road, isn’t it? For every single person that’s born, it’s a bumpy road. Some seem to have it easier than others, but only seem to have it easier. You can’t judge anyone’s life. The billionaire, the millionaire … You can’t judge it from the external. It’s what’s going on inside, in the emotions, in the discontented body, in the pure drive of sex through every man into woman, which he has no control over whatever, except by means of love.

                ~ Barry Long

                Edited extract from transcript of a talk at the Master Session 8 November, 2000

          • sw. veet (francesco) says:

            “…‘I’ or ‘we’ or ‘us’ clearly have nothing at all to do with this mysterious process.”

            Yet, SD, mysteriously, the more or less organised circumstances referred to and around that process constitute our “I”.

        • sw. veet (francesco) says:

          Lokesh, my first comment spoke of the choice to be happy, as a potentially available option alongside that one of not being such.

          I say “potentially” because sometimes we make compromises with the people we love or fear, or we take some chemical shortcuts that will demand the bill. I would add that in extreme situations depression is the price to pay if you are not ready to die.

          I did not (you did) mention the choice to be born happy, enlightened or connected with God or Buddha, since I know little about Karma or regressive hypnosis.

          About depression and therapies, I distinguished between expressing opinions and related maps of reality, including mind or consciousness, and expressing an existential responsibility, which answers questions like, “Why fall in love with life if we lose it?”

          My bet is that Osho to these questions has indicated many moons that deserve an exploration, and those who chose to do so made a happy choice.

          In the same way, for me, the therapist who does not express responsibility with his way of being happy (walk the talk) can only express opinions, which do not give shelter as the solid walls of an authentic life.

  17. Arpana says:

    “G. once told about His grandpa and father too: they did recommend the boy (when Big G was young) to always wait for at least 24 hours, if not more, before re-acting to a situation.”

    I’d forgotten this story.
    At the end of last year, I decided to wait to respond to posts here for 24 hours.

  18. Arpana says:

    “Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, any misery, any depression, since after all you don’t know what work these conditions are doing inside you? Why do you want to persecute yourself with the question of where all this is coming from and where it is going? Since you know, after all, that you are in the midst of transitions and you wished for nothing so much as to change. If there is anything unhealthy in your reactions, just bear in mind that sickness is the means by which an organism frees itself from what is alien; so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

    Rainer Maria Rilke, ‘Letters to a Young Poet’

    • sw. veet (francesco) says:

      “…so one must simply help it to be sick, to have its whole sickness and to break out with it, since that is the way it gets better.”

      Ciao, Arpana, I agree with what you are quoting, as long as it is not just an opinion of a cynical therapist.

Leave a Reply