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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Date: Sat May 3, 2003 8:46 am

Subject: Depression, Meditation & the Void

http://www.sulekha.com/chpost.asp...ilosophy&show=0&cid=57688

Depression, Meditation & the Void

http://membres.lycos.fr/jacquesvigne

Indian Wisdom, Modern Psychology and Christianity

Jacques Vigne

http://membres.lycos.fr/jacquesvigne/english/b1p1ch2.htm

(excerpts):

If Western psychology has its limitations when faced with depression,
can philosophy like existentialism, for example, help to overcome
these limitations? Briefly speaking, I do not think so : the general
ambiance of existentialism is itself too depressing to be of real
help to a depressive : he will, of course, be able to feel some
relief by feeling less alone in his dereliction. The advantage is
that he will feel more comfortable in his depression, but the
disadvantage is, that being comfortable, he will have no desire to
come out of it. One must not forget that Sartre published 'Being and
Nothingness' in 1943, in a period when the materialistic mind had
good reason to be pessimistic: indeed the reassuring belief in the
continuous progress of humanity was rudely shaken by the events of
the time. Merely undoing the functioning of the ego leads to
nihilism, if it is not accompanied by an acute sense of the
underlying Absolute. Perhaps the existentialist philosopher and the
Buddha found themselves confronted with the same void but the former
suffered from nausea because of it, while the latter smiled : there
lies the difference, does it not?

We now come to the idea of the void, which is the central thread
running through this chapter. The seriously depressed individual
feels that his body is empty, that the external world is devoid of
any significance, and that he behaves automatically. To him the void
seems to be a nothingness. To the mediator, vacuity is not a
nothingness. It is a reservoir of potentialities and is very close to
plenitude or the absolute. The vacuity is an absence of form: from
the physical point of view this corresponds to a relaxation into
immobility. Due to his anxiety, the depressed person has a body which
is agitated and full of blockages. By concentrating on this idea of
an immobile void, he reduces these blockages; but because he does
this automatically, without understanding the mechanism involved, the
void which he reaches if still full of a sense of guilt and anxiety.
Besides, being pre-occupied with his inner work, he lets the external
world drop, which in turn reinforces his guilt. The meditator, on the
other hand, can enter and leave the void at will. The sage can see
the void even when he is active A fundamental idea of Mahayana
Buddhism is 'to see the void'. In establishing oneself, in a
limitless state of mind ("ananta") one experiences a happiness which
is not concentrated on any object ( ananda). The similarity of the
two Sanskrit words corresponds to the similarity of the two realities
for which they stand.

Sometimes, the nightmare of falling into a void can be instantly
transformed into a more agreeable dream of a gliding descent. One
then tends to fall indefinitely, without ever hurting oneself. This
little trick of active imagination can be proposed to the patient.
When he realizes that he can change the direction of his mental
images, he will feel greatly encouraged. 'Falling to the bottom of
the pit' gives a sense of depth, which is fine if one can come out of
the ordeal. When one is at the bottom of a well, all he can see is a
patch of sky, and in the tribulation is concealed a divine spark. Did
the Psalmist not say, 'From the depths, I cried to Thee Lord'?

The depressed individual, like the meditator, sees the void of forms.
The former stops at that, however, while the latter looks towards the
absolute which he calls the void of the void, and which he regards in
its luminous and blissful aspect. The void of the meditator is born
of an effort to understand the functioning of the mind; it has not
happened automatically as in the case of the depressive. Shantideva,
a Buddhist Master has said, 'If one cannot apprehend the phenomenon
constructed by the mind, its non-existence cannot be established."
The error of the depressive lies not in seeking rest in the void, but
in seeking it to the exclusion of everything else. It lies in
believing that he has found rest, while his mind is still prone to
attacks of morbid brooding. He loses sight of the conventional
reality of the world, and therein lies the cause of his suffering.
Nagarjuna said, 'The dharma taught by all the Buddhas is founded on
two realities: the conventional reality of the world, and the Supreme
and ultimate Reality.'3

As far as possible, the depressive shoudl seek to get accustomed to
his feeling of emptiness and to avoid a sense of guilt about it:
after all, there can be a joyous assertion of independence in
rejecting everything to ge more space to move, just as a baby
sometimes throws away all his toys, and feels very happy. The
therapist and sometimes even the patient, can benefit from a
contemplation of the symbol of zero; it represents the cosmic egg
from which the world is born; in alchemy it is included in the
symbols of almost all the elements, it forms their common
denominator.4 From the mystical point of view, the void is the space
of consciousness. Jacob Boehme, known as the 'Father of the Church of
the Mind', expressed it thus, 'The Eternal Void is the eye of Eternal
Vision.'

The idea of death, which is destructive for the depressive, is
liberating for the philosopher or the mystic. 'To philosophize is to
learn how to die', said Socrates. Zen recommends 'viewing life from
the bottom of ones coffin.' When Nisargadatta Maharaj was asked about
his death some months before the actual event, he replied, 'I would
not be speaking to you like this, if I were not already dead.' This
death of the ego is what is frightening. On another occasion, when
Maharaj had evoked the idea of liberation from this life, a visitor
exclaimed, 'But is is like death !' 'Is is death', answered Maharaj.
When one is really free from the anguish. When there is nothing more
to lose, one can only be a winner.

Meditation represents a prevention, a prophylaxis for depression:
returning each day to the source of happiness that lies within, one
avoids that accumulation of inner frusrtration which leads to
bitterness and depression, even in those people who have everything
they materially need for their happiness. The child has strong and
rapid variations of emotion. Internally we remain childlike, although
we have covered this 'infantile cyclothymy' with a veneer of
dullness, which enables us to function in society to some extent. We
have already seen that meditation enables the recognition of the
rapid variations (desire-distaste, pleasure-pain etc.) and helps us
to go beyond these pairs of opposites ('dvandvatitam'). In the Bible,
God is sometimes clearly presented as being beyond
contradictions: 'There is no one but me.... I create the light and
the darkness, I make happiness and unhappiness, it is I, Jehovah, who
create all this.' (Isaie 45, 6-7). (The literal translation from
Hebrew is,' 'I make peace and evil').

(Sitaram interjects-

http://theol.uibk.ac.at/cover/bulletin/xtexte/bulletin10-9.html

2. If all the world finally will be shown to be a part of
the "blueprint" which is Torah, then God will in retrospect turn out
to have acted through Cyrus as well as through the "suffering
servant." God does not take sides between us but within us. He takes
the side of the victims we are all capable of becoming or have become
against the persecutors we are all equally capable of becoming or
have already become. Judaism is not a Manichaeism (however attractive
it is for Christians to read it as such) but a monism of the deepest
order. All the world--both the evil inclination (the yetzer hara) and
the good inclination (the yetzer tov)--will be shown finally to be a
part of the divine plan which Torah has simply seen in advance.
)

Meditation is liberating in that it involves a letting go of one's
hold. It prevents one from becoming like the monkey in this tale from
the East: 'One day, a monkey found an apparently empty coconut-shell.
On shaking it, he heard a sound. He could just pass his hand through
the narrow opening of the shell to take what was inside. His hand
closed around a lump of sugar, but when he wanted to take it out, his
first got stuck in the coconut. The monkey-catcher, who had laid the
trap approached slowly; the monkey tried to escape, but he would not
free his paw from the coconut-shell. When he felt himself being
seized by the scruff of the neck, he said to himself,' 'I have lost
my freedom, but at least I have the sugar!' At that moment, the
monkey-catcher aimed a blow at the nerve of the monkey's elbow; in
pain, the monkey dropped the sugar. He had now lost both his freedom
and the sugar."

Depression and Liberation in the course of spiritual evolution

Spiritual evolution leads to inner joy, but it does carry the risk of
depressive reaction. This risk is found in psychotherapy as well,
when patients are driven to the point of suicide, because they cannot
bear to face certain within themselves, and because they are
nevertheless pushed toward it by an over-zealous and rigid therapist.

If spiritual practice has its dangers, they should not be
overstimated. To me, they certainly seem less serious than the danger
of taking the wheel of a car in a drunken state to come back home
after a 'good' party.

In Christianity, a distinction is made between authentic depression
("acedia"), and phases of aridity ("ariditas"), the latter arising in
the course of healthy spiritual evolution. The "acedia" appears
mainly in middle aged monks or nuns. It is an aversion towards
everything that concerns the spiritual path. Perhaps it is linked to
a reduction in the sexual energy of those who follow the path of
devotion and of sublimation of emotions towards the divine; there is
less to sublimate, therefore there are fewer inner experiences.
The "ariditas" or spiritual aridity, on the contrary, corresponds to
what Saint John of the Cross calls 'the night of the senses.' There
is no distaste for the spiritual only an aspiration towards God who
cannot be "seen" by the aspirant. It is a sort of unsatisfied amorous
desire, a giving up of everything that is not Him, without neither
succeeding in reaching Him. To use the description of Saint Teresa of
Avila, it can be said that the mind, on entering into its cocoon like
the silk-worm, dies in it, and can be re-borm as a butterfly."

After the night of the senses, follows the night of the mind, which
can correspond to a difficult phase: the aspirant realizes the
ultimate unreality of the divinity whom he had adored and from whom
he had received visions, messages and consolation. After some time,
however, this form dissolves, and a new energy appears from behind
it. Making use of paradoxes, Hadewich d'Anvers said, 'Knowledge is
freely renewed in the bright shadow of the presence of the absence.'7
For Ruysbroeck, the serenity appears to those who go beyond the
essence itself: 'They will rest with serenity in their over-essence'.

The Christians lay greater stress on the suffering due to mystical
evolution than do the Hindus. The basis of Hindu mysticism, whether
following the path of devotion or of knowledge, is happiness
("ananda"); the destruction of the mind, ("manonasha") is not
overlooked, however; it is indispensable for establishing stable
happiness. Why this difference? Christians already have a fixation on
the Passion of Christ, which in certain cases, borders upon what
would be termed, 'birth trauma' in psychology. However, it seems to
me, that there is another factor which can explain the frequency of
spiritual aridity among Christian mystics, a factor which
ecclesiastical authors dare not touch upon: it concerns the rigidity
of the rules and institutions which prevents the mystic from evolving
at his own pace and rhythm, and which hinders a relationship of
complete trust in the spiritual teacher. If a monk has only
hierachical superiors and has no spiritual teacher on whom to
transfer his deep affectivity, it is not surprising that he is prone
to frequent bouts of spiritual aridity, and that he suffers, quite
simply, from solitude;

Some Western authors think that the renunciation in India is an
equivalent to depression. It could certainly happen that a person has
the desire for renunciation following deep sorrow or a love
disappointment, but this kind of decision does not last long. This is
what is called in India the "cremation ground renunciation". The
second part of the name of the renunciation (sannyasi) in India,
is 'ananda', or happiness, as in Vivekananda, Shivananda, etc. Thus
renunciation and happiness are closely associated in the names
themselves. Renunciation is born, not of a forced choice, but of true
comprehension. For a Hindu it does not signify dissolution as much
as "individualisation". His individuality, having been diluted -till
then by family and clan ("gotra")- asserts itself through the choice
of renunciation. Spiritual practice leads to a cure of
the 'depressive position', it concerns an oft-found trait of the
human psyche, which stems from the very first year, when the child
reacted strongly on seeing his mother move away, however slightly.
This spiritual cure could be expressed in psychological terms
as 'introjection of the good object', which is no longer the physical
mother, but in India, the guru or the Divine Mother. When one is able
to 'hallucinate the Mother', one has in hand the best possible weapon
for overcoming the depressive position.

MÐ Ìnandamayi often made the distinction between "shunya"
and "mahÐshunya" (the void and the great void). She perhaps wanted to
prevent people taking the phases of torpor during the "sadhana" for
the realisation of the Absolute. This kind of distinction appears
throughout the various schools of spiritual thought, under different
terminologies. Kashmir Shaivism differentiates between ten kinds of
vacuity. Tibetan Buddhism, between eighteen kinds. This insistence on
vacuity is not nihilism; the Buddhists believe in the absolute, which
they sometimnes call "tathagatagarbha", or womb ("garbha") of someone
who has been ("gata") thus ("tatha") in other words, "the mother of
Buddha". This image of the womb confirms the concept of vacuity
already mentioned above: a reservoir of potentialities. It is a
medicine which can cure one's disturbances at their very roots : for
example, someone who knows how to meditate can fully nullify a
parasitic emotion, by considering it as void right from the
beginning. He is no longer trapped by phenomena to which he gives a
relative but non-inherent reality, he is thus able to follow the
middle-path ("Madhyamika"). Nagarjuna said, 'Vacuity was taught as a
remedy which would enable one to be rid of all philosophical points
of view, but of indicating that the Absolute can only be evoked and
cannot be reached by words of reason. In this, then Nagarjuna's
school of "madhyamika" is sister to Vedanta, and is the mother of
Ch'an and of Zen.

In our times, this evolutionary dynamism of thought, aided by
meditation or vacuity should encourage psychologists to question the
fixed theories in which they have imprisoned themselves. Perhaps they
do not dare, for fear of falling into nihilism,10 but they should
know, at least intellectually, that a 'middle-path' is possible. I
hope that these few reflections will help to clarify the similarities
and differences that are between the existential void, and liberating
vacuity. I hope, above all, that they will shed light on the narrow
passageway leading from the void of depression to the vacuity of the
mystic, on that suspension bridge which stretches from the void to
the Void.

========================

http://membres.lycos.fr/jacquesvigne/english/b1jv.html

Master and Therapist is the outcome of five years' work in India. Its
central topic is the help-relationship, that is how and why a person
helps another person. I chose especially to study the model of the
help-relationship existing between the spiritual master and the
disciple in the Hindu tradition, because I know that it is a topic
little known to Western or westernized Indian readers. In the third
part, I establish a comparison with the therapist, who is a more
familiar personage in the Western culture. Before entering into the
core of the matter, it may be useful to give an idea of how I came to
write this book.

Having met in India some gurus and yogis who have gone deep into the
exploration of their own mind, I could see the other extreme: from a
psyche least conscious of itself, to a psyche which is extremely
conscious of its own Self. I could see the difference and personally
verify that even if they are rare, still there exist some people
whose psyche approaches perfection; this fact of traditional
psychology corresponds to a reality, an important reality, though at
times discreet in its manifestation. Considering itself as a science,
psychiatry keeps a radical distinction between the subject-doctor and
the patient-object, and this is its limitation.

One could ask me, after these years in India, what limitations I have
found in the practice of meditation. I could answer that a definition
of meditation could be: "to sit and to accept one's limitations here
and now", which is a concrete means by which to transcend them.
Dogen, a XIIIth century Zen Master, said: "By accepting one's own
limits, one becomes without limits". This is an advice to be
meditated upon, even if one feels that one's capacities for
meditation are limited...

Another thing which attracted me at the same time towards authentic
gurus is that they refuse to be pigeon-holed into small conceptual
boxes. Generation after generation they have eluded the systematic
attempts of philosophers and pandits (traditional learned people) to
explain them, and they still elude today in the same way the attempts
of armies of psychologists encircling them with their batteries of
tests and bombarding them with psychopathological labels... They
reaffirm, in this way, the supremacy of experience, of life, over
concepts; these could be compared to a number of coffins gathered
together in these great cemeteries called systems.

The psychological pattern, or archetype of the one who helps is
present in every individual psyche, as well as in every culture. It
has been specially developed in Hinduism. For the Hindu, to say that
the Guru is God is not shocking. God is present, visible everywhere
in nature, in animals, in human beings: the Guru is but the one in
whom God is the most visible. If the Guru no longer has any ego, he
becomes totally divine. If one watches carefully what this concretely
represents, one will see there is no fundamental difference between
this and the Christian tradition, where the disciple is adviced to
see Christ in his spiritual father.

In Hinduism everyone has his own guru, from human beings to gods and
demons; the guru of the demons is called Sukra in the Purana
(medieval religious texts),-and Sukra is the planet Venus, while
Brihaspati, or the planet Jupiter, is the guru of the gods. The
Sadguru is the model of the perfect human being, he is the archetype
of archetypes. He attained that transparency at which everybody
aims, "like the crystal pillar under the midday sun which does not
project any shadow."

It is not easy to speak about the relationship between Master and
disciple to those who do not have any experience of it, who perhaps
do not even know the possibility of its very existence. It is
something like accompanying someone born deaf to a concert, but if
one could make him aware that there is a full field of perceptions
that he has not explored, one would not have lost one's time.

I discussed my method of work at the beginning of the
section "Meeting and reflections" (Part II, chapter 1). When we are
in a religious milieu in India, one has to take into account the
deformation of facts due to the devotees' greediness for miracles or
the gurus' possible megalomania. For this reason it is very important
to examine whether or not a guru has a tendency to lie in everyday
life; because if he lies for small things in practical life, there is
no guarantee at all about his sincerity when he speaks about his
spiritual experiences which belong to a blurred, intimate and
unverifiable domain. It is because of this that I mistrust the "path
of the trickster" where the Master is not bound by this respect for
truth. A relationship grounded on such foundations does not seem to
me to be any more firm than a house built on shifting sands.

Common people have always doubted that some beings may approach
mental perfection. This book can help to clear this doubt, in the
same way in the Middle Ages, Ibn Arabi wrote The Sufis of Andalusia
in order to show to the "depressed" people of his time that one could
still find Sufis worth that name in that period. This doubt,
labelled "lucidity" by some who want to comfort themselves, will
appear from the yogi's perspective to be the rationalisation of a
chronic depressive tendency. Every tradition has developped its model
of the "perfect man": al Insan al Kamil in Sufism, jivan-mukta or
the "liberated in life" in Hinduism, bodhisattva or arhat in
Buddhism, saint in Christianity, tzaddik in Judaism, especially in
Hassidism. All these terms name the person who has ceased to identify
himself with his ego, without, however, losing his capacity to
function in normal life. He has to be differentiated from the
Nietzschian super-man who has intensified and enlarged his ego and
therefore feels himself authorised to better crush the others: the
deviations to which such conceptions could lead are well known. If
the ordinary person strengthens his ego by wishing to universalise it
without purifying it, he strongly risks becoming a kind of "cosmic
gorilla" rather than an accomplished human being.

Since Alexander the Great, who loved to dispute with the yogis of his
time-the gymnosophists of Bactrian-Indian wisdom has interested the
West inasmuch as it was known, from the end of eighteenth century.
Hegel discussed the Upanishads in his courses of philosophy,
Schopenhauer recognised his debt toward Indian thought, Victor Hugo
read the Vedas and draw an inspiration from them for his
masterwork "La légende des siècles". More recently Mircea Eliade did
not hesitate to follow the practical teachings of Shivananda at
Rishikesh for some time, and the number of Western intellectuals who
have benefitted from India has largely increased since the end of the
last World War.

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