The very word “Depression” in yogic terms refers to the opposite of “Expansion”. Yes, you heard it right! So what gets depressed or compressed? It’s our life force or the prana shakti, which gets compressed to a very minute level and most of the prana gets dissipated or expelled outside from the lower chakras. Depression also means an increase in tamo guna and a reduction of Sattva guna within us. You can read more about the Importance of Sattva Guna in a Sadhak’s life, in the previous article.
What happens when a Sadhak starts doing sadhana?
The very first thing is that the subconscious mind of the sadhak gets a tremendous stir due to the process of sadhana. Hence, many past memories of this life come to him as flashes and dreams. Initially, he is very excited when he finds he can remember many past events of his life from his very childhood and can see them clearly. But as he progresses, he suddenly finds himself in an awkward situation, where the immediate past memories of his life are trying to drag him back to materialistic life. Here starts the war in the mind between a spiritual lifestyle and the previous materialistic lifestyle. Then suddenly, many past bad memories come to the surface and give him very bad feelings. Suddenly he starts thinking – “Why am I depressed right now, for no reason?” It’s like the event of the churning of the milk ocean once done in the previous yugas between the devas and the asuras. To be mentioned, that the first outcome of the samudra manthan or the churning of the milk ocean was the Kalkut Vish or the deadly poison. The poison was so dangerous that it was almost killing the devas and the asuras. The churning was done with the optimistic intention to churn out the nectar from the milk ocean, but no one expected the arrival of the poison. Same goes with the sadhak, who starts his sadhana with great excitement but very soon finds himself in the most unfavorable place. Many stop the sadhana there and start cussing the merciful lord. But what to do, everyone has to go against their nature of samskaras and win the battle of life! If the inner samskaras are too bad, then the depression would be too bad. In such a case, the sadhak must continue his sadhana having full trust in his guru and ista dev, praying continuously to protect him from the situation. Some lose faith completely from this process and their paths deviate. Some even change their guru, losing faith in him. It is the nature of the Sadguru Sadhana – “First there is Bhog, then the actual Yoga starts, after the clearing of major karmas”. Sadguru even says, “Whoever aspires to be with me, I destroy him completely. But again who sticks to be with me with full dedication, I become his servant of his servants”. You must have to understand what “destruction” means here. Destruction refers to the dissolution of the mind completely in the yogic texts. Unless the attachment from the world is not destroyed completely, how can the mind be dissolved? If the mind is not dissolved, how can one understand the nature of his soul? And unless one attains the soul, how can he attain his guru, ista, or Paramatma? How can the final goal of prema be attained? Hence the depression is actually a blessing, which removes all our karmas, all sins, all attachments, all desires from the material nature and finally gifts us the most well-treasured gift of Prema. During the manthan, when devas still didn’t stop the churning and asked Mahadev for help, Mahadev appeared as Nilkanatha Mahadev and drank the poison of churning. Finally, the devas got the nectar at the end of churning. Similarly, the sadhak who sticks to the end by taking complete shelter of his Shiva Guru attains the most treasured wealth!
The sadhak in the initial days finds himself alone, since no one is interested in learning about his path and continuing with him. What to say, even his parents get against his activities in most cases. Due to the regular conflict in mind between the previous lifestyle and the new one, he is always stressed. And many other obstacles keep coming to his path to stop his sadhana.
Obstacles in Sadhana
This Sadhan Marg of Sadguru, whatever the path, is full of obstacles and difficulties. Life doesn’t remain a bed of roses for the sadhak. It is the path of deadly fire. The sadhak literally has to fight against all odds and stick to the process. The entire nature gets against him when he starts progressing. We can say this as the great war between Ram and Ravana, Pandavas and Kauravas in Mahabharat or the battle of Durga Mata and Mahisasura. Scars and injuries would be there and the brave sadhak keeps them as his ornament, just like the scars are the signs of bravery for a warrior in his glorious war. Sadguru promises to liberate in a maximum of three births, and if the adhara is good, then in one birth only. If without Sadguru, the person might have to undergo millions of more lifetimes and still remain unliberated or even degrade himself, due to his samskaras. Then understand, how much karma one has to finish, if one desires to get liberated in a single birth. When Sadguru initiates someone, he destroys all Sanchita Karma at once, whatever remains is the Prarabdha and Agami Karma. Among this, even 1/3rd or sometimes more is suffered by the guru himself to give some relief to the disciple in his sadhana. Who is more merciful than this Sadguru? The diskha mantra is the samskara of the highest potency which creates the desire in the sadhak to liberate, altering all other samskaras of the desire to stay in this material life. This is the samskara which creates this world around us, our mind, our body, etc. If the samskara is over, then at once, the soul can be realized. More importantly, the devas and other beings also plan conspiracy against you to deviate you from the path. So everyone just becomes your enemy when you do sadhana under Sadguru. These are nothing but the big tests in your sadhana life. God expects that you pass all of them, and then only you will be accepted by him. The tests are nothing but the circumstances which show you whether you have actually cultivated this desire to be with God or not. You might have a strong desire to be with God, but still, some desires remain, which hold you to the material world. Hence by these tests, you get the practical idea about your situation. Sometimes the guru also behaves very badly with the disciple, to test his faith on him, and also to reduce his karma. When one progresses one step towards God, the God comes ten steps closer to his devotee. If God wants, he can at once bring you to his abode, but you won’t be able to suffer the tremendous torture that will come in this action. Hence gradually and slowly, karmas are being cleared off as per your capacity. Those who are great yogis, they even multiply their bodies by yogic siddhi and finish their karma as soon as possible. Advanced yogis know what karmas they have to face in their life and they face it with a happy mind. This material world is full of miseries if we are not situated in the soul. Only solace is in the shelter of God.
Hence our dear Gurudasji says in his song,
“Bhoy Prolobhan Pather Badhay, jao jodi thamiya
Antim Kale Kul Pavena Kandiya Kandiya”
“O the aspirant of liberation, if you stop your progress by this insignificant fears and greed, then you won’t find peace in the end and will end up crying and crying!”
Mounibaba used to say that in our body, the fight between Ram and Ravana is continuously taking place.
Nature of Depression
Every Sadhak might have his own experience of dealing with this. And an entire book can be written on this. But I’ll share the common symptoms. For very advanced sadhakas like Bijoy Krishna Goswami, Nigamananda, Ramkrishna, etc., they all attempted to end their life once, due to separation from God. It is their desperate call only, that God quickly unveiled himself to them. Also, there are other kinds of issues that Sadhaka faces when suddenly the body starts burning like anything due to clearing of samskaras from the innermost nadis within us. Many cry in pain due to this. Sometimes, the material life goes to a toss suddenly, where everything is going against us like career, relationships, finance, formal education, friendship, public image, etc. This is also very painful. Sometimes, it attacks us internally and people find a change in their personality, which lacks the previous energy, charm, and charisma. They get isolated and find it tough to interact with people outside. Sometimes people procrastinate a lot, find their energy always draining, always tired and sleepy, getting addicted to things like mobile, etc. Sometimes, their intelligence is also hampered, finding it tough to analyze situations, memory loss, lack of emotions, intense mood swings, irritated with people, escape tendency from situations, etc. Sometimes they confuse this with spiritual progress, which might not be true, since spiritual progress actually means a blissful nature all the time. Hence these are the downfall, which comes to the sadhak’s life. But these all should be worn as a badge of honor like the warrior is proud of his scars and injuries. Just see the life of Prahlad Maharaj and Dhruva Maharaj, how much difficulty they have suffered in their initial life of sadhana. Bijoy Krishna Goswami tells us that “Don’t worry! Serene days are waiting for you!” Once you are in the safe spot of Nirapada Bhumi, from where there is no risk of downfall, you are all good. Then you can do work for God as Niskama Karma Yogi, while staying in this mortal body. Nothing can touch your bliss inside, no matter what extreme circumstances you face externally.
Further nature can be explained that – when a sadhak takes some new initiative for his sadhana or guru or for the benefit of the greater mass, he is very excited initially, but then after a few days, he turns completely pessimistic about all these. And procrastinates heavily to do any such action, fearing many oppositions.
Astrological Understanding of Depression
You might be wondering why suddenly we are talking about astrology here. Astrology in the current times has been misused so many times by people that a perverted meaning has come out of it. But astrology, the Sanskrit meaning “Jyotish,” means “the science of jyoti or light” and hence it is very close to God, rishis, and all saints. The entire world is created by light; astrology is permeated in all atoms of this world. Without Jyotish, there is no creation. We will discuss this further in upcoming articles.
Astrologically, the moon represents the mind. Rahu and Ketu are two inner nodes of the moon, where Rahu signifies intense desire and Ketu represents the exact opposite, desirelessness. One leads us to material life and the other to spiritual life. Hence the influence of both is present in our mind. When the placement of Rahu and Ketu is weak along with the Moon, the mind will become unstable. There are factors from other planets as well affecting the moon, which can affect it badly, like the Sade Sati period, etc. But predominantly, it’s Rahu and Ketu that give rise to all depression in the Moon or the mind. Rahu and Ketu are the shadow planets responsible for eclipses, i.e., part of the Moon is grasped by them, meaning part of the mind is under them, hence the mind is depressed due to lack of prana. Now, what does eclipse mean in the case of our mind? It represents that the prana initially present for our spiritual development is now being heavily utilized in other depressing thoughts or funky desires. Hence, when the Moon is freed from the influence of Rahu and Ketu, it comes out of the eclipse. Astrologically, it’s heavily emphasized by the Rishis to do Shiva Puja, especially on Mondays, to remove any afflictions from the Moon. Lord Shiva is also known as ChandraShekhara, the lord of the moon. Hence offering water, milk, ghee, etc. to him on Monday gives us tremendous benefits. Furthermore, it is also very important for any sadhaka to do Shiva Linga Puja, since Shiva is Guru, and without the blessings of Shiva Guru, no one can protect us from the poison of churning. Those whose Rahu is badly positioned with respect to the Moon become very vulnerable to depression, evil eye, black magic, etc.
Guru Seva protects from all odds!
I just can’t explain how important and helpful this is on the sadhana marg for someone! No one can estimate what they can get by just the mere action of doing this. What sadhana can we do on our capability, unless the guru blesses us! If the mind is depressed and the body is unfit, what sadhana shakti can this human cage sustain? It is like filling water into a pot filled with holes. And actually it is true, in the initial stages, our aura gets so damaged and so many holes are present like the ozone hole and most of our sadhana energy is being stolen by entities around. But by doing Niskama Guru Seva (it can be anything – serving his physical body if he allows, doing work for him and his mission, writing books for him, doing kirtan in front of him, doing satsang for him, serving others seeing guru in them, etc.), tremendous bad karma is damaged, aura starts blossoming again, personality is restored, and one feels yogic kriya automatically starting in them. It is also very important to have the association of like-minded spiritual persons at such a stage.