Chapter from EARTH SCHOOL, A Fresh Perspective on the Human Condition
by Moriah Marston, www.transformationaltimes.com
Why is everyone so down? Our use of anti-depressants is sky-rocketing. We think nothing of taking all kinds of “medication” for our chronic blues. We give it to our children like candy. Is this collective depression so contagious that even our children have lost their innocent joy? When depressed, we automatically assume that we need to get a prescription, as if anti-depressants were vitamin pills that provide essential nutrition for the soul. What did we do before medication became the “solution” to our problems?
Theoretically, anti-depressants put us back in balance. But they also exact a price for this chemical adjustment to the soul. They flat line our passions, and sexuality into a “manageable” reality. Supposedly, this “balancing” provides us a stable platform on which to do our inner work. However, many of us simply go from one anti-depressant to another without responding to the need of the unconscious for deep exploration. It’s easier for many professionals to simply prescribe medication rather than accompany their clients through the underworld of depression and out the other side.
Admittedly, some people who have crippling chemical imbalances really benefit from medication. But too many of us are throwing our hands up in the air in resignation that we are victims of depression and must submit to the side effects of the all-mighty drugs. Advertising and the media constantly reminds us that we can’t handle our psychic pain on our own—we need pharmaceuticals. Just take a pill and all your problems will vanish.
Only now are we beginning to see some of the harmful effects from these drugs. In the long run, what price will we have to pay for taking the edge off a process that is designed specifically to call attention to the soul? At best, anti-depressants are useful as temporary scaffolding, allowing the psyche to stabilize itself in order to begin the labor of deep inner healing, not for long-term dependency.
Regardless, we are becoming a society steeped in deep depression. What is the Divine function of this plague of blues that has swept throughout our land? Depression is not a disease, although it may be viewed as pathology. It is really a powerful energetic in the psyche designed to create a downward vortex that pulls us into ourselves, freeing up imprisoned aspects of the soul, releasing buried emotions, discovering hidden resources and embracing our inner child. Most of us experience depression at some point in our lives with symptoms of despair, lethargy, immobilization, numbness, hopelessness. Depression also expresses itself through pent-up restlessness; we pace our inner prisons like caged animals.
Yet depression contains a spiritual message—information encoded in our unconscious. What is our psyche trying to tell us? We must be detectives to follow the clues within the depression that lead us to the buried treasure at the nadir of this downward vortex.
I’m certainly not immune to depression. It has persisted since childhood. When I find myself repeatedly sighing out loud, I can feel depression pushing itself up against my efforts to deny it. When I wake up with a leaden heart, depression has infiltrated my dream world. If my body feels heavy, I know that my cells are releasing hidden pockets of depression. When I can’t remember my life’s purpose or meaning, when my inner vision seems blocked, depression has caught me by the coat-tails, broadcasting thoughts of “why bother.”
When I feel nothing but self-contempt, my depression is in full swing. When I find myself aimlessly contemplating how much I “want off” this plane, my depression is in full command.
My mother’s depression led to her suicide when I was three years old. Depression can be genetic—passed down through our karmic lineage as we reincarnate with the same souls over and over again. My mother’s death inspired my psychological work with people—a desire to open the Window of Light and Possibility to all who sit languishing in dark rooms of gloom.
Wrestling with depression, I’ve discovered that it “cooks” me for a precise amount of time and then spits me out from its bottomless darkness into a sun-drenched room in my psyche that has been just waiting for me to emerge into the light. Even as the depression walls close in, a small inner spark reminds me that there is a profound purpose to this process, as I am put in touch with pockets of pain, trauma and emptiness that my soul has carried for centuries. As I find the courage to touch these deep places with self-love and patience, the depression ceases its dark howling and the winds of despair dissipate.
I’ve learned to trust my depression. A vehicle for penetrating travel into self, it opens inner doors that appear to go nowhere but actually lead to great soul riches. I experience a profound lucidity when emerging from a depression cycle. This hard-earned insight and clarity come from the willingness to excavate the soul from its hidden dungeon of anguish. Simply my loving presence (along with the help of the Tibetan and other Divine resources) melts the veils that substantiate my despair. Depression is nothing more than denied imprisoned aspects of self that carry “life sentences”—with no hope for parole.
Depression is our way of saying NO to ourselves at the deepest level. This NO is the ultimate form of self-negation. When we believe that we are living in a loveless universe, we assume that the NO is a cosmic mandate. This generates great shame that our own Source would disown us. Contrite, we modify and debase ourselves by crawling into the depression pit to wait out our cosmic adjudication in divine disgrace.
We can’t run from our depression. It chases us everywhere. Depression is a spiritual crisis. The Depression Wall blockades our connection to the Great Flow that contains our essential birthright of possibility. The soul may sit behind that wall for lifetimes as the illusion of being cut off from divine support entrenches itself. We assume that there is nothing that awaits us that could possibly make any difference in our lives. The soul, determined to be liberated, waits for the inner landscape of bleak despair to break apart. Eventually, the Depression Wall crumbles. Until then, we can’t bypass this lifetime’s soul issues. No matter how painful, we have to surrender to depression’s alchemical effect on our psyches, trusting that we won’t have to endure its crushing strangulation of the soul forever. When locked in the depression box, energy heats up, spiking this level of darkness to a pitch that drives us to rediscover our Source.
The Tibetan, apparently impervious to depression, walks toward me singing songs of delight. He teaches:
“Humankind feels out of control as the disintegration of the old paradigm yields to the New Cosmic Day. This breakdown process stimulates feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. Humankind believes it can’t make a difference in the face of this onslaught of negative energy, which stimulates karmic memories of all past-life traumas endured with apparently no help from the higher planes. The perceived abandonment caused humankind to contract into a consciousness of icy separation, which lowered its “ceiling” (blocked crown chakra). Continuing to bump their heads against that lowered ceiling, humankind dared not stand up straight and reach for the stars.
“Over lifetimes, the bent-over gesture in the soul breaks down one’s innate alignment with the Divine and produces a profound sense of self-diminishment, because the Higher Self feels inaccessible. This generates a powerful matrix of despair that blinds the soul to the Joystream that sustains all beings. Depression roots its tendrils in the blindness. One’s current depression is the result of a long-standing depression for lifetimes. It’s time to stop this karmic legacy. Journey through the barren terrain like torch-bearing pioneers who know, deep in their hearts, that a lush, colorful world awaits them just beyond the veil.
“After much work, many students may be depression-free for months or years, only to have it return. Fearing failure, they may succumb to its obstinate message of woe—certain that there is no place to go, nothing to be done, no opportunity to pursue. Ironically, this subsequent layer of depression indicates that finally the student is accessing/ releasing even deeper soul blockages. Lifetimes of depression are surfacing to full consciousness for transmutation.
“How does one walk through the corridors of despair and not be seduced by this spiritual crisis? Depression ultimately convinces one that life is not worth living—an inversion of the spiritual force field that mandates earthly life, feeds the spirit, and applauds the boundless potential of human existence. The formidability of this inverted force field is daunting to the ego/ personality, especially as it activates all previous soul memories of disconnecting emptiness.
“When depression clamps the soul, self is right up against the portal of entry to a greater consciousness—as the vortex drives self deep inside to touch the most impenetrable inner stockades. The lowered ceiling keeps dropping to push the student to the subterranean level, where unworthiness and self-blame are housed. Depression is a useful tool for surrender. The ego’s attempt to battle it ultimately fails.
“The students MUST ask for HELP from the spiritual plane when confronting the magnetic vortex of their depression. They need enhanced light to tether themselves to the corrected force field that says YES to their being at ALL times. Please ask the Higher Self, Masters, Angelic Force, and Source Itself to be energetically LIFTED up above these darkened waters of pessimism without blocking off self’s much-needed healing interaction with these karmic wounds. It truly is “darkest before dawn.” Widespread depression is the final vortex of the separation illusion—the prelude to the dawning of the New Age. It is the last membrane of isolation or lovelessness before the soul bursts forth in full recognition of its rightful place in the Universe.
“Depression leads the students to the collective core wound of separation. Like an express train into the dark, depression relentlessly clutches self until it has reached is miserable destination—a wasteland in the collective consciousness, where all beings feel exiled from their Creator. This presents the opportunity and challenge to realize the illusion of this imprisoning exile. As more students see beyond the veil, the collective Depression Wall crumbles. At this momentous time in human history, the Divine Mandate of collective awakening requires all of humankind to pierce the shroud of separation/ lovelessness and touch its true Essence.
“As students openly share their experience of depression, they commune with each other, not in misery, but in mutual realization that depression is nothing more than an agreed-upon decision to lock self up in a deep, dark inner vault, and throw away the key. Ironically, it is impossible to throw away the key because self’s conscious awareness IS the key. Simply the intent to find that vault and BELIEVE that it can be opened, freeing all exiled parts of self with the help of the spiritual plane, immediately softens depression’s steely climate. Then the journey inward through this darkened corridor, while formidable, is not torturous punishment but rather a mysterious search for the cosmic clues that uncover the gems banked within the banned parts of the soul. Once reclaimed, the soul rejoices and depression is truly a thing of the past.
“Chronic depression is an intense attachment to non-movement. Many students in previous lives responded to their illusion of disconnect by deciding to sit tight and wait it out—spending centuries awaiting Source’s permission to emerge. But depression’s persistence is the affirming genius within. It knows that if students continue to bump up against this bleak vortex, they will eventually dare to touch its acute pain with loving inquiry. Then the giant bugaboo of soul sickness will recede through the healing touch of cherished connectedness with self, others and the Universe.
“Don’t wait behind the Depression Wall. Accept the insistency of self’s depression as a cosmic mandate to push forward into one’s inner recesses to retrieve the soul’s full essence. Though it may appear to be counter-intuitive, the willingness to move toward self’s depression with open-heartedness melts despair. Don’t push past depression. Rather, release undue attachment to external life to allow deep inward travel. This intention alone alleviates some of the depression. To avoid facing one’s depression prolongs the ride on the karmic wheel of suffering. The inescapable dominion of the soul’s glory insists that all blocks to its shining brilliance be dismantled.
‘Inevitably, humankind will be liberated from depression as it remembers its spiritual essence. As more students create shared rituals for the soul’s passages/ initiations, depression’s greatest weapon—isolation—is rendered impotent.
“Shine the light for each other! Encourage this process of welcoming back exiled parts of self to the Whole, just as Source welcomes Its children back with joyous embrace. As more students heal their depression, others will boldly defy the collective false beliefs of futility and despair. Accompany others into their dark pits of separation to remind them that disconnect is impossible. Then the collective negativity will break apart like the great arctic ice, allowing the waters of Cosmic Consciousness to flow freely, washing away all vestiges of depression into a titanic waterfall of Boundless Possibility and Joy!’
About the Author
Founder of the School of the Golden Discs, Moriah has been a channel for Djwhal Khul since 1986. As a soul mentor, Moriah includes astrology, dream analysis and past life integration in the intuitive work as a mid-wife to the soul alignment process. Moriah has a private practice in Shelburne Falls, MA and specializes in phone sessions.
Click here to visit her site!
Copyright©2006, School of the Golden Discs
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