An edited conversation with a friend:
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Question from a friend: I wanted to ask you, on how to deal with depression, my brother is abroad and i’m here alone, and i feel depression for no reason at all !!

Reply: What do you mean by depression?
Emotions are bodily sensations with a me-story. They are neutral sensations with an I-thought. The I-thought keeps feeding the feeling and maintains the emotion. Thought and feelings form a feedback loop. This feedback loop gives the impression that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Just a dark tunnel.
Friend: I mean, i feel bad, and unhappy with what’s going on. I know i have no real reason why I feel like that! my circumstances have alwyas been miserable and somehow i love life
Reply: Resistance is an impression that results from the I-thought. It is choosing unhappiness. Why choose unhappiness?
Friend: No i am happy the whole day, but at night, something kicks in
and i feel bad, just like that. Out of nowhere. I feel actually very good the whole day, but when i am alone at night there is a feeling of sadness in me
Reply: When it happens, do not feed it
Friend: Yes I try my best to not feed it. Sometimes, it works. But i would like to know why is this happening?
Reply: Go back to the awareness. Back to the aware presence that does not have any personal desires.
It happens because the separate self impression is not completely dead. There is still a me-impression. That is the impression of suffering.
Friend: Yes that’s what i do. I keep silent and i watch thoughts come and go without being fascinated by them. Yet, often i can’t keep up, and i get lost in the thoughts. What do you mean the separate self impression is not completely dead ?
Reply: Win or lose, continue to apply yourself in remaining the indifferent witness. Remain as the undisturbed awareness. Benevolent awareness.
The self impression that remains in your body at the feeling level gets triggered by thought and by circumstances. Thus you feel the misery of the illusion of separation as emotion.
Friend: Yes i want to do that, but how to be indiferrent when sometimes things are tough? One cannot just be indifferent about them.
Reply: Do not set limits on yourself. You can remain as the witness and contemplate the miracle of awareness. That is your Sadana. Your spiritual practice, so to speak.
Your success at your sadana will be infinitely rewarded.
Friend: Ahh my spiritual practice is to try my best to be indifferent ?
Reply: It is not a passive indifference. It is a contemplative indifference. A benevolent witnessing indifference. Unmoved presence that recognizes the hand of God and allows God to appear as she wishes.
Friend: Ahh, like surrendering to God
Reply: Yes, that is a good surrendering. It is the path of love. Usually, in ignorance we surrender to thought, to the personal mind. That is suffering.
Friend: I see. So one should surrender to what exactly ?
Reply: To presence
To awareness
It means NOT TO follow the I-thought. NOT TO follow the me and him, me and her, me and my country, me and others…. me/me/me…. Not to follow the path of the personal self thought.
Friend: Yes, I can understand. Still how can one function if there was no “Me”?
Reply: You can function without your night dreams, can’t you?
You dream a world, body mind. The world, body mind function like the tide of the ocean, like the sun functions, like the birds function, like the galaxies function….
The body mind is an instrument and it functions according to its capacities and principles that guide it. It does not need a you to run it.
You DONT even grow your own nails, you DO NOT even make your blood flow…
Friend: Yes, that’s what’s amazing! A whole universe is inside this body and i’m aware of nothing really. Everything happens by itself, i can see that.
And there is a feeling of “me” a little “me” doing it all. Even reading is so complicated actually, but we do it easily!! who does it i don’t know.
Reply: Doing and non-doing are thought, mind impressions.
Friend: Yes i just got a glimpse of what that means. Thoughts are happening and the “Me” is attaching itself to those thoughts as if it was to believe that it is the “Me” that’s producing them.
Reply: Yes. The “Me” is thought. The I-thought.
Thought says: I (as a separate self, a body mind identity) is producing these thoughts. A thought inside a thought, so to speak.
Friend: I understand! That makes so much sense.
Reply: Awareness does not say anything. It is pure freedom.
Presence without any limitations
Friend: What does the real “I” the one i feel ‘i am’ , what is it doing? Yes there is just presence, thoughts and everything appears inside that space.
Reply: The real “I”, the Self is beyond doing/non-doing.
There is One reality, infinite, borderless.
Eternal
Peace and happiness. Freedom
Friend: Yes, and it makes no sense to say how would i find it, it’s here all the time, changeless. It is always , here and now.
Reply: Indeed. How can you find yourself since you ARE yourself? Does ice need to find water?
Friend: Hahhh! Yes I am myself and i don’t need to find it.
Thank you, i will contemplate that! I am always myself and i’ve never been somewhere else.
I had also a glimpse that there is no other, everything is just Me! Only the names changes. Identification also.
Ok thank you again. Love

 

Photo by Sasa Gyoker