Sadness and Spirit
Monday, May 1st, 2006I’ve been experiencing some sadness and depression these past weeks. A young friend told me that this upsets her. Why are you still struggling with the same sorts of day-to-day problems I struggle with? She asked me.
Whew. This is a big question. And if we are not busy sugar-coating our lives and the lives of our teachers with god realm projections, it’s a question we all ask.
A few considerations:
First, self-realization does not equal relentless happiness. Feelings of pain and sorrow are part of the full palette of human life. Our relationship to these feelings changes as we relax, but life still displays itself through us in all of its colors.
Second, as long as we are here, we are still conditioned. Everyone harbors some tensions. As a friend says humorously: We are neurotic right up until the nanosecond before we become enlightened. The life process is just that: a process.
Third, spiritual growth requires loss. No way around this. When we fully let go of tensions, while we will definitely enjoy the freshness of life in that state of relaxation, we will still grieve our “old self.” We will mourn our attachments to people, places, habits, and most of all, to the concepts that maintained our self-definitions, constructed sense of purpose, and beliefs.
When we are not fully letting go, we experience depression. Depression is more sticky than honest, rip roaring sadness. So depression that arises in the context of spiritual growth means that the new is arriving, but we haven’t yet relaxed enough to fully embody it.
The loss we experience as a result of growth must happen naturally. We cannot bargain with the world by forcefully giving things up in exchange for liberation. This is false asceticism, and it leads to more tension, and ultimately to exhaustion.
While we cannot make deals, we should not be lazy, either. The world tells us when it is time to let go of the old, or simply takes it away at the proper time. (Usually it tells us first, and then takes it away if we don’t follow through on our own!) We must listen very carefully, follow the hints, and then work to relax into the new circumstance, which is bound to be somewhat scary and upsetting at first.
As more dogmas and fixations dissolve, or are ripped away, periods of destabilization and futile grasping for new ground are inevitable. While it seems paradoxical, if we can make the effort to relax at just these times and let everything unwind as it will without interference, we can enter into the experience of the natural, groundless state and discover the real meaning of refuge.
The process of consciously working to relax and live in natural presence is not a linear path. We keep revisiting the different manifestations of our tensions as we go, although we may experience them differently than we did at some earlier point. We should also try to recognize and relax our frustration with this process. That’s life. And Tantra is all about life, just as it is.
OM Shanti,
Shambhavi
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