During the 1950’s and 1960’s, Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati offered detailed written guidance to promising young disciples. Some of these letters have been preserved and published in two wonderful little books from the Bihar School of Yoga. Both Steps to Yoga & Yoga Initiation Papers and Taming the Kundalini can be found by searching online used book sellers. These two books of advice to disciples on the yogic path greatly inspired me, and continue to inspire.

Viswaprem was a young woman–a yogini in training. At some point during her sadhana, she experienced depression. This is common, if not universal. We have so many attachments and concepts about ourselves and spiritual life, and we have strong desires for recognition.

Many people with determination and capacity for sadhana are, for some time, driven by the desire to be Great. A Great Yogini, or whatever. All of these attachments, concepts, and desires must be dropped or ripped away.

If you think of the word “depression,” it means a dip or low point. It also relates to the concept of depressurization. We puff ourselves up with grandiose ideas. Or, similarly, we create puffed-up dramas of our own debasement. We fortify our ego with all kinds of expectations and projections. Then, our Guru and our sadhana come along like a big, sharp golden nail to pierce our egos and let the air out.

Woosh! Suddenly, we are in the dumps. Depression brought about in the course of steady spiritual practice can be a sign that some ego fixations have been punctured. We have come down from our lofty, dramatic heights, but we are not yet quite ready to meet and greet Reality with open arms. Depression, in this case, fills a kind of emptiness that has not yet been recognized as the setting for real growth. Old patterns are on the way out, and the new has not yet arrived. The ego throws a depression “fit” to fill the vacuum.

It is at precisely this point, when Viswaprem has confessed her depression to her Guru, that Paramahamsaji says:

Please take care of your mind and health. . . Constant work and mental engagement keep the inner instruments in order. . . Meditation opens the gate.

When we are depressed, we often want to curl up and turn our back on the world. But for the practitioner, this is the time to show your true courage and commitment by working directly with the qualities of this interim state through health cultivation, conscious engagement with the world, and meditation.

Notice that taking care of health comes before meditation. Our doshas, or the expression of the five elements as our bodies, have a lot to do with exactly how depression manifests in us. We can influence depression by adjusting our daily routine (dinacharya), our yoga or other activity, and our diet. Consult an ayurvedic doctor for dietary advice and be sure that any yoga routine you are doing is recommended for your constitution.

Then, Paramahamsaji suggests staying engaged with work, and with friends, I might add. You must be sneaky. Feed yourself what is most similar to Realization–a feeling of belonging and connection–rather than reinforcing the feeling of darkness and ignorance, or separation. Finally, he writes “meditation opens the gates.” What gates? Depression is like the ego’s last stand. Depression is actually a gate thrown up by the ego in a desperate attempt to make you feel so hopelessly blocked, you’ll run scared back to your old puffed up self.

Meditation opens the gates to a new level of equanimity and awareness. It cools pitta depression by “cooling down” the compulsion to achieve. It nourishes vata depression by smoothing and soothing the tissues, the prana, and the mind. It brings clarity and spaciousness to the heavy, fogginess of kapha depression.

At the same time, by discovering more clarity through meditation and changes to our daily life activities, we can recognize depression as just another pattern. We do not have to identify with it. We do not have to violently push it away or give in with a shrug. We can have a more experimental, practical approach. We can just work with our real situation.

It takes courage and confidence to change daily habits and meditate in the face of depression. The depression represents our old, entrenched habit patterns, and meditation is the new pattern. It’s like trying to get your car out of a rut. It takes effort at first, and ingenuity. You have to call for help from friends, i.e., your Guru and your community. But once you get going, the ride becomes smooth and free. You are back on the road again!

From where do we derive the confidence we need to work with difficult times in our lives as practitioners?

Paramhamsaji says:

What do you mean by problems? You are the clue to all problems. Every problem will be solved by you alone. God is always in thee to guide you.

When we open our channels through proper diet, daily routine, exercise, and sadhana, we hear the voice of wisdom more clearly. Every so-called problem is solved in this same way. We develop clarity and a tolerance for emptiness, or openness. Confidence is nothing other than our innate understanding that we are God. This understanding can only be covered up more or less, it can never be absolutely silenced. Those who discover confidence in the face of difficulty, are discovering a little bit of Realization.

Until the time arrives when we can hear God clearly, speaking to us through the communicative medium of the entire world, we can apply for assistance to Guru. Guru is our help meet and our spiritual friend. She or He is none other than the manifested form of our own innate Godliness or wisdom. This is why Paramahamsaji also says:

Offer your restlessness, unquiet, etc., to me.

We can pour out our depression as an offering at the feet of our Guru, or our Ishta Devata. Done with sincerity, we will receive back a benediction of greater Self-recognition.

In Matriseva,
Shambhavi

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