Rhapsody in Blue
The Joys of Spiritual Depression
The ultimate contradiction in terms?
If you’re one of the many thousands of regular visitors to the Points of Power site you may be more than a little surprised at the subtitle of this new discourse – The Joys of Spiritual Depression. After all our New Energy teaching material over the years on the very real trials and tribulations of the spiritual awakening process – the quintessential ‘dark night of the soul’, you may well be wondering how we can now have a complete change of heart and say that the process can actually be, of all things, joyful. Are we finally beginning to contradict ourselves?
No, not really. Depression, or more correctly spiritual depression, is still very much intrinsic to the awakening or ascension process. It is really not possible to change from one reality system to another, to go through a true and complete and indeed unprecedented spiritual transformation from a duality-based human to a New Energy Divine human, without experiencing at least some of the now infamous ‘awakening symptoms’… and especially spiritual depression.
Okay, so if we can’t have a true and complete transformation without periods of depression, and depression and joy are by their very nature polar opposites, how can we possibly have ‘Joys of Spiritual Depression’?
Ah, we’ll tell you that in a moment. But first, why does spiritual depression exist in the first place? Why should we get depressed at all when we’re on the grandest and most sacred path of all – the path to true enlightenment and divinity? After all isn’t the spiritual path by its very nature supposed to be all super-blissful? Aren’t we supposed to be just too blissed-out to even think about depression?
Yes, well…
There are two primary reasons for spiritual depression, and no doubt a few minor ones. The first primary reason is because the spiritual awakening process is in every sense of the word a true and total metamorphosis – the death of the old self to give birth to a new self… in this case the death of our eon-old duality self along with all our beliefs and stories from all of our many lifetimes in order to give birth to our true Divine Self. It is literally ‘dying’ while at the same time remaining ‘alive’ in our physical body.
Obviously this is an extremely difficult thing to do and certainly unlike anything we have ever experienced before. It is also not something that happens overnight. There is a lengthy transitional period between the death of the old and the completion of the new where we are literally in a very strange and highly uncomfortable ‘no man’s land’ without any signposts, maps or security systems – or at least any that work. As we’ve said before on our Hints for Transition page, this is a time where it’s easy for us to feel completely lost, extremely vulnerable, very confused and so very alone. This is where we can feel completely overwhelmed, utterly passionless and totally disconnected from everything including our own Spirit… and consequently pass into a place of blackness and depression without a sense of hope.
The second primary reason for spiritual depression is all to do with our personal expectations, our expectations of what we believe a real and complete transformation is supposed to be or should be. We’ve used the archetypal caterpillar/butterfly analogy again as an illustration of what most of us humans would really like to be and indeed what most of us would expect a major change to result in… all courtesy of our old duality-based schooling from our benighted duality-based pedagogues…
What most of us humans would really like to be is a bigger, richer,
more powerful and more successful caterpillar… a sort of super-larva.
No immense, strange, difficult and frightening metamorphic process –
no going through the fires of transformation,
just a healthier, happier, prettier, smarter, richer and altogether more successful
(and hopefully more enlightened and fully healed)
version of who we presently are… or think we are.
Well, unfortunately…
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Yes unfortunately indeed, for it’s these very expectations of becoming a super-larva or super successful super-human… or for dedicated New Age disciples of becoming a super-psychic human that can quickly lead us into depression. As we slowly but very surely come to realize, usually the hard way, true spiritual awakening and transformation have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with duality’s old energy models of success – a prettier, slimmer, smarter, richer etc. version of our old self, or the popular New Age idea that spiritual awakening and transformation is all about becoming a famous channel or psychic.
Indeed, true transformation has got absolutely nothing to do with either of these. True transformation is about becoming something entirely different and infinitely grander – a fully awakened New Energy Divine Human. Depression sets in because we keep holding on desperately to the old energy models of success that, ironically, not only don’t apply to us or work for us any longer (if indeed they ever did), but as they’re all duality-based are nothing more than pure illusion anyway. Remember, duality is the land of illusion.
And illusion brings us back to our subtitle, The Joys of Spiritual Depression… which doesn’t mean that spiritual depression is necessarily a whole load of fun. It means that spiritual depression, the symptomatic blues experienced exclusively by awakening humans is ultimately an illusion… because ultimately there is only love, all encompassing love, and as true joy is but love in expression, joy cannot have an opposite, depression or anything else. There cannot be an opposite of something if that something is all that exists.
Okay, that’s insightful, but it does raise a few questions… like how is it possible to be happy with the ending of a love relationship, if your lover forsakes you for instance? And what if we’re desperately lonely and can’t ever seem to find a lover at all? How could we possibly be happy if our whole financial world collapsed? How could any mentally sound person be happy in any of these circumstances?
It would be quite safe to say that they wouldn’t be happy, unless of course they were mentally unsound. But for those on the spiritual awakening/enlightenment path they could indeed be joyful because joy and happiness are not one and the same. Unlike the human emotion of happiness which is really all to do with outside circumstances – fun, play, merriment, amusement and the pleasure, sensual and otherwise of doing things and having things (and always more and more bigger and better things), joy is actually an inner spiritual attribute, a state of heightened spiritual awareness, true oneness, compassion, empathy, understanding and love.
Right, but there’s still one thing from ‘outside’ that does affect us… the prevailing New Energies, or Source energies as some choose to call them. These really can have a huge impact on us at times can they not?
They can indeed, and when intense enough can have us flat on our back in a state of complete exhaustion… and yes, often in a state of seeming depression. But again, all is love and love is all that exists, and love and joy are inseparable. There is no other and there can be no other.
Everything but love and joy is ultimately an illusion… including the spiritual blues. As the New Energy maxim testifies… “Things are not always as they seem.” Indeed, things are not always as they seem or what they appear to be because there is always something very, very different happening below the surface illusion… something very REAL and very GRAND.
So the big question is… are we now able to have a spiritual awakening without spiritual depression, or rather the illusion of spiritual depression? Well, I (Allen) certainly couldn’t. Like all New Energy forerunners or First Wavers I’ve been through the very darkest of the dark, to the very lowest of the low and to the very depths of despair… and more than just the once.
But of course… I didn’t know back then what I know now.
But you do.
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“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. “He who despairs is wrong.” |
Questions & Answers
Q. Does spiritual depression have anything to do with karmic debt?
A. No, nothing whatsoever.
Q. You say that besides the two major reasons for spiritual depression there are also a few minor reasons. Would you give me an example of a minor one?
A. The major and minor reasons for spiritual depression are never totally unconnected. However, an example of a minor one would be projecting into the future with all the ‘what if’ fear-based scenarios such as ‘what if nothing ever changes’.
Q. What’s your view on using some form of medication to help us cope with depression?
A. Firstly I should say that I am not against the use of medication per se. In certain disorders such as schizophrenia for example, antipsychotic medications can be enormously helpful, in fact unquestionably so. However, drugs of any kind should be the very last thing that anyone on the spiritual awakening path should consider. It’s important to understand that it’s not the mind or indeed any kind of disorder of the mind that causes spiritual depression. Spiritual transformation is a natural energetic process, or consciousness and energy process, and while the use of drugs and medication might be very tempting in difficult times, they end up creating an energy imbalance that ultimately hinders rather than helps. Trust me, you do not need drugs.
Q. Do you think psychotherapy would be helpful for spiritual depression?
A. No I don’t. In fact I doubt very much if it’s all that much help for anything. Psychotherapy is basically the treatment of mental or nervous disorders by psychological methods (and duality-based at that), and spiritual awakening and transformation is absolutely and very obviously not a disorder – mental or otherwise. Spiritual depression is not a sign that something is going horribly wrong and needs fixing, or that there’s some sort of ‘problem’. To the contrary, it’s always a sign (like seeing the numbers 11:11 on digital clocks) that everything is going unmistakably right and that our grand journey of spiritual awakening is perfectly on track. And incidentally, wouldn’t having this perception and knowledge of what was REALLY happening cause us to feel just a little joyful… hint, hint.
Q. I’ve noticed that ‘spiritual depression’ on internet search engines turns up a lot of Christian websites with statements like ‘all sin leaves a scar and can lead to spiritual depression’ and ‘disobedience that is ignored will blossom into depression’ etc. Has this got anything to do with the spiritual depression that you’re talking about?
A. No it hasn’t. Suffice it to say that although religions use the term ‘spiritual depression’, religious humans are sleeping humans, not awakening humans. Though when you think about it, it’s not too difficult to understand why they use the term… sitting for hours on end on cold hard pews in musty old buildings listening to long boring sermons on sin and salvation would be enough to make anyone depressed.
Q. I love the title Rhapsody in Blue. How did that come about?
A. It’s one of my favourite pieces of music and one that I play often (and often not too wonderfully) on our digital stage piano at home…. yes, Gershwin’s original, and in parts tricky 30 page arrangement. I had planned to do an article on spiritual depression for some time but a fitting title always seemed to elude me. One day I sat down at the piano, opened up Rhapsody and it just came together in an instant.
Q. I totally agree with you that joy and happiness are not one and the same thing, but do you think we will ever bring them together as one? I mean, wouldn’t that be just the best thing ever?
A. It certainly would, and it’s certainly on the cards… but only for awakened humans.
Q. I’m in agreement with a lot of what you say except for the part about spiritual depression being some sort of an illusion. How for god’s sake can love be real, or even worse the ONLY thing that’s real, while everything else including spiritual depression is ostensibly unreal? I do believe you metaphysical people take altogether too many liberties with all this love stuff. You all talk as though love is the absolute be-all and end-all, the greatest thing in the universe since sliced bread. I can guarantee you that I’ve had a hell of a lot of experience with love, and in all my encounters it can be just as unreal as anything else.
A. Well there you go. Who am I to argue with a love expert.