Overcoming Depression with Meditation

By Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya

Modern America is a land of many interesting, and often painfully ironic, contradictions. On the
one hand, we supposedly enjoy more prosperity, longevity, comforts, and conveniences in the
United States than any other civilization has even dreamed of in previous history. Supposedly.

On the other hand, however, America is currently going through one of the biggest mental health
crises that any nation in history has ever experienced. Various forms of depression, anxiety
disorders and neuroses are affecting millions of Americans. Depressive disorders affect
approximately 25.8 million American adults, or about 9 % of the U.S. population age 18 and
older in any given year. For those cases of depression that are reported, many more remain
unreported, and thus unknown. This current mental health crisis includes such ailments as major
depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder.

What is especially disturbing is that depression is increasingly a common occurrence among the
nation's young, a demographic that should be enjoying the fun and carefree life usually
associated with childhood. Pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At
least four percent of preschoolers -- over a million! -- are considered clinically depressed. CNN
recently reported on a study that revealed that as many as 3 million teenagers contemplated
suicide in 2006. The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23%.

30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women,
but new estimates show that the actual figures are higher than at first suspected.

Depression will be the second largest killer after heart disease by 2020 -- and medical studies
have shown that depression is a contributory factor to fatal coronary disease.

Depression results in more absenteeism and loss of employment than almost any other physical
disorder, and costs employers more than US$51 billion per year in absenteeism and lost
productivity, not including high medical and pharmaceutical bills.

The treatment modalities often used in the attempt to combat depression are diverse and have
varied results. Some of these treatments include talk therapy and anti-depression medications.
Currently, several million Americans are on various anti-depressants, including Prozac, Lexapro,
and Amitriptyline. Many of these anti-depression medications have had only mixed results.

Antidepressants work for 35% to 45% of the depressed population, while more recent figures
suggest as low as 30%. Standard antidepressants, SSRIs such as Prozac, Paxil (Aropax) and
Zoloft, have recently been revealed to have serious risks, and are linked to suicide, violence,
psychosis, abnormal bleeding, and brain tumors.

Though most doctors advise a combination of therapy and antidepressants, cognitive behavioral
therapy (CBT) has an 80% relapse rate in the long term.

While medication and therapy can often take the edge off of the experience of depression, they
are far from successful in all instances. The only truly effective cure lies in going to the root of
depression. That root is ultimately spiritual in nature.

Depression is itself only a direct symptomatic manifestation of the radical secularization of

human society. Previous to secular modernity, depression was a much less prevalent
phenomenon. And when it was experienced, the reasons were more clearly environmental and
causal than they are now. In the past, depression was directly associated with a specific event or
occurrence in the person's life that directly caused the depression. Today, however, an increasing
number of depressed persons are experiencing more generalized depression, a type of general
existential angst, the exact cause of which it is difficult for them to pinpoint. Some of the leading
causes of depression today include a sense of meaninglessness; consuming and generalized fear;
spiritual crises, and the high degrees of stress and anxiety that has become accepted as normal in
modern, radically secularized, everyday life.

For younger people, especially, when asked why they are experiencing deep depression, many
youth will point to a complete sense of meaninglessness in their lives. The don't know why they
are here, what their purpose in life is, why they are bothering to learn and work hard, and why
our present-day, materialistic society is geared in such a way as to provide them with no real
answers to their quest for meaning. While pop culture, technology, and the youth scene serves as
a temporary outlet for many teens, more often than not it only serves to tremendously exacerbate
the problem of depression.

Secular modernity presents us with a social-philosophical construct that is artificial, anti-natural,

and ultimately destructive and unhealthy in nature. In our society, we have been deprived of the
age-tested, fundamental vehicles through which we can excel spiritually, intellectually, and
culturally. Spirituality and Dharma, which form the basis of all meaningful human growth and
progress, has been systematically and viciously erased from modern secular societies to such a
radical extent that hundreds of millions of persons worldwide are vividly feeling the ill effects of
a life devoid of meaning, value, nobility, goodness, heroism, and the quest for Truth.

The search for truth has been replaced in the lives of billions with the search for entertainment.

Rather than encouraging such spiritual values as courage, nobility, and heroism, the modern
world today encourages the coldly unsatisfying propaganda of radical egalitarianism. Rather than
encouraging the nurturing of the inner life of the spirit, and the natural joy, peace and fulfillment
that results from a healthy spiritually-centered life, today it is only selfish economic
advancement and the value of purchasing power that is advocated. Rather than a lifestyle of
mental, physical and spiritual health, today lifestyles of selfish hedonism, consumerism, greed,
fame, and lust are upheld as the ideal course of behavior, and the values toward which all should
aspire.

Dharma, the principle of living one's life in accordance with Natural Law and God's will in a
manner that is healthy, fulfilling, nurturing, and truly progressive, has now been replaced with an
artificial and life-denying lifestyle that only produces a profound sense of meaninglessness and
anxiety.

The ultimate cure for society's present crisis of depression and meaninglessness is to re-embrace
a life of meaning, a life of Dharma. Dharma, by its very definition, denotes the sustaining
foundation of all reality. Dharma is the concept that all that we experience in this world is based
upon a higher, spiritual reality that provides the ordering principles necessary for the proper
function of the world. To understand Dharma is to understand the world, and the natural laws
behind all things that make life a meaningful and beautiful expression of the Divine in spacial-
temporal reality. To know Dharma is to know life's ultimate meaning. And the way to fully know
Dharma is through the process of meditation.

For millennia, a spiritually based practice of meditation has been shown to be very effective in
combating such problems as stress, anxiety, fear, and feelings of meaninglessness. Because
meditation addresses the root causes of depression and anxiety, the time honored techniques of
meditation can be a much more effective cure for depression than either talk-therapy or
medication.

Meditation is a natural, easy and proven method that has been shown in hundreds of clinical
studies to bring about deep states of peace, calm and mental clarity. In addition, a specifically
spiritual regimen of daily meditation can help to foster a deep sense of meaning and spiritual
comfort.

Meditation has been shown to work on two distinct levels: a) the cognitive level, and b) the
spiritual level. On the cognitive level, meditation helps to bring about a deep equipoise and a
calming relief to one's overactive mind. Today, especially, the mind is constantly bombarded
with an unending stream of diverse information - some valuable, most useless. As a direct result
of such information bombardment, the mind is in an almost constant state of agitation and
confusion. Meditation serves to calm the mind, allowing our attention to shift from the storm of
external stimuli to the deep inner peace that is the natural state of the soul. As a consequence of
having a calm mind, we then find that we can think and make important decisions with much
more clarity, insight, and power. We are now able to process information in a way that serves us,
rather than merely being the victims of myriad sensory impressions and information overload.

On the more spiritual level, meditation has the ability to provide us with deep levels of self-
realization and God-realization that, up till now, may have seemed to be impossible attainments
to many of us. By meditating with the expressed goal of making spiritual progress, and knowing
God and self, we then traverse beyond the merely cognitive and mental, and begin to penetrate
the inner realms of eternal spirit. When we have self-realization, we now experience the
transcendent peace and calm that is the natural result of living in spirit. When we have God-
realization, we are now in communion with the very source of our being, the eternal, loving
Absolute who is our very best of friends, and greatest of well-wishers. In such a transcendent
state of spiritual attainment, no anxiety, stress, depression, or fear can ever burden our minds or
hearts again. For we have now, through the process of spiritual meditation, realized the infinite
well of spiritual peace that lies naturally within.
The root cause of most depression today, then, is the pervasive sense of meaninglessness that
naturally accompanies life in a radically secularized, materialistic society. The cure to such
existential meaninglessness is to partake profoundly in the spiritual nature of our true selves and
the spiritual foundations underlying our everyday concerns. The artificial construct of
materialism needs to be replaced with Dharma, and the natural lifestyle and spiritual way of
being that Dharma teaches us to embrace. The most effective way of accessing the spiritual
reality that is our true self, and thus to over-come the unnatural state of depression, is God-
centered meditation as taught in the ancient tradition of Sanatana Dharma.

For further information about overcoming depressing and learning to embrace happiness again
through meditation, please contact the International Sanatana Dharma Society:

www.dharmacentral.com

About the Author

Sri Dharma Pravartaka Acharya (Dr. Frank Morales, Ph.D.) has been practicing and teaching
Dharma for over 35 years. With a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he is the
Founder-Acharya of the International Sanatana Dharma Society and the Director of the Center
for Dharma Studies.

Sri Acharyaji is currently recognized as one of the world's foremost scholars on the Yoga
tradition, Dharma and meditation, as well as being a truly authentic spiritual teacher.

With a very large international following, Sri Acharyaji is especially renowned for his highly
authentic approach to spirituality, his authoritative and scholarly method of teaching, and his
clear emphasis on serious spiritual practice and direct experience of self-realization. He has
lectured on Dharma at dozens of top universities, such as Harvard, Columbia, Rutgers, Cornell,
and Northwestern. He has also served as a consultant for such Fortune 500 companies as Ford
Motor Corporation and Lucent Technology.

Sri Acharyaji's teachings stress the achievement of enlightenment through the practice of
meditation, Yoga, and directly experiencing the presence of the Divine. Another overarching
aspect of Sri Acharyaji's teachings focuses on the importance of love, compassion and service
toward all living beings.

Whether speaking to an audience of thousands, or having a heart-felt discussion with only one
person, Sri Acharyaji vividly conveys a deeply moving sense of compassion, peace, humility,
and spiritual insight that has endeared him to thousands of students and admirers throughout the
world.
For more information, visit: http://www.dharmacentral.com

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