Spiritual depression – How to overcome depression on a spiritual path and understand the reasons for those downtimes

We all know them. Those moments when we somehow struggle. We may struggle although we follow some spiritual teachings. We then ask ourselves “Why is this happening to me? Me, that I am doing all those things to improve myself, etc.” Usually we get into some sort of resentment state afterwards and loose focus on our spiritual practices.

If you are in a similar situation right down my experience sais that there can be two main reasons:

1) A proper and serious spiritual practice will always lead to dissolution of your Ego and its forces (as opposed to your eternal divine being). As you progress on your spiritual path it is therefore unavoidable to be confronted with reluctant parts inside yourself. You may feel everything is perfect and fine for some time and the moment of spiritual depression may hit you like lightning. That is because our spiritual progress takes place in what could best be described as an onion-layer mode.

If you look at an onion you find there is no way of knowing how exactly the layer beneath the one you are seeing right now may look. Not unless you unpeal it and see the next layer.

Similarly it happens with layers of emotions, thoughts, wishes, etc. regarding a human being. We may be in a certain emotional state, say anger for example. One day we make an experience that leads to dissolution of our anger and suddenly there is peace. This peace was unimaginable during our period of anger.

Now if we do some spiritual practice like Kriya Yoga or any one of another serious spiritual tradition this speeds up the “peeling of our onion”.

For this reason we may experience sudden emotional shifts from joy to depression or vice versa. Those states however are merely states. They pass by like clouds. Although we may not see the sun when the sky is covered with clouds this doesn’t mean the sun is not there.

Similarly God is always there although we might be temporarily consumed by emotional clouds around us.

2) The second possible reason for a spiritual depression can be action that leads the wrong direction. This action is usually only the child of a thought that was seeded long before. If we have angry or violent or whatsoever non-contributional thoughts for our spiritual growth these thoughts lead to action sooner or later as everything we think may become real due to our strength of will and our energy we put behind those thoughts.

The experiences you may have in a spiritual depression may vary:

- Extended need of sleep (more than 8 hrs)
- fatigue
- joylessness
- motivationlessness
- Fatalistic thoughts
…

How to overcome spiritual depression

The key solution is to open for divine help and grace and to kick your own ass.
The first part might be the easier one because you only need to pray from your heart and adress your helplessness in a sincere way. You may ask to be healed by gods love. So it will be.

The second part is the more difficult one because it involves you kicking your Egos ass.

If you really want to reach anything in whatever field – be it business or leisure
you need to learn to overcome your own limitations. Limitations are only a question of mindset
and all truly successful people know that in fact there are zero limitations. You can achieve whatever
you focus on.

One depression-related limit in your mind can be “It doesn’t make any sense to do anything”.
Well, if you are really sincerely following a spiritual path and you want to reach God union then
your sense of being is intrinsic. You live to reach god union. Living however means interaction – loving, giving, taking, producting, working, enjoying, helping, and so on.
If you deny living you deny your spiritual path.

Another depression related limit could be “I am not good enough and don’t deserve to live or to be loved” You are a being of divine origin. In fact you are God which means you are love. Human beings are only designed to do one thing perfectly: to love. All our experiences have told us differently maybe and thus we have drifted away more and more throughout history. However this does not change that we are gods children made in his image. So of course we are good enough and of course we deserve to live and be loved.

You may repeat one of the following mantra sentences to yourself:
YES, I am love.
YES, I am god.

Always continue to challenge your limitations so that your Ego understands
there is no way to play around with you.