Why mostly depressed people search for Enlightenment?!

[Monkey-man]

I just realised that depression is the thing that makes you very close to enlightenment. And there are two ways out of depression - first is to fight against it, win and become happy - that’s what people usually do, that’s what psychologist advise to do. And the second way is to go deeper and deeper into depression straight to the point of death, the point when nothing left, then your ego dies out and you realise enlightenment! Not many people decide to go and sacrafice own ego during depression. This is counterintuitive (as Leo would say) if you depressed go and become even more depressed! Suffer, but then sacrifice your ego, your self to reach the very bottom end, literally sacrafice yourself, your life with full honesty without waiting for something in return, without the need and desire for enlightenment, gave away everything, surrender your wants and desire, realise you want nothing, you need nothing, and realise nothing left, realise there is nothing except what it is right now - and then become enlightened. OR go and fight, kill dragon,hope for better, win and become happy again, fight for enlightenment - that’s nice but that’s all ego fight and ego victory, yes you won, but it really is just your ego won. That’s what people usually do during depression, that’s why only few enlightened. Because if everyone would go and sacrifice self when self is already so sad and tired and on the verge then whole western civilisation would be enlightened given the rates of depression. That is what only crazy people would do, coz it’s an existential suicide and no different than real sacrifice of your life! Because by doing this, your self image thinks that it sacrifices itself literally and gonna die after that! Look many enlightened people become so after depression or trauma. So i guess there’s a requirement to go and die on the cross, and only then come back to walk on the water. Maybe it’s not the only way, but it certainly seem as what most of famous enlightened people like Tolle has experienced. 

Think of dark night of soul. Think of Jesus dying on cross, he asks God ‘why you left me?’, then he accepts god’s will, It’s a clear metaphor of depression, of suffering of the ego, resistance and eventual surrender.

[Blue is the sea]

@egoless i think it is because for depressed people the "normal" way does not work any more. the structure which everything is/works, wich for most of the people is ok isn't for them. that's why they search for something else.
so i dont think is about depresion because not every depressed person follows/finds this way but is about realizing that something is not ok, realizing that there is something more.
what i found personally is that pain serves/helps to focus our attention thats why it is helpful to see a crack in reality. but you can find it even if you're naturally curious about life.

[Nahm]

@Shanmugam lot of wisdom. Lot of conflation too. 

[krazzer]

On 23-11-2017 at 11:24 AM, egoless said:

Even me myself and I am sure many of you have been depressed to some extent in your life. We started searching for answers. Why don't we see people who are happy and successful searching for those answers? Then the logical question arises - maybe Enlightenment is a self-induced belief to achieve liberation from the depressed state?

I don't think so. I've been searching for enlightenment these last few years and I have never been depressed or anything close to it. I just like to improve myself. This has gone from simplifying my life and building a business to spirituality.

I've also been improving my diet for years, although I've never been unhealthy or overweight or anything. 

Something that goes well doesn't mean it shouldn't be improved. 

Edited December 4, 2017 by krazzer

[Nahm]

@Shanmugam I love what you wrote. I’m still waiting for your book to arrive from amazon. There may very well be a whole chapter about this..but for now I hope you don’t mind if I just ask. - Have you experienced what I guess I would call ‘inconsistent reality’?  Obviously I need to define that a little, but  it’s very relative to experience. Normal days to one can sound like crazy claims to another. Something like the sky visually ‘opening’ and something other than sky coming ‘out of it’, ufo’s, utilities and or electronic devices doing things that are not at all logical and completely abruptly inconsistent with relativity? (Not while on psychedelics) Any of that action happenin in Shanmugam town? 

[SOUL]

Quote

Why mostly depressed people search for Enlightenment?

....because joyful people are already enjoying life.

[Shanmugam]

24 minutes ago, Nahm said:

@Shanmugam I love what you wrote. I’m still waiting for your book to arrive from amazon. There may very well be a whole chapter about this..but for now I hope you don’t mind if I just ask. - Have you experienced what I guess I would call ‘inconsistent reality’?  Obviously I need to define that a little, but  it’s very relative to experience. Normal days to one can sound like crazy claims to another. Something like the sky visually ‘opening’ and something other than sky coming ‘out of it’, ufo’s, utilities and or electronic devices doing things that are not at all logical and completely abruptly inconsistent with relativity? (Not while on psychedelics) Any of that action happenin in Shanmugam town? 

I have never experienced anything like seeing visions, seeing UFO's etc.. But not having any such abilities was never a barrier to my awakening. Nothing happened like that after my transformation either.  But there was a period of about two months (it happened more than a year ago) when I was convinced that I had some kind of psychic ability. I would think about or talk about something and it would be in the news the next day or I would read about the exact same topic the next day. Such things happened for about a month and were very convincing. I didn't write about it in my book since my main focus was to appeal to people who are skeptical, the book is basically an attempt to bridge science and spirituality. But I have generally touched on the topic of extra-sensory perception in a chapter.

I don't have any explanation for what happened during those two months. It could be a mere coincidence or something that is really psychic.  Honestly, it was happening too often to call a coincidence. But I am careful in not to come up with my own imagined explanation for what happened. (People are usually tempted to add something imaginary to it, instead of seeing the way it happened). At the same time, I am completely open to the possibility that ESP could be real.

 

[Dodo]

On 23/11/2017 at 11:46 PM, Echoes said:

@Leo Gura God/Reality/infinite creation itself is the fool then. It's not like there is a person inside of this infinite creation that is somehow not appreciating the generous opportunities it was given - It's reality itself who is pissing itself off. I mean, why would there be suffering at all? like, at ALL?! 

I have asked myself this, and the answer could be that God is unconscious / doesn't care.

Or perhaps God wanted to create something real, like playing Sims without cheat codes when you get in trouble.

When you are young you want to use cheat codes in games in order to win, but later you realize that to become actually good at a game, there is no shortcut. Have to play it and suffer many defeats in the process. Perhaps it's no different than this.

Perhaps it's random, perhaps it values suffering as much as joy. Who knows

Edited December 4, 2017 by Dodo

[Dodo]

42 minutes ago, Shanmugam said:

I have never experienced anything like seeing visions, seeing UFO's etc.. But not having any such abilities was never a barrier to my awakening. Nothing happened like that after my transformation either.  But there was a period of about two months (it happened more than a year ago) when I was convinced that I had some kind of psychic ability. I would think about or talk about something and it would be in the news the next day or I would read about the exact same topic the next day. Such things happened for about a month and were very convincing. I didn't write about it in my book since my main focus was to appeal to people who are skeptical, the book is basically an attempt to bridge science and spirituality. But I have generally touched on the topic of extra-sensory perception in a chapter.

I don't have any explanation for what happened during those two months. It could be a mere coincidence or something that is really psychic.  Honestly, it was happening too often to call a coincidence. But I am careful in not to come up with my own imagined explanation for what happened. (People are usually tempted to add something imaginary to it, instead of seeing the way it happened). At the same time, I am completely open to the possibility that ESP could be real.

 

I believe synchronicities are not sign of special power, but simply a noticing of the fractal nature of reality.