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Bhakti (Devotion): The Fundamental Key in overcoming Psychological afflictions
Bhakti (Devotion):
The Fundamental Key in overcoming Psychological afflictions
(c) Ved Kovid, Durgadas. All Rights Reserved.
By Ved Kovid, Durgadas.
Depression and anxiety plague our modern societies today and several people are either on anti-depressant or anti-anxiety medication, which further complicates their situations and issues. Ayurveda and Yoga however traditionally see these mental afflictions as excesses of the doshas or biological humors as well as the stress and fast-paced society and lifestyle as also the foods we eat. Ultimately however, in severe cases, the causes are karmic.
As per a truly Yogic perspective, anxiety and depression will occur more when there is a lack of faith (shraddha) in the deity - a fundamental lack in devotion (bhakti) or cultivation of divine love (divya-prema). These are simply transient human emotions alone that are negated by the higher superhuman emotions such as Divine Grace and Divine Love.
Depression and anxiety often occur due to a lack of love or feeling of failure in life. In reality, it is caused by the Ahankara or the ego becoming pricked and attached to its surroundings, which it identifies as real and permanent, rather than transient and short-lived as per the cosmic cycle of the Atman or the Self, our true nature. When we lose track of our true Reality as the inner Self and identify instead with the experiences in the world and have no mental vitality to sustain it, we hence fall into states of depression and anxiety. We feel unloved and feel that the world and our surroundings are plaguing or against us, or our mind over-analyzes the situations.
Depression and anxiety often occur due to a lack of love or feeling of failure in life. In reality, it is caused by the Ahankara or the ego becoming pricked and attached to its surroundings, which it identifies as real and permanent, rather than transient and short-lived as per the cosmic cycle of the Atman or the Self, our true nature. When we lose track of our true Reality as the inner Self and identify instead with the experiences in the world and have no mental vitality to sustain it, we hence fall into states of depression and anxiety. We feel unloved and feel that the world and our surroundings are plaguing or against us, or our mind over-analyzes the situations.
In Yoga, this is due to a lack of vivekagni or the fire or discrimination or mental metabolism. We all intake vasanas or mental impressions on a daily and also a karmic basis, pertaining to past lives. These are stored in the Chitta or mindstuff and continue with us to the next birth. If we do not deal with these or have the intellectual fire or metabolism to consume them, then it can cause dulling impressions such as depression, caused by mental lethargy or tamas (darkness and ignorance) in the mind due to false-association and also mental excesses where the mind over-analyzes things and becomes too rajasic or passionate and agitated, causing severe bouts of anxiety, insomnia etc.
While there are several "quick fix" techniques such as certain mantras and meditations in the modern pop-culture, these often fail to address the deeper underlying concerns of the Chitta such as the vasanas or mental impressions of the past. Often these can resurface themselves years later, and we seek simply to place a plaster over it, so to speak - a temporal solution alone to an old-age problem!
I commonly see people with these disorders and also those practising meditations and mantras, but bereft of a Deity or any sense of bhakti or devotion, which was emphasised in traditional Yogic applications of these aspects of Yoga, that have become systems in themselves more recently, dismissing the greater traditions and considerations that go hand in hand with them. This hence only causes a new set of problems after a time.
While love is perhaps the most common denominator related to psychological afflictions, we should seek to transform this into higher love and devotion to something permanent, such as a Deity. The Deity need not have a form, but can be an ideal or formless in nature, but still, possessing consciousness of sentience, is able to help us through our issues through awakening themselves within us as the true nature of our Soul or Self, opposed to this body, life and name that it temporarily associates with and hence feels afflicted so.
Many find solace in the word of their gospels, but for many brought up in Christian traditions, this remains a difficult transition. Currently, the New-Age and Pop-culture that has derived much of its culture and philosophy from India is also plagued with a repressive phase that is against Bhakti or devotionalism, of which it seeks to dispense in pursuit of the Self. However, this breeds simply more intellectual frustration and therefore, anxiety and depression by over-stimulating the psyche and depleting and drying it out with impersonal and formless meditations which is seen as Vata increasing in Yoga and Ayurveda. As our culture, lifestyle and synthetic foods aggravate Vata dosha as a whole, such meditations and techniques along with excesses of pranayamas or breathing techniques only seek to aggravate it more, depleting the mind and causing feelings of distress, anxiety, loneliness or aloofness, which the aspirant does not know hot to deal with. Whereas in Yoga, such are seen as blessings to help us develop vairagya or detachment, the modern Western mind knows only one course of action - to seek psychological help! It again comes back to bodily attachment, ironically thwarting their meditational practices and processes, as they lack the sustenance, grace and "watery" emotions of ojas (vitality and strength) the mind requires for rejuvenation in Yoga and meditation - best seen through cultivating sattvas (purity) and Bhakti or devotion to the Deity, who aides the practitioner in his or her practice on a deeper inner and personal level, beyond the impersonalism of the formless and beyond the rigidity of physical teachers and instructors!
How even Ayurveda and natural medical systems and herbs work and respond to people depends on the individual biology and mental state of the individual themselves and also how much effort they are willing to put into necessary changes. Ayurveda is not simply a system where one can take a herb and expect it to work without these changes, which are gained through long periods of intake of incorrect foods, combinations and other impressions, which alter our natural states. In addition, those used to taking biochemical drugs will be more responsive to them due to their chemical (inorganic) bodily changes and may require a dramatic transformation such as several sessions of shodhana (panchakarma) and such to restore them towards a more organic responsiveness. This transformation, in the modern society, given all the toxic impressions, may take even years to eliminate and must also involve some kind of spiritual therapy (daiva chikitsa) to go along with it.
How even Ayurveda and natural medical systems and herbs work and respond to people depends on the individual biology and mental state of the individual themselves and also how much effort they are willing to put into necessary changes. Ayurveda is not simply a system where one can take a herb and expect it to work without these changes, which are gained through long periods of intake of incorrect foods, combinations and other impressions, which alter our natural states. In addition, those used to taking biochemical drugs will be more responsive to them due to their chemical (inorganic) bodily changes and may require a dramatic transformation such as several sessions of shodhana (panchakarma) and such to restore them towards a more organic responsiveness. This transformation, in the modern society, given all the toxic impressions, may take even years to eliminate and must also involve some kind of spiritual therapy (daiva chikitsa) to go along with it.
There is a trend among modern Hindus and Westerners to consider Jnana-Yoga or the path of wisdom as mere intellectualism (or retrospective intellectualism) and mental speculation. It is however not. Nor is it a false sense of arrogance that one has attained a heightened state, given their lifestyles. That is Ahamkara (ego-complex) and Avidya (ignorance or false-identification), not Jnana in Advaita or the system of non-dualism in Hinduism and yoga. Neo-Advaita is perhaps one of the most dangerous and most corrupted forms of modern Hinduism to come out. Advaita itself overall becomes grossly misunderstood and misinterpreted in literal terms, not understanding the traditional meanings and implications behind the concepts, none of which can be imposed upon the literal mind and physical world.
The culture today, even Hindu is largely often one of the Asuras or demons, of rajas or materialism, passion or agitation - it asserts its authority and aggressive nature to assert the rule of the Ego, not of the Self and traditions of the Devas or the Gods and wise Seers. There is much twisting and tweaking of words and concepts to fit modernist views, but no real lending to the traditional Vedic interpretations in the Upanishads, Aranyakas, Brahmanas or as per Nirukta and Nighantu, which the modernist claims are "lost", but are simply neither read nor understood by the lazy Hindu and scholar today! Failure to admit this arrogance is a failure to really progress in Yoga, sadhana or spiritual practice and gain true Jnana itself. This intellectualism is again dry, baseless and also creates more mental afflictions due to arrogance that cannot properly be compensated for in the limited human mental complexes unless supplemented with bhakti or devotionalism - more saline and watery emotions, and hence (devoid of Bhakti) it collapses, causing mental afflictions.
The culture today, even Hindu is largely often one of the Asuras or demons, of rajas or materialism, passion or agitation - it asserts its authority and aggressive nature to assert the rule of the Ego, not of the Self and traditions of the Devas or the Gods and wise Seers. There is much twisting and tweaking of words and concepts to fit modernist views, but no real lending to the traditional Vedic interpretations in the Upanishads, Aranyakas, Brahmanas or as per Nirukta and Nighantu, which the modernist claims are "lost", but are simply neither read nor understood by the lazy Hindu and scholar today! Failure to admit this arrogance is a failure to really progress in Yoga, sadhana or spiritual practice and gain true Jnana itself. This intellectualism is again dry, baseless and also creates more mental afflictions due to arrogance that cannot properly be compensated for in the limited human mental complexes unless supplemented with bhakti or devotionalism - more saline and watery emotions, and hence (devoid of Bhakti) it collapses, causing mental afflictions.
What many forget is that even in movements in India that go after Jnana or wisdom and knowledge of which many pseudo-Meditational groups now to and adulate, such as Sikhism, the Arya Samaj and the Sant Traditions of India, there was also a strong sense of Bhakti or devotion to the sattvic or good qualities of the Formless Brahman. They were not simply impersonal and rituals such as sacred offerings, chants or mantras and bhajans or songs were sung to them with intense devotion, contemplating on the beauty of the world they have manifested (indirectly) and also on their inner qualities providing illumination of our intellects and Souls to unite towards them.
The greater Adi Shankaracharya who reformed the system of Jnana-Yoga and Advaita Vedanta in India himself composed many devotional works, such as the Shlokas or hymns to the various deities. Among them, the Bhaja Govindam, which stresses the path of non-dual devotionalism to the Guru or Deity is more important than intellectual speculation and debate, which Shankaracharya states only leads to misery and attachment. His famous work to the goddess, Saundarya Lahiri also aims at bringing down a kind of descent of grace through the chakras, as opposed to an awakening of energy from the lower to the higher. It praises the goddess. Understanding the world as Maya-Shakti or the illusory energy of the world personified as the Great-Goddess and working with her in order to go beyond it (the logic that before negating the enemy, we must first embrace and know them intimately and seek their grace to go beyond our own self-imposed or projected limitations) is also a central theme in the Advaita work, Tripura Rahasya.
It was also Adi Shankaracharya and the modern Shankaracharyas, the keepers of his tradition, that began the Pancha-yatana pujas or the five-fold worship of the Deities within Hinduism in the various forms of the Deities in a devotional manner also. The are also the Brahmins or Priests who uphold the system of Hindu ritualism or Vedic rites and yajnas that are required for transformation of the baser instincts of the mind and senses - not simply expounders of the theory that one can attain a supernatural state by repeating "I am He!".
It was also Adi Shankaracharya and the modern Shankaracharyas, the keepers of his tradition, that began the Pancha-yatana pujas or the five-fold worship of the Deities within Hinduism in the various forms of the Deities in a devotional manner also. The are also the Brahmins or Priests who uphold the system of Hindu ritualism or Vedic rites and yajnas that are required for transformation of the baser instincts of the mind and senses - not simply expounders of the theory that one can attain a supernatural state by repeating "I am He!".
Within Hinduism there is also tamasic or darker and blind bhakti or devotionalism which is crude religious fanaticism, and then there is sattvic or pure devotion. Yet, beyond these, the highest, beyond all levels of the mind is Para-bhakti, which is described as Para premarupa or the Transcendental form of Love, such as we see in Saints as Sri Ramakrishna, the 18th Century devotee of the Goddess Kali or Sri Chaitanya, the 15th Century devotee of Sri Krishna, who went beyond all human limitations of the mind and entered a state beyond the ordinary devotionalism, where it meets with the state of Advaita or non-duality; one, becoming so engrossed in the Deity and seeing it everywhere, begins to imbibe their characteristics and literally, as it were, merges into and becomes the Deity itself. This is the higher Parabhakti or transcendental devotionalism that is also silent in the modern meditation and Yoga classes and teachings, which as noted, do more to create imbalances in the mind than cure them long-term.
Bhakti or devotionalism then is the key to all. Meditations are based upon meanings of the mantras - the mantras which themselves belong to the Gods, the forms of the Supreme, whose grace must be attained in order to release the powers of the mantras they relate to, as also their meanings. Otherwise, mindless practice of dry meditations and mantras, possessing nothing more than a mere string of words creates simply an hyperactivity in the mind, drying it out and causing either depression on one hand and a lack of emotional stability, or agitation on the other hand and anxiety, as without bhakti, there exists no liquidity and room for which emotions are to be transformed and the mind trained with the help of grace, which is why, in our ancient Hindu texts, it is stated in this current age of quarrel (Kali-Yuga), bhakti or devotion is the primal key to transcending all afflictions - and the starting point before going further or attempting anything "transcendental" in nature!
How can we, as humans, seek to perceive something transcendental, when we fail to open ourselves up to the possibility and reality of knowing that we seek?
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Arogya Ayurvedic Health
Christchurch, Canterbury
New Zealand
ph: +64 3 359 6015
arogyayu
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