Here’s me explaining depression on Self Reflection Podcast:
Buy the whole book The Shadowed Soul with a chapter on how I’ve overcome ADHD, Dyslexia, Suicidal Depression, PSTD and Anxiety, Schizophrenia and Bipolar, Epilepsy and Autism, Brain Damage and Digital Dementia and the Retardation of Thoughts in the link below:
CHAPTER 7:
Overcoming Depression: Your Perception Is Your Reality
People believe all kinds of things, so who is to say what is truly true? There is my truth, there is your truth, and then there is the “Truth.” I go into this in more detail in the next on schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, but in the scientific reality we live today, this world is all about falsifiability not verifiability. We determine a good theory by using a test at hand which can prove a specific theory false. If the result of the theory stands up to a test, which would prove it false, then it is validated, it is a good theory because it stands up to the test that could prove it false but doesn’t. A theory not being proven false is what science means by falsifiability. If there is not a test that can prove it false, then it is not a modern scientific theory at all. It is just a belief accepted on pure faith, which we all have lots of those: any fundamentalist’s interpretation of their own religious scriptures. Falsifiability is what Karl Popper clearly proved made Einstein’s three theories so perfect with the eclipse of 1919: The Special Theory of Relativity, The General Theory of Relativity, and The Electromagnetic Effect.
With the eclipse of 1919, if those stars that appeared from behind the sun, which were only visible because of that specific eclipse of 1919, were to appear anywhere else on the photo electric plate than where Einstein’s mathematical equations predicted that they would be, then something would have wrong with at least one of those theories. Or, if those stars didn’t appear exactly where Einstein’s theories said they would be, then maybe all three would have been wrong, but they didn’t! That eclipse validated both The Special and General Theories of Relativity and The Electromagnetic Effect in one simple test because the stars appeared exactly where Einstein’s theories predicted they would on that photoelectric plate! Exactly!
Any Western Scientific theory in modern times is never proven completely true. We only come up with tests to try and prove a good theory false. With the theory of falsifiability, when we come up with issues with a good theory, we just need to find a better theory to replace it. All three of Einstein’s theories I mentioned above have problems with them, but they are still our best theories for motion, gravity, and the wave particle duality of light and matter. The paradox of Western Science is that every time we get an answer, it does not lead us to the end of questions. Each answer we get just brings about more questions! This is the same concept that the Maya holds in the different forms of Hinduism, especially Vedanta. With all forms of Hinduism, every time there is an answer in this empirical world (Maya), it just leads to more questions. None of us will ever understand everything about the Maya because we are all looking at it through a relative, subjective, and limited perspective, and with the Maya everything that exists empirically seems to have an opposite. Both relativity and duality are what make the Maya illusory. I got in a debate with this exact topic with a previous Dr of Anthropology I took classes from CCSF on Facebook, and I pointed out that we are nowhere near The Theory of Everything, and every time we get an answer it just leads to more questions! This theory of the Maya holds true to this very day! That professor had nothing to say at the end of our argument on Facebook!
This assumption that we are stuck in an empirical world of paradoxes (Maya), that every time there is an answer solved, we just get more questions, is what clearly proves to me the Maya is “illusory.” It is also an empirical world of relativity and duality that makes me take the falsifiability approach to my spiritual beliefs. Falsifiability also shows us that even science uses faith because science constantly makes assumptions, then measures the consequences of those assumptions, which is why we need falsifiability and not verifiability. This using of faith and different perspectives on relativity shows how our own minds have “truths” to them, but are not the “Truth,” and no human mind will ever be able to understand the “Truth.” We all just have our limited relative perspectives. Some of these perspectives can be quite dark and depressed like mine was for basically the first twenty-eight years of my life.
So, when it comes to the individual in this Maya, just realize your reality is nothing but your perception. What you, or anyone else, holds as “true” is nothing but what your own mind to be tells you to be true. We are all wrong all the time when it comes to our judgements in this empirical world (Maya). The only thing any of us know for sure is every experience validates one thing and only one thing which can be certain: existence! Or “I Am.” It is our beliefs or thoughts: T, which I consciously direct into my brain states: B, then my thoughts influence my feelings: F, and my feelings, or the ability to let the feeling ride over me without reacting to it, controls the results of my actions: A. I proved this in The Power of Inaction: ((T>B)>F)>A. So, all our “realities” have to do with the way we think. Shakespeare showed this perfectly in the play Hamlet when he had Hamlet say: “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison.”
Reality for me was nothing but a prison for a large portion of my life. I am someone who has tried killing myself more times than I can count. Most of it was for attention. There were times I really tied to kill myself, but I just wouldn’t die. I’ve tried cutting my throat, jumping in front of a bus, swallowing thirty Klonopin, taking a pack of Somnote, and all kinds of other ways. I was suicidal for a good portion of my life, and even as a kid I would dwell and romanticize Hamlet’s To Be or Not To Be soliloquy locked up in Discovery Academy. Discovery Academy was where I was locked up after I threatened to kill my father and myself at the age of thirteen. I spent my fourteenth birthday in the psych-ward. Discovery Academy was just a juvenal hall for rich kids and made me a million times worse than I already was. There are the Survivor Groups online that are all about these kids who Survived all the juvenal detention centers all over America and especially Utah.
I am grateful my childhood existed in the days before the internet and these mass school shootings because I was filled with so much rage after my father left that, and looking back, I could have seen myself being one of those trouble kids that shoot up a school, but today that anger as left me because “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” I am going to be taking you into the depths of how suicidal and angry I was as an adolescent and showing you my solution to it in this day.
I was an extremely emotional and troubled child because of the circumstances I grew up in. Those circumstances were explained in the poetry I opened this book with. The point to that poetry was to explain my perception as a child and how truly angry and depressed I was. I wrote most of those poems locked up at Discovery Academy. This chapter shows how we are all forced into our different realities, especially through early life experiences. I argue we can all change our thinking with conscious effort, in a daily meditation, when we realize our thoughts (T) control our actions (A) and our realities. What got me into the solutions of Jnana Yoga was that I realized my reality was nothing but what I perceive, and my mind is nothing but imagination. All our perceptions are nothing but imagination in this “illusion” (Maya), and with seeing this illusion as “nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” I no longer live in a prison today.
With the suffering from severe clinical suicidal depression for a large portion of my life, most medications doctors gave to me did absolutely nothing for me in anyway: especially antidepressants. I would argue that my depression was considered uncurable at one time. None of the medications they gave me worked in any way, except Prozac. Prozac worked, but not in a good way. Prozac gave me a temporary state of paranoid schizophrenia, which is common with people with some type of Bipolar Type II. I have been known to have some symptoms of bipolar but do not fit the stereotype completely with my organic brain disorder. Just like I don’t fit any stereo type completely of any of my disorders, but I am more Schizoaffective-Bipolar type as I lay out in the chapter on Schizophrenia.
The first time I tried to kill myself I tried to jump in front of a bus, but I was too drunk to realize I was at the stop sign! Whenever I tell that story in a Twelve Step Meeting everyone laughs really hard, but the first time I felt suicidal I was just a little kid. The hospital let me go without any recommendation because if I was awake, I was completely in tears. I could not do anything except cry. The second time I spent a month in a psych-ward was the next day after I jumped in front of that bus.
When I jumped in front of that bus the cops threw me in a drug and alcohol detox because I was extremely drunk when I did it. The next day I tried to cut my throat with a very cheap blade. I was pulling back and forth on my right jugular vein for a while! It just wouldn’t pop! It was a cheap blade disposable razor, so I had no chance cutting my jugular with it, but I remember pulling back and forth for a while with the blood dripping down my arm and chest. I was not turned down for SSDI once because of that. That has been a very helpful scar to show others who think about suicide to show them I have been there too and that there is a way out. My suicidal depression was magnified by my addiction, but today I am a very happy person all because my thinking (T) has changed through conscious awareness based on Trataka: single pointed concentration meditation.
Having a third grade reading at the age of fifteen I still was able to memorize Hamlet’s soliloquy romanticizing and magnifying his misery with my own. What Hamlet’s description of suicide was exactly how I felt when I pondered the verbiage of his poetry at an early age locked up with nothing to do. I related with every single word of this poem as a fourteen-year-old kid! I was miserable as a kid because of the abuse I went through and on top of that I had Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, which meant I was extremely sensitive to all criticism even without being abused, but I was. RSD is something that is common with kids that have ADHD and Autism, so when I got to Discovery Academy my mind began to explore the dark, dark writings in history and is what got me to write my poetry. The To Be or Not to Be soliloquy also showed me how anyone would feel in a suicidal state of mind.
It was amazing because I saw how Hamlet was trapped in the same dilemma I was. Hamlet wanted to kill his uncle. I had someone I saw shipped away for threating to kill, and I wanted to kill myself just like Hamlet. Hamlet was extremely depressed with his circumstances and the twisted perversion of his “prison” of his mind. This was the essence of my tortured mind as well. The first time truly understood those words my mind pulled me into the third act as I sifted through Hamlet’s “insanity.”
Act Three, Scene One is the most famous Hamlet scene. It is in this act that Hamlet’s intelligence shines, and like most geniuses, his “sanity” questioned. All of the circumstances Hamlet has gone through cause conflict, and the definition of a Shakespearean tragedy unfolds. In a Shakespearean tragedy it is important that everyone dies in the end. Death is what Shakespeare meant when he wrote tragedies, and I believed for years that my own death was the only true way for there to be any peace for myself. At least I told myself these grandiose delusions, only perpetuated my own torcher.
My actions were nothing but chaos as a kid, and I could only dream that they were as well thought out as Hamlet’s because he was one of the true geniuses in English Literature. Hamlet is enraged with his uncle Claudius for lots of reasons. The main reason is that Claudius killed Hamlet’s father with poison. By Claudius killing Hamlet’s father, he was able to marry Hamlet’s mother. Claudius does this to become King himself. This is disturbing to anyone, especially a son. Claudius robs Hamlet of all of his happiness, and even a chance to be King himself one day! Hamlet seems at times as though he will lose all control over his actions because of his uncle, but the reason why anyone would not take Hamlet as mad is shown through all of the control Hamlet has over himself. Hamlet is very thoughtful and does nothing carelessly. He is cautious and even sagacious, especially in Act Three, Scene One.
Hamlet first recites words that would make anyone convinced that the person was mad and I related. We are all created with both anger and the hope of love in our hearts for others, but only the sane ones will choose what Hamlet and I chose because we could see this world for what it truly is: Hell! This is what my mind told me at the time!
Hamlet might have had some type of psychosis from all of the traumatic experiences that he has gone through. I had a reason for what I wanted to do too. It wasn’t just that these feelings and emotions I had come out of nowhere, but because I was locked up as though I was the one who did something wrong? When I was nothing but a product of my childhood abuse! I had a speculation that Hamlet had some type of thought disorder too because Hamlet Senior comes to Hamlet as a ghost to tell him what Claudius did? Hamlet’s father being murdered, and his Crown stolen from him, was why Hamlet needed to carry out revenge! Revenge was what I wanted as a child too! Revenge was what I craved! To say I was crazy would be to say I had no reason for wanting to kill! I had a reason just like Hamlet! Was my revenge philosophical, or was it insanity? Mine was carefully thought out too, just like Hamlet’s, so, if it was a rational thought, how could anyone say that the sound thoughts of homicide and suicide are “insanity?”
My crazy mind took it that it was the rationality of this soliloquy that proved Hamlet was not insane. This soliloquy showed me how this world truly was screwed up. It was also the way Shakespeare’s genius spoke to my mind which proved I was the “sane” one as well. There is clarity in all Hamlet’s words. Hamlet has been betrayed by so many people, and it is this betrayal that sparks this vicious behavior. That betrayal was the same betrayal I had as a child. I hated the people who raised me for what they did! My rage was calculated and cultivated for years! Now I was the one who was locked up, and he was able to roam the world without any consequences!
Hamlet’s cautious reactions to every situation are shown when Shakespeare writes, “there is a method to this madness.” Those are words that Polonius states, so even Polonius is not completely fooled by Hamlet. Polonius is Claudius’ advisor. Polonius is the panderer who is trying to help Claudius achieve what he wants. It is this same pandering that got them all to take that man’s side and lock me up is where my mind romantically went as a child!
Hamlet obviously acts out the obsession, but Polonius is convinced that the cause of Hamlet’s obtuse behavior is his love for Ophelia. Ophelia is the beautiful daughter of Polonius, and Polonius is sure love has been denied by her. Even the Queen is hoping this is the case. For if it is, and Ophelia reciprocates her affections to Hamlet, all will be well. None of these people know the truth about what Hamlet knows. None of these people knew revenge was the only thing that was on both our minds! So, just like Hamlet, no one knew my truth either! My mother did it in some way, but I was the one locked up at Discovery Academy! That place made me so much worse than I already was!
This scene is an empty dark stage with hard wood floors. There are lights, but they are focused directly on the center of the stage so that darkness drowns out everything else. There are two large red curtains that are parted in the middle. The parts are held back with golden rope. There is a large black curtain behind the two red ones. The Queen is wearing a long dark blue dress. Claudius is wearing an amber robe with his golden crown, and Polonius is standing to his left dressed in black. That dark room where all the counselors at Discovery Academy just had me stand against a wall until the punishment was over was a straitjacket of my mind that school put me in. A cell where I would stand against the wall for hours because I did not obey!
That Dark Room that I was locked up in for weeks at a time in Discovery Academy was bright white walls with a green carpet right next to the gym. It was only four feet wide and twenty feet deep. They would give me a blanket and a pillow, and I would be in my underwear all day and night. If I slept, it was on the floor. The gym separated the Girls Dorm Room from Unit One. Unit One was the name where solitary confinement would be. They kept me isolated for basically a year because of the anger I showed. Dr. Thorn, who cussed me out for cutting on myself, told my mother I would be the next Charles Mason because of how much I rebelled! Yet, in this Scene, after they are all done conversing about Hamlet, and what to do about his mental dilemma, all of them exit the stage. All except Polonius, Claudius, and Ophelia. Polonius and Claudius hide behind a curtain when Hamlet comes into the room so they can watch what happens. The only part of Polonius and Claudius that the audience can see are their faces. They both think that Hamlet does not know they are there watching him. Hamlet takes center stage along with the spotlight. Ophelia is on the far right of the stage in a peach-colored dress that has white laces. Both Claudius and Polonius are listening to try and see all of Hamlet’s true opinions and motivations. Even with this trick they are all trying to play on Hamlet, it is them who are deceived.
As Hamlet utters the famous lines, “To be or not to be, that is the question?” Hamlet’s discourse about suicide is a romantic argument. It is: should I live, or should I kill myself? “Killing myself,” I learned what those opening words meant by Raul Willard, a counselor at Discovery Academy. At the time I thought suicide was the only true choice that anyone would take who could see this world clearly. That was the choice I felt they kept me from making at Discovery Academy, and Hamlet was arguing this out loud. I have always talked to myself out loud because of my autism as well, so it did not seem strange to me, I would mutter “should I kill myself or not?” So, is homicide and suicide philosophically justified or just plain “insanity?” was the question I struggled with for years as a kid.
In lines 64 through 73 are the bluntest descriptions of suicide, and the hopelessness of Hamlet’s words weighs everyone down. “The heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.” (Lines: 70-71) Hamlet is talking about everyone’s life. He is telling those watching that every person feels this pain. Life is difficult, there is no way out, and it is difficult not just for him but everyone. The whole world was a problem for me too! Anything and everything were just misery to the ones who can see everything clearly! That is what Discovery Academy really drilled into my head even for years after I left!
Then in line 72 it goes to one of the most sought-after questions of man. Is there anything after death, and if so, what? “To die, to sleep- perchance to dream?” It is in that dream which Hamlet is implying life after death. Everyone in the audience knows this is the need for God and every single religion. Hamlet is clearly stating it is not this life, but what comes after that truly matters. Hamlet and I were both consumed with this fear either way. All the many times that I had ever thought about truly killing myself it was what was after this life that kept me here! Was there misery waiting for me there too? Burning in Hell! Or the fear of not existing at all! Neither was a good outcome in this prison of my mind!
Hamlet goes on to give amazing details about all the troubles that everyone has to face. He is proving to “the watcher” everyone we all go through hell! Hell, for both me and Hamlet, at that time, was here on earth, and the only reason anyone would ever put up with this life is because of what is next! That is what Hamlet means when he states, “the undiscovered country” (line 87). There were only wishful fools that hoped of something better beyond this empirical hell we were all trapped is where my mind always took me when it came to God because of the fundamentalists in Utah! That was why people believe in “Heaven.” They all just needed something which told them there is a reward for doing right when none of us know! They were the ones that truly seemed nuts to me! So, does anything truly matter? Humanity just seemed to convince themselves that something did, because we all need to believe we are important! That there is a purpose to all the different religious belief systems, and in the end, if Hamlet kills himself or not, he is completely damned in either way! Just like I was! This is the convincing conclusion, and Hamlet knows it! This was also the only way I saw the world as well! We were both right. That’s where my mind took me for years! Life was torture!
When Hamlet points out Ophelia to the crowd the lights on the stage brighten to where she stands. It is this that brings Ophelia and her actions into the scene. Ophelia would be staring softly with her head tilted down in the opposite direction as Hamlet, as to pretend that she is only thinking of him. She is even trying to hide the fact that she knows he is there, even though she has heard everything. She then notices him and comes forth to spark the conversation.
I could only dream of having love. I wanted just to be loved as a kid just like any other. It was nothing but fear of every single person that was around me that kept me from getting loved in any way, because I was abused and then locked up in Discovery Academy was why I was just as angry as Hamlet! I felt at that time in my life love was beyond anything God would give me. In truth, God doesn’t give love to anyone, for how can any of us truly prove there is a God was where my mind went being trapped and punished daily by fundamentalists! They also sent me there for a cure! At the time I was nothing but a pessimist because of my circumstances! I took life as just a deceptional trick from the Kings of every society. Just like Claudius, we were all just thrown into Discovery Academy because none of our parents knew what to do with us! Discovery Academy was all for nothing but control through solitary confinement and punishment, so how could anyone even have love at all? Yet, it is when Ophelia brings her innocent demeanor into play that Hamlet slaps her with cold words.
There is a look of shock on Ophelia’s face when Hamlet asks her if she is honest and fair. In lines 113 through 163 Hamlet is yelling as loud as he can at her. He is putting all of his anger onto the stage, and even though he is looking at Ophelia he is also indirectly talking to Polonius and Claudius. Hamlet calls her out on the trick she is playing. He knows they have all been there the whole time. Hamlet makes a direct statement to Polonius letting him know he is a fool and telling Polonius to be a fool only in his own household. Hamlet tells Ophelia she needs to purify herself by going to a nunnery. He is telling her she is a sinful slut, for the trick she is trying to play. She needs to get rid of her sins because she is nothing but a slut!
Lines 160 and 161 Hamlet raises his voice as loud as he can and says, “Those that are married already, all but one shall live!” It is in this statement that he is telling his uncle Claudius that he is going to kill him! He says it to Ophelia, yet it is truly directed towards Claudius! After Hamlet yells all of this vitriol, he runs off of the stage! I had a man I wanted to kill as well as a kid! Killing him was why Hamlet’s anger spoke so clearly to me! I was a teenager, but I comprehended every single word Hamlet said outloud! The only thing I read perfectly was Hamlet’s soliloquy because of his anger and pessimism! It took me hours of reading it and pondering it, but there was nothing to do the whole time I was at Discovery Academy except isolate and romanticize my misery! That school trained my mind to think in a suicidally depressed way for years after I left!
After Hamlet exits, Polonius and Claudius come out from behind the curtain. They ran up to try and comfort Ophelia, for they just witnessed the conflict as well. They are shaken just as bad as she is. In lines 163 through 175 Ophelia talks with anguish, and on the brink of tears. She painfully remembers the love they had, and that for some reason it is gone. Ophelia is very confused and scared. The Line “O, woe is me” (line 174) reveals her agony.
I picked Shakespeare’s Hamlet to write about to show anyone the type of depression and anger I felt as a kid because of my early life experiences. Lots of kids suffer from these issues now, and these mental health issues are only perpetuated by the music they listen to, and the online access they get. It was the song Janie’s Got a Gun, by Aerosmith that first planted the seed to kill my dad for what he did, and I see the entertainment that children are listening to and watching, as just getting worse and worse with no restrictions. It is the circumstances we are forcing up our children that drive them to these violent mass school shootings. It is also perpetuated by the access of guns in America. It is our societal insanity that is magnifying the issues I had as a child.
As I pointed out in Pseudo-Laws and Pseudo-Morals, there is no need to resent anyone when you take the power of choice out of that person’s hands and realize we all have the same two issues: ignorance and understanding. If you sit in silence your reality will be shown to you by your thinking. If you sit in silence, you will realize you can change your reality because you will see how ridiculous your own thinking is. I showed how grandiose and angry as was above as a little kid, but because I can see my mind from any angle today, I can make that conscious choice to put my thinking before my brain states to control my feelings and actions: (T>B)>F)>A in my symbolic equation.
When I first started to meditate, I was quite overwhelmed with how loud the chatter in my mind was. In fact, most of my life, before I meditated, I would listen to music on headphones playing them as loud as I could. I’d even walk around singing as loud as I could, in large-populated cities, to escape my mind that was screaming at me! It was as though nobody was around, and for me, in those moments, nobody was. I believed I was truly unaware of why I needed to walk around singing so loud. Looking back, I am sure it was obnoxious to anyone around me, but I was completely oblivious to everyone. I see now how I was doing this to drown out the noise of my loud obnoxious mind that was always screaming at me telling me how worthless I was. My mind was screaming at me, and I was listening to hardly any of what my mind was saying, which was why I was so angry and chaotic for so long. My mind was always telling me how terrible and worthless everything was, including myself. Yet, the music was how they finally got me to behave at Discovery Academy. I did not respond to any punishment they gave me in any way. I had one of the worst cases of Oppositional Defiance Disorder that any doctor had seen. Anyone in any authority situation I would stand up to! Just like Hamlet! My clouded mind made me seek drugs and alcohol as an adult after I left Discovery Academy as well. I Just wanted to block out my reality! I just wanted to escape from the prison of my mind!
At Discovery Academy they would say, “Justin that is a demerit.”
I would respond, “F- you, give me another!”
Then they would say, “Let’s go Unit One.” If anyone got sent to Unit One, they would automatically get ten demerits. A demerit was 25 minutes standing up against a wall, if we moved, we had to start over. With my Oppositional Defiance Disorder I proved to them all they could not control me with punishment. I had the head of the female counselors in tears in the front office screaming, “I’m not fat!!” I had one of the head of the male counselors head butt me in the face because he had me pinned up against a wall in Unit One, so I asked him, “C’mon Rich? You want a kiss?” and I reached out to smooch him, and pop! He head butted me right in the face. There was blood dripping down my noise. Rich dropped me to the ground because he wanted to beat me up, but he knew he could not because he was the adult paid to watch me, so I screamed out, “Come back, I love you!” as he walked away shaking! And the next day I told them I wanted to press charges, and they were terrified! I could conquer them with my anger! And I loved it!
That school is where my depression and Oppositional Defiance Disorders skyrocketed! Then when Discovery Academy offered me music, I shaped right up. I was not any better in any way. They just had to give me something I desired. I always desired to be in another state of mind, which is what the music did for me. Getting into another state of mind is why I developed into an alcoholic and an addict as well, and if I focused on the lyrics of a song, my reality was always more pleasant because my mind was preoccupied with the lyrics.
Sure, lots of the lyrics did things like magnify depression. There were songs about suicide with Metallica’s Fade to Black, or songs about isolation like I Am a Rock, The Sound of Silence, and The Boxer, by Simon and Garfunkel. I always tell people it is amazing how much Paul Simons lyrics will magnify a child’s suicidal depression: “I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain. It’s laughter and it’s loving I distain…” “Hello darkness my old friend.” “When I left my home and family, I was no more than a boy. In the company of strangers. In the quiet of the railway station running scared.” “I am leaving. I am leaving, but the fighter still remains.” Those three songs especially magnified my depression for years. Just like Hamlet’s soliloquy did.
When people are depressed, they find comfort in things that enhance and magnify their depression. Discovery Academy was just a place to put me because there were no other options. I see that today none of their parents wanted their kids going to jail either or ending up in a worse place, so when I saw things clearly, and I worked out all my resentments through single points concentration meditation (Trataka), that is when I was able to realize there is no one for me to hate or resent in this life in anyway. If I want perfection, it is only through taking this world as being my perfect teacher. I either learn or I suffer, and we all have the same two problems: ignorance and understanding. I am still ignorant to this day because “every realization gives new dimensions to conquer” as Nisargadatta Maharaj would say when it comes to the Maya (empirical world).
Anyone can apply lessons they learn from meditation into every aspect of our lives. One of the things I have become aware of through Trataka is that I was always saying things to myself like, “I want to die.” “I hate this.” “I’m such a f— up.” I was also seeing constantly what was wrong with the world in a very derogatory and creative way as expressed above. It was constant, and for most of my life, I was completely unaware of it because I did not meditate. My mind was nothing but a dark cloud of delusion. By becoming more aware of my thinking, I could begin to contemplate and see these thoughts are not really what I want. So, we all need to realize what Hamlet said when he said, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking make is so.”
Today I have been able to make a conscious effort to change my thinking. I try to focus on just one saying: “I Am,” which is the only thing any of us truly know. I will prove “I am” is the only thing indubitable in the chapter on schizophrenia later, but when any other thoughts rise in my mind when I meditate, I say to myself: “Who cares?” (~T) Then I try slowly and gently to stop thinking and get in touch with my nothing but my Consciousness. All of that was outlined in the chapter on ADHD, but I am not that good at dropping my mind completely still to this day. Some days, with my organic brain states shifting with thoughts, it is much more difficult than others, but I continue to make progress and develop the neurotransmitters in my brain by addressing the thinking: “T.” The amazing thing to me is how powerless I am over my own mind. I have heard from lots of people that they refuse to meditate because it bothers them how they have no control over what they are thinking in any way. With anyone who begins meditation, it will show them how truly powerless we all are.
One day when I realized the entire negative self-talk that was filling my mind, I began to tell myself: maybe I should replace those negative thoughts with more positive thoughts? That day forward I started replacing every negative thought with the words “I love you.” I just thought of my wife and said to myself every time I was to say, “I want to die, or f— this and f— that.” I should just think of my wife and said, “I love you.” It is simple and it worked. I am no longer a pessimist. I have not struggled with suicidal depression in an extremely long time. What I did is I took one thought: T, and didn’t neglect it, or ~T, I just replaced it with another T! It was a negative thought that needed to be replaced with a positive thought, so I was just replacing one T1 for another T2.
It is important not to get angry with yourself if you are thinking a certain way. Just acknowledge it, and then replace it, and it is not about denial or ignoring any thoughts either. It is also an extremely slow process, which is why I do it daily. It will make you go even more nuts if you get frustrated with yourself or expect immediate gratification. If any of us have a thought that we value and causes us problems, then we can gently say “who cares?”, or as the Beatles song goes, “Let it be.” Let it be, I have noticed, is much gentler for most people. If we are constantly thinking negative thoughts, we should take a conscious effort to reshape and redirect our thinking to positive thoughts. Even Hamlet himself acknowledges all our reality is nothing but our thinking! When we can replace one T1 with T2, then instead of getting the wrong actions: A1, we get a better outcome because we get a whole new thought to redirect our daily thinking: ((T2>B2)>F2)>A2!
These days I work constantly on replacing every negative thought with a positive thought. It is slow but gets easier and easier the more I do it. From what I have noticed now I do it automatically. Sure, everyone once is a while I catch myself saying the negative thought, but I just gently say to myself, “I love you.” Never get angry or frustrated every time you have a negative thought either. I also say such words as Ahimsa, which is a Sanskrit word that means cause no harm. I have found the pleasure of life today in every experience be it good or bad cause now I have realized life is about learning.
Both the Law of Karma and the Theory of Evolution tell us: this empirical world (Maya) is constantly changing, and we either learn or we suffer. We adapt or we die. So, we will all always make mistakes as long our Souls are trapped in our bodies because of the ignorance and understanding that we all suffer from. We are all just here to learn. This is also why I no longer resent anyone from my childhood, and I was the one telling my father I loved him when he was dying. If anyone is ever wondering what to do in any situation it tells us in such prayers as the Prayer of Saint Francis: “to understand is to be understood,” and “to forgive is to be forgiven.” So, there is no reason to hate anyone. Just realize the Self in me is the Self in you, and when we take the power of choice out of anyone’s hand there is nothing to resent. God does not punish us. We reward and punish ourselves through our Karma and we can always be grateful when we can learn.
I saw a video with a little girl. She was quite my teacher. She had Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, or FOP. It is an extremely painful medical disorder. Everyone who gets it dies very young. What happens is all the muscle tissue in the body slowly calcifies over their life, so their muscle tissue turns to bone, and they slowly freeze up. This little girl was explaining how grateful she is that she still gets to wash the dishes. Doing the dishes has never been one of the highlights of my day, so I thought to myself, if she can shape her mind to be grateful for that, I am sure I can too, for much more that I have been given in this life. If you want to be happy, change your thinking to gratefulness, but you cannot do it without awareness, so daily meditation is necessary.
Someone told me once, he prays for anyone that he has a resentment for. He said he did not know why, but when he did his anger went away. I told him it is because you are taking a negative thought and replacing it with a positive thought. That is why. Being grateful and redirecting our realities helps all of us repair our brains from the troubled and dysfunctional circumstances our thoughts are in, so our minds can function properly. It is all shaping the neurotransmitters into a positive light, which all of humanity needs.
I had people tell me I was one of the angriest people they had ever met when I was anywhere from the ages of twelve to twenty-eight. I have changed that completely today and am a functioning member of society. I don’t feel suicidal at all anymore. Just remember our realities are nothing but what we perceive, and our minds are nothing but imagination; so, “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” as Shakespeare proved to everyone in history. Just meditate daily to get awareness, because the only thing anyone can get a panoptical, panoramic, and universal view of is their own relative mind, then take any bad T1and replace it with a positive T2.
Today I strive for a perfect ideal and have the acceptance I will always fall short of. My perfect ideals I have found in the book I Am That with this short passage:
“I accept and am accepted. I am all, all is me. Being the world, I am not afraid of the world. Being All what am I afraid of? What is not afraid of water, nor fire from fire. Also, I am nothing that can experience fear or be in danger because I have no name or shape. It is attachment to name and shape that bread fear. I am not attached. I am Nothing, and Nothing is afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the nothing, for when it touches nothing it becomes nothing. It is like a bottomless well, whatever it falls into it disappears.”
This tells me all my problems arise when I identify as my mind and my body. The Self in me is the Self in you and we are all one. We are nothing, but that Pure Consciousness. That Pure Consciousness in the Atman in Vedic Scriptures, and the Atman and the Brahman are one! Brahman is everything! Brahman is that Nothing because it is Nondual! It isn’t “nothing” as in nothing! It is Nothing as in “no thing!” The Perfection that cannot be perceived by the senses! We hold onto our minds and our bodies out of fear, but that isn’t what we truly are! We let go of our minds and our bodies and the fear dissipates! It vanishes with the imagination of our minds because that is all our minds truly are! There is nothing to resent when we see “Reality” as nothing but Consciousness, which is this Nothing Nisargadatta Maharaj is talking about.
I saw foreign film The Persian Prisoner one time. It was a true story about Jewish man who survived the Holocaust. He told a Nazi Soldier that he spoke Persian because the Nazi wanted to learn it and move to Persia when he was going to retire from the army. The Jewish man didn’t know any Persian. He just made-up fake Persian words by mixing up Jewish names from the logs of the Jewish people they captured and put to death. It was amazing to see his level of fear and how he used it to survive, and how that level of fear controlled his every move! “It is attachment to name and shape that breeds fear,” so I meditate daily by Trataka to get directly into what I truly believe I am today: Consciousness. I let go of all the fear of my body and mind. Trying to drop my name and shape for forty-five minutes every day. I say: “Who cares?” to every thought, then my reality changes throughout the day when I replace one thought T1 for another T2. I have only been able to do this through Single Pointed Concentration Meditation: Trataka. No matter who we are we don’t need to live in fear! Just work on letting go of your body and your mind, for that is the only true prison!