The electrostatics of depression:
Imagine fast charging and discharging a battery every hour - in a maximum of two weeks, the battery dies.
Our nerve centers or chakras are like rechargeable batteries wiring an endless web of nerve endings to our senses. The more charged the batteries are, the more pleasure is experienced by the brain.
When the 'spinal' battery is discharged due to overuse, fatigue, exhaustion or abuse, NO pleasure can be experienced. That is depression.
Depression arises when the batteries just don't charge much anymore. They have been depleted too frequently. There are two primary ways to deplete your rechargeable batteries completely - craving and aversion. Through craving and aversion, the batteries are discharged when they are not in use at all - i.e. even when the organs of actions are not doing anything all, the mind and senses are depleting the batteries anyway.
Craving, a permanent feature of the mind trained for instant gratification is THE primary cause of depression in the middle and upper classes. Instant gratification of food, shopping, sex or talking deprives the nervous system of the capacity to contain the pleasure in the body and trains it for endless craving for objects. Aversion follows immediately after you've bought that new toy, had yet another ice cream and so on - and on, it's just the tail of craving.
Aversion, a feature of the mind trained for abstinence and repression causes depression too as Buddha probably realized in the jungle and many religious people have learnt since. Similar to craving, aversion is nothing but desire gone wild and it discharges the nervous system just as quickly and just as often by making it impossible for the mind to rest.
For those in, or on the way to depression, Tapa is the answer - the literal meaning of Tapa is heating or cooking. Cooking or the system in the SLOW fire of desire - eating when one is truly hungry, sleeping when one is truly sleepy, not too much, and not too little, burning the body through moderate physical work, observing, rather than indulging the mind - that is TAPA.
This practice increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the very in built JOY that is nothing but reflected by the external objects of consumption and increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the charge.
Imagine fast charging and discharging a battery every hour - in a maximum of two weeks, the battery dies.
Our nerve centers or chakras are like rechargeable batteries wiring an endless web of nerve endings to our senses. The more charged the batteries are, the more pleasure is experienced by the brain.
When the 'spinal' battery is discharged due to overuse, fatigue, exhaustion or abuse, NO pleasure can be experienced. That is depression.
Depression arises when the batteries just don't charge much anymore. They have been depleted too frequently. There are two primary ways to deplete your rechargeable batteries completely - craving and aversion. Through craving and aversion, the batteries are discharged when they are not in use at all - i.e. even when the organs of actions are not doing anything all, the mind and senses are depleting the batteries anyway.
Craving, a permanent feature of the mind trained for instant gratification is THE primary cause of depression in the middle and upper classes. Instant gratification of food, shopping, sex or talking deprives the nervous system of the capacity to contain the pleasure in the body and trains it for endless craving for objects. Aversion follows immediately after you've bought that new toy, had yet another ice cream and so on - and on, it's just the tail of craving.
Aversion, a feature of the mind trained for abstinence and repression causes depression too as Buddha probably realized in the jungle and many religious people have learnt since. Similar to craving, aversion is nothing but desire gone wild and it discharges the nervous system just as quickly and just as often by making it impossible for the mind to rest.
For those in, or on the way to depression, Tapa is the answer - the literal meaning of Tapa is heating or cooking. Cooking or the system in the SLOW fire of desire - eating when one is truly hungry, sleeping when one is truly sleepy, not too much, and not too little, burning the body through moderate physical work, observing, rather than indulging the mind - that is TAPA.
This practice increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the very in built JOY that is nothing but reflected by the external objects of consumption and increases the capacity of the nervous system to contain the charge.
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