Re: Can philosophy cure depression ?
Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2023 8:53 am
Vedanta philosophy will certainly ease the uneasy discomfort of depression via the direct experience of realising the impersonal nature of depression. But there's no permanent cure for depression through the aid of medicine or philosophical inquiry into the nature of self, because ''selfing'' is ultimately an integral part of our human nature. There is simply no cure that is the experience of life as a sentient living organism. Iow's, there's just no cure for being conscious, so to speak.
But knowing we are not our feelings of depression really does help us understand it. In knowing the true nature of self, it is realised and recognised that depression is simply like most other unwanted feelings and sensations in the body, they are not permanent, they can only be temporal visitors, always coming and going according to our moods, and our attitudes to the unavoidable consequences of what is it like to experience a human temperament, and how we choose to deal with that temperament by what we focus our thoughts and feelings upon the most.. But ultimately, in knowing we are never our thoughts and feelings, is likened to a cure, for sure.
The simple realisation and recongintion that there is no cure for life and what it means and feels like to be a conscious alive sentient creature, is the CURE.
And yes, that statement for sure, does sound like an oxymoron. Oxymorons may seem illogical at first, but in context they usually make sense.
But knowing we are not our feelings of depression really does help us understand it. In knowing the true nature of self, it is realised and recognised that depression is simply like most other unwanted feelings and sensations in the body, they are not permanent, they can only be temporal visitors, always coming and going according to our moods, and our attitudes to the unavoidable consequences of what is it like to experience a human temperament, and how we choose to deal with that temperament by what we focus our thoughts and feelings upon the most.. But ultimately, in knowing we are never our thoughts and feelings, is likened to a cure, for sure.
The simple realisation and recongintion that there is no cure for life and what it means and feels like to be a conscious alive sentient creature, is the CURE.
And yes, that statement for sure, does sound like an oxymoron. Oxymorons may seem illogical at first, but in context they usually make sense.