E-Paper
Healing melancholia
Melancholia happens not only to the oldies but also seems to be a malaise of the younger generation, who seem to have seen it all, and done it all.
Melancholia is a sadness of the mind, a sadness of the emotions, and a sort of utterly helpless feeling towards life. Life, which should be a joyously vibrant, living format, seems meaningless and fraught with grief and self-pity, when melancholia strikes.
This could happen, not only to the oldies, whose children have flown the nest, but also seems to be a malaise of the younger generation, who seem to have seen it all, and done it all, in their youth. It is like getting stuck in a rut of life, which allows neither forward nor backward movement, imitating a static immoveable piece of human flesh!
Now let us look at nature, and the question of why nature never seems to be struck with such a human disease. All movements in nature are cyclical, the heavens and the Earth moving along with precision and regularity along their chosen paths. There is movement towards life in all growing things, and even when the time comes for a plant or tree to wither away and die, it scatters its seed in the wind, to nest in the right environment, so that the cycle of rebirth continues, in full glory.
Have you ever seen a mentally depressed bird? The first thing it does on opening its eyes to a new day is to sing, and set about its daily business. Does it ever closet itself in its nest, waiting to waste itself away? It flies into the open skies, looking for sustenance, for body and mind.
Melancholia is the result of spending far too much time in shuttered rooms, until our minds also acquire the shuttered-in mentality. Let us emulate the birds, if we wish to strike at the root of our melancholia.
Our ancients knew the importance of movement, of change, within the system of birth, life and death. They developed ways and means of travelling to barter their goods, and come into communication with the new and different sects of humans.
Evolution intended us to be travellers. Travelling, in this context could mean physical, or mental travelling. Just as physical travelling exposes us to newer ways of life and living, to reach a higher perspective in relating to the world, so the mental travelling part can reactivate all the dulled senses, and re-energise our mental capabilities. In fact, our mad obsession with technological progress is a response to the barriers in the way of geographical movement.
All great religious teachers, whichever culture they belonged to, made physical travel an essential part of their lives, to spread their Light. The Buddhists walk the walk of a nomad, receiving alms along the way to sustain themselves. The Sufis dance along like dervishes, who are dead to the real world, but hear the Celestial Song within to move them.
Revolution, taken in the sense of movement in a circular fashion, is the best cure for melancholia, it becomes a liberating God, the Dionysus of our New Age! It is the way to Freedom of the soul, on the path to Salvation, if we can only recognise it as such. Melancholia happens when we have forgotten how to 'walk'.
The Taoist sage Li Po puts it succinctly thus:
"You asked me what is my reason for lodging in the grey hills. I smiled but made no reply for my thoughts were idling on their own. Like the flowers of the peach tree, they had sauntered off to other climes, to other lands, that are not of the world of men."
Let your thoughts fly into the Infinite worlds, even if your bodies cannot!
