Study in Gray
Sometimes when I read Deepak Chopra, I am reminded of the old saying: vanity, vanity, all is vanity. If everything around us is simply perception, why then do we even bother doing anything, why did he bother to write the book. If there is nothing that exists outside of us, then why go on? Is everything in the world going on for just my benefit? Why then is there so much going on that I cannot pay attention to all of it?
I am grateful for the wisdom I am finding in Chopra, but sometimes the questions that his writings bring up get awfully BIG in my head. Sometimes these questions are not good for my recovery from depression. I am grateful that I have the ability to stay calm and objective to sort through these things.
Hello there,
I am often left perplexed with the same thoughts and issues. Early on in my understanding of my own depression – long before seeing a professional for help, I turned to spirituality (namely Buddhism) for wisdom. Now if Chopra has your head spinning in circles, the Buddhist concept of enlightenment will leave you in free fall. There too you will find the concept of ‘nothingness’, that nothing real or objective exists – that everything is just illusion. Trust me, concepts such as these have not left you alone in feeling even MORE depressed. I too have, and still do, go down that road often. But I still think its a road worth traveling for the insights it provides.
Trust me when I say that I am far from being enlightened or that I have overcome my own depression, but perhaps I can help you see things in a new way, and in doing so help myself see things differently?
‘If everything around us is simply perception, why then do we even bother doing anything, why did he bother to write the book.’
I think what you are asking here is that if the cause of nothing is nothing, then why do anything at all? The problem I see in posing this question this way is that it cannot be grasped by our ‘human’ mind. There can be no answer to a question that doesn’t exist – nothing doesn’t exist, so isn’t asking a question about nothing not asking a question at all? (I hope that doesn’t make your head hurt like it just made mine lol).
Chopra, who has relied heavily on eastern spirituality and thought, can leave many people feeling confused, myself included. However, I think the questions he raises point to a place where the answers can be found.
A long time ago while listening to a lecture by an eastern spiritual teacher I first heard a statement that has remained with me to this day: ‘Ask yourself these questions, but never never answer them, no, just ask and be silent’. I remind myself of that statement often when I am faced with spiritual concepts my mind cannot understand. Remember, your mind thinks that you are the perception of you that it has created for itself. It doesn’t think it is perception, it thinks it is real, and anything contrary to that effect will always lead to inner conflict. So ask the questions but don’t try to answer them. I know its hard, but it has given me some interesting insights and improved my own depression.
I hope this has helped even a little, and not left you more confused then when you started. Feel well!
Paul,
Thank you for your comments. They were brilliantly perceptive and right on target. I love the statement from your teacher about asking the questions, not answering them and being silent.
I will respond to your comments more tomorrow.
Lautrec
Paul,
One of the ironies of this whole dilemma is that if nothing exists, then my depression doesn’t either, so I am silly to worry about it.
Louis Hay says that you use your brain, not the reverse. This was revolutionary for me in the depths of my depression because it made me gain a crucial perspective on my own responsibility for whatever it is that I am thinking at any particular moment. I was getting lost in my own thoughts and feeling powerless to control them. My own deeply depressing thoughts were completely controlling me.
In the Choprian way of thinking this might have just been perception, that my mind, my thoughts and my being are all simply a trick of perception and that they are all one in the same. However, if I am to go on perceiving, if I am to go on at all, why can’t I choose to perceive wonderful things? Why can’t I choose to perceive, to concentrate on what is beautiful and good rather than on that which is ugly and bad and worthless and painful?
In this sense, Chopra is right, what we pay attention to, grows. Do I want to make what is ugly and bad grow by constantly feeding it with my thoughts and my obsessions or do I want to create good?
Paul,
I know that you may have come back and read my two responses back to you, my first one being somewhat brief and the second one
being somewhat positivistic or some might even say simplistic. I wanted to continue this conversation however because this central truth about perception and reality continues to pose mental and philosophical problems for me and for a good friend of mine who have undertaken this journey of awakening together.
In your response to me you state:
That is a really complex sentence that takes allot to grasp and I still am not sure that I am really getting it. It reminds however that I need to become more comfortable with mystery, more comfortable with knowing that I cannot know everything, and that I cannot put all of wisdom into neatly wrapped packages or perfectly organized pigeon holes. I seek to become comfortable with the process of knowing and of wisdom. It is a process to be a part of, that I participate in; not something that I acquire like an object and hold fast so it doesn’t escape from me.
Lautrec,
It has taken me some time to reply as I have ventured down that all to familiar road of depression, and am finally beginning to break free from it’s viscous grip. (For some reason I had to register again to reply)
Trust me when I say that although my responses may seem indicative of a person with vast wisdom and knowledge it all comes down to semantics. I guess I have been blessed with the ability to communicate effectively through my writing. However, many of the things I think I believe – such as my statement you have quoted above, I can only grasp at an intellectual level. That is to say, I believe these things to be the truth, but it is not MY truth. Does that make sense?
Your original reply was not simplistic, however it does pose some very deep questions that I too have struggled with. You see, in all my years of spiritual learning (I should say grasping – more about this later) I have come to realize that true awaking cannot happen in a world of duality. When we say things like good or bad, beautiful or ugly, etc etc, we are dwelling in the world of duality. What is good? What is beautiful? Indeed, what is happiness? Are these concepts not opposites of some other construct? Of some other mental perception? Can we have good without bad or beautiful without ugly? I have come to believe that just thinking or focusing on what is good or beautiful is no different than focusing on what is bad or ugly. Both are based on illusion, or I should say perception. But here is the kicker – if there is no good, no bad, no beautiful, no ugly, no happiness, no sorrow, then what is there? You see, we come back to the concept of nothingness that was the original theme of this post. If everything is illusion/perception, then why bother doing anything at all? Sound familiar?
“That is a really complex sentence that takes allot to grasp and I still am not sure that I am really getting it.”
I like this sentence because you bring up something very important – grasping. As I mentioned earlier in this post, I have often grasped for spiritual knowledge. I have grasped for the truth, I have grasped enlightenment. Who is grasping? What is this part of us that grasps? Why do we grasp?
Now, I may be wrong, and as I have said before I do not claim to be enlightened or free from human suffering, but I do have a theory that may help you understand what I believe.
We – you and I and everyone and everything else, are just perception, an illusion. This is not to say that you, I, the dog, the cat and the mailman (etc, etc) don’t exist or aren’t real. Can you say that a wave does not exist? That it is separate from the ocean? It seems different than the ocean, we can see it, sometimes we can even feel and hear it, but it is just a manifestation of the ocean, is it not? This is how Buddha tried explaining the concept of perception and reality, and I have been unable to come up with a better way to understand or explain it myself. But you see, if our mind is simply a collection of perceptions, and for whatever reason we have come to accept the mind and its perceptions as our identity – as our reality – then we can have no choice but to understand the world around us through the lens of perception and illusion. You see, since the mind is creation, a manifestation of the creator (like the wave is a manifestation of the ocean)and the creator is truth, and truth is nothingness, then how can creation lead us back to truth? Why else would we grasp for understanding and freedom? We can only grasp for something that isn’t there, or is continually leaving our grip. The same is true of grasping for truth or enlightenment. Only in the world of duality can there be grasping. I hope that makes sense, because it is something that I myself do not fully understand.
I believe that the way to awakening, to enlightenment, is through silence, through a quiet mind. The great spiritual teachers and sages throughout history have all validated self-contemplation and meditation as the way to freedom. They have all espoused the importance of the quiet mind in breaking free of duality; of dissolving perception and illusion. The quiet mind is not a thinking mind, it is not a mind that tries to understand or grasps for knowledge – and to that end I have spent years trying to learn the techniques of quieting the mind. At times, however, I fall into the trap of thinking, of analyzing, of trying to understand things in an intellectual and rational manner – and so the cycle begins all over again, the same cycle I am trying to break free from.
Paul/Pacmac,
I am sorry to hear that you went down that road to depression again. I know what it is like and I have been struggling to stay “ON THE HAPPY ROAD” as my father said so beautifully when he came to visit this summer. I have caught myself several times recently beginning to play those horrible tapes in my head that led me down the road to the black hole that consumes everything on my last extreme episode of depression. I stopped right there and told myself that I knew where that road led to and that I did not want to go there again.
In terms of your other comments, there is too much stuff there [way too much good stuff there] to make a short and quick response, as I’ve got to get back to work today. I work for myself at home and I can easily never get around to doing the things that I need to do to put bread and milk and wine on the table.
More later.
I forgot to mention that I am sorry you had to register again. I had to change the way comments are allowed and managed as I had some stupid spammers making post about all the things that this blog is not about.
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