FREE WILL AND DEPRESSION

[Pravin Kumar]

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Free Will and Depression

A questioner asked about personal will,
Depressed that life seemed to have no meaning,
For if no will exists how can we fill,
Our time with purpose, or satisfaction gleaning?

I replied that when identified with thought,
And thus feeling separation,
Free will seems to exist and so we ought,
To investigate with determination.

For when we directly investigate our being -
A fleeting river of sensations and thought,
In Awareness, which this objective flow is seeing -
We find the subjective core that we have sought.

Once the discovery has been made,
And with Awareness we become identified,
No personal will can be displayed,
For no separate being can we now find.

With regard to combating depression,
Done by accurate self-identification,
As Awareness there’s no need for repression,
Or worrying about this manifestation.

When ‘awake’ there’s no-one separate to care,
So cultivating this is the key,
Which lightens all of the burdens we bear,
As their illusory nature we see.

The trick is to resume investigation,
As soon as one notes the depression recur,
So with Awareness there’s re-identification,
Thus joy and peace, to which it must defer.

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A poem based on a chapter of 'Freedom From Anxiety and Needless Suffering'.

I write (and read) these posts, based on my meditations and contemplations, as much for my own benefit as for that of 'others'. For this helps to keep me 'awake' in this illusory, and impermanent, world ... our perception of which is based purely on our physical, and mental, configuration.

For more poems, articles, photos etc. see the comment on the photos.

COLIN DRAKE