This lovely dose of insight comes form Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's daily wisdom posted from his December 5, 2011 talk in India. Enjoy!
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
If you are chanting you cannot be depressed.
When you chant ‘Om’ it calms down those centers of emotions and once that is done the depression vanishes.
So if you are depressed it is because you are so engrossed in the material world. Day and night thinking what about me you get depressed.
What you should do is, in the morning when you wake up, ask, ‘what service can I do? How best I can be useful to all these people or to the world; to this knowledge or to this organization.' If none of that comes, then how can I be useful to Guruji. At least think that way.
If your focus is on this direction and you continue you’re chanting and your meditation knowing this life is temporary and everything here vanishes, and chant ‘Om Namaha Shivaya’, you cannot be depressed.
Depressive negative energy will simply vanish.
That is why in ancient days people would do Sandhyavandanam three times.
In the morning you wake up, look at the Sun and think of the beautiful day it is going to bring you and thank the Sun for life and for the planet earth. Our life and planet is dependent on the Sun, so you thank the Sun.
Again in the afternoon you do Sandhyavandanam and again in the evening you thank the Sun for the beautiful day and feel connected to the whole universe.
When you do this, there is no question of getting depressed. When you don’t know that you are connected with the whole universe and you think you are just some small person wanting small little things and you are bickering on your own weaknesses saying, I am weak, I don’t know this and I don’t have that. I sit for meditation and I did Kriya but nothing happens to me. This type of bickering in the mind shows the small mindedness. You have to come out of that. You take responsibility, I will come out of this and I’ll dedicate my life.
All these people who want to commit suicide, I tell them it is such stupidity. You want to commit suicide because you are so bent upon your own pleasure, your own happiness, and your own comfort. You dedicate your life for a greater cause then depression will vanish.
When you say, I am not going to take my life away but I am going to dedicate it for the world, for humanity, for the country then so much happiness comes.
Come what may I am going to fight.
I think all the depressed people should be made to realize this truth and chanting will elevate them.
Either you dedicate yourself to the world, to the nation, to culture, to dharma or you dedicate yourself to God, to the Supreme Being, to the sacred knowledge.
That dedication can pull you out of this rut.
