Vedanta Your Way Out Of Tension And Depression

Relief of Tension and Depression through Vedanta



Swami Tathagatananda [Tathagatha means Lord Buddha], a senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, is one of the most erudite Vedantic scholars whose writings are rated high all over the world. Swamiji stays in New York and is Minister-in-charge of Vedanta Society in New York. He is the author of several outstanding publications like ‘The Journey of the Upanishads the West’, “Light from the Orient”, ‘Glimpses of Great Lives’—to mention just a few. His latest publication, published early in 2008, carries the title “Relief of Tension, Depression and Anxiety through Spiritual Living” published by the Advaita Ashram, Kolkata.

After going through this book I feel that this book is like a beacon light that directs itself to all corners of the mind, dispelling all our fears, anxiety and depression. It shows how spiritual values alone can bring peace and calmness to our agitated minds. Even though all the chapters of the book are interesting, informative and absorbing, the information contained in the following few paragraphs from the chapter on “Lofty Values Enrich Life with Spiritual Insight” particularly caught my attention. I thought of sharing this information with you. I quote from the book:

“Spiritual knowledge encourages enduring spiritual values that motivate us to improve our character, enriching life and bringing harmony to it. Modern values, on the other hand, do not take our innate integrity of character into account and are commonly associated with “pay, promotion and pension”. Everything has changed in the nuclear age except the desire for these three, with few exceptions.

Two remarkable communities are exempt from this prevailing modern condition. They are comparatively free from chronic illness, conflict and war. They use their own healing methods and manage their own system of education. One is a little-known group of 12,000 people living in Gulangra, an isolated mountain peak belonging to the Central Mountain Range of the Malay Peninsula. They were first discovered more than a century ago and are there even to this day.

The other is a community of over 80,000 Amish people living in America for four hundred years. They live simply according to their own interpretation of Biblical injunctions and the message of Christ. They do not use electricity, mass media, television, computers and automobiles. Their rejection of advanced technology and America’s mainstream values has not prevented them from becoming successful and productive. Convinced of the virtue of a stoic, modest and austere life, they continue to live peacefully content and uncorrupted. The modern plague of consumerist culture that surrounds their borders does not afflict them. Because they are free from the stress of materialistic values and the consequent psychic disorders, it may be helpful to ponder the benefits of their simple and spiritual lifestyle. They have never had to face the modern problem of stress due to their more rustic, sturdy and relatively unaffected way of life.”

Swamiji ends this chapter with an apt quotation from Bertrand Russell from his book “The Impact of Science on Society”

“We are in the middle of a race between human skill as to means and human folly as to ends. Given sufficient folly as to ends, every increase in the skill required to achieve them is to the bad. The human race has survived hitherto owing to ignorance and incompetence; but given knowledge and competence combined with folly, there can be no certainty of survival. Knowledge is power, but it is power for evil just as much as for good. It follows that, unless men increase in wisdom as much as in knowledge, increase of knowledge will be increase of sorrow”


B.M.N.Murthy




Article No. 460--Vedanta and Mental Tension
Created: Tuesday, September 2, 2008 9:27 AM