Depression caused by Disappointment in Love

by Haridas Chaudhuri

Talk about it:
info@livereal.com

Disappointment in love or home life is a potent cause of depression. Let us imagine a young man deeply in love with his girlfriend. He feels that he cannot live without her. And then one day he discovers that she has given herself to another perons whom she is soon to marry. The shock of disappointment may be so unbearable that the young lover may withdraw into terrific depression. he may see darkness all around and reject life and society. he may seek a way out by committing suicide.

Similarly, a housewife who is very faithful and devoted to her husband may one day discover that he does not care for her so much any more. He is perhaps goig around with another woman. Or he is perhaps so much intoxicated with success in business or politics that he has little time left for wife and children. So the gloom of despondency envelops her life.

If an individual is fore-armed with right knowledge about life, depression resulting from disappointment in love may prove only a passing cloud. Otherwise it may ruin one's life. Love should never assume the form of total attachment. It should not be equated with clinging. It should never be allowed to exceed the bounds of sel-poise or to hinder the growth of self-existence. In one's love-life one should never come to the point of feeling that life is worthless wihtout a particular love object. No particular person has that much absolute value. The act of investing the particular with absolute value is of the essence of blind attachment. It amounts to idolatry. True love affirms the particular love-object only as a mode of manifestation of the absolute, not as the absolute. But since the absolute is no external object, since it is the ground of all existence, all particular objects of love can only serve as symbols of the absolute. They are factors in the full growth of love. They are meant ultimately to direct our love toward union with the absolute.

In our love-life our expectations are sometimes too extravagant. Reality is not tailored to fit such extravagant expectations. Consequently too many love relations terminate in tragic disappointments. It is good to remember that nothing human, nothing ephemeral, nothing of this earth can completely satisfy the love requirements of the human soul. God alone can. Inccreasing appreciation of higher spiritual values is essential for deeper emotional satisfaction. As we shower love on a particular object or person, let us remember that such an investment should not become a rigid fixation. The channel of communication with the absolute or God should always be left open. If that can be accomplished, we cease to be too demanding or exacting in our love relations. We can even afford to love without expectation of reward or return. In that way love becomes more and more mature and spiritual. It becomes a free and sponaneous outflow of the joy that characterized the soul attuned to the divin.e It becomes an unconditional self-giving o fthe emotionally mature self.

In order to prevent emotional fixation, it is always desirable to have a diversity of interests in life. It is good to have many friends in life even when one is utterly faithful in conjugal love to one's partner. Besides the delight of family life, it is desirable to have some interest in social or humanitarian values. It is good to have some interest in cultural pursuits or spiritual inquiry. Diversified interest in manifold values sustains the free-flow of love's energy. It prevents emotional rigidity and petrifaction. In consequence, disappointments and frustrations can easily be absorbed. Love can always be redireted afresh to well-chosen values. All particular objects of love much be understood, in ultimate analysis, as various modes of manifestation of the absolute, which is the pole-star of all emotional yearning. In the final analysis, it is the absolute which is loved in all finite things. In its passion for love, the soul is ultimately oriented to the absolute. A clear understanding of these fundamental spiritual truths is the final guarantee against all depression. When this truth is gorgotten, man, in his longing for love, is subjected to a state of futile passion, as Jean-Paul Sartre says. But when we learn to remember and practice this truth, love begins to glow with the rich promise of glorious fulfillment . . .

- excerpt from
Mastering the Problems of Living
by Haridas Chaudhuri

Talk about it:
info@livereal.com

Back