Comment: A new type of depression called “smiling depression” has been identified. It involves presenting a happy appearance and hiding depressive symptoms. This is becoming more and more widespread.

People are busy in life, they have a profession, children, family, hobbies, and at the same time they are in constant depression. Outwardly they smile and present a happy appearance, but inside they are in real turmoil.

My Response: It seems to me that it affects huge parts of humanity today—the masses.

We live in a world in which our egoism is constantly developing. And what suited and satisfied us 1,000 years ago, ceased to satisfy us 500 years ago. And today it does not satisfy us at all.

At the beginning of the 20^th century when a person had something to eat, something to wear, and a place to sleep, the average person was happy, but today this is not an indicator that person would be in a comfortable state. This happens because our egoism grows and demands much greater fulfillment from a person, even the one that a person himself does not know about.

I just feel bad and I am empty! Did I eat? I think I ate. Did I sleep? I slept. Do I have a place to sleep? Yes. Do I have something to eat? Yes. Something to wear? I have that too. I have a job and everything else. What do I lack? I myself do not know.

Question: And what does a person lack?

Answer: The feeling of fulfillment, the feeling of happiness. That is what is missing. I may have everything, but I feel empty.

“What do you lack? Tell me what it is. I will write it down, and I promise to provide you with this.”

“You cannot provide me with this. I have to fill myself with something. There is emptiness inside me that I cannot fill in any way—not by drinking, eating, or anything. You can tickle me, and I will not laugh. I do not have this fulfillment!”

Question: How can a person find it?

Answer: There is no way. There is a feeling of lack inside him, a feeling of inner emptiness that cannot be filled with anything in our world.

You can take him, like a child, on a carousel, on walks, on trips, spin some movies in front of him, whatever, he will remain the same. He will watch some of it, it will distract him a little, but he will still feel that this is just an escape from emptiness. That is, there is emptiness, and he rises above it a little, but does not leave it.

Question: The famous Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist Viktor Frankl wrote that the cornerstone of good mental health is a purpose in life. Is finding the meaning of life necessary?

Answer: In our time, yes. In the past, the meaning of life was just to survive.

I lived in Lithuania at one time. People who lived there before the Soviet regime told me how everything had been arranged.

In the morning you went somewhere to work. Work, as a rule, was not permanent, because it is a small country. If you were lucky, you got work, you got paid for the day, you came home, you had something to eat—for yourself, for your family, and so on. And so it was for ordinary people who were not rich. This is how people lived. That is, if a person earned some money that day and he had something to feed himself and his family, he was happy.

50 years have passed. Can such a way of life be considered successful for a modern person today—that in the morning he does not know where he will earn money, and in the evening he does not know how he will feed himself and his family? No, a person needs a lot of things.

His egoism has become much wider and much deeper. He needs to know how much he is earning, when he receives his salary, what he will buy with it, where he will go on vacation to have fun, where his children will study, what his pension will be, and in general, really everything!

Question: So now he must take care of this by himself?

Answer: His needs have grown so much, and he cannot do anything about it; it is his inner egoism that has developed so much, not that he is spoiled that he cannot be happy today from receiving some minimal portion of the necessary fulfillment.

He does not even know what kind of fulfillment, even if he has everything. After all, this depression affects practically all ranks of society.

Question: Where is the way out of this labyrinth of life?

Answer: I do not know. But I remember that I was like that in my generation, and it was hard for me. Throughout my childhood and youth, I was in such a semi-depressive state until I found my serious occupation—Kabbalah.

I did not know how to fill myself and why I existed. All that was somehow far-fetched, that I had to bear this burden of life by all means. Why?! What for?! This is the most terrible thing! That is, when you get up in the morning and ask yourself: “Why did I get up? Why did I wake up?”

And these states are constant in people who are spiritually elevated or must be spiritually elevated, even in a Kabbalist, because new demands appear in them, which they realize and rise up the spiritual steps in the attainment of the upper one.

But when this emptiness that requires filling is revealed in you, and you do not yet know what kind of filling, then you are in a state that, in general, is defined as depression, although it is not depression.

For Kabbalists, this is not depression; they love these states because they know in advance that they will fill them, that in this emptiness they will attain the feeling of the upper world.

We are in a new generation, when modern people manifest this emptiness, these demands, and these huge desires. But in our world we cannot find any filling for them. They must receive this filling from the next level.

Question: We are not talking about clinical depression, which is a mental illness. What is the recipe for happiness or a way out of this smiling depression, or just low spirits?

Answer: One fire drives out another. There is no other way. We must necessarily find a filling for this internal demand of emptiness. And it is in the meaning of life.

People, in principle, ask this. But even if they do not ask, this question exists in them. This is a question that gnaws at them, and they are afraid to ask it. A person is afraid to admit to himself that he does not know what he lives for, and this is precisely what does not give him the energy to live.

Question: Why is he afraid?

Answer: Because there is no answer. And to find yourself in front of emptiness.

Comment: It is scary.

My Response: It is not that it is scary; it practically destroys me as a rational being who exists rationally and knows why he exists. If I tell myself that I do not know why I exist, then I am, in principle, nothing. And that makes me feel even worse. Because of this I will just lie down and not get up.

Question: So what is the meaning of life for a person?

Answer: The meaning of life is to reveal our spiritual root in which we exist eternally and plunge into our earthly world temporarily in order to rise even higher with its help. That is, you need to see this entire system and participate in it.

Then a person begins to work on himself spiritually. He reveals the upper world, the control system, the system of the universe, and sees what he must do in order to feel himself realizing a huge plan every minute!

Question: What does a person gain by revealing this world?

Answer: He reveals, and he sees with all his senses, with all his fiber, absorbs the entire universe, feels himself directly a part of it, and interacts with it. He affects the world, and the world affects him.

And then his great game begins, like a child with his toys. It captivates him. Of course, it is not easy and not right away but, in principle, if he already begins to understand that this is destined for him, this is already a great development.

The most important thing is to feel yourself in front of the door, to come close to it, and then it will open.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 6/12/19

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