Difference between dark night of the soul and depression?

[CultivateLove]

What do you think? Is there a huge difference, a moderate difference or do you think the dark night of the soul is just a new-age term for depression? 

I don't really have a stance on this, I'm just curious. 

[BipolarGrowth]

I feel like there is a difference. Most people experience situational depression. I have bipolar disorder which the depression in that has been equated to the dark night of the soul. There’s a big difference between being sad because you lost your girlfriend and being depressed because of your neurochemistry and then also in being depressed because of a spiritual block. 
 

An interesting thing to try is to pray to your higher self or your spiritual guardian angels for help through depression or a dark night experience. See if it helps. My last depression was abruptly ended as soon as I tried this. 
 

According to The Law of One (The Ra Material), angels and your higher self highly value free will. They will assist you sometimes in moments you really need help without you asking, but they help most when it aligns with your free will (you asked for it). 

[Applegarden]

Dark night of the soul is deeper, more existential than depression. Dark night prevails in your dream state (swapna), deep sleep (sushupti) and waking state (jakrat). It is the reasonless feeling of stagnation and not being enough as you are.

[CultivateLove]

22 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

here’s a big difference between being sad because you lost your girlfriend and being depressed because of your neurochemistry and then also in being depressed because of a spiritual block. 

Good point

22 hours ago, BipolarGrowth said:

An interesting thing to try is to pray to your higher self or your spiritual guardian angels for help through depression or a dark night experience. See if it helps. My last depression was abruptly ended as soon as I tried this. 

Pretty sure I don't have any of those, unless they're just lazy as hell and/or have a sick sense of humor 

21 hours ago, Keyhole said:

The difference between the dark night of the soul and mental illness is that the dark night of the soul will clear up on its own relatively shortly (few weeks to a couple months) with shadow work, while mental illness is something that does not clear up without some sort of professional intervention.

One is caused by having resistance to a paradigm shift, and the other is caused by trauma or a chemical imbalance.

If you or a loved one experience a dark night of the soul lasting longer than a couple months then you need to see a doctor.  First rule out health and nutritional deficiencies, and then perhaps trauma or chemical imbalances if you are in good health.

That's my advice.

In my case all of these points were relevant, resistance to a paradigm shift, trauma, chemical imbalance (recovery from drug abuse), health and nutritional deficiencies (also related to substance abuse). 

I'm consistently feeling pretty good now, and it's a steady upward spiral, but there's still work to do. Btw, awesome profile picture

20 hours ago, Applegarden said:

Dark night of the soul is deeper, more existential than depression. Dark night prevails in your dream state (swapna), deep sleep (sushupti) and waking state (jakrat). It is the reasonless feeling of stagnation and not being enough as you are.

Not sure exactly what you mean by the swapna, sushupti and jakrat part, but I can definitely relate with the reasonless feeling of stagnation and not being enough as I am, but that feeling is of course connected to a knowing that I wasn't living up to my potential.

 

Thanks for the replies ya'll, appreciate it 

[traveler]

I would describe the dark night of the soul as the fight against existential hopelessness after awakening, Aka. Getting your head caught in the tigers mouth and fighting to get out. This period will suck you dry of any hope to escape or achieve liberation, it will leave you nothing, but that nothing is the freedom that were always longed for. When the fighting comes to an end nothing is revealed in the sense that you hoped, the fight just comes to an end, you stop fighting with life, with the inevitable. In the end there is just what is, it was all just a dream, "your path," "your life" "your suffering" everything was and is just passing appearances, formlessness changing form, unknowable unconditional love being. 

Depression is hard to describe as it varies from person to person, I guess that it is more of a personal sense of hopelessness and not existential or as deep as the dark night of the soul.

Edited August 12, 2020 by traveler

[Nahm]

 

2 hours ago, CultivateLove said:

I'm consistently feeling pretty good now, and it's a steady upward spiral, but there's still work to do.

Always great to hear. ??

[Artsu]

Dark night of the soul is a transformation period where you learn to let go of the ego.

Depression could be a transformation but not necessarily. There are various forms of depression.

I would say that dark night of the soul was easily my most intense depression. It cleared up within 6 months.