Greta wrote: ↑June 19th, 2018, 6:20 pm
I don't have any answers as to cures
There is only one possible way that depression can ever be eradicated and that is through love.
Because it is true, I think, that love has the power to overcome any sickness/disorder that afflicts the mind (i.e. the consciousness) of man with suffering.
"
Omnia vincit amor" is one of the most famous of all Latin expressions, and it is still popular today in the "altered" form "
Amor vincit omnia" There are countless American kids are running about right now with the later phrase tattooed on some part of their body; it basically translates as "Love conquers all" in English.
They're quite close to the truthThough I speak with the tongues of men and of angels ( these kids) but no cigar, I'm afraid.
If you change the word Amor to Caritas,
then then you've got it right.
Briefly, the latin term "amor" and its Greek equivalent, "eros" refer to love as an insatiable, selfish desire; in the sense that Elvis Presley used to make all the women at his Las Vegas gigs in the 70s scream wildly when he performed "Burning Love" ( if you remember that Elvis hit). "Amor" and "eros" are basically references to the passionate, romantic, sexual "boy- chases-girl" (or vice versa) kind of Love. Caritas and its Greek synonym "agape" are translated as either charity or love, ( for example in St John's famous phrase: "Deus caritas est" - "God is love", or in the passage from St Paul I will pin onto the end of this post where is is translated as charity ( the theological virtue) and they refer to Love in the sense of it being an
act of the selfless giving of one's personal resources ( spiritual, intellectual, emotional, material, etc) to - (and out of a purely altruistic concern for) - the welfare/well being of another person. Caritas is, in short, the kind of Love associated with the teachings and example of Jesus Christ in the Gospels.
Briefly, caritas/agape entails a complete renunciation of the proud or vain or greedy or self-centred ego, and the willing subordination and joyful surrender of this Ego and its capacities - solely for sake of, or, if you like,- in the humble service of-, another's welfare and happiness , especially if the other is a person in some kind of material need or suffering for whatever reason.
Belindi gave an example of some verses of poetry devoted to the theme of love as Caritas/agape and mentioned St Paul Letter to the Corinthians as including another example. I agree.
Finally, in 1 Corinthians 13 Paul places great emphasis on the theological virtue of Charity ( love)...saying : "So Faith, Hope and Love (Charity) remain, these three; but the greatest of these is Love. Paul describes Love/Charity as follows...
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angel and have not charity (Love), I am become as sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophesy and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity/love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love ( agape/caritas), it profiteth me nothing"............."Love never faileth: but where there be prophesies, they shall fail; where there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect ( i.e. Love) is come, then that which is in part shall be done away".
I think that if all (or most) adult men and women currently living on this planet in 2018 were (hypothetically) to take Paul at his word this very day; if they all agreed, say, to make a genuine commitment to actively begin loving each other ( with the kind love that Paul refers to as agape/caritas; that is, with the same kind Love that Christ exemplified ) then before too long there would be no more depression or suffering of any other kind. All of disvalue, all that was undesirable on this Earth would be swiftly eradicated by the irresistible "power of Love".
Regards
Dachshund