Yesterday, I was talking about the placebo effect of antidepressants.  I had started to write about my reaction to the denial surrounding the use of anti-depressants and went down a different thought train than I intended.  So, today I want to get back on track and talk about a new perspective I have been contemplating surrounding anti-depressant use.

It use to be that I lived in a world where I thought there was some truth I could find and adhere to.  For instance, I believed that anti-depressants did not work.  I even had scientific research to back it up. Now, I have an understanding that the world I live in is deceptive.  For instance, I once read research that claimed liquid extracts of feverfew were ineffective in treating migraines.  So, I stopped taking my feverfew tincture and my migraines came back.  So much for scientific research.

But it is not that the research is wrong…

Buddhism, Ho’oponopono, and new age perspectives all concur that the world we see around us is created (fully or in-part) by ourselves.  This means that just because antidepressants don’t work in my world, doesn’t mean they are not effective in other people’s worlds.

This means that I’ve “created” a world were anti-depressants do not work.  I see research that supports that, all my friends that use anti-depressants do not feel better, and I disregard claims that anti-depressants work as “placebo effect.”  And since the world I create is 100% real this is a valid reality.

On the other hand, other people live in a world where anti-depressants work.  Not just placebo work, but actually work.  They get mad at people like me that say their drugs do not work because they have evidence.  They have tried diet, exercise and herbs only to have those treatments fail.  These people go to doctors that know anti-depressants work and they feel better when they take them.  They really do have a brain chemistry imbalance that is corrected with pharmaceutical.  Their world is also 100% valid reality.

My reality is valid and all the alternative realities are also valid.

I have noticed that I spend a great deal of time arguing in support of my perceptions in my head.  I justify what I do by thoughts that support the rightness of it.  I also see others telling each other what to do and what works.  “All of us know what is right.”

I can imagine a true path to non-violence includes accepting that other people’s worlds are different from ours.  Not just their perspectives and experiences, but the actual makings of the world they live in are different.  They are not just apparently different.  They are functionally different as well.

I was once at a scientific conference with some of the big names in physics there.  One of the discussions centered on the problem of being able to replicate research.  For instance, someone (perhaps hypothetical) had developed a process of doing fission to create unlimited energy, but no one else could reproduce the process.  The creator had what it took to manifest this incredible creation, but others didn’t.  His world included fission, while for the rest of us it does not exist (yet).

The crux of the problem was what I just described.  Each person creates their world and if they do not have the karma or beliefs that include certain realities or if they have the beliefs that excludes certain realities then they will not experience them. As far as I know we have the technology to cure all disease, to feed all people, to clean up all pollution.  What stands between us and the Garden of Eden is simply misbeliefs held by the majority.  (That is why I like ThetaHealing so much.  It is a way to remove dysfunctional misbeliefs.)