On states of consciousness in the light of Andean and pre-Columbian wisdom
THE INFERIOR STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS (UCUPACHA)
Depression and anxiety
The historical failure to recognize the oneness and inseparability of matter/energy (the universal foundation), of the essence and the manifested world, to accept our ontological relationship with all things and entities, to live in accordance with this oneness, to perceive that our beliefs shape our reality, to recognize that life is, within certain limits, a vital, creative phenomenon under construction, our inability to see that much of our suffering is self-imposed, to understand the unreality of the past and the uncertainty of the future, to live the moment with more attention and pleasure: all this can be understood as the result of this conscious dissociation generated by the picture of 'existential anguish' described earlier.
As a consequence, this state stimulates the hyper-specialization and prevalence of a particular way of being, the formation of a rational and analytical, quantitative consciousness, focused on the most intense events, in order to sustain social and financial-economic progress, the growth and implementation of personal power. This same process diminishes the capacity to empathize and deeply feel, distancing one from feeling, from the 'heart'. The description of this existential state lacking balance and fullness, lacking meaning, resembles some of the emotional and clinical states diagnosed and treated with anxiolytic and antidepressant medications. This state of existential alienation entails the emergence of various symptoms, such as: decreased vitality, persistent identification with reduced aspects of existential experience, impoverishment of the various modalities of intelligence, narrowing of perceptual capacity and perspectives, difficulties in seeing solutions, lack of concentration, memory and attention, egoic focus of the various drives, a marked loss of fluidity and spontaneity, an absence of enthusiasm, adynamia or anhedonia: diverse sufferings due to problems that, if not created, are at least amplified by lack of flexibility and rigid mental habits.