What cured Arjuna’s depression?

Question: Did Arjuna’s depression get cured because of the knowledge of the soul or ātmā given in the Bhagavad-Gītā?

Answer: No. Bhagavān Śrī Kr̥ṣṇa did speak about the ātmā, but that is not the reason his depression got cured.

Question: So what cured it?

Answer: If you analyze the Gītā, in verse 2.11, Śrī Kr̥ṣṇa states that Arjuna should give up his grief. But he does not explain more. In verse 18.66, which is the final instruction of the Gītā, he asks Arjuna to seek shelter of Kr̥ṣṇa alone. Further, in the same verse, he instructs Arjuna to stop grieving. An analysis of the opening and closing statements of the Gītā shows that bhakti to Bhagavān, which involves taking His shelter alone, also cures grief.

Question: Why does taking His shelter cure it?

Answer: Because it involves a change of identity. Because we identify with external things and beings, we are prone to grief. Taking shelter of Kr̥ṣṇa means to change one’s identity. This solves the problem of grief at the root. Yet, getting rid of grief is not the goal. It is a side-effect of bhakti.

Question: So knowledge of the ātmā is not sufficient to cure depression?

Answer: No. Grief is fundamentally not due to a lack of knowledge of the ātmā, but a lack of experience of Bhagavān. Knowledge of the ātmā is in sattva guṇa. It is not able to take one beyond the guṇas. While sattva guṇa brings peace, it is never pure. Sattva is always mixed with raja and tamas, and therefore it will eventually subside/fluctuate.

This is why when people take up bhakti, they might give up a rājasic or tāmasic lifestyle, and this can bring some peace to some extent in their lives. This sāttvik lifestyle can be mistaken with bhakti, because their baser habits or inclinations have subsided. But because sattva fluctuates, these same people can, at a later time, become rājasic or even tāmasic. They then do undesirable things which are worse than what they were doing before they entered the path of bhakti. Further, they now can justify their acts based on verses like api cet sudurācāro bhajate mām ananyabhāk (Gītā 9.30).