The Eye

 "The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Mt 6:22-23)

What is Jesus talking about here?

In that time, people understood the eye to be both the organ and the process of understanding what is seen.  They did not think that understanding occurred separate from the sensory organs.  Rather, the senses acted through the organs themselves, and the organs brought meaning to what the senses perceived in the world.

Therefore, the condition of the eye naturally effected the entirety of perception.  If one's physical perceptions are distorted, the one's entire reality is adversely impacted.

It is pretty easy to see how something like clinical depression fits into this.  It isn't unscientific as it is just a different way of expressing what science rediscovered.

How do you feel?

 "How are you feeling?"

That can be a tricky question.  Sometimes we use that line of inquiry to explore emotions, and at other times thoughts.

Are they all that different?  Emotions are clearly felt in the body, which is why we call them 'feelings'.  Yet, most of our thoughts also have a corresponding physical reaction.

While we like to think of our intellectual faculties as distinct from our emotional ones, the truth is that they are all interconnected.  Perhaps we would like to believe that thought is 'immaterial' or 'non-physical,' but the truth is that our physical disposition directly effects our thoughts.

We can observe that a headache can negatively alter our thought processes.  But, what about more subtle conditions of the body that we aren't even paying attention to?

Someone who feels depressed will have depressive thoughts.

The path of recovery begins when we acknowledge not only the power of our physical experience of our feelings to derail us from what is good, but also that these feelings are just that... they are experiences that are not necessarily attached to reality.  

You can be depressed without having any reason to be.

If we accept the notion that our feelings are not consistently reliable measures of reality, we can be freed from their tyranny.  We don't have to believe them.  We can reject their demands.

An emotion is a decision to act, which is why we have the physical experience of emotion generally after a thought.  But, if you stop to observe the feeling more closely, you can prevent yourself from jumping off the cliff that the feeling demands you do to make it 'feel better.'

The Problem of the Senses

If you read enough Orthodox monastic writings (often lumped into the general category of 'Patristics', which includes theology, philosophy, law...), you tend to get the idea that the serious Christian is fighting two battles in his inner 'battlefield'.

Indeed, the battle is an interior one.  We aren't really fighting with the devil or other people, though it often feels that way.  Relationships represent 60%-75% of the typical confession.  Not that I'm taking notes...

But, honestly, our fight over sinful or 'bad' actions begins with what goes in within our consciousness.  It is deep within ourselves that the struggle takes place between the 'higher' aspirations of the heart and its cruder appetites.

This battle over which side will dictate the actions of the person goes on in each of us.

On the one hand, the battle is one of thoughts.  We have memories, ideas, visions of what we can accomplish.  On the other hand, we have yearning desires for sensory experiences and sated appetites.

While we discuss thoughts a great deal, we often don't give sensory experiences their due.  And, that's a major oversight when considering that most addicts get addicted in order to have a sensory experience.  While the addict will often settle for 'numb,' that numbness is preceded by a 'euphoria.'  And, where that euphoria is generated is important when discussing recovery, especially when trying to break the cycle of suffering and running away from suffering.

But, I think there is more to the matter.  I think that there is room to make the argument that each of us experiences our physical world in a unique way.  For example, I like blue but you like red.  I like salty, but you like sweet.  People have sensory preferences that point to differing experiences.  My theory is that the differences in physical experiences lead to, in many cases, the conditions which lead to addiction.  Our physical experience of fear can either lead us to becoming psychopaths (too little) or shut-ins (too intense).

The addict often reports being 'sensitive'.  I think this is something worth exploring.