“The psychotic drowns in the same waters in which the mystic swims with delight.”
Joseph campbell
Words like interconnection, oneness, and non-duality all point to an underlying unity, an ocean of consciousness, in which we swim. And yet, we are individuals with a fixed point of consciousness, experiencing the Great Mystery through a narrow lens. This tension is the paradox at the heart of a spiritual awakening; how do we experience union as an individual?
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I’m fascinated by how self-realisation relates to mental illness. Common ailments, such as depression, can’t be exempt from liberation traditions because they’re psychological constructs. Pathways that contextualise these ailments in structures ripe with potential for enlightenment, or nirvana, are of particular interest. Yoga is the choice for this exploration, because it’s grounded in self-realisation, mystical union, and the cessation of suffering, not… happiness.
That’s a direct challenge to dominating ideologies such as materialism and scientism. It challenges the notion of ailments as permanent or fixed. It turns our ambition of what’s possible upside down, suggesting that suffering is a pathway to awakening. Mental illness absorbed by this understanding is something to take incredibly seriously, because it suggests common recovery goals significantly downplay human potential.
Fate unfolds in infinite ways; chance meetings, serendipity, sliding doors, chain-of-events arranged in meaningful order, as if an intelligent design operates behind life’s exterior. People you were destined to meet. Places and times planned to perfection. An intelligent whole able to, against all probability, provide meaning to each individual part.
If the universe conspires, do atoms, too? Does quantum probability make fate possible?