As a young man in my twenties I spent 10 years wandering the world in search of "inner knowledge". This was 1965-1975 and it wasn't such a strange thing to do then, although it was still fairly unusual to take it as seriously as I did. It might sound paradoxical to wander abroad in search of something that you believe is to be found inside yourself but it actually makes good sense when you practice it. This is because a solitary wanderer can pass time in solitude and self reflection without raising anger or anxiety in relatives or acquaintances. As a traveler you can always appear to be enroute somewhere, and therefore purposeful.
After about 10 years on the road I thought that it was about time I tested some of the theories I'd developed. So I returned to my hometown, found a cheap room and set to work.
My basic theory was simple. I'd arrived at the insight that fear is what animates humans and that most of the things they do are fear-inspired foolishness. The competitive status seeking, the manic economic activity, the compulsive procreation, war, the desperate clinging to life against the odds, all irrational fear-driven foolishness. If all life ends in the inevitable disaster of personal death, I reasoned with myself, what does it matter what happens to you while you're alive? What can possibly go wrong that in any way compares in severity with the ultimate, inevitable disaster? So, why not take it easy and enjoy life while you can? The answer to this being that everybody, including myself, seemed to be programmed with irrational fear that compels us, whether we like it or not, like a goad up the behind, to rush forward and scramble through life in a most undignified way. If only a person could be free of this implanted fear, I thought, he or she would be able to choose how to live life in a much more relaxed and rational manner. Not only that, but in my naivette I thought that anybody who overcame, who transcended this fear, would be popular company and a sought-after dinner guest.
So, my method was as simple as the theory. I would sit for long periods with my consciousness turned inwards and watch the flow of my thoughts. Looking inward I had a sense of sitting somewhere above the source of my thoughts where I could watch them rise up, as if out of a well. As they came up I would divide them into good thoughts and bad thoughts. Bad thoughts had some identifiable content of fear or compulsion. Good thoughts were all the rest. The good thoughts were embraced, bad thoughts were discarded.
That's all there was to it. I had some vague notion that after sufficient practice at sorting my thoughts in this way I would either develop a technique to instantly recognize and discard fear-inspired thoughts or, alternatively, perhaps I might find that the source of fear in me would just give up and leave me alone. Whatever the outcome I expected that with enough perseverance I would make a smooth transition into a different kind of person who was no longer bothered by fears and anxieties.
Foolish boy!
I was in my thirtieth year by then, I had a very strong sense of myself, I had never sought any counsel from mental health professionals and, after ten years on the road, I was very confident in my own ability to survive and think my way through difficult circumstances. I'd read all the books I could find on yogis of the mind and philosophies of the east and west, I'd talked to all sorts of weird people in out of the way places with strange ideas,... but I was totally unprepared for what happened.
Source: Schizophrenia & My Mystical Journey
See also: Schizophrenia & Mysticism
About Me
- Spiritual Emergency
- I am an individual who has undergone a transformative experience that in this culture and setting would be identified as psychosis or schizophrenic. Other cultures and settings have other names for the same experience: kundalini awakening, shamanism, mysticism, gnosis, the psychotic-visionary episode, the dark night of the soul, ego death, the alchemical process, positive disintegration, post traumatic stress disorder with psychotic features, spiritual emergency, etc. I was not on any form of spiritual path previous to that experience nor was I experimenting with ethnogens. I was simply an individual in a great deal of pain doing my best to get through it. That experience lasted approximately six weeks. I was guided through it by a mentor figure who appeared and served as my constant companion. Everything in this blog has been researched after the fact. I share it for the benefit of others who may have no framework for interpreting their own psycho-spiritual crisis.
