Schizophrenia — we’ve all been there, though most won’t admit the experience as their own. The thoughts in the mind can sometimes be overwhelming and appear as voices, visions, and other manifestations of seeming unreality. The phenomena can be overwhelming, often undeniably so, even if we pretend otherwise. A human mind is an often-overactive place we’re constantly trying to navigate to retain a semblance of sanity. But what is this sanity we’re after, anyway?
Simply put, sanity is peace of mind and, even more accurately, peace in mind. We can’t escape the constantly moving waves of the mind: the analysis, judgments, and criticism offered. But, learning to navigate and utilize the quality of experience brings elevated existential benefits.
First, we must be honest about our predicament and watch the happening as it unfolds. Notice the tendencies of insanity to realize its practical application in our experience. Through careful watching of the movement, we transcend what we think is chaos and master a conscious control that we can move with rather than be moved by. In learning this control, we see the mechanism for what it is through its operational frequencies. And as we learn to control, we know the Self as it is without the necessity for names, labels, or identity.
On the way up through the natural ascension process, we can see the lower levels we operated at in mind. We remember the noisier, more chaotic places, the higher states seem unreachable, and this separation of the low from the high, shallow from the deep, is the problem in itself: the Self is divided. The only way to bridge the two separate parts in conflict is to allow them to join through acceptance. The lower must accept the reality of the higher calling out for the lower to participate in holy communion. Reconciliation through the realization of this dichotomy is necessary for healing the two into one.
Resistance is futile and undeniably causes most of the problems in this process. Yelling, shouting, and speaking to something that we think is other than ourselves might appear as though we’re insane from the perspective of an outside observer. We might scream to another entity: God, demons, or a slew of random entities of our imagination’s making — it couldn’t be as simple as we’re frustrated with the circumstances of our own making…or could it? This natural tendency isn’t to say that God and demons don’t exist, but everything is a projection of the Self, and God certainly wants to be what He is: whole. The false separation belief is the first and only illusion of this experience, and everything else are the details.
There are no problems in the ascension process that leads to the ultimate experiential knowledge of Self. What we believe to be very real and severe problems are simply part of the process. As we learn to ride the waves, the easier this can be observed. The more we do our best to understand from a lower level what we can do to reconcile ourselves with the higher mind, the better we feel, and the more grounded and real the experience becomes, even when the practice seems so unreal. Quite paradoxically, however, the more genuine we are with ourselves in this process, the more unreal the experience appears as reality unfolds before us. But the seeming unreality only seems that way to the lower mind, something deemed impossible in the mode of operation from lower levels of existence and operation. The existential reality continues to progress without end, and the process of balancing the insanity to reach higher levels of what is possible goes on forever. Enlightenment is not an end but rather a beginning.
The only way out of the insanity of the mind is through acceptance of what is. Such acceptance of chaos doesn’t mean no changes are necessary to our mode of operation. We must change our perspective and be open to having our beliefs destroyed in the light of reality. The sooner we come to terms with this fact, the better we can enjoy the peace that intrinsically exists, whether or not we see it or want it to be here now. We can always find something wrong, out of place, or otherwise unacceptable, but indeed, if it is happening, the only thing we can do is wait to see when we are called to act by the higher Self that knows the way to freedom offered in every moment.
The path to the Self is about being honest about where we’re at, at all times. We build an authentic character through honesty, accepting what happens in the mind. And with our authenticity, we can be what we are: the Self. Abiding in the space of authenticity, the lower is in direct communion with the higher, and in this union, we realize the Kingdom of God right where we are, wherever that may be.
