As I set out
to be self-educated, at the age of twenty-two, I was blind to the path which
would wind its way through a shadowy forest and lead me to higher wisdom. My intention in pursuing this path—through
the shadowy forest—was to go into exile—and read as much as I could. Time spent in exile injured my soul. Depleted, emotionally, from years of
isolation, I found it necessary to seek support in the mental health system.
I would be
diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was twenty-seven; after receiving
this diagnosis, I attempted to end my life cutting my wrist. This caused enough alarm in those that cared
for me that I would spend the next two and a half years in a private group
home. Mental illness is not the focus of
this blog post, however. Rather, I will
like to elucidate my insight into the natural tendency for people to find
meaning in things. My path of
self-education acted as a means for my finding meaning in years of suffering
from schizophrenia. In turn, finding
meaning in my suffering led to my freedom from this suffering.
Between the
years of twenty-two and twenty-six, I read so much to cause myself harm. There is a type of hysteria which I succumbed
to; this is a real hysteria which I learned about from a psychiatrist; with
this form of hysteria you create so much stress for yourself that muscles in
your neck tighten. The muscles which
tighten are around your esophagus, and nearly restrict breathing.
Let’s jump
forward a few years: I had seen the extreme stress associated with my hysteria
dissipate; but I was in the private group home which I mentioned previously. In that group home I began studying again, but
with less fanaticism. My main course of
study at the group home was of chess which I devoted about an hour a day to for
over a year. Even while there—years
after my initial development of hysteria—I found reading difficult because it
caused a re-emergence of the tightness in my neck.
Even though
I read with such fanaticism during the years of exile, I found, while I was at
the group home, that my level of education was not as respectable as I might
like. I was intimidated by the amount
knowledge which my peers with four year degrees held. This left me dismayed. I could not foresee, then, that I would ever
step out to transcend the bewildered state I found myself in.
Today, I am
very happy with my level of education; the years of stumbling around not seeing
how to be a cultivated intellectual were paramount to my eventual success in
self directed learning. I needed to bear
the weight of futility to acknowledge the relationship I have to the innate
wisdom inside me.
Serious
mental illness can be associated with what is considered a spiritual rite in
almost any culture. That spiritual rite
is known as a dark night of the soul; a dark night is marked by exile and
self-denial; a dark night manifests itself in emotional torment. A dark night of the soul is the breakdown of
the ego—the ego that inhibits a person’s relationship to their own divine
essence. A person can, once they have
let go of their false self, the one which leads to emotional conflict, allow
their true self to emerge.
As it
happens, and I state this as fact, the path towards self-education runs through
self-knowledge. Had I not endured years
spent in exile—had I not embarked on a dark night of the soul—I would never
have cultivated any relationship to myself which would hold so much honesty. Not seeing far enough ahead to carefully
navigate the shadowy forest is how I arrived at a place of higher wisdom. Years of exile and reading did not yield
adequate learning for me to be happy with my education; but my suffering and exile
were paramount to finding my source of innate wisdom. All that was necessary to uncover this wisdom
was to let my spiritual self emerge out from under my broken ego.
Wisdom is
what emerges when a person has developed a strong relationship to their
emotional core. There, in finding this
wisdom, there is all the meaning you will need to endure any bout of madness.
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