At the age of twenty-two I stood at one of the most important crossroads of my life: on the one hand I was being diagnosed manic-depressive by my psychiatrist and offered pharmaceutical drugs to deal with my condition, while on the other hand I had just read a convincing book that stated that my depression was a state of mind that was created by, and wholly within the control of, me. Although I had no proof, I decided that my life would become an experiment in consciousness, and that I would look at my dilemma like a physicist would a theory. I decided that I, as the observer of my own state of consciousness, could determine whether my state of mind was a wave or a particle depending on how I chose to see it. Little did I know I had set myself on what would become a decades-long journey of self-discovery.
Another way to look at it is this: I could have chosen to look at my crisis as a purely psychological one, and blamed my unstable emotional state on my traumatic past. Or, I could decide it was a spiritual one, and focus on mythological drivers at work that transcended my, or anyone’s particular personal story. One of the main themes that I navigated my way through was the nature of good and evil. I did this first by looking intensely into how these forces were wielded within my own psyche at the microcosmic level, and from there it was a short leap applying what I had learned to the macrocosm of human affairs. In the end, I realized that nothing outside of me has more authority over me than what is inside of me, including the dark forces in this world. I learned that there is a greater power within the individual soul that can respond to the darkness, but we must choose to activate this power and not decide that the darkness is too great a force to grapple with.
In other words, my journey of self discovery was a journey from unconsciousness to consciousness, consciousness being defined as “to see clearly; to not be controlled by illusions.” If we allow our crisis to remain in the psychological realm, we will continue to live in insanity – a place where life is built upon conscious choices made from fear, acts of betrayal, and self-sabotage. Or we can allow ourselves to go mad, and on the other side of personal transformation begin making choices based on love, connection, and wholeness.
Looking back, if I was given the opportunity to stand at that crossroad again, my choice would remain the same: I would choose madness over unconsciousness any day.
