Awakening from the Meaning Crisis

I have always been interested in the spiritual life. I participated as a spectator in numerous masses, processions, parties and dialogues with divinities. I have always found these moments fascinating because they are the met point between an intimacy that needs to make sense expressed in public, reified in symbols, objects, and rituals.

Different paths led me to do Yoga, then to read Osho, then Yogananda, in an increasingly intimate and less intellectual approach. The whole relationship with the search for meaning and spirituality enlightenment escapes if not lived with all the body, with social participation, with a deep commitment to change. I have read a lot and thought little, or perhaps each author and experiences has made my dark side less dense.

I read Ekart Tolle ten years ago. I found it beautiful and put it back on the shelf to take dust. This year (2020!), I rediscovered Ekart on screen! And in an impressive number of videos on Youtube. In the first confinement, his voice, his calm presence kept me company. Then I accidentally found the “female” version of Ekart, Ketty Byron. Even her videos kept me company on the most uncertain nights.

I have always kept my passion for this too subjective dimension separate from the scientific, psychological, interpretative and logical dimension. Then, still, in my more vague itineraries, I met John Vervaeke, the perfect combination of my interests. His video series on the creation of meaning in a time of crisis is a re-discovery of information that I possessed (in part), reread, put together, mixed, in synthesis and original creation.

Some concepts that I can point out here from Episode 13- for example:

- Suffering which is a “feeling”, being “with” (Like Ekart Tolle always said);

- The arena/agent relationship interesting to have a relational look on the dimension that we consider only individual;

- The adaptive biological dimension to be considered in addiction processes and in our tentatives to search for freedom.

- The automatic information processing: So adapted = so vulnerable.

-How the agentive dimension is reduced with the self-destruction/The addiction as a limitation of agency, considering the reduced space of personal choice.

The exciting things for me from my own exploration on this topic are:

a) The explanation proposed by John Vervaeke is echoed in my readings and videos seen on Ekahrt, Ketty Byron, Yogananda etc. — legitimizing my wandering inside and outside the “palace” (a reference to video n. 10 about Siddartha).

b) How my make-sense journey is not only mine but shared with every human being at different levels and forms— legitimizing my need to feel connected with others and, in the end, with the cosmos.

c) As all my forms of thought are anchored in a historical journey that depraves me, which starts far back in antiquity and projects beyond my ability to make sense — legitimizing the compassion I owe to myself and others.