No Man's Land

Nothing that exists can truly not exist. When I was younger I struggled with mental illness and addiction. I journeyed to a space between life and death. My ancestors called it No Man’s Land. Nothing exists there. In that pure non-existence, however, there is a seed of something peculiar. When I was younger I broke my mind and went head-first into non-existence. When I went into that non-existence I found something peculiar.

Many call it psychosis. It most certainly is, for within it there is no structure, no substance. It is a space where anything can exist. It is a space where everything exists. The moment you believe it, it is made real. I remember, during the period of a single hour I shifted through believing wholly that I was Jesus, Moses, and God. This is non-existence, in a way, for it requires an emptiness that few ever experience. A person must not be, and within the extremities of that emptiness exists a pure reality. At the edge of reality one either learns to truly be or they never return. There is a pure existence within pure non-existence. Truly, nothing that exists can ever not exist.

As I pieced together the fragments of my mind they came together in a new shape. I returned from that No Man’s Land one strained step at a time. Over the course of years I fought devils and studied Spirit. I was offered the riches of this world and turned them away. I was gifted a drop of fire from a sun spirit. I would speak to the trees and they would speak in return. I was in constant pain, drawing in that pure existence. Beneath our perceived reality there is a reality more profound than you can ever imagine. It opens up and breaks you. It draws you through and changes you. It shatters your mind with its vision. Beneath that shattered reality I became, I saw a peculiar thing. It was a revelation. Within that non-existence I drew through, and into myself, a Truth beyond me that is purely mine. My mind would allow nothing else.

Nothing that exists can truly not exist. The elders, masters, and sages have spoken for countless generations that we must empty into fullness. They have spoken of surrender. I surrendered wholly and fell into The Infinite. I left the world behind. I fell between worlds long forgotten by humanity. I fell into a wilderness that exists between all realities. There is a seed of something peculiar there. Some would call it enlightenment.

Within emptiness we find presence. To empty is not to lose yourself, but to gain yourself. In that place I went I became nothing. All that was left for me, as I returned, was to become True. It feels like being torn apart a thousand times. I spent eight years drawing in that Truth. It became that I could sustain nothing else. It became that my mind would no longer permit anything less. I have become enlightened, for in the far reaches of psychosis, out at the edge of reality, there is a choice presented. To return is to draw that pure existence that we call enlightenment. Nothing that exists can truly not exist, and so I found the seed of something peculiar where nothing can exist.