Insanity as a Normal Aspect of the Spectrum of Consciousness
I saw a movie, set in a French insane asylum more than 100 years ago. Patients wandered aimlessly within a walled in garden, talking to themselves. Some believed they were Napoleon being held against their will; some thought that there were bugs crawling all over them, while others irrationally feared that there was imminent disaster. These many different ideas were unrelated to the reality that others collectively experienced. Were there actually bugs all over some sufferers? From another standpoint, no one could observe bugs. However, the patients distorted perceptions supported each other, and concluded that, indeed there were bugs all over their body. These distinctly out of balance conclusions are part of a spectrum of perceptual aberrations that we can observe in our ordinary world, and how someone’s perceptions can be so skewed from what is considered normal. In a related way, due to confused perceptions of a more subtle kind, all unawakened beings arrive at...