The Breakthrough Which (Meditatively) Changed Everything

If I could speak to myself at the start of the path, this is what I’d say.

Photo by Sandy Millar on Unsplash

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been fascinated by the sage archetype.

In fiction, they seemed to be the most fascinating element of each story: the Gandalfs who seemed post-human, their minds having been trained to reach the limit of human potential.

Then I found out that such people actually existed in the real world.

I was raised in the Sikh tradition (though a version that has suffered a century of serious mental colonization, thanks to British divide-and-conquer tactics). So I never had an actual wizard-figure that felt real.

Until one day while watching Gaia’s excellent Yogic Paths series, I found out about the existence of the son of the founder of Sikhism, who was a yogi named Sri Chand.

I can’t describe how much of a turning point this was; I was depressed and heartbroken after finishing university. I wanted so much more from the world, from the human mind, than Western civilization could give. But I just didn’t know where to look.

I couldn’t rely on my own heritage, thanks to it being ‘Abrahamized’ and turned upside down during the colonial period. I’d had religious &…