The Asylum in Elysium

Elysium: heaven, nirvana, paradise
Asylum: place of refuge, or mental institution.

If we look for liberation in paradise/heaven/nirvana/elysium, then we are wishing to escape from the place we are now, as we regard it either as some sort of prison or an amusement park. Depending on our view, where we are now can seem like a place of refuge – a safe place – or a mental institution.

We may not notice that this place of refuge, this asylum, has turned out to be a mental institution – a psychological state, whichever way you look at it!

We (awareness) are in a mental prison of fixed concepts; the bars to this prison are our thoughts and ideas. The stronger we hold onto our ideas, the heavier the bars seem, although they are merely mental bars. When we stop clinging to the bars, or shaking them to get out, our fixated ideas vanish – and so do the bars!

The idea of getting somewhere to be free is keeping us locked in. To believe that this mental prison is something to get out of in order that we can reach heaven/nirvana/paradise/elysium, is the very thought that imprisons us. The guard to this prison can only keep us here by our consent, as the prison does not actually exist. And who is this guard? I am. What a foolish magicians we are; we can conjure up anything!

It’s the belief that heaven/nirvana/paradise/elysium is a safe place of refuge that keeps us locked in a psychological state. Ignorance, hope and fear limit our experience of our true nature, and thus we are bound in the asylum of samsara.

It is in the recognition of the asylum that elysium is recognised.

There is nowhere to go.
Paradise is now…here.

In recognising that the world is not perfect
– and can never be perfect –
is perfection.

The absolute is realised within the relative.
Elysium is realised within the asylum.