Nonduality is sanity. The opposite of that, the divided mind is what’s so crazy.
You can see that at any moment in your life. Where do all your fears come from? Where do all your worries come from? It’s because you feel like you are separate, battling with the world, trying to get what you need, trying to be successful or be beautiful enough, or be whatever it is that you think you need to be.
Sometimes we’re crazy, thinking we need to be enlightened, right? So it’s this crazy part of our mind that causes so much stress. The nondual state itself is sanity.
Our brains are built in a way that allows us to analyze things critically. We can name things, we can do math, we can do all sorts of things with our brain. But there’s another big, big part of our brain that’s the creative interpretive side. That part doesn’t go quite as crazy.
You can actually take charge and be the person who is managing your brain. Doing that takes the insane part of your thinking and gives it a solid base from which to work. As a result, your actual thoughts and your being become more sane.
Sanity is your nature. To be connected with the world is your nature. To know who you are is your very nature. Knowing who you are is the most sane thing that you can possibly do—to have this base of self-knowledge that animates your life. It’s one way you can tell how good you’re doing on the spiritual search. Are you becoming more sane or more insane? You might even want to ask the people around you what they think. (Although I can tell you this: if you’re becoming crazier, they’re not going to tell you.)
So always on the spiritual search, it is our own responsibility to figure out if we are being more sane.
Does the world make more sense? That’s also a good way to tell you are going the right direction, because we always project. If the world seems like it’s more and more insane, it’s pretty much being matched by your internal state. There are a lot of crazy things going on out in the world, but knowing who you are as a human being makes you sane, so you can interact with all the happenings in the most effective way possible.