I have come to understand my life as a university.
Not one designed by institutions, but one shaped by experience, consequence, and choice.
Many people believe education must come from the outside — that we are meant to absorb existing systems, accept classifications, and be measured, ranked, and defined. I was born into a culture where such systems were everywhere. In the China of my generation, social structures were deeply embedded — not only in schools and workplaces, but even within families. Behind closed doors, comparisons were common. Someone else’s child was always doing better, achieving more, becoming something more acceptable.
This is not an anomaly.
It is a widespread phenomenon.
And to be fair, such systems serve a purpose. In a country with a vast population, collective structures help distribute resources, encourage cohesion, and maintain stability. They allow societies to grow with relatively low systemic risk. When facing major challenges, people unite. The collective moves as one.
But when the doors close and the individual is left alone, something becomes unclear.
Who am I — without the group?
When identity is formed primarily through collective roles and expectations, the individual self can become fragile. Social mobility may function smoothly, yet personal meaning collapses without external validation. Life begins to feel as though it cannot exist — or stand — without a system to confirm it.
This imbalance is not unique to one culture.
It appears across all societies, at different stages of life.
Perhaps this tension will be explored more fully later.
But here, it marked the beginning of my awakening.
For a long time, I followed external education faithfully.
Books.
Curricula.
Social templates.
Approved definitions of success.
I moved through these systems with diligence, believing that understanding the world meant mastering what had already been established. Yet during the years when I had lost myself most deeply, I began to realise that many of the constraints I carried were not imposed by force — they were internalised habits, formed through years of demonstration and repetition.
We are taught how to be evaluated long before we are taught how to listen.
Spiritual awakening often begins precisely here — when the identities shaped by education, religion, family, and social feedback begin to feel too tight. Early-formed personas can become a person’s default operating system, lasting decades, sometimes a lifetime.
The world is not as large as others tell you it is.
It is only as large as you are willing to experience.
Many people — myself included — spend years colliding with disappointment. We follow the default settings again and again, only to find ourselves repeatedly pushed into frustration or quiet despair. It is not unlike the experience of chronic illness within a rigid medical system.
Doctors follow textbooks.
Protocols are applied.
Treatments are adjusted step by step.
Steroids.
Blood thinners.
Antibiotics.
The goal is not resolution, but management.
You recover just enough to continue. Each time, the dosage increases. Each time, the body requires more intervention to reach the same fragile baseline. Eventually, you are told the condition is lifelong — that medication will be necessary forever.
At that moment, a question appears.
Do you continue living under the default settings —
or do you choose to restart the system entirely?
Many people experience their spiritual awakening at the lowest point of hope.
Not because they are searching for belief,
but because they are searching for themselves.
In this process, a different kind of confidence emerges. Not the confidence of knowing what you can do — but the confidence of trusting who you are. A deep recognition that the answers you seek cannot be outsourced. That the solutions you need cannot be taught in full by another.
You must trust your own mind, your own body, your own intuition.
This path is inherently lonely.
It requires accepting the solitude that comes with genuine responsibility. Growth of this kind cannot be crowdsourced. It happens in silence, in listening, in moments where no external authority can intervene.
Yet within this solitude, something profound is gained.
During the pandemic, much of the world entered retreat.
Isolation forced stillness.
Stillness exposed truth.
There was loss — people left us.
But there was also awakening.
I was not alone in this. Many around me began turning inward, not to seek cures or instructions, but to seek clarity. Healing, in this context, was no longer about fixing something broken — it was about remembering something forgotten.
I began working in healing not to position myself as an authority, but to create spaces where people could see their own light. Not for an hour of relief, but for a shift in perception.
Like the Hermit holding a lantern, the purpose was never to illuminate the entire path — only the next visible stretch. Enough for those who were ready to continue walking.
This was never about following me.
It was about walking beside one another.
True healing does not create dependence.
It restores self-trust.
When I began my crystal work and later built a community around healing, I did not see it as teaching or leading in the traditional sense. What mattered was not the method, the tool, or the language used — but the integrity of the container.
I learned that people do not need someone to tell them what to believe.
They need permission to listen to themselves.
This is the work of the Hierophant.
Not to enforce doctrine,
but to preserve meaning.
Not to dominate belief,
but to protect the conditions in which truth can emerge.
Traditions are not meant to imprison the soul.
They are meant to carry wisdom forward — intact, adaptable, and alive.
I do not carry a system.
I carry a responsibility.
To honour experience.
To respect individual awakening.
To ensure that what passes through me does not replace someone else’s inner authority.
We light one another.
We walk together.
And no one is lost.
