Living in the Mystery

The Living in the Mystery: Between Head and Heart by Jan Arriens, a memoir examining the conflict that mystical experiences can pose for us all: the tension between rationality and intuition, and between scepticism and hard-to-explain experiences. His experiences, including the awareness of the other when working with prisoners facing execution, throw up questions about perception, consciousness and the nature of reality. Does our consciousness extend beyond the individual, and form part of an interrelated whole? Do such experiences suggest a wholly different realm of consciousness? The sense of connection with a level of reality beyond the individual is where we encounter love, compassion and awe – and also confront doubt. It is, Jan concludes, through this sense of awareness that we are in touch with the mystery at the heart of our existence.