The mind thinks of the self as separate, the heart knows better. As one great Indian master, Sri Nisargatta, put it, "The mind creates the abyss, and the heart crosses it."
There may be no way to completely avoid the fires erupting all around us, but the human psyche is ancient and immediate and therefore uniquely resilient...The inner alchemy of the soul intends to turn the heat of all that fumes and burns into the light of illumination.
~ Michael Meade in "A Time of Fire" essay