Jake sat in Padmasana, hands rested on knees, forefingers pressed to thumbs in Gyan Mudra. The familiar blackness of his eyelids stared back at him. He’d been in this pose for at least an hour, he’d lost track.

This was the only place he felt safe. The world outside was a Cat-5 hurricane, and this was the eye of the storm.

Meditation brought him solace when nothing else could. Jake always knew he was different, ever since he was young. Over the years the doctors had diagnosed him with many things, Schizophrenia, Depression, Depersonalization/Derealization Disorder, but none of these labels ever seemed to fit quite right—like a shirt a few sizes too big.

It happened on this day, suddenly. Jake began to feel as if he was floating. Everything washed away. The space between his consciousness and his mind fractured, he was nothing, and he was everything, a living contradiction. Time was relative. The world both vanished and existed in the most effulgent state of salience.

Moksha eclipsed his diseased body. Jake seemed but a speck on the scope of reality. Everything from before simply led up to this moment. Every moment onward would be in the past tense. He couldn’t imagine letting go, but he couldn’t imagine holding on; he was duality. This was the first time he’d known true peace.

Jake wasn’t sure if he’d sat there for hours or days, but when he opened his eyes it was to a world unlike any he could have imagined.