19/08/2025
Finding the Space Between the Depths
by Ross Dawson
Just a note about me.
During my years of practice, I’ve grown in ways I never thought possible. One of the strangest and most unexpected parts of that growth has been the number of mystical experiences I’ve had along the way. For most of my life, I tried to avoid them, rationalize them away, or dismiss them altogether.
I love science — deeply. It’s been my anchor, my grounding. Science gives us something rare and precious: the ability to test, replicate, and know. If you follow the method, you get the result. That’s real. That’s trustworthy. If you’ve ever looked into how profoundly the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton accelerated human progress, you’ll understand why science has been such a guiding light for me.
Part of this passion comes from my early life, when I was constantly bombarded with religious teachings — many of which, I now see, were based more on myth and superstition than truth. On this, I agree wholeheartedly with Richard Dawkins. Yet, to be fair, I also recognize the value religion has brought historically: it offered moral codes, structures of behaviour, and social cohesion. Many of these principles even shaped our legal systems. But, as history shows, corrosion and corruption always find their way in — eroding religions, laws, and cultures until they transform or collapse.
Today, we’re living through something unique — perhaps for the first time in human history: a global cultural shift. Whether this is good or bad, I don’t know. Change always brings winners and losers, and the outcomes are rarely simple.
I share all this because it sets the stage for something personal.
Despite my devotion to reason, every now and then — more often than I sometimes feel comfortable admitting — a mystical experience arises. These moments deepen my understanding in ways words can’t fully explain. Very recently, during meditation, one such moment came again. The insight was simple, yet vast:
“Finding the space between the depths and moving into the emptiness.”
I offer this to you, not as a riddle or a teaching, but as an invitation. Before asking me what it means, I encourage you to sit with it and explore it for yourself. It may reveal something entirely different for you than it has for me.
This practice, for me, is deeply healing and profoundly connective. It has a way of softening the noise of the world and opening something quiet and infinite within.
If I seem a little less available at times, it’s often because I’m deep in thought — or perhaps more accurately, deep in the mystery. And something good always comes from exploring the mystery.
I hope you’ll walk some of this journey with me.
— Ross Dawson
