Published on 12, July, 2020
A little disclaimer here. This is how I think, I’m not trying to tell anybody else how to think, the government or the powers that be do a good enough job of that, these are simply my humble thoughts. If you don’t think like me, great, like Temple Grandin once said, the world needs all kinds of minds, and I agree wholeheartedly. So I’m not trying to tell anybody what to think and I’m not trying to say that I’m right and others who think differently to me are wrong, I don’t even recognise right or wrong in this sense. All our thoughts, are right for each one of us no matter how different they are from somebody else’s. They’re all right, equal and they’re all vital to each of us. Nobody can tell anybody that they’re wrong. I’ve had 50 years of people trying to tell me that I was wrong, and they never succeeded.
Thoughts are like soldiers. The soldiers in the First World War were vulnerable and open to be taken out at any given moment when they were above the trenches, out in the open. My great grandad used to say that often when the men went out from the trenches, they were so cold, tired and hungry, that they almost welcomed death, they had lost the will to live let alone fight, at this stage.
However, when they were in the trenches, they felt a level of protection. They were hard to defeat. They would hunker down and were almost invisible to the enemy line and the longer they hunkered down, the harder they came to be removed.
If we deal with our thoughts when they appear, out in the open, vulnerable and fresh, we have the opportunity to take out any offending thoughts as they arise. However, when they hanker down and get deeply entrenched in our deeper mind, they become invisible to the conscious mind and are therefore harder to root out. However, although the deeper thoughts are now invisible, they are no less dangerous. In fact, like the soldiers in the trenches, they are more dangerous.
When I was younger, I used to be obsessed about getting to the bottom of these thoughts. Without realising it, all I was actually doing was burying them deeper and establishing them firmly in my mindset so that they eventually became beliefs on which I based the whole of my life. So after a while, I was seeing the world through the lens of these disturbing, unhelpful and even harmful thoughts. They coloured my world view and they became my world view and I couldn’t understand me or the world around me.
It’s taken me many more years to uncover and root out the destructive thoughts that held me captive and I now deal with the new thoughts when they arise, while they’re still fresh and at their most vulnerable. I no longer allow these thoughts to rule my life. I have reclaimed my own values and world view and no longer accept those of others.
For example, our society is based on the premise that money holds more value than human life. From this premise, it is easy to see the justification for wars and killing people. After all, the taking of a human life is not important compared to what is really important in life, money, and wars are always about power and control, i.e. getting more money. I never bought into this belief. I know many people, the majority of people in this society in fact, value money over human life and they are therefore quite justified for killing a man for his money. I never saw what others saw in money and I still don’t, but I don’t condemn a man for his love of money, to him, money is everything, as my understanding of what god is to me. I understand now why people love making money, how they love hoarding it, going to any lengths to get it and not caring who they hurt along the way. Why would they? ~ care about human lives that is. Human lives have little more importance than the dirt beneath their shoes (which is highly valuable (to me), but has no value to them as dirt probably costs less than a human life, which is already way down low in terms of what’s valuable and important in life), so what harm is it to take out a few people, or more, now and again, for whatever reason, it doesn’t even have to be about money. The human life is way down low, below most things in life but always below money. I see so many people clearly demonstrate their values in their everyday lives. They do jobs they hate, that make them miserable, that make them miserable to be around and they do jobs that reduce their health. Yet it’s ok, because they have their eye on the prize. The pay packet at the end of the month. They get their elixir. And I understand that now. Of course they don’t mind being miserable and unhappy because they’ve got the very thing they live for. I’m no different to them. I would go to any lengths to protect my integrity and would go to any lengths to help another human being. I have. And I have gotten into a whole lot of trouble for this. So now, it’s not that I would give any less of my life for another, but that I am learning to work smarter. And it’s easier now I understand that others really are just like me. They love their god just as much as I love mine and we would both go to any lengths to get and protect our gods. We are just the same, we just have different goals or values.
I was getting so entrenched with all these thoughts about money (that I still don’t understand but I do now accept that it is god for the majority of people and that is as perfect for them as my idea of god is for me) and the thoughts of wars and killings, that the very thoughts I was considering, we’re killing me from the inside enemy line, I just couldn’t see it. But I’ve cleared the decks now, I’ve got everything straight. Some people, the majority of people, so I wouldn’t even be able to argue that they were wrong, even if I thought they were, which I don’t, love money. Money is their god and coming close to that, is all the things they can buy with their money, all this new food type stuff that isn’t always made with just food, but other things as well, all the chemicals and pharmaceuticals that make them feel better after eating all that stuff that they call food, all the cars and houses and clothes and make up that they buy, whatever they buy really. I’ve come to see that it seems that whatever money can buy is good although it then begins to get confusing because some of these things have more value than others. Lol! I stop right there. I have learned to no longer interrogate the hell out of everything and accept that there are some things in life that I will never understand so I just have to accept them. And it seems the majority of the world understands the rules to where these things stand in the area of importance, like they know the rules of social interaction. I don’t understand either and my freedom came from realising that I don’t have to understand. Autism taught me that. Getting my diagnosis was a total game changer for me. I no longer have to try and understand people because it seems to me that we’re all the same, we simply have different values. The majority of people value money and all it can buy and I value human life and all it can bring. Everything seems to be an industry these days. Religion has always been one and now the market is open for the industry of spirituality. It all evolves around god, aka money. Everything makes so much sense to me now. I feel so much safer in the world. I don’t feel like I have to ‘get my point’ across anymore, to defend myself. And this love of money isn’t just at the heart of nt’s, it’s also at the heart of many nd’s and I could never make my autistic brother’s and sisters wrong, lol, even if at first I thought they were.
I think I’ve found my peace. We are all the same, we just hold different values or we hold different things to be of value to us and that is just beautiful. Before I got my diagnosis, I thought everybody thought the same as me. I only got my diagnosis in late October last year, and already the world has become much clearer to me. I was operating under the impression that everybody thought like me so I couldn’t understand why people would say the things they did. I understand them now and I apologies to everyone I’ve ever spoken to. I can see I must have looked like a total mad woman. But can you imagine, I thought people valued life over everything else, when they didn’t, they valued money. So I thought they were just being mean to me and trying to wind me up by saying things that clearly went against this value. Such as talking about the justifications for war etc. My poor brother in law. I had him pitched as the ultimate winder upper. I thought he was intentionally out to wind me up. I could never understand why people wanted to do that. What they got out of it. I felt persecuted, like the black sheep, the one everyone wanted to pick on and make fun of. But I see now that neither he nor any of the others were trying to get at me. They were speaking honestly, from their own values, which were not like mine so of course there would be confusion. I guess because nobody else thought like me I was also fighting with the possibility that I could be wrong, that of course money is more valuable than human life. How could I be so dumb! What I’ve realised is that nobody is wrong and nobody is right and we don’t have to fall out now, because I understand you. By understanding my autism and realising that not everybody thinks like me, I can see where our point of contention came in.
Phew! Glad I sorted that one out. I’m starting to feel that gentle compassionate and tender love for people, in a way that I witnessed when I was in Australia. WoW, this is pretty big. S**t, I think I’m gonna have a melt down. I think I need to take a moment. It’s ok , I’ve got this. This is not a meltdown, this relates to what I was saying in the beginning about our thoughts being like soldiers. My immediate thought pattern then, in less than a second probably. Was, OMG you’re going to be good with people now, that means you’re going to have to spend more time with them, you won’t have any excuse now. But I caught it. It’s not true. Just because I’m going to get along better with people from now on, it doesn’t mean I have to spend more time with them, it’s my autism that makes me not be comfortable being around too many people too often. It just means that when I am around people, I will get on with them a lot better. I will filter everything they say through the filter of money is god, and then, I’ll be able to understand them a whole lot more and I won’t just think they’re trying to wind me up! I feel like that person who’s suddenly horrified to realise that they’re the last person to realise they have this thing! Only I’m not horrified. I feel at peace. Maybe I’ll never speak at all, ever again (typical aspie mind, black and white). But seriously, what’s the point? I don’t mean that in a negative light, on the contrary, I’m quite delighted at the prospect. I have loved the occasions I have gone mute, but I’ve never been able to bring that on with conscious effort. I once taped my mouth up at work, but got told off for it and got told to take the tape off as it made other people uncomfortable and they didn’t think I could do my job properly if I didn’t participate in their endless complaints and trivia. They even thought I might not answer the phone to clients or that I was never going to talk to a client again. The clients weren’t the problem (mental health team), it was the staff. But they wouldn’t stop talking to me with all this atrocious nonsense, so I stopped talking. But it didn’t work. I managed only about half a day of luxury before they made me take off my home made mask. Humans are benefits driven creatures. What is the point of talking to somebody who doesn’t speak your language? The only benefit could be if the other person has something you want. Then it might be worth the effort to try to establish some level of understanding and communication between you both so you get what you want. You don’t have to speak the same language for that. I’ve been in places where nobody speaks my language (English) and I still got what I wanted. You could speak to another to learn more about their world but to be honest, I’m over that. I know the world that is ruled by money, in as much as I want to and my world is so far removed from most peoples that they wouldn’t even begin to imagine that they might want to know anything about mine, they don’t even think it exists, so they’re not going to want to know about a world that doesn’t exist! Lol! I understand that now.
Maybe I’ll just be the mad tree lady, who lives in the forest, talking only to the trees and birds, nature and the wild life and my dog and cat of course. I think Chris Packham got it right. Live in a forest, hunker in, like the soldiers, and you’ll be safe.
Hi BlueRay,
I think it was Carl Jung that said ‘Individuation enables unity…’ (or something similar.) And I have always understood this to mean that when we fully accept and acknowledge our own subjectivity (that there is no ‘One Truth...’) and upon doing so we therefore, in turn, then naturally appreciate and respect the subjectivity of others too, we become closer to everyone (humanity) as a result. I.e. upon Individuation, transcendence is inevitable.
AngelDust said:I think it was Carl Jung that said ‘Individuation enables unity…’ (or something similar.) And I have always understood this to mean that when we fully accept and acknowledge our own subjectivity (that there is no ‘One Truth...’) and upon doing so we therefore, in turn, then naturally appreciate and respect the subjectivity of others too, we become closer to everyone (humanity) as a result. I.e. upon Individuation, transcendence is inevitable.
Yes. I like this, and believe it. There is no 'one truth'. You could almost say that there are no truths at all, only perceptions. What's true for one person isn't true for another, for any number of reasons. I stick by the idea that we are all composed of so many things: our genes, our background and upbringing, our experiences in and of the world. And these are all variables. No two people will respond in the same way to anything. There are so many other factors to account for, too: individual neurology (whether typical or diverse) to name an obvious one. Conditioning. Trauma. Some will be raised in difficult circumstances and experience abuse and trauma, yet come through it, survive, flourish. Others may buckle and break down, never to recover.
I believe it and hold to it. Yet I realise it's something I still need to learn, too. I struggle with being challenged, as we all do. I'm not so robust in my thoughts and views that a challenge won't faze me, and send me into retreat and despair. Completely undermine me. So - as, again, many of us do - I become defensive, hide away, lick my wounds. Try to heal again by cutting myself off. It's something I've always done, since I was a very young child. From very early on, the world seemed a confusing (at best) and hostile (at worst) place. Everything - other people, institutions, even my own emotions - seemed designed to attack me, cheat me, catch me out, put me down. Such challenges can almost feel like the world is being pulled out from under me; that the very basis of my entire existence is nothing but dust and ashes. It's hardly surprising that depression has dogged me for much of my life. My experiences - at school and elsewhere - led me to believe that everyone else was right, and I was wrong (often, these people were right, of course - I acknowledge that). Even now, when I find myself in a position of being challenged, I tend to buckle under and give ground to the other person. I can't rise to it. I suppose it's why I'm now pretty much a hermit, shutting myself off in my comfort zone, communicating in the only way I really can - through writing. In this position, I have time to marshal my thoughts. To consider a response that doesn't leave me looking like a babbling idiot - which is how I would be out there, amongst other people. I may come across as confident and in command of my thoughts here - but out there, I feel like a drowning wretch, tossed by the tides against the rocks. I'm a nothing man. A cipher. In the words of Ralph Ellison's protagonist in his great novel Invisible Man, 'I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fibre and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.'
In good part, I struggle to hold my own because of a lack of education. Or, shall we say, a lack of the knowledge that most people use to back up their position. I can't come up with theories, facts, figures, events. I don't have it. All I really have is intuition, feelings, impulses that are the very essence of me. The vital, core thing. The 'humanity' element, if you like, which connects me to my fellow beings - even though, in many senses, I feel 'apart' from them, and always have done. In some ways, I think this is all that's needed. And no matter how much that's attacked, it will never be destroyed. Unless I destroy it myself.
When I say I lack education, I mean formal education. I went to university, yes. And that was where I got my true education. Not in what I learned about my subject, but in what I learned about myself (though literature and philosophy were certainly useful enablers there - more so than many other subjects I might have taken). University opened up my mind in a way nothing else had ever done. And in that sense, it got to the core of me. It refined the essence, and threw off the things that had been covering it and hiding it. Before uni, my closest 'friend' had been my older brother, and my belief system was largely shaped by those around me at the time: family, people at work, etc. I tended to accept what I was told, or what I heard, and use it as the basis for my own 'opinions' - which were really nothing more than petty prejudices and ill-informed nonsense. Without being overtly homophobic or sexist, I nevertheless held onto a predominantly '70s, culturally-conditioned mindset that saw homosexuality as something to laugh at or be suspicious of - even think of as vaguely perverse. And although I never regarded women as inferiors, and actually preferred being with them and working with them, I still held onto archaic views about them and their place in the world. University refined all of that out of me. By the time I left, I was a vocal advocate of gay rights and women's rights. Human rights. I was a staunch defender of all minorities: the poor, the homeless, the dispossessed. Animals, too. I got involved in the animal rights and environmental movements. I went on demos, sat in fox holes, denounced exploitation in all of its forms. These things, as I've said, were always there inside me. University gave me the confidence to bring them out. All of this endures with me to this day. It will always be there. It always was. Hardly surprising, therefore, that it served to distance me from my former 'closest friend'. My brother is still the person he was. The things that once bound us together - the common beliefs - soon pulled us apart. We are no longer close in any sense. The only thing we share is our blood. He doesn't understand me, and doesn't seem to want to any longer. In good part, his wife has abetted this. He has gained strength from her approval of him as he is. She shares his beliefs. She not only disdains mine, but is hostile to them. I have to accept them for the people they are - as I try to embrace all of humanity. If they could only accept me for the person I am in return. Which they don't seem able to. And so... we are apart, and - since the settling of my dear mother's affairs after her passing - we no longer have contact. They see things in black and white only. I can't hold to that. I can only see a spectrum of colour. I see the grey areas, too. Out of self-preservation, if nothing else, I need to keep that view. The day I lose it is the day that I myself will be lost. And there will no longer be any point in going on.
But I'm imperfect. I hold much store by the old saying There's so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best - let the one not find fault with the other. But I realise I do not always keep to that principle. I look around the world and see what others do to one another. The greed, the bullying, the fighting. Power-brokers treating human life with indifference; treating innocent people as nothing other than pawns in their game - things expendable in the pursuit of their own aims. Yet these are humans, too - presumably with thoughts, feelings, emotions. People who also care about things, in their own ways. I used to ally myself only with those who seemed to think as I did - politically, socially, spiritually - but have now wearied of that, with all the partisan hatreds and divisive talk. The bunker mentality which seems to pervade all human discourse. It's so destructive - if not to people, then to one's own psychology. I have to be independent. I've never been a joiner in any sense, anyway - so it isn't difficult for me.
Perhaps, then, it's understandable why I react in the way I do whenever I come up against something that goes against everything I believe. My world-view, and my beliefs and ideals - my love, if you like - are what keep me in the world. If all of this is challenged, then it feels as if I no longer exist. I need to look beyond this, though. I need to transcend it. I don't mean that in the sense of being morally or intellectually superior. I mean in being receptive to it, acknowledging it, learning what I can from it, taking any sustenance from it that I can. Seeing where there might actually be wisdom in it - something that I can add to whatever store of wisdom I myself possess. See it as a form of energy and strength - not as something that weakens and enervates.
This is reason enough to go on with life - in my darkest moments, I have to keep telling myself that. Not always looking for truths and answers, because there are so many, and not all of them will be congenial or compatible. But seeking transcendence. An inner truth. The truth of my being. A truth that embraces all, in spite of differences.
Forgive me... I have taken up too much space. I hope some of what I've said makes sense. It may be fraught with contradictions. But I accept that, too. As Walt Whitman said: Do I contradict myself? Very well, then - I contradict myself. I am large. I contain multitudes. I'm not as large as Walt in any sense of the word. But I think I contain multitudes. I try, anyway...
What you write makes total sense Tom and I can’t come up with theories either nor can I really talk about them, I don’t understand all the big words they use, they serve only to confuse me, I can’t understand them but I am confident when I speak because I speak from truth.
For something to be true, it has to be true for every living person, it is unchanging, it is definite, clear and precise, it’s scientific and it can be measured and demonstrated, to ANYBODY, who wants to know the truth, regardless of their background, education, social standing or whatever. The truth is available to all who seek it. It’s the truth that sets a person free, that gives that unshakable inner confidence that no man could ever take down no matter what the situation. I will stand in front of any man and hold my truth or the truth and be confident. On a person’s journey to truth, they will play with and grapple with their personal understanding of truth. A truth which is true for them, at that time, with all the wisdom, experience, education etc that they have available to them at that time. But if they are sincere about finding the universal truths, they will use their idea of truth to help them on their journey towards the greater truths, meaning universal, not ‘better’.
None of us knows nothing, we might know one thing one day and the next, we find out our understanding is no longer correct. Things in the material world are always moving, always changing, things are transient, but truth is never changing, never transient and always available to any person anywhere who seeks it sincerely.
Nobody is right or wrong, nobody better or worse, more intelligent or less intelligent, more wise or less wise. We all share the same race consciousness and we all share the same consciousness of infinite intelligence.
Truth unites and never separates. It brings peace, harmony, joy and unlimited abundance, more than we could ever achieve by our own human efforts. But when truth is your god, when love is your guide, that is what you see everywhere, despite appearances. I ‘appear’ poor, exhausted, weak, without the capacity to work, lonely, spending most of every hour of every day alone, not eating regularly, having no interest in the things that usually interest me, no motivation to do anything, not even to wash. But that’s only what people see on the surface, that’s ‘their’ interpretation based on what they can see in my outsides and based on what they consider poverty, for example, based on their belief that money is god, so in that respect they’re right, I am all of what they think I am, I am poor etc. But in truth, I feel deeply honoured, privileged, rich beyond compare to have this opportunity to experience this burn out in a warm house, in a place that I’m familiar with, this could have happened in a part of the world I wasn’t familiar, I feel so grateful, so lucky, so looked after, so cherished, I feel very special and I am so grateful that not a day goes past when I do not give time to say thank you and express my gratitude for the privileged position I find myself in. The first thing I do when I open my eyes in a morning, even before I consciously realise I’m in a warm comfortable bed, I say thank you, and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. I then proceed to give thanks for all the other blessings and gifts I have in my life, including snow, that gave me a chance to go out for a walk as there weren’t so many people around and the slippy ground meant I had to be careful and take my time. I have so many things to be grateful for that it would seem extremely disingenuous to think of myself as poor. And in my understanding based on my values of human life and love, I have plenty of both of them so how could I be poor? How could I push and squeeze myself into that label and how would it help me or others or the world?
Oh, and everything you said makes sense and you most definitely did not take up too much space.
Yes, my love is transcendent love, I just didn’t know it, it’s the only love I’ve ever had. I can’t stop crying. When I was reading the article I almost threw up when I was reading the beginning bit. It was horrible, I was struggling to read it, talking about those conditions as if most people are like that. I’m heartbroken. I didn’t know so many people lived like that. But I got through it and when it started to talk about transcendent love, then yes, that is love. To me, that’s the only love there is. I did however, tell you all about the experience I had in Australia in 2016 where I witnessed this other kind of love. It happens between humans and I’d never seen it before. It was so tender and gentle, not like my love. My love is wonderful but I would never call it tender. It’s more scientific and exact but more than that, but not tender, not in the way I witnessed it between some friends that night.
I tried and failed miserably, to try to live by this conditional love, I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to die. I didn’t know the rules. It was such hard work that it left me suicidal, many times, to the point that suicide became my friend. It became my get out clause. I could go back to being one with my father again, if things got too much, I would simply hang myself and go back home. All my life I was told I was wrong, I don’t love everybody, that’s not right, you have to hate some people, such as pardophiles etc. I thought, my god, these are the very people who need even more love. I felt trapped in a world I didn’t understand. I just wanted to go back home but it didn’t feel right to leave this body, so I used the option of suicide to help me get through life. It kept me alive. Even as a kid I used to envy kids who took their own life. I couldn’t understand why my mum and the people round me thought that was a sad thing. I used to imagine how happy they would feel just before they left this world. They would have that moment of happiness at least, before they went back home. And one moment of pure happiness, is worth more than a lifetime of unhappiness. I used to envy them so much. I sometimes fantasize about being hit full on by a car. How good it would feel to have it smash against this physical frame and crumble and break it to the point I have to leave. I have to go back home now. But home, is here on this earth. I realised that the moment I realised I was autistic. I finally found my place on earth. I belonged here just as much as anybody else. I was autistic. I know it seems I’m a bit different to others, but I understand that now. Before my diagnosis I thought everyone loved in the way I did, but that they knew something else that I didn’t. They knew what to talk about to people, who to love and not love, I didn’t understand it and felt I had no place on this earth. But I know that I do now, even if I do value life and love and they value money and conditional love. At the end of the day, it’s all the same anyway, and just because other people can’t see that, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong and they’re right. They believe in conditional love (they know the rules for that) and I believe in unconditional love (I know the rules for that). People are happy in their way, dependent on things and circumstances and other people, I’m happy no matter where I am, what my situation is, who I’m with or who I’m not with. I’m afraid I can’t assign my happiness to any condition or person, it just is. So I don’t think it matters how each person finds love and happiness and maybe it’s not even that important to some people, I don’t know, I don’t know the full criteria or conditions so I don’t know how it works or what kind of joy and bliss it brings, or if it brings bliss at all. Maybe bliss is not important to you guys in the conditional camp? It’s vital to me in my life, otherwise it’s a sign I’m off track.
I’ll read it now.
What did you think of that article, by the way? I think it describes very well your own ideas about what it means to love
Sure, lol, thank you for the conversation. I know I wear people out but this is the only way I know how to speak but I appreciate I wear people out or rather this kind of conversation wears people out. Thank you much appreciated.
I looked up metaphysician, too - although I thought I understood what it meant because I studied a little metaphysical philosophy at uni. That definition is the one I gave above. That's why I don't understand how you don't know what transcendence means. Your mention of the teachings of Jesus, too, makes me wonder how you've never come across the term 'transcendent love'.
I don't know if Jesus existed or not. The only evidence we have to hold up of his existence is written in scriptures thousands of years old. I believe there probably was a very special and remarkable man, who did many remarkable things. I don't, though, believe he performed miracles, nor that he was the son of God. I could be wrong. But it's what I choose to believe, based on available evidence, and on what I perceive to be the primitive nature of beliefs and understanding at the time that Jesus is meant to have lived. However, that's beside the point. These teachings, as such, are tremendously powerful and influential. I often think that it would be a great thing if more people who profess to be Christians also lived by them. Unfortunately, human fallibility being what it is, not all of them do. Christians have proven themselves to be just as adept at persecution and killing than any other member of humanity. They corrupt his word. But then, the words in the Bible - as in all literature - are open to multiple interpretations, and people will often interpret them in a way that best suits their own lives, beliefs and objectives. This is, of course, very sad.
I won't go into the concepts of poverty and ill-health any more, because I don't think it's very fruitful. We each believe what we believe on that matter. There's only so many ways in which you can describe what a circle is... in the end, it will still be a circle. I think I've told you about my travails at school, with a teacher who refused to accept that my way of writing the numeral '3' was the same as hers. Mine had a round top, her's had a flat top. It was still a 3. But because mine had a slightly different shape to hers - even though the meaning was the same, and the figure was instantly recognisable to anyone - my 3 was wrong. That screwed with my head then, and the legacy of it haunts me today. So if there are two ways of boiling an egg, and both work, but my way is different to someone else's and they question me as to why I do it my way... I end up feeling like I'm doing it wrong, because my life - from that moment in school - has conditioned me that way. The same, you could say, with neurodiverse and neurotypical ways of thinking. Neither is innately right or wrong. They are simply innately different. I try hard to break myself out of the self-limiting straitjacket of those early days, but it doesn't always work.
I think, if you don't mind, I really need to rest it all there before I end up thinking that I really don't know what I'm thinking any more. Such a crisis can, of course, lead to enlightenment. It can also lead to confusion. And I think I've reached my limits on that.
My definition of metaphysics is studying, from a scientific stance, how the world works. And not just studying it, applying the laws in your life. It’s the study of the universal power source that comes before (meta) the physical, the cause of all matter and circumstance. I don’t study the effects, the physical end goal, I study what causes that physical thing or circumstance, such as ill health, to come into physical reality. I take out the cause of a person’s problem, I don’t study the problem. What would be the point of that?
I suppose it’s a bit like western doctors. If you go to a western doctor with heartburn, he’ll give you something so you don’t feel it. If you go to an Ayurvedic doctor (or practitioner like me) we look at why you have heart burn so you don’t need medicine. We discover why you have heart burn and change the cause so you no longer have it. A metaphysician will do that too. I still work and live by Ayurvedic principles but I work more from a metaphysical stand point because Metaohysics goes even deeper than my understanding of Ayurveda. I’ll be studying that for the rest of my life and still never know all of it, that’s one of the reasons I love studying it, I never run out of new things to learn about it. It goes back over 5000 years, there’s so much to learn right up to Ayurvedic astrology but Metaohysics is my language, so it seems.
The reason I call myself a metaphysician is because in 2013 I heard that word for the first time and I was so intrigued with I looked it up. It sounded wonderful and even found a course you could do. I joined the course to find that these ‘meyaphysicians’ Thought just like me, it was wonderful if not a little boring but I stayed with the course, I felt I had been lead to it and then in the practitioners course, I learned lots of tools that I could use, as a metaphysical practitioner to help them in any area of their lives. I passed the course and all but I didn’t set myself up in practice because I just thought, who doesn’t know this? Who could I work with?
I don’t know what I know from reading books, I haven’t read that many because I can’t read for long before the words and letters start dancing around, but I’ve never read anything by a metaphysician, such as Joel Goldsmith, that I didn’t agree with. It’s in perfect line with the teachings of Jesus, and Jesus is my greatest teacher. He’s a metaphysician, or was, so I figured that if I think like them, I must be a metaphysician too.
I don’t regard things such as ill health or poverty as boundaries, they are simply the effect of a person’s thinking. They may cause the individual to have many limitations but that has nothing to do with me. Why would I need to transcend their limitations?
By the way, I didn’t know it was possible to transcend, go beyond the boundaries of the normal, I thought the normal was simply the outpouring of the race consciousness, I didn’t think it was a real ‘thing’ that needed to be, or not, transcended? I don’t understand.
But so much of what you've said, here and elsewhere, seems to be about going beyond the boundaries. Or, at least, not accepting such things as boundaries. So if you regard things like 'ill-health' and 'poverty' as boundaries to, say, understanding... then surely you're transcending the idea of these things.
I, too, am very puzzled. You must have another definition of 'metaphysician' to the one I've always understood - as in the post above. When I talked about realists and nominalists in my other thread, I was speaking in terms of metaphysics as I thought you understood the term. But you then said that you had never read any philosophy. And now that you say that you aren't sure what 'transcendent' means... then I'm totally confused. If someone says to me that he or she is a mechanical engineer, then I think I have a pretty good idea about what they understand and what they do. I wouldn't expect them to say, for instance, 'I don't know what you mean by the terms torque, or induction, thermodynamics' and so on.
I've edited the post...