WillSpirit!

Where Will meets Spirit
∞ Love, Clarity, Balance, Peace, & Bliss ∞

A science, mental health and spirituality blog written by a physician.








  • Red_Exclamation_DotDisclaimer
    • Dear Visitors:
      Although I trained and practiced as a physician, my background does not include formal instruction in psychiatry beyond basic medical education. This journal presents ideas about treatment philosophy, but must not be considered therapeutic advice. Abrupt changes in one's psychiatric medications can trigger profound cognitive, emotional, and physical symptoms, including suicidal thoughts and actions. Consequently, pharmaceutical agents should not be increased or decreased without supervision by a mental health clinician.

    • ON THE OTHER HAND, your brain belongs to you, and your opinion counts. If you decide that changing your medication regimen will serve your best interest, then I believe your providers have an obligation to help you try to achieve your goals. I want everyone to be educated about their options, and do what will be most helpful for themselves. No one should feel pushed around by dogmatic and/or limited viewpoints, whether those of psychiatrists, anti-psychiatry advocates, or myself.


The Highly Sensitive Soul

There is much psychological literature on sensitivity, which is no doubt familiar to many readers (see this Wikipedia article for a good summary); what follows is my poetic and non-scientific take on the subject.

Some people seem to feel life more deeply than others. Culturally determined preferences may judge high sensitivity as better or worse than its alternative, but in my opinion the trait requires no such valuation. On the other hand, those of us with systems wide open to pain and pleasure must comprehend our true nature so we can learn to function comfortably in a world that seems designed to challenge the heart.

Did you spot the lie in the last paragraph? The truly sensitive soul will never find lasting comfort save by rejecting the very quality that defines it. To feel life in the abyss of the self is inherently agitating; moments of peace will ever alternate with moments of distress. This is why exquisite sensitivity is commonly viewed as a deficiency.

Imagine for the moment a sentient God who watches our lives from on high. My position on whether such a deity exists is nuanced, complex, and changeable, but right now I don’t want to get into that tangle. Instead, just try to picture how humans would appear through the sagacious eyes of an all-knowing God. From that vantage, does the sensitive person look like he or she is lacking? Doesn’t it rather look more like the sensitive soul is the one who is paying the most attention?

Let’s face facts. Death hurts. Even birth hurts. Romance is seldom forever sweet, as most married couples can attest. Children bring joy to families, but not infrequently they also bring grief. Illness strikes us all, sooner or later. And these are just the ordinary, inevitable trials of life.

Add in earthquakes, hurricanes, famine, wildfires, and tsunamis, and you begin to feel the true impact of our dilemma. Then include the human-generated miseries of war, torture, exploitation, environmental destruction, child-abuse, racism/sexism, and so on. By this point we have before us a panorama sufficient to demoralize anyone who opens to its import. No wonder a responsive heart is often considered an infirmity.

Fortunately, there is more to life than heartache. We can appreciate the intricacy of a spider’s web, the majesty of the moon on a cloudless night, the joyous warmth of a rising sun. We can feel the heart’s faithful beating, the innocence of a child’s smiling face, the palpable waves of love in a family. We enjoy the delicate aroma of a field of wildflowers as we take a morning stroll in springtime, and we feel invigorated by the blustery swirl of leaves as we walk through a park on a windy autumn afternoon. We can meditate among granitic monoliths in the high mountains or feel lulled by waves lapping along the shore of a broad, clear lake.

The trick to embracing this infinite universe of splendor and terror is to remain, yes, sensitive to its charms.

There are two basic strategies for surviving life’s ordeals. One is to harden the outer walls and live protected from fate’s sting. The other is to open the windows wide and let the full blast enter, keeping faith that bereavement and dismay will be more than balanced by blessings and delight.

Sealing the mental house tightly shut keeps out the cold, biting winds, but also the butterflies and sunshine. Opening wide invites life’s full complement of chaos, but also its magnanimous smile.

The sensitive soul faces this choice early in life. In my own case, my upbringing felt overwhelming, so in response my young adult years became a study in progressive cynicism. By my age of twenty-five anger was the only emotion that remained easily accessible. Training as a physician completed the tempering begun years earlier; through medical education I became skilled at participating in the most affecting dramas without feeling affected.

That transformation led me to many of my most disastrous decisions and lasting regrets. I became cut off from my ethical foundations and acted on the basis of superficial logic fueled by deep-seated angst.

How much better it would have been to leave my gentle heart on my sleeve, where it naturally wanted to perch. How much happier I’d have been following my quirky inner leadings rather than society’s call to ambition.

No matter. In the end I found my way back to my true nature. And indeed, as I mentioned in the last post it may be that this current epoch will be my ending turn on life’s wheel. Yes, I feel terribly pained by how much I may be losing before long. I feel even more sorrow about how much was lost through mistaken efforts to protect my heart from breaking. But better to return to feeling at last than never return at all.

Poets, artists, reformers, healers, and saints all rely on sensitivity. The majority probably were born into this world with giant, vulnerable hearts. Many may have lost their way for awhile. But in the end, the sensitive person can neither be happy nor effective except by allowing his or her insistent affection and exquisite tenderness free reign.

The best way to achieve this freedom is to keep the eyes open as wide as possible. Don’t close off to the pain you see, but don’t ignore the beauty of life’s spectacle either. Watch how the winds blow from all directions. Sometimes bitter Northers strafe us with ice, and sometimes balmy desert breezes blow in the darkest night. Sometimes death, sometimes birth. Sometimes cruelty, sometimes compassion. Sometimes illness, sometimes health.

Life is a circle. Live in the middle of the largest circumference you can imagine. From such an axis, no matter how much distress you feel, you will discover a greater measure of Bliss.

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The Highly Sensitive Soul was published on January 23rd, 2012 . 10 comments






My Beginner’s Mind

This entry is my twenty-fourth in November. With its publication, there will be precisely three hundred essays on the blog queue. With that many posts available, I feel comfortable planning a break in my blogging. For the month of December, if anything gets published at all, it will be poetry. My plan is to start penning essays again next year. I wish all my WillSpirit friends a Happy Holiday Season.

My final essay for 2011 offers concrete suggestions for quelling emotional distress. Many readers know more about mental healing than I do, so what follows may sound elementary. But some visitors are just starting out, and these suggestions can guide their initial steps. Besides, even advanced meditators don’t consider themselves experts, but strive to maintain the Beginner’s Mind. So one is never too experienced to practice the basics. What follows maps not just what I did when first embarking on recovery; it sketches how I continue to approach my life.

My most uplifted posts have sung the praises of meditation and right attitude. With the aid of such skills, my mental life has improved so dramatically that I now question the many diagnoses that were tossed my direction by doctors. Decisive recovery from longstanding problems shows the capacity of the mind to rework itself; resolution of symptoms also seriously challenges the “brain disease” hypothesis of mood disorders. There was plenty of cognitive detritus obstructing my path, but I doubt there was ever any organic problem in my synapses. By clearing out misconceptions and misperceptions, I found clarity and readiness to accept whatever happens in life. I am not immune to grief and disappointment, but I believe myself resistant to despair. Meditation succeeded where medication failed.

To see how dramatically I’ve improved, consider that my mother committed suicide when I was in the first grade. By late adolescence it seemed obvious to me that my own life would end the same way. It was merely a question of timing. How long would I put up with my awful heartache before deciding, in the words of Hamlet, “to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?”

Despite years of thinking along those lines, my mind no longer attacks itself. By studying the errors in my perceptions and beliefs, by learning to not mistake feelings for reality or thoughts for truth, I have found freedom from such negativity. It now seems inconceivable that any emotion or circumstance could drive me to end my life.

This all sounds promising, I hope. It should offer reassurance to those who wonder if they could ever wake up from the nightmare of chronic severe depression. It can be done, I promise.

But how? If one is stuck in the depths of misery, the idea of meditating out of it probably sounds like an impossible dream. And early on observing the mind may actually increase awareness of emotional pain and cognitive obsession, which can seem like exactly the wrong result. The trick, in my opinion, is to start out with very small goals.

Don’t begin by signing up for a ten-day meditation retreat. Don’t even plan on sitting on a cushion for an hour. Rather, the next time you’re stuck in a waiting room or standing in line, pay attention to how you feel. Explore your sensations. Can you detect your heartbeat? Where do you find pain? Are you breathing or holding your breath? Get in the habit of checking in for a minute or two whenever there’s a lull in the action.

When you feel ready for more, adopt the same practice as you fall asleep. Take a brief break from reviewing and planning to feel your bodily sensations. Indulge in some slow, deep breaths. See how long you can focus on your body before your thoughts start churning again. Early on, you’ll be doing well if you can remain attentive for fifteen seconds. Be proud if you can achieve that.

Over time, you will extend your range. Maybe you will gaze inwardly a bit longer. Maybe you will catch an obsession and halt it. Every time you succeed, recognize your ability to steer your mental state, even if only briefly. The goal is to gain mastery over your mind, but this process takes years and is never completed, except by Buddhas. At first, consider yourself a champion if you can subdue a destructive thought long enough to choose a healthier one. As you gain skill, you’ll begin to desire more time for meditation. That’s when you should consider a retreat.

But don’t expect too much too soon. If at first you find it too painful to watch and feel, steer your mind toward pleasant memories or daydreams. This isn’t meditation as we usually define it, but it does involve guiding thoughts, so it can be very helpful. Such practice provides welcome breaks from inner misery. If you feel ambitious, you can use it to build up empowering visualizations. Paint a mental picture of yourself mastering a valued skill, or being generous to others, or feeling well and happy.

From just these brief suggestions, you can see there exist many ways to train the mind, and it can be fun experimenting with different methods. Check books out of the library, search for videos on the internet, or go to local gatherings (which often ask only for voluntary donations). If you have a religious faith, and if you feel comfortable in it, then it is a good idea to get more involved with whatever meditative or prayerful activities it offers.

I like to divide mental training into two explorations, though more knowledgeable students recognize many more categories. But for simplicity’s sake, just consider these two paths:

  1. A person can meditate to explore the ocean of consciousness by being mindful of the body, by observing thoughts, by focusing on feelings, by quieting mental activity, and so on.
  2. Alternatively, one can meditate to connect with cosmic love by centering on the warmth that emanates from the heart, by repeating sacred mantras, through visualizations, by attending spiritual rituals, etc.

I believe it is important for people who feel depressed to do both. Exploring the mind helps one learn to steer thoughts and not act on feelings. Nurturing love in the heart warms the inner child who feels lonely and unwanted. One does not need to believe in a Divine Being to find such comfort; just awakening to the affection that arises when holding beloved pets or watching children can accomplish the same end. But, of course, belief in a loving cosmic presence is a great way to find support if your philosophical prejudices will allow it.

Keep in mind as you work on meditating that other healthful activities remain vital. Exercise, good nutrition, socialization, creative arts, and compassionate acts all help improve mood and outlook. These days we can choose from a wide array of therapies and somatic practices that aid mental healing. Pursue as many avenues as you can to help yourself improve. Applaud yourself for every victory, but also treat yourself with tenderness. When you feel too depleted to do much of anything, accept your need for contraction and isolation. Compliment yourself for sitting up in bed, if that’s all you can manage. Eventually, when your energy improves, you can do more.

At all times, be aware that the aim is incremental improvement, not sudden sainthood. As they say in Alcoholics Anonymous, “seek progress, not perfection.”

Good luck on your journey. My prayers are with you.

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My Beginner’s Mind was published on November 28th, 2011 .






All Roads Lead…

“Howsoever men try to worship Me, so do I welcome them. By whatever path they travel, it leads to Me at last.”

The Bhagavad Gita

The last pair of posts presents, as reader KC puts it, “two sides of the same coin.” In the first essay, I stated pretty strongly the case for not trying to explain depression. In the second, I discussed a reader’s differing viewpoint. Lynn had described how searching low moods for underlying causes can help dissipate them. Although I see problems with that tactic when unskillfully applied, there is no doubt it can sometimes help.

So which do I believe: that listing reasons for depression is harmful? Or that rooting out hidden conflicts can help elevate mood? Hopefully, everyone can see that the answer is: both.

This points to a larger truth. In fact, I think the discussion highlights one of the largest and most unacknowledged truths of human life: two contradictory viewpoints are often both correct. Would that more politicians, religious leaders, and family members could embrace this fact.

The rational mind automatically sets up yes/no dichotomies. Should I be a doctor, or not? Should I marry this girl, or not? Should I quit my job, or not? When applied to situations where we are forced to pursue or reject an option, the logic makes sense. It works when we talk about single and discrete actions.

But most actions are not single and discrete, but multiple and deeply embedded. If we consider thinking, we can see how every moment we are choosing new thoughts. We don’t just ponder once about an episode of depression; we mull it over many times for as long as it lasts. Further, our internal dialogue is entangled in a complicated web of personal beliefs and social contracts. We need to consider all factors when choosing a mental strategy.

So the choice isn’t between trying to explain mood states, or not. The mature person considers both possibilities, and selects the most promising path at every moment. There is no universally right answer. There is only the approach that offers the best chance for growth for a given person, in a given setting, at a given time.

The necessity to keep options open, and entertain seemingly conflicting truths, extends to most areas of life. We’ve seen an example of how it applies to coping with depression. But the principle applies in many real-life situations, and especially those concerning spirituality.

Experienced mystics often abandon efforts to explain transcendent truths in words. They resort to metaphors, parables, and silence. Ultimate reality only confuses us when we try to comprehend it in rational terms. Consider how the question of God’s existence seems, on the surface, to be a simple yes-no question that should have a single answer. And indeed, neither atheists nor fundamentalists have trouble settling the issue. But anyone who contemplates the matter deeply finds contradiction at every turn. The committed seeker must either choose among opposing beliefs, or work to stretch the mind around irreconcilable possibilities.

Does God exist? I honestly believe the best answer is the one presented in an earlier post: Yes and No. We habitually think in terms of yes or no, but the universe is not so simple. It defies gross reductions in every area of discourse and concern. To achieve peak maturity and lasting peace, we need to understand and accept all sides of conflicts, opposites, and mystery.

Yes and no. Yes and no. We should make up a new word to combine the opposing poles of Boolean logic. Only then will we be able to talk without disagreeing, whether about mental health or metaphysics.

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All Roads Lead… was published on November 16th, 2011 . 5 comments






What, Me Worry?

In May 2009, when this blog launched, I seldom hesitated to disclose my darker moods. Thinking back to my posts this year, on the other hand, it seems obvious that my comfort with opening up has diminished. The more recent writings emphasize my highest spiritual peaks and wisest mindsets. During periods of discouragement and seeming defeat, I seldom blog.

Although my posting frequency has decreased largely because of my acupuncture project, clamming up in the face of distress explains many of my quiet intervals. The pragmatic reason for holding back has to do with expectations society places on physicians. It’s bad enough to be practicing medicine with a fairly ‘out there’ stance on my past emotional difficulties. It would be even worse to suggest that turmoil happens in the present day. But why not take a chance and admit it does?

OK, here it is: sometimes I’m far from spiritually grounded, and all too close to neurosis. My suspicion is that this is true of most of us in modern times (although people feel their discouragement to different degrees of intensity), but it can be dicey to break the silence and admit it. For some reason, states other than happiness are viewed as wrong, if not diseased.

I’ll grant that the healthiest mindset is a contented one, and that true mystical realization would likely lead to peacefulness that didn’t fluctuate all that much. But average or even above average mental health includes times of darkness. Moments of doubt should not be considered illnesses or useless afflictions. Maybe they are promptings; maybe they are the mind’s way of calling for course adjustment; but they are no more a sign of disease than feeling tired after a long day at work. Life can be exhausting in contemporary society, and I believe we have a right and perhaps a duty to acknowledge this fundamental truth.

It does not follow that fatigue and sorrow is a normal human state we have no choice but to endure. I don’t believe that human experience has to be so punishing. As things stand, we’re bound to feel existential grief simply from looking at the modern scene with its myriad problems and discords. But perhaps if we all confessed to feeling overwhelmed, we’d start working together to build a more supportive culture.

As I’ve progressed on my journey, my distressing times have started to reflect the universal stress of daily life rather than specific trials of my childhood. This reversal from my previous situation seems like progress: at least now I’m reacting more to current stressors and less to historical patterning.

But I still react, and I’ve been remiss in not reporting my less admirable states of mind. Hopefully, this essay rectifies that lapse. Of course, you’ll note this post contains little about what I’ve specifically felt in past weeks. For reasons of professionalism, I’m refraining from describing details with my prior vivid emotional language. Even so, I want to come forward and dispel any notion that readers may hold, and especially that I might hold myself, which suggests I’ve found permanent spiritual grounding.

Without doubt I have my moments of dwelling in a psychic garden of profound acceptance and understanding. On the other hand, during recent months there have been many days when such verdant landscape seemed quite unreachable.

My previous stance was that occasional intense emotional pain would ever be part of my experience, and my task in life was to learn to live well even so. But after a recent weekend spiritual retreat, several key insights arose that have me questioning psychic fatalism. In short, there may be reason to hope that with the proper attitude I can actually eliminate or at least greatly reduce the times of anguish.

In my meditation practice to date, I’ve concentrated on entering primal awareness as a path toward serene acceptance of my place in the human drama. That my saga would continue to unfold with battering effect, and that the universe would stand dispassionately aside as I flailed through the churning waves of fate remained unquestioned.

The ideas of a deeply loving cosmos, and especially a personal God, seemed both unnecessary and untenable.

My position has changed. The previous post describes one line I’ve managed to draw through the thicket of controversy in order to entertain the idea of a caring and discrete Godlike consciousness. After this past weekend retreat, it seems obvious to me that my inner discord would be soothed if I allowed myself to take the next step and actually believe. In short, my life would go more smoothly with a measure of faith as it is traditionally understood.

To even raise the possibility of believing in a God who holds a personal stake in our experience feels more dangerous than admitting the fact of my ongoing periodic darkness, but I would dearly like this journal to remain honest and genuine. Thus I confess to facing a choice: either relinquish my skepticism and have faith in personalized cosmic love, or adhere to the ‘sophisticated’ intellectualism that dismisses such notions as childish, ignorant, and fearful.

More and more, the former seems like the wiser and healthier selection. Not because there is any empirical evidence for a loving God, but because such belief promises great relief to my lonely soul, which otherwise resonates with the aftermath of childhood bereavement, abuse, and neglect. I feel no call to believe in a directing God who intervenes or protects, for which I see absolutely no evidence. But a conviction that the universe cares whether or not we find inner satisfaction on our journey would be supremely comforting. Fortunately, after a great deal of study, thought, and introspection, I’ve accepted that the possibility is not farfetched.

This is as honest as I can be: although emotional pain now seems acceptable and sometimes even enriching, I’d rather move beyond it. As nearly as I can tell, getting to a state beyond inner turmoil is going to require humble acceptance of ideas that are neither sophisticated nor rationally supportable. Will the world think I’ve abandoned my intellect?

If the payoff is loving peace of mind, why would I care?

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What, Me Worry? was published on August 22nd, 2011 . 4 comments






Yes and No

At the end of the last essay, I floated a possibility that’s been on my mind for some time: the simultaneous existence and nonexistence of God. The reader can reasonably ask: How could this make any sense at all?

To begin, allow me to point out that God actually does exist in at least two undeniable ways. First, the experience of God is real. This I assert from firsthand knowledge, but there have been countless independent descriptions of encounters with God. Whether in the form of apparition, voice, or mere sense of presence, millions of people have entered transformational states of mind that felt exactly like Godly visitations. The ultimate meaning of these experiences can be questioned, but not their occurrence. Yes, they may simply point to neurologic activity that simulates a sense of divinity. But for the person who enters such a numinous frame of being, there can be little question that it is highly significant, if not life-changing. The God experience happens.

The second sense in which God certainly exists is as a meme: an idea with high transmittable potency. The concept of God is so alluring it endures no matter how much scientific materialism works to undermine it. People want or even need to believe in a spiritual principle. Not everyone demands the personal sort of God we read about in the Bible, but a large majority of us want to believe in sacred forces underpinning human life.  The powerful idea of God has driven many historical events, with consequences both lovely (e.g., renaissance art) and terrible (e.g., the inquisition). God as a concept has had substantial impact on humanity, and so must be granted a measure of ontological reality.

So God clearly exists in the human mind and culture, but does it exist independently? Was there any God quality in the cosmos before there were people to conceive of it? This, obviously, is a more difficult question.

First, let’s work out what we would consider a ‘God quality.’ There are many definitions of God, ranging from a white-bearded man on a throne in heaven to a diffuse sacredness that permeates everything but has no independent or even conscious existence. For the purposes of this discussion, I’m going to define ‘God’ to mean a global awareness that originates outside the material brain and nervous system.

The most adventuresome scientifically-informed philosophers propose that pervasive cosmic information flow could arise via quantum mechanical means. Specifically, a pixelated pseudo-vacuum at the Planck (i.e., vanishingly minute) scale would manifest changing states at the depths of reality that might permit data storage and processing independent of biological form. I find such arguments interesting and plausible. They by no means prove the existence of such cosmic computing, but they permit it.

So we have a somewhat plausible mechanism whereby computing and memory might occur outside biological (and silicon) form. This activity is postulated to be holographic across the cosmos, so that every component of the universe would have access to the entire matrix of embedded information, albeit with reduced resolution. Thus, each human brain may float immersed in this cosmic information pool, and could potentially access vast amounts of accumulated wisdom.

How would this information appear, once accessed? To a Christian mystic, it might appear as a luminous being radiating infinite love. To a Native American, a totem animal might be recognized as laden with mystery and power. A Buddhist adept might observe a disintegration of ordinary formed existence, with ultimate reality emerging as a conditioned and impermanent whole. To an Einstein, busily working his equations in the patent office, the encounter might take the form of an astounding and elegant mathematical solution to a difficult problem. To an atheist, nothing might ever appear at all.

Remember I defined ‘God’ as an awareness that originates external to the material brain. By this proposed model, the information matrix exists outside the brain, but encounters with Godlike awareness occur within it. Some of people described above, if their experiences arose in the proposed fashion, would encounter God by this definition. For them and them only, God exists. Thus, God would exist for the Christian, but not for the atheist. The heightened animal wisdom seen by the Native American is something we could embrace as God. Einstein’s writings make clear his appreciation of sacredness in his work, but it’s not clear that he believed in or experienced an actual divine consciousness. The Buddhist meditative state is certainly numinous, but does not involve a focused, externalized presence and so probably would not qualify as a manifest God.

Thus, if there is indeed a deeply buried stratum of information stored in the universe, a human brain might at times be able to tap into it in a way that appears as concentrated cosmic consciousness, i.e., God. In this view, God is a pervasive and omniscient quantum data stream that originates outside the brain, but depends on a permissive human mind for manifestation in discrete or personal form.

Of course, dogmatic materialists will scoff at this argument. Those of us who explore novel ideas tend to get ridiculed by those threatened by outside-the-box thinking. Nevertheless, I assert that this is all possible even if unprovable.

Furthermore, the religious believer will insist that God is not merely an awareness, but also an agency. God doesn’t just observe the cosmos, He directs it. We can negotiate a way out of this looming conflict, however. If the information matrix exists as suggested, it lies embedded within all matter/energy and all space/time. Everything we observe happens as a consequence of energetic and material activity that occurs several levels above this pixelated ground of being. To the materialist and rationalist, all events appear random. Such a person can reasonably point to stochastic processes bubbling up through quantum uncertainty as determining the evolution of life and the universe at large. On the other hand, the devout person could insist that the randomness is only an appearance, and that in fact the Ground of Being ultimately determines how history expresses itself: what appears random is actually guided by the deeper pool of information. Both views could be defended. By the argument developed above, both views might even be true for the ones who hold them.

The good thing about this model is that it would release us from the prison of either-or thinking. We would no longer have to debate whether God exists in the way proposed by the faithful. We can grant that they experience such a being. We can likewise grant that for others, the universe never displays any sacred presence along those lines. For each of us, Beauty appears in the form we most appreciate.

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Yes and No was published on August 7th, 2011 . 14 comments






Contradiction: Fact of Nature

I recommend clicking on this photo and reading about what it represents.

This post continues the progression of the last three, and derives from comments left by a fellow blogger, SaraJoyM. Relatively new to this game, she blogs about philosophy and ethics and touches on similar themes as those explored here in recent times. In her commentary, and in a nice piece on her own site, she explores the upside of belief. Her take on this subject awakens me to a wrinkle that I hadn’t considered: belief brings benefits.

That set me thinking. The recent series of essays isn’t the first time I’ve trashed belief as unreliable and hazardous for society and individuals. One of my posts earlier this year was even titled, “The Danger of Belief.” I stand by my position that fixed beliefs (especially those about metaphysical topics) get us in trouble. On the personal level they provide precarious support for happiness. On the cultural level they lead to warfare and persecution. Bad news, certainly, but as in all things there remain positive aspects, which I will now explore.

First of all, belief is unavoidable. Even the opinion that we should distrust belief is, naturally, a belief itself. We believe if we follow the markings on a map, we will reach our destination. We believe that if we work diligently and competently, we will be rewarded, either financially or at least through a sense of accomplishment. We believe that love is worth the effort, despite its final ending in grief.

These are not strictly fact-based beliefs, but rather the result of experience, desire, and cultural conditioning. We need such convictions to direct our energies and find our way through life. We may find ourselves defending these positions, or at least demonstrating our faith in them. So when does a belief cross the line between helpful organizing principle and damaging fixation?

Rather than stating my answer at the outset, let’s study the example of a common belief about which many feel strongly, but which has no basis in empirically provable evidence: the conviction that a personal deity named ‘God’ directs the flow of events through space and time. That many people want to hold this concept in their minds as unarguable fact has been demonstrated time and again, often tragically. To point this out is not, however, the same as saying that such belief has no redeeming value. Millions of people worldwide structure their ethics and bolster their confidence in life on the basis of this powerful and enduring idea. The vast majority of these believers eschews violence and would be loathe to force the opinion on others.

So the mere holding of a metaphysical belief does not cause trouble. The difficulties arise when a person or group believes the God concept requires vigorous defense against alternate viewpoints. In passing, I might point out that if God is truly all-powerful, He probably requires no such protection. Be that as it may, many times throughout history this need to defend or promote belief has led to war, torture, and many other species of misery.

So at least at the social level, the problem isn’t with belief per se, but with the intense desire to defend or promote a metaphysical stance. But why should this compulsion arise? Why should people care so much about an idea as to want to kill for it?

This comes back to the point I started out making several essays ago: if a belief becomes the basis for one’s sense of security in life, any disruption of that convinced faith will be disorienting if not disintegrating to the psyche. Since the ego is banking its integrity on a certain worldview, it believes it must protect that opinion against all assault or risk dissolution. So we see the danger of belief arise when too much of a person’s inner security depends on a certain set of ideas.

But how could someone ever hold a belief in God (our current example) and not anchor a considerable amount of personal stability in it? I submit that this sort of conviction automatically becomes a kind of gravitational center for the psyche. Even less controversial beliefs, such as a belief that love is important, will become central to a person’s direction in life and will lead to a measure of emotional chaos if disrupted. So I don’t think the answer to the conundrum lies entirely in not using beliefs to ground contentment. Certainly, the less we attach to our concepts (to use Buddhist terminology) the less we will open ourselves to injury if our belief system crumbles. But there is an endless regress here, in that valuing non-attachment requires certain beliefs about the nature of our situation.

No, the problem isn’t entirely the result of our natural dependence on beliefs, but on our failure to understand the structure of truth. When we see logical contradiction between two concepts, we assume at least one of the positions must be wrong. But logic is an artifice of human thought, not a principle of nature. We can see this most clearly in the case of subatomic physics, where the base particles of matter look like waves and like particles. We are so accustomed to thinking of wave-particle duality as a fundamental natural principle, we forget that it destroys logic. A particle is a discrete entity with a particular location in space. A wave is a distributed phenomenon with no defined boundary. One is small, one is large. One is solid, one is amorphous. One is localized, one is diffuse. In logical terms, these wildly opposed qualities can’t both be ‘true’. Yet, the fact that subatomic entities display widely divergent natures depending on experimental design has been verified countless times.

So why couldn’t God both exist and not exist? This is a topic in its own right that I’ve touched on in the past, and that I’ll deal with more directly in a later essay. For now, let’s end by recognizing that metaphysical beliefs are unavoidable, and that it is likewise inevitable that a certain amount of our ego’s integrity ends up invested in them. The solution is partly to learn a bit of detachment, to not hold too tightly to beliefs. But the most important corrective would be to learn to tolerate contradiction. Imagine if people could comfortably make statements like this: “I believe in God. You don’t. Both views are valid and worthy. God exists for me and not for you. This is natural and good, and consistent with nature as we know it.” If we could hold our beliefs without worrying about contradictory opinions, we would be able to enjoy the benefits of such conviction while avoiding the downsides.

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Contradiction: Fact of Nature was published on August 4th, 2011 . 10 comments






Happy Anniversary, WS!

Well, this is the second anniversary of the launching of WillSpirit (my blog’s title didn’t sport an exclamation point until this year). It’s odd, looking back, to realize how clueless I was starting out. I had little clarity about my direction or subject matter, but high hopes for success. Or at least that’s how I remember it.

But upon reviewing my first post (an excerpt is quoted below), what strikes me is how my ideas at the start were not that different from my ideas now.

Naturally, I’m more seasoned. Hopefully, I’ve matured a little as a writer. And of course I’m much more realistic about what blogging can and can’t do for a person or a career.

But it surprises me to read that my very first post announces: “I don’t think anyone has perfect mental health.” Plus, it cites the body as an important participant in mental wellness. These pronouncements sound very similar to the sorts of statements I’ve been making lately. Not to mention that a year after starting the blog, I trained as a physician acupuncturist in order to offer somatic treatments in support of mental health. The more I change, apparently, the more I stay the same.

True, today I’d be less likely to emphasize biology as the main determinant of our essential nature, and much more inclined to acknowledge an equal contribution of divinity or Consciousness (with a capital ‘C’). But this seems like a quantitative shift, not a qualitative one.

Anyway, I’m posting this little tribute to the past as a way of thanking my readership. It’s been small but supportive all along. Recently, after I started speaking forcefully about the toxicity of the conventional mental health system, WillSpirit! enjoyed a big jump in the number of visitors. But the people who comment, at least, remain as gentle and sagacious as ever. And that has been the true value of blogging: it’s connected me with others who value compassion, growth, and wisdom. Thank you. Thank you.

I’M STARTING BLOG #184,876,598 ON THE INTERNET!

Just kidding. I don’t know what number blog this is, though I imagine I’m within a hundred million or so of being correct. Which means I doubt you are even reading this. If you are, in fact, an actual person reading my actual first post, then you deserve my eternal gratitude. Thank you. Thank you.

I am working out what this blog will be about, but I see three main subjects as likely to come up. They are related, at least in my mind:

1.   God, or something like it.

2.   Biology, as our essential nature (though refer to ’1′ above for a possible add-on to our biology).

3.   Mental health, which I interpret broadly. I don’t think anyone has perfect mental health. It is a question of working toward improvement. In my mind, mental health includes emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and even somatic health. Only with all these components in harmony, more or less, can we be said to be in a state of true mental health…

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Happy Anniversary, WS! was published on May 30th, 2011 . 5 comments






Does God Need Us?

In my view, most metaphysical ideas are valid, but none are completely true. I believe this applies to both materialist and spiritualist positions. Having been raised by a physicist to be an atheist, I grew up very skeptical. It wasn’t until age 42 that I began to seriously doubt this anti-religion of my upbringing. Even after experiencing a series of powerful spiritual openings in midlife, I remained resistant. A long program of reading about consciousness studies, psi research, peak experiences, personal transformation, etc., was required before I began to feel confident that the materialist philosophy I grew up believing is incomplete: It’s not wrong, but it’s not the whole story. In my opinion you can say the same about most spiritual systems: none are completely wrong (though some are probably more wrong than others).

The preceding disclaimer paragraph was intended to demonstrate my understanding that what follows is necessarily speculative. I’m not saying that God has any defined or particular form. For that matter, I can’t claim absolute certainty that there is a God. But for the following, let’s agree that some sort of universal consciousness (i.e., God) does exist.

In ordinary parlance, God is taken to be unknowable, powerful, and far beyond human scale. For instance, at times I have felt in touch with an awareness reverberating with the nearly infinite suffering and immeasurable joy of life. This contact was an achingly beautiful and almost unbearable experience.

At other times I’ve seen the impassive flow of creation as a clear and immediate unfolding, instant by instant. I understood the breaking wave of karma to be a dispassionate collapse of ever-narrowing potential determined by the flow of circumstances throughout all history and prehistory. This showed me a creative element that wasn’t a ‘God’ in the usual sense, but which bespoke a mute cosmic intelligence that seemed vast and aloof.

Get the picture? My glimpses of the Ultimate have usually revealed an inscrutable force: huge, potent, and incapable of human intimacy.

However, my first really remarkable spiritual experience actually started very small. It began as a tiny, hovering dot of crimson a short distance in front of my face. This miniscule presence exhibited apparent playfulness as it danced before my eyes momentarily. Then, without warning, it burst into a replay of the cosmic Big Bang that offered me an instantaneous and fleeting comprehension of the full sweep of time from the first incendiary moment until the present day, and the entire span of physical scale, from subatomic realms out to the furthest quasars. Because the explosive flow of visual experience and cosmic insight was so vast (and so saturated with love), the experience of it overwhelmed the dancing, provocative, dimensionless light that went before.

During a spiritual retreat this past weekend, I realized it was time to look back and explore the intimacy of that small light. I was in a Brahma Kumaris center, where their conception of deity sounds a lot like what appeared to me in 2000: a dimensionless light of pure consciousness. The first time I heard the BK sisters describe this picture of God, I was shocked to hear their words so clearly depict what appeared to me just before the mind-bending explosive moment eleven years ago. So on this recent retreat, I meditated on a God that can appear as a universe-spanning panorama, but also as a dimensionless point of light.

A tiny sparkle of God-light looks vulnerable and delicate, despite its vast store of wisdom and experience. It is something approachable, something closer to human scale than the grander conceptions of the Divine. It also reminds me of a powerful aspect of Christianity: the idea that God can suffer, too.

For what God that cared about its creation would not be wounded by seeing it unfold? And wouldn’t such a sensitive deity deserve our compassion and affection? It’s so much easier to understand how we might have something to offer the Divine when it appears so vulnerable and near.

We humans are at our best when we love others, but we usually work harder to find love than to offer it. So it is with religious feelings: we want a God to adore us, but it might be healthier for us to adore God. A deity that is small rather than vast is a deity that is easier to love.

Let’s end by giving atheists their due. Perhaps there is no God. But there is a bountiful and beautiful universe all around us. There are myriad intricate and vulnerable life forms that depend on humanity to preserve their homes and livelihoods. There is a gorgeous planet that provides what we need to live. Even if we don’t believe in a God that needs our affection, we can still realign our priorities to offer support rather than seek it. In doing so, we will earn the right to be called ‘humane.’

And who knows. We may also touch the heart of something divine.

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Does God Need Us? was published on April 17th, 2011 . 4 comments






There’s Something Out There

My upbringing traumatized me, but I enjoyed a number of special times. In fact, when your parents don’t care about you and encourage you to stay away from home, you are more free than kids who are watched and protected. At age twelve a friend of mine and I started sailing each summer from Marina del Rey in Los Angeles to Catalina Island some thirty miles offshore. We’d go for two weeks each time, and scuba dive every day. Not many parents would have trusted two youngsters to independently do something so potentially hazardous, but both Mark and I were free.

A couple of times my dad flew in for a few days of scuba diving. I remember fondly those times with him and probably should give him more credit for showing me that attention. One of the most beautiful experiences of my life happened while he and I were diving together.

The underwater landscape around Catalina consists of amber colored kelp forests, which grow from reefs of rough rock that through the otherwise sandy sea bottom. The kelp fronds extend from their reef anchors up to the surface thirty feet above, and they weave a thick, floating mat on the rolling ocean surface. We had just exited one of these kelp stands and were swimming through open water toward another ‘grove’, when we found ourselves surrounded by a school of grunion. The grunion is a silver fish about six inches long, nondescript but with a cosmopolitan tendency to swim together in massive numbers. Thousands of animals schooled around us.

What struck me then, and even more now, was the incredible coordination of their movements. Although the fish could no doubt see each other and feel their collective vibrations in the water, the synchrony of their migration seemed far more precise than could be explained on those bases. The scene was astonishing. All the animals would turn together in what seemed like an instant, as if an invisible message had been transmitted, making the crowd of fish behave as one organism. The school divided and swam smoothly around us, never approaching closer than three or four feet, and always as organized as a phalanx of soldiers under strict parade command. But there was nothing martial in this spectacle. The water felt suffused with a deep intelligence, which we could barely fathom in our clumsy, bubbling gear.

These days, as I read about consciousness and its implications, I remember that experience. It particularly resonates with what Rupert Sheldrake has written about morphic fields. These postulated energies give schools of fish their unity, and also direct embryonic development and account for so-called psychic phenomena. Sheldrake marshals impressive data to demonstrate that standard physical models can’t explain the massively coordinated actions of thousands of fish in a school or billions of cells in a growing fetus. He also recounts the enormous amount of evidence that proves the reality of psychic abilities in humans.

These days, as I work to establish my life on sound principles, I look to that school of fish for lessons. Every action of myself and others can be seen, metaphorically, as a single fish. If each action were independent and occurred without reference to any larger organizing principle, then anxiety would be in order. Keeping a tight grip on my behavior would help ensure that none of the hundreds of ‘fish’ that make up my life swam out of line. But if there is morphic resonance (a similar concept, discussed by Elvin Laszlo, is the Akashic Field) keeping life synchronized, then letting go makes the greater sense. I could trust in the intelligence of these encompassing influences.

Sound familiar? In Alcoholics Anonymous a favorite saying is, “let go and let God.” The time has come for scientists to recognize that while the Judeo-Christian-Muslim concept of a patriarchal God is inaccurate and in many ways a personification of ego, there really is something ‘out there’ that makes life a meaningful and directed experience. I have commented many times on this blog about the role synchronicity has played in my life, especially recently. The strange coincidences can be explained as manifestations of morphic or Akashic influences. This isn’t necessarily ‘God’ in the traditional sense, but it is surely sacred.

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There’s Something Out There was published on November 26th, 2010 . 6 comments






Working It Out

I’m learning HTML right now, in order to build a better template for my blog, and pages for my site. I’m also thinking about what the next step might be in developing my blog concept. I would welcome any ideas, if anyone were to read this. But for now I’m on my own, obviously. I have been working on the concept of multiple views on religion in one person’s psyche. I think it is the easiest way to deal with doubt. One part of me does not believe, another does. Since I’m not strongly attached to a concept of unitary truth, this approach is fine for me. When I’m in my doubt phase I accept the stance that any supernatural being is unlikely. When I’m in my faith phase, I buy into the God concept, at least in a general sense (not in a Judeo-Christian sense, however). Which side is right does not concern me very much. We’ll never know. Science does not support the existence of anything supernatural, but it does not rule it out, either. There is plenty of room in what we don’t understand about matter, light, and energy on their most fundamental levels for some kind of extra-sensory phenomenon to arise. Maybe science will someday pin such a thing down, or maybe not. Either way, there is room for such things. “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” So I can sit on the fence easily, by just compartmentalizing the two ways of seeing things. Ultimately, I think it comes back to the Will and Spirit dichotomy. (See earlier)

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Working It Out was published on June 17th, 2009 .






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