Thought Disorder and Spiritual Awakening

Posted on July 25, 2007
Filed Under Journal, Spirituality, Consciousness |

Spiritual Awakening It pretty much began at the start of the year 2000, up until then I had always been fairly aware in an “unconventional” manner as far as society is concerned. You hear these stories all the time; “As a kid I saw the world differently to most people.” it was the same scenario, with of course my own personal spin on the whole deal. My memories go back to a very young age, and I remember being 4 or maybe younger - certainly before I started school - and thinking that adults didn’t make a whole lot of sense. That the reactions they expected from me, didn’t at all match up with what I truly felt. Quite often I would follow my own thoughts and feelings, which is the natural thing for a young child. But of course the adults around me reacted unfavourably. You see this sort of thing all the time with parents and their children.

The child is running around the toyshop joyously picking up one toy and then the next - insatiable curiosity, yet not damagingly so. Shortly the mother gets irate and shouts at the child to leave the toys alone. The problem here isn’t the child’s exuberance, but the mothers insecurities. Of course the child now thinks her curiosity a bad thing, but soon learns to conform to her mothers wishes. And that’s how it goes - slowly our natural view of the world is supplanted by the logical, emotionally unstable adult vision of how things are supposed to be.

As the years passed by, I learnt to react how I was “supposed” to react. That included making the necessary facial expression and other body language. My natural inclination wasn’t particularly expressive, and so my entire body language was fairly mute. That caused issues with many people - so I had to create that body language, and become a little more animate.

This also ranged into how I thought. I had certain perceptions of the world; I viewed the world - in what I now realise - was both a metaphorical and symbolical manner. Whereas those around me sought to understand the world by means of logic and reason, breaking everything down unto its smallest possible components.

Of course this created a communication barrier and at around 10, it was identified that I had “problems” with my English abilities. It was therefore deemed that I be placed in a class specialising on the areas it was perceived I was lacking. Then, the following year I was placed in the top English class. I didn’t give it much thought at the time…but the teachers had mis-identified my communication barriers with language flaws. Hat’s of to them for realising the errors of their ways. Not that they followed up with any more help.

As I grew older, and I began to view the complexities of the world - I continued to perceive them via metaphor and simile. Conversely my friends became ever more fixed in their world outlook. Rigid, inflexible and logical. Meanwhile I grasped theories and concepts much quicker than most - a fact that meant I was considered “intelligent”. Intelligence had nothing to do with it - awareness was at the heart of the matter.

But the communication barrier remained. Through out it all I slowly started to feel that my view of the world and other peoples views were at odds…I continuously strived to make the two match in one manner or another. My lack of self-confidence dictated to me that quite clearly, “The majority must always be right”. A point hammered home again and again by my parents, teachers and co-workers.

Finally in 2000 I came across some rather vague information on Zen Buddhism, and realised rather suddenly that this was an entirely different outlook upon the world to that of contemporary western culture. An outlook that viewed the world via metaphor and simile no less. And of course the famous Zen Koans.

What had - until now - been hidden in the depths of my sub-conscious finally became startlingly clear. There was a vast gulf between my world and the world of “the majority”.

A little over a year later the planes hit the towers and the world was jolted awake from its slumber of reason, logic and materialism. This lasted for a few days until the repeated story from the media outlets and the governments finally sunk into peoples consciousness and the people once again fell into slumber. Although this time a rather fearful, paranoid fitful sleep.

Things didn’t entirely add up for me at that point, because the world of the “majority” which had until now been driven by logic and reason had suddenly given up on those traits. Claims that were clearly illogical were accepted as truth, reason gave way to fear. Yet the world carried on with barely a misstep. Of course; the majority had never been followers of logic and reason. Instead they worshipped at the alters of conformity, suppression and ignorance. And in hindsight I realised that this had always been the case - and not just throughout my lifetime, but throughout all of history.

And so one delusion gave way to another. Control, domination, mis-direction and illusion…all the true benefactors of modern culture. And I saw these things where ever I looked. A form of madness slowly settled upon me, into which I sunk lower and lower. Every so often jostling the rickety fake branches upon which my family, friends and collueges perched. Those perfectly illusory branches of society, control and stability. I am sure - for me - that true despair wasn’t all that far away. But finally something gave way - some vast weight lifted, some taught chain snapped…

…and I was floating…

Reality itself wasn’t at all what I had believed - the delusion didn’t merely apply to society, but to all of existence. There was no one around me at this point that really understood what I was seeing and feeling. What I understood. Fortunately I did have people with patience and care. So I continued ever onwards. Piecing together one piece after another. Had I tried to hold onto a reasoned mind I would have possibly been driven to the edge of psychosis. And I understand well how people in such situations flee to the doctors at the first mental oddity - as their world reels and changes. Only to find themselves prescribed a never ending supply of Lithium.

Medication; a perfectly natural response from a society reared on reason and logic - of measured intellect, full of its sure belief in analytical study and materialistic science.

I didn’t go anywhere near that. But I understand entirely how and why people would.

Eventually, through the wonders of the Internet, I discovered like minds - with different perspectives of the world. A hundred different people with a hundred different views. Their beliefs didn’t match mine - nor for the most part, did they match each others. But there was a commonality there - which we all shared - we knew that society had it wrong. We could see that the majority believed the world was flat, whilst the minority set off on journeys knowing otherwise.

Step-by-step my awareness grew - up until the point that I realised I really didn’t know anything much of anything at all. That’s a pretty neat realisation.

That’s not where the story ended of course. There are so many bumps, pitfalls and delusions - that it is difficult at times to comprehend much of anything. The point however is that the mind doesn’t rest in the realms of strict observations. Thought is a response - an effect - not the cause. What precedes it; what else other than thought exists in the the depths of the mind?

There begins another journey entirely…

Comments

5 Responses to “Thought Disorder and Spiritual Awakening”

Angela on August 17th, 2007 6:37 am

Wow. My ‘change’ happened around the same time, mid-1999. I was always a strange kid too, but it was Taoism that jolted me from my stupor those eight years ago, in my early 30s. Very similar though - another worldview suddenly clicked and along with it came a flood of new understanding about the world; which I kind of knew as a child but didn’t have the language or teaching to really grasp.

I love when you say you realized you didn’t know - a good Taoist knows he doesn’t know. A great feat indeed!!
Aloha
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Marcus on August 17th, 2007 2:12 pm

Seems that quite a few people went through that sort of change between 1999 and 2001. For me it was like waking up and at the same time having my feet kicked from under me. It was a very strange time for a while.

Recently a friend of mine went through a similar process. Except for him it happened very suddenly - I believe it was effectively a Kundalini Awakening. But the problem was that he thought he was loosing his mind (totally understandable). Anyway to cut a story short - he had a lot of issues which finally landed him at the hospital. After that he was put onto medication.

It’s sad, but I guess that is just the way it goes sometimes. Unfortunately the modern world is too entrenched in a physical / mechanical perspective.

On a brighter note; I am regularly starting to come across people who have a more spiritual outlook on the world. So step-by-step there does appear to be a growing awareness.
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CeruleanBlue on August 20th, 2007 4:37 am

Really intelligently expressed!
As a parent of 4 children myself and being a former child, I’ve found that most parents are more worried about how the child “reflects” on them than their child’s development. Myself and my husband never gave 2 hoots what people thought of our parenting as long as they were happy and well disciplined as people. We saw ourselves as the backdrop and support to their lives and still do.
A really wonderful article.
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Marcus on August 20th, 2007 11:10 pm

Thanks for the comments!

It’s always great to hear from parents who are aware of important their role is to their children’s development. We all need a solid foundation to build upon…unfortunately so many of us have to slowly rework that foundation later in life. And you’re certainly correct that it doesn’t matter what other people think, appearances are over-rated after all.
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Mind Programming: The Washing of your Brain : The Thoughts on September 9th, 2007 10:39 am

[…] process I went through in waking up to all this, was fairly long and messy. And it’s still on-going, truth-be-told. How did all this work out […]
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