Spirituality and autism?

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So anyone here find that autism has increased there spirituality in any way?

I think my aspergers has made me want to become a monk or other spiritual person.

The reason I ask the question is because in my buddhist group or sangha we will be talking about autism and spirituality and if you guys will lets me I would like to share some of your experiences.

Thanks

I don't think spirituality has anything to do with autism. Autism is autism and spirituality is uh.....spirituality.

I'm not a spiritual person however I've often felt akin to that of a monk living as a recluse.

Greetings,

If you would, please define what you mean by spiritual due to the ambiguous nature of the word.

Danke,
-Me

I'm obsessed with spirituality and religions. I find a need to prove the origins of my spiritual nature to an abnormal sense. If I can't prove it then it doesn't seem real. Yet there is a sense of it still and I wonder why it's there and where it comes from and what purpose it serves.
It has driven me mad. If you really believe in spiritual natures and you go to a therapist, most therapists will say you are delusional or psychotic. If you really believe it, that is, you are certifiably crazy. But, if you go along with societal standards in regards to religion, you are sane so long as you don't really believe it. This makes no sense to me and so I trudge on...

Monk life seems very peaceful btw.

I don't know if AS affects how "spiritual" you are. Judging from the numbers here, I'd say the intense "over thinking" many autistic people do works against being spiritual because so many want hard proof before they believe anything.

Now, in contrast, I've always had a knack for seeing into the theoretical. I can grasp concepts that NTs just don't understand. I can see patterns that others don't see even if you literally draw them a chart from Point A to Point B.

To be spiritual, you must be WILLING to believe that which can not be proven scientifically is at least POSSIBLE. I suppose because I'm always looking into what's possible, I'm focused more in that direction.

I mean stuff like martial arts and meditation and religion anything you can think of as spiritual i mean it.

Spiritual is a silly word. It means different things to different people.

I'm a Christian, and a lot of people have accused me of being "spiritual." As it happens, I take offense at that... what's the point of being (as the expression goes) "so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good?"

Everybody is "spiritual." Everybody has some unseen reality that they feel connected to in some way. For some it's family, or a sense of decency, or of fairness. Some people feel passionate and spiritual about football. Some folks even fall in love, on a spiritual level, with inanimate objects, for crying out loud.

So the term "spiritual" doesn't describe anything.

Most spirtuality is just feel good nonsense. Sorry to be blunt about it, but it's true.

There is definitely a reality behind the fragment we perceive. You don't need to be spiritual, or auty/aspy to perceive that. One could argue that it's in fact a practical response to our bonkers universe to admit the "spiritual."

But nobody has a peg on what "spiritual" means. NTs say that we're cold and unfeeling, and not spiritually attuned, whereas we might argue that they're not deep enough, and don't intuit the patterns we do.

In the end it's just name calling.

I'm no more spiritual than the next NT or auty. And spirituality, as a term, is just a crock.

Sorry.

I believe there can appear to be similarities, but I doubt there are any actual connections.



I believe it is reasonable to demand proof, but I also believe spirituality would be boring if it were merely scientific! So at least for myself, the “science” of spirituality lies in the investigations of living proofs of the ways of faith and of no faith.



I am obsessed with spirituality, but I had to cast all religion aside in favor of another course in order to ever actually get there. For myself, “religion” only ever got me within sight of spirituality’s outer court, and then it left me wandering around as part of its guided tour laid out by people who seem to believe a little sight-seeing is essentially the same as actually being there.



Well said!



Choose your path by its destination, and not by the depth of its rut or the price of its book.

It is an adjective describing its subject, such as in "spiritual realm" or "spiritually-minded".



Within your context, agreed.

That too, is uttermost balderdash.

ruveyn

Okay, I listen ...

Please elaborate!

What the hell does "spiritual" or "spirit" mean in concrete terms that can be comprehended by anyone with normal senses?

ruveyn

Ah, okay ... and so everyone must begin at the mountain?

"Spiritual", I believe, amounts to anything in the fourth dimension or beyond that is not ultimately found to be scientific, and "faith" is an adjustable "variable" of sorts for filling the gap between the two, if so desired.

Most people when they use the term "spiritual" are not thinking about the "fourth dimension", or transdimensional physics, or any other such interesting concepts.

Most people, when talking about "spirituality" are basically giving themselves a pat on the back for some feel good notions they may have developed that help them function in the real world.

For example, a woman at work tells me that she has a spirit guide who lives under her right arm, and "guides" her in her decisions. (This is the finance manager, for crying out loud...) I ask her if she's sure that her oxter dweller is necessarily the best person to ask for advice, and she informs me that it's "normally a sweet and wise old red indian woman... but sometimes is a tiger or a snake."

Under normal circumstances, you'd assume this woman was insane, but apparently not. She's "spiritual."

Just for the record, I'm a Christian, (am happy to discuss this on a different thread, so as not to derail this one) I believe reality is far bigger than we can perceive, and that our little fragments of comprehension are woefully inadequate.

But I refuse on point of principle to say that anybody is "spiritual", because "spiritual" is short hand for "I have feelings that make me happy, supposed insights that make me feel important, and I'm too lazy to express what I'm feeling in any kind of language that makes sense to anyone. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're on a lesser spiritual plane than I am."

"Spirituality" makes no sense in the fourth dimension if it has no effect in the dimensions we actually live in.

Someone can sit and say "ohm" to his or her naval till the Sacred Cows come home, if they're not actually doing anything to make the world a better place their spirituality is an empty ritual, and won't do them, or anyone else, a blind bit of good.

"You may raise your hands to me in prayer, I will not hear, for your hands are full of blood." That's what the prophet Isaiah (who never claimed to be spiritual) said God had to say about ritualistic nonsense. What's the point of spirituality when over half the world goes to bed hungry? Our hands are full of blood.

We definitely agree, yet there is more than one kind or brand or style or type or practice of "spirituality" that can have an "effect in the dimensions [where] we actually live." For all folks, the question there is about the "effect" desired, and for some, it is about the source. For example, many people today talk about "a god of your own understanding" (or even none at all) for the specific purpose of trying to get past the actual Creator of all that exists.

What is spirit? Spirit is energy supposedly. It's the essence of life, the vehicle that transforms one state of life into another state of being. Nobody knows exactly what this vehicle is, but if you believe it exists and testify to being aware of it on some level, then you are spiritual. If this makes no sense to you, then you are probably not spiritual because you have not experienced the spiritual realm.

If it is true that invisible entities of a lower nature exist, why wouldn't it be possible for invisible entities of a higher nature to exist? Some people think that humans are the highest forms of life in the universe. This to me seems highly unlikely, for if it is true, what a waste this universe is since most of this universe is comprised of non-material forms of energy.

btw, religious people are not necessarily spiritual and spiritual people are not necessarily religious.