anbuend wrote:
Fine with me, I am an omnivore who has no problem with fitting in with the rest of the animals in this regard, and I believe in submitting to God's will for me, whatever that might be (and however unpopular or even hated that might make me at any given time) as fully as possible, rather than trying to sit around vibrating higher than other people and feeling better about myself because of it. All of which I wouldn't have any other way.
I've seen where the Secret leads and it's away from everything good.
Real spirituality works surprisingly similarly to science, on the other hand. It doesn't involve just sitting around asking for whatever you want, or trying to vibrate on a higher frequency than other people.
It involves submitting yourself to something that might end up telling you that your every belief is wrong. It can be terrifying. It can be like having the floor pulled out from under you. It can leave you hiding under your bed and shaking as your ego, or sin, or whatever you want to call it, clashes with God, and with reality. The fear involved can be worse than the fear of death at times. It involves being changed on the most fundamental levels, and learning each time to submit to that change rather than clinging to the sin that lead to the terror. And all of this to learn humility, which is how to exist in your place in the world no matter where it leads you, how much or little status others give you in all the wrong and false ways that human beings bestow status, and no matter what happens to you because of it. It's about doing as close to whatever you're supposed to do as you can, as the fundamentally flawed creature a human being is, manage.
It's not about feeling better about yourself, putting some people on a pedestal and then trying to lift other people to it with some kind of pre-arranged formula. It's about having your feet firmly on the ground, and being able to see people as much as possible in our equality, in both our beauty in many forms, and our collective sin of trying to hide from reality. It's about compassion and humility. It's about always asking God for guidance in how to do the right thing, and accepting the path that leads you on, whether it be tempting to your ego or terrifying, whether it leads to acclaim or ridicule or hatred from other people.
The Secret is all about "winning", and blaming the "losers" for their own misfortune, even when the situations are such that there can be only one "winner" in the first place. Many testimonials about The Secret are about "thinking yourself wealthy", with the obvious conclusion that poor people are just not in on "the secret", or don't believe strongly enough.
It's similar, in that respect, to Prosperity Theology, a segment of Christianity that teaches that wealth is evidence of faith. When, in fact Jesus taught rich people to give all they had to the poor, not to get rich as evidence of faith, and also asked who it profits to gain the whole world and lose one's soul. It is also similar to some strains of Hinduism practiced by the highest castes, that of course are warped to uphold the caste system and to blame the oppression of lower castes not on injustice or the actions of the upper castes, but on the karma of those in lower castes. This is no more Hinduism proper than Prosperity Theology is Christianity proper.
Those are specific religions, though. I can quote from Christianity better because I'm a liberal Christian, but I am sure there are versions of this in all religions, because a large subgroup of people with privilege and power have always used religion to justify themselves as better in some way than those with less privilege and power, and to even claim that those with less could be just like them if only they worked harder, prayed more, or somesuch, which keeps others busy in either doing all that or beating themselves up for not succeeding, rather than figuring out what to do about the power imbalance. All of which is highly convenient for those in power, as is The Secret, but none of it has anything to do with a powerful spiritual truth.
The Secret teaches that you control all of reality. This is not true. There are many human beings on the earth, and many other creatures besides, as well as natural forces and laws, objects, and so forth. We are only one part of things. We have free will, and we can control some of what we do. It is pure hubris to claim that the little bit of control we have, is actually control over everything. Even an atheist could tell you that much.
Humility means that we try to use our free will to do our best to be whoever God wants us to be, regardless of anywhere that might take us. And it means trying our best to submit to God within that one little tiny piece of the world we've got. And realizing simultaneously how tiny and yet how important these little pieces of the world are. God doesn't treat us like spoiled children, unless sometimes to teach us a lesson that what we think we want is not truly what we ought to have (much like a parent teaching a child that eating the whole cake will make them have an awful stomachache). And humility isn't about making complicated hierarchies of who is the most favored by God. Especially when the hierarchies curiously resemble the absolutely bog-standard human hierarchies of privilege in whatever society this is being argued in.
A person don't have to be of my religion, or religious at all, to see what I mean with the above, I don't think. I'm writing it because it seemed important to give some amount of contrast to the self-centered theology of The Secret. Especially because I fell prey to such theology in the past (masquerading, of course, as non-theology) and know firsthand the damage it can do to everyone involved in it. It's spiritual poison with a saccharine casing. The "ethics" involved in The Secret are truly appalling.
But... I suppose framing it in terms of nutrition makes sense. After all, they had to have an answer to the people The Secret was not working for, now instead of just teaching people to beat up on themselves when it doesn't work, they can make them orthorexic in the process! Then they'll be too hung up on eating perfectly to realize the whole thing is nonsense.
Thank you, Ambuend. I think you explained the problems with the "Secret" very well. I am concerned that people will get into orthorexia because depending on one's food to give one a sense of holiness is a real problem, it can lead to anorexia (not eating anything) and death. There is a problem of anorexia in autism, for different reasons, I think not so much because of a desire to be thin, but more like what Joel experiences from time to time (for example) just not remembering to eat or not being able to fix oneself food complicated by the fact that autistics have issues around food smell and texture that can make it harder to eat some foods in the most ideal conditions.
I don't think people on the spectrum need to complicate their eating issues with this kind of guilt producing teaching.
I totally agree that there is a huge flaw in presenting God or the universe as a giant candy dispenser that will give you what you want if you just do the right thing, and that those who prosper from the world's point of view are actually the ones with the most "blessings" from God. It's a ridiculous way to look at it, as this sort of extreme consumerism (God wants me to have a 50 room house with two swimming pools and 10 rare collectible cars and a wife and 3 girlfriends) is part of what has led to the ruining of the planet, and certainly has led to things like imperialism with nations destroying other nations and taking what they want (because God wants Belgians to have "the Congo", etc.).
It would be very sad for a person on the spectrum to look at their own life (if they don't have a mansion, 6 girlfriends and a wife, etc) and see it as evidence of a spiritual failing, some kind of mark of divine disapproval, or worse, in my opinion, a spiritual failing they are paying for from a "previous life." I also don't think that spirituality comes with a price tag in the sense that this person seems to think it does, you need to buy certain foods and certain drugs in order to be more spiritual. I wonder if the Secret diet would approve of diflucan to rid the body of evil yeast that causes autistic children to turn into little monsters (just ask Jenny McCarthy, she explained it on Oprah, where she said that she had visioned what she would say,... and she has "visioned" that she will be the next Oprah for that matter...but I digress). Jenny says she prays to angels to get her perks, interesting... anyone who is poor and who doesn't cure their autistic kid needs to pray harder, and to the correct "angels" apparently.
I think it's important not to go the other direction and see total poverty as equal to holiness, either, that has it's own problems.
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Welcome to the Autistic Underground: Mind the Gap
07 Jan 2008, 11:09 am
