Spirituality and autism?

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You say that like you're proud of yourself for taking away a shred of hope from a dying woman.

Funnily enough, someone said almost exactly the same thing to my husband on his death bed, and actually started arguing with him about the non existence of the afterlife. Fortunately my husband was confident enough in what he knew that it didn't phase him, but it shocked his friends and relatives at the time that the guy who was arguing would get so passionate and angry with a dying man. It actually shocked the guy concerned when he realised how far he'd gone.

I should point out that my husband didn't believe in a religion either, but he did believe in a Person.

May I ask, why do you think that "your honesty" is an acceptable last gift to somebody? If your honesty had broken her heart and your aunt had died in fear, would you still be so proud of yourself?

Spirituality and religion seemed to have been used interchangeably by some and concept of the spiritual seems to provoke hostility in others...why?

For many years I read philosophy, psychology and religious philosophy in an attempt to understand myself and the purpose of being. I also read poetry, novels, science and history.
It is not necessary to place FAITH in any one aspect of existence.... for that is to ignore, or deny the relevance of all other aspects that do exist at least in CONCEPT.

What is the thing referred to as SPIRIT?

I feel it is something that cannot be imputed, deduced, or proven save through personal experience. A truly personal experience. An experience that transcends the mundane, lifts one out of the trivia and beyond the material.

Solitude can allow a greater sense of oneness.... or wholeness. Within nature solitude can allow, or provide a sense of sensory connectedness to the whole of life/ universe. I stress this is not an intellectual but an experiential phenomena.

Buddhism...... Buddha nature.... the POTENTIAL that is within each being to develop to its/her/his highest possible state of awareness in BEING ( the experience and awareness of existing).... that each aspect is part of the whole. For materialists.... maybe think in terms of ATOMS for ASPECTS and the UNIVERSE for the WHOLE.
METAPHORES..... YES! but isn't that what all language is..... we use words to describe experiences, things etc. The word is not the thing but merely a word.

We as human beings, ASD or NT, can develop our potential further if we choose or we can choose to stagnate.
Can that desire to develop our potential be viewed as SPIRIT? Can the experience of developing our potential be viewed as SPIRITUAL?
Is it that CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE of BEING, BEING in relationship with the cosmos ( for undeniably we do live within the cosmos) is that what can be called, or wear the term...SPIRITUAL?

Did the guy even know your husband? I swear - if I was on my death bed and some evangelists came around, people I didn't know, to argue with me that there was no God or, if I was already an atheist at that point, make sure that I was still holding to my view that there was no God - I'm pretty sure I'd spit in their faces either way. I can't fathom for the life of me what they would *need* so badly, its apparently gratifying a need that has far more to do with themselves than with the person who they're arguing with when, afterall if there's no God and no afterlife its completely indifferent what you believe and its not like you'll instantly well up with energy, jump out of your bed, fly to Amsterdam, and start blowing lines of coke off a prostitute to really 'live' your last few minutes. To actually believe in no God is to acknowledge that its completely ineffectual, aside from say ordaining traveling atheists as the new Jahova's Witnesses or door-to-door Mormons of the 21st century.

Aren't the thought processes of Aspies generally too rational, logical, factual, literal and concrete to get into the full groove of religion and spirituality?

In my own experience, religion and spirituality have greatly differing and conflicting "grooves", and my Aspie traits have proved absolutely necessary for discerning the difference even though they easily could have led to my demise. Maybe I can explain a bit ...

I am someone who cannot drink alcohol without losing all control. But, neither could I live without having *something* to "drink" that can change the way I feel. I grew up in a very religious setting, and that left me a "sitting duck" for the "spirits" of alcoholism. Today I drink of different "spirits", and those are found within right fellowship with others around me (even though there are very, very few). Being an Aspie does not make me any more or less spiritual than anyone else, but it sure has helped to keep me from getting sucked into yet another delusion in place of my religious past.

Thought I posed some interesting questions to lead away from the sectarian, theist/atheist/agnostic debate.!




MAYBE I WAS MISTAKEN and am but a mere LEPRECHAUN lost in the SOCK drawer?!

Reading your post that's quite similar to where I was when I was 20. Had just read Dalai Lama - The Art of Happiness, was getting curious about reading Gnostic texts, though one difference being I had a *long* way to go on sizing up reality, my place in it, and trying to reshape how I saw the world based on wherever that reality lead me (have reshaped the way I see and feel the world many times accordingly, may easily have many more such changes to come even after 30).

I think what you'll run into here - many materialists are SO ardent in their outlook that no matter how much wisdom you may feel that you've found in your reading, no matter how well your outlook fits together for you - your still a theist rather than an atheist, thus utterly discredited by the very fact that you believe in a spirit or even God if that's applicable (both Easterbunny AND Santa Clause). Not telling you to worry about it, don't, just that I'm just forewarning you - if you do expect much in the way of positive feedback or agreement you'll find this forum about as refreshing as a tall glass of vinegar.

Thanks for the advice techstepgener8tion! I gathered as much! My questioning began in early teens.......then Read some Krishnamurti"s taped interviews and discussions with various people including Needleman and Boehm..... good Socratic Method. After that a variety of things etc..... Tibetan Buddhism 20's onwards as well as other reading including Thomas Moore, Hillman and others. Always refreshing to read a variety of facets of understanding where we're at......
I think I'd be classified a claustrophobic if I confined myself to a narrow point of view, to the point of suffocation.

^Thomas Moore is my favorite psychologist.

I came across a quote today.

"There is a part of every living thing that wants to become itself, the tadpole into the frog, the chrysalis into the butterfly, a damaged human being into a whole one. That is spirituality."
-Ellen Bass

Spirituality is the transformation process.

I'm reading a good book right now called, The Wisdom of the Enneagram. It's written by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. The Enneagram symbol was introduced to the modern world by George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, after he became interested in esoteric knowledge. He was convinced that a complete science for transforming the human psyche had been developed by the ancients. What he uncovered was a vast and complex study of psychology, spirituality, and cosmology.

Thanks Magnus for opening the discussion up further! Enneagram, have had a brief encounter, would like to have a deeper understanding.... must get a copy. From my limited knowledge of it I found it very interesting..... thanks again for reminding me of a track I'd meant to pursue.

I'm glad to have found about this symbol of the psyche as well. This is probably the most helpful knowledge I have found so far.