Adam Blatner

I thought of calling it a theology, but immediately that became radically absurd. I’m aware that each person’s transcendent experience is, so to speak, a many-lifetime journey, and differs from anyone else. Metaphysics may be descriptive, but it doesn’t presume to state how it really is. We are but tiny human-brains—that’s how the angels love and view us, to use a poetic metaphor. But in this widening world, theological oppression is no longer widely acceptable, though indeed it is widely practiced.

Metaphysics must to begin with confess its subjectivity and willingness not to impose itself on anyone else. This opens it up to criticism, as if subjectivity were a bad thing. It was back when there was a widespread believe beyond beliefs that there was a reality, one, and we all were trying to find and articulate it. But what if the reality is that each mind creates its own deep reality—and this is the radical lesson of true transpersonal psychology?

Well, certainly this is not so, and cannot be so—that is for sure, thought by many— most—who cannot wrap their minds around—or open their minds to—such a paradigm shift! Still, what if?

This is really weird: It is conventional—not insane—to believe that indeed there is out there a single, over-arching reality that all good, true, people can see and relate to. There are lots and lots of non-true believers, willfully bad believers, crazy people, etc., who don’t follow this; or what if instead there is not that single reality? It’s hard to comprehend, even! But then again, there are lots of things we’ve learned about that are difficult to comprehend—as if easy-to-comprehend were a test of truth.

That’s a species-centric prejudice, when one thinks about it. We have tendencies to interpret reality in terms of what we can readily understand, which is just another way of saying “dumb it down for us”—not that we’re dumb—but, hey, maybe we are.