A Human Strategy: Toward a genuine spirituality, second edition

by Matt Berry

Overview

Our minds are circumscribed by our immediate reality, but we stop short at the thought of it. *** An attempt to find a positive orientation toward life which does not deny reality. *** The proud mind denies the existence of the stimulus in an argument, and so does not see or feel the force of the necessary response, creating the illusion that it is not the perceiver but the world that is twisted. *** Imagine the human task as a kind of game with clearly defined rules. The only legitimate reality is that which we verify with our senses. Consequently, reality is nothing more than surface and the relationships between surfaces. "Mind," "Depth," "Meaning," "Ideas," "Other Worlds," are unreal ... figments of an error-making organ, the brain. Now imagine an attempt to find a positive orientation toward life which does not deny this reality. ... Excerpts: Our minds are circumscribed by our immediate reality, but we stop short at the thought of it. ... * ... The proud mind denies the existence of the stimulus in an argument, and so does not see or feel the force of the necessary response, creating the illusion that it is not the perceiver but the world that is twisted. ... * ... Why formulate hypothetical solutions to hypothetical problems when there are real problems at hand? ... the first problem being our desire to flee from the necessary by burying our heads in the hypothetical.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448649921
Publisher:	CreateSpace Publishing
Publication date:	07/15/2009
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Matt Berry was born in Fresno, California in 1958 and received a degree in English Literature at California State University, Fresno, 1985. He has spent over 20 years abroad, living in Saudi Arabia, Brazil, England, Mexico, and Japan. He currently lives in Sendai, Japan. Born into Mormon culture, he has since passed through ex-Mormonism and Atheism.

Read an Excerpt

From "The Irreducible Surface"-
The "mind" is a fly in a jar. As long as it respects its limits, remains in the center, it can see far and clear and feel its freedom, but as soon as it tries to fly "beyond" its reality ... tries this angle and that ... to get "behind" the fact ... beneath the surface ... "in the world but not of the world" ... as soon as it flies off in a buzzing fury toward the "ultimate," we hear nothing but the frenzied pit-pat of its own scared ideas. Do not misunderstand me here. To be the fly in the jar is not the despair, but quite the contrary, to be the fly and believe that there is no jar is the madness. We need not transcend reality - reality is the goal - we must transcend "mind" ... to see through the glass but never forget that it is there.

From "Amorality"-
Every inherited 'morality' begins with an answer on whose behalf all questions must constantly rearrange themselves. ...

From "The Turning Point"-
The proud mind denies the existence of the stimulus in an argument, and so does not see or feel the force of the necessary response, creating the illusion that it is not the perceiver but the world that is twisted.

From "Personal Science"-
Realist: The word means so many things to so many different people that it should never be used without the utmost care. Nevertheless, one might rashly put up the word now and then as a farmer puts up a scarecrow, in the hope that ungrounded minds might fly elsewhere.

From "Dignity and Nobility"-
One can strive for greatness and fail ... and fail with probability. One can strive for a genuine dignity and succeed ... with certainty. And if we wed the two, what child is born? For his dignity forbids that he give up his highest ambition, and this ambition requires the dignified acceptance of his probable failure. So, how does the child of this union, this genuine failure, conduct himself? He is pricked with the failure of his ambition but makes his querencia on precisely this plot of ground. He refuses any justification other than that he is here ... that the earth under his feet is his to the end ... on the confidence that for as long as he holds onto dignity, the value, even of failure, increases.

From "The Monument to Everlasting Joy"-
The social mind swings far and wide, like a pendulum, reaching out toward one illusion and then falling back with fear or disgust ... only to race out again toward another illusion. But there is a narrower, faster swing available to the human experience ... and it is not the "middle ground" of opposing "causes" or "moralities" ... but the coexistence of two imaginary universes ... an overcoming of both stark reality and wonder over and over again ... training and practicing the reflexes ... perfecting one's observation skills so that the corrections become shorter and faster ... as one who tightens an iron string and takes joy in the vibration as it increases in pitch.

From "The Monument to Everlasting Joy"-
The "Good Life" is not the destination but the road, and a very narrow and winding road at that. Always just ahead we find a sharp turn toward a need so petty that we refuse to slow down for it. And where were we going anyway? The question itself leads us astray. As we admitted before, this is merely a road. But if we resign ourselves to a road without a known destination, what striving toward will keep us on this road? ... or at least allow us to cross it as many times as possible? ... for we cross the road so rarely and haphazardly that it seems inconsequential to the journey. But now I am getting ahead of myself again. Slower, slower ... not faster.