The Influence of Spinoza on The Evolution of Wholistic Pantheism, Romantic-Spiritualism, and Humanistic-Existentialism

I am a big Spinoza fan -- particularly in the 'wholistic perspective of his philosophy' and in its 'spiritual pantheism'. 


It is in this regard that I offer you my own version of Spinozian Pantheism....


Search for God in yourself by being the best you can be relative to your own unique 'God-Nature Given Talents'.  In the same way, search for God in others by helping them to become the best they can be in whatever their particular God-Nature Given Talents may be. 


Sign in front of a Baptist Church...


'If you want the best from life, give life your best...'


Sign in front of another church...paraphrased by me...because I can't remember the exact wording...

'Light up a person's life -- and take away his or her darkness...'




In this way, and in line with Spinozian-Wholistic-Pantheistic-Romantic-Spiritual Thinking'....


God, Nature, I and Thou, should all be able to come together in one place and time....


God, Nature, I and Thou, Here and Now....


Embracing each other, in the best spirit of The God (or Gods) and Nature within each of us...


We should all be looking for 'peak encounters' and 'peak moments of creativity' but sometimes they can catch us quite unexpectedly, quite by surprise....


By a 'peak encounter', I am referring to a type of encounter that spiritually awakens, enlivens, re-energizes, revitalizes each of us....synergizes us....each of us encouraging each other, making us better people, and 'feeling the sense of Godliness between us'...


Let me give you an example. I have been driving a young 'autistic' man home from his workshop/school, on a pretty well daily basis, for about 6 months or longer now...I am sure that this man, back in Freud's day, would have been diagnosed by Freud as being both 'hysterical' and 'obsessional'....He would have fit right into one of Freud's early case studies. 


The first time I saw this young man -- and the first time that I really experienced what it means to deal with an autistic person, of this type -- he wouldn't get into my van. The young man was full of 'rituals'. He would sing, he would have conversations -- or partial conversations -- with himself in which he would change 'voices' and 'octaves' when he changed who was talking...He would do all sorts of rather bizarre things but the one thing he wouldn't do was get in my van. This changed the second time I came to pick him up. I would still have to wait for him to go through about 10 to 15 minutes of rituals before he would finally be 'helped' into the van by one or more of the workers. This ritual time became less and less as he became more familiar with me. The young man also had a different set of rituals that he would go into when he was getting off the van at his home. From scratching the top of the roof, to singing again, and repeating nursery rhyme like partial sentences, to looking around the van to see what he could take with him, to finally getting out of the van, marching up to one end of the garage, standing there like a soldier or a choir boy and belting out a song, then the other side of the garage, and another song, and then finally up to the house door to where I would -- after more song -- get him up to ring the bell until his mom or dad came to the door to let him in.... 


In all of the times that I have driven this young man, he has only said one word to me, and that has been on a number of occasions where he had gotten into the van, was all buckled up, and impatient to go. If I was still talking to one of the workers, or doing some paper work, his impatience would 'boil over' into one word -- 'Drive.'


In all of the time that I have been driving him home, this young man has never looked directly at me, never made eye contact -- until yesterday. Yesterday I opened the van, said, 'You're home, sir...(I used his name), and he looked directly at me for about 3 seconds...


Now 3 seconds may not seem like much to you, but for me as I held his gaze for the full 3 seconds,   surprised, shocked, stunned, moved by the experience, while keeping an unflappable front -- this, to me is what I would call a 'Godly experience'...for 3 seconds feeling the 'contactful presence of the person behind the eyes'....


'Therapy' from my perspective doesn't always come in a 'therapeutic room' or in 'a theoretical and/or therapeutic box'...Sometimes, it can come to you, most unexpectedly, in the tiniest of increments, in the most unexpected places...


Yesterday, i felt a 'therapeutic moment' in a mobility van....with a young man who made my day...


-- dgb, July 11, 12, 2012....