Metaphysics and Sanity

 Working with metaphysical systems from all around the world for a long time now, and one notices there is tendency for people to go... Unstable. When learning more then one(depending on other factors for some happens even with just one).

In my understanding the reason that happens, main one anyway, is connected to how our nervous system processes language. And that is studied in great depth in NLP. Yet if we look at many NLP practitioners, saying they are more stable, seems silly as well.

So what is happening here...  Well, in my view it was always fully given at Korzybskis work. But he was overlooked, people kept repeating "the map is not the territory" and never really figured out what it means in enough depth, to keep all that knowledge well aligned to their nervous system and stay relatively fine with it.

 The base idea is in the first levels from our interactions, aren't suppose to be words. 

First are events, that is beyond our knowledge and it has to be silent level. 

Its not "god", not "source", not even the word "event" its infinite movements and reactions on endless levels from atoms and molecules to planets and galaxies, all interacting and aligning to produce something that we may decide to call "running to catch the bus".

And on the "event" level of it there is silence, there have to be. We interact with it knowing that that level we don't "strain" to put into words, that level will always be silent, as its always unique and different and no words could play a role in it.

Second level is our senses response to the event. That should be silent too. We are tired from running, worried we may miss it, we see endless amount of information, we feel endless amount of info as well etc. All of that produces chemical, physical, electrical and all sorts of other reactions in us while one runs...

All that is silent level, as there is no definition here, this is the clear input we get.

On the third level, we separate. Here is bus. Here is sidewalk. Here are people.Everything is moving(the idea"I'm running comes later, as its complex "abstraction", we need to point to ourselves, we need to reverse the movement etc.).

On that level there are no words, either. The reason for that, is because its simple distinction of "objects" around us, and basic parameters of what we perceive.

Next level, fourth, is the labels. Simple words for what we see. The bus is representative of the word "bus". We can interact with that word. We can't interact with the real bus, as there is much coming with it. But we can interact with the word. Sidewalk is representative of the type "sidewalks", we know that well too. Its infinitely different sidewalk and always will be, but we know parameters enough to fit it into a label at this point. Its not too big, so it can take it. And nervous system rejoices, in my view!

So what did Korzybski said on that...

"Obviously, in the beginning, he did not know anything about the universe or himself ; he went ahead spontaneously . It is no wonder that some of his abstractions were false to facts, that some of them were devoid of meaning, and hence neither true nor false but strictly meaningless, and that some of them were correct .

In this endless spontaneous process of constructing abstractions he started from that which was the nearest to him-namely his own feelings-and ignorantly attributed his human faculties to all the universe around him . He did not realize that he-man-was the latest product in the universe ; he reversed the order and anthropomorphized all around him . He objectified his labels, mistook them for events, and became an "absolutists" He did not realize, and this is true even today in most cases, that by doing so he was building up a logic and a language ill fitted to deal with the actual universe, with life, including man ; and that by doing so he was building for himself mental
impasses . In a few instances good luck was with him ; he made a few abstractions which were at once the easiest to handle and were correct ; that is, abstractions corresponding to the actual facts in this actual universe .  "

Alfted Korzybski

Now, he did not enjoy metaphysics... And it makes sense, from his perspective all problems in "sanity" may be traced to that poor use of language that we do in metaphysics so much. Though they do it in science, as well...

Yet his view in my humble understanding, could(for some) be the "good" for it all. If we understand that we can learn multiple metaphysical systems and potentially stay fine. Maybe not everyone could, but at least some can.

All this is covered in "science and sanity" from his books and also in the "collected works". There are... Many reasons he was very difficult to understand. Yet this is the best outcome if one can get the idea. Why the best outcome... Because the other ways are systems focusing on meditation and satsang etc. The idea there is to let the words let go of the levels that are suppose to stay silence, at least for a while. Then try to expand it. Problem is... One isn't functioning great like this. They keep using the messed up words and labels, but then try to clear them out in meditation. With time they often give up and focus on meditations, as it feels good and they can't figure out how to align the words.

While this just aligns the words, we can function much better with it, if one fully understands it, in my humble view.Yet if one can't understand it Gangaji is awesome example of different tradition also helpful for that(can check youtube).

So that is what is needed, overall. Hopefully that can be helpful for practitioners. This paths can be very challenging and for us it was. 

 This isn't really something we can just "prescribe" to random people, though. If one feels burden from learning metaphysics,  there are many solutions to that, that may be good idea looking into at times. This is just my experience with how it went for me and what I observe in others.