—and Where It Leaves Us Stranded

Metaphysics saved my life. And then it almost ruined it.

I came to metaphysical thinking the way most people do—through pain. A crisis that the conventional world couldn't explain or fix. And in that desperate searching, I discovered ideas that cracked open my understanding of reality: consciousness as primary, thought as creative, the universe as responsive rather than indifferent.

These ideas are powerful. They're also incomplete—at least in the form most people encounter them. Because what passes for metaphysics today is often a watered-down version of teachings that, in their original form, demanded everything from the seeker. We've kept the techniques and lost the depth.

Let me try to untangle this.

What Metaphysics Gets Right

Consciousness matters.

The materialist worldview—that consciousness is just an accident of brain chemistry, an epiphenomenon with no causal power—is incomplete at best, wrong at worst. Quantum physics, near-death research, and the hard problem of consciousness all point toward something the mystics have always known: awareness isn't produced by matter. It may be the other way around.

This insight changes everything. If consciousness is fundamental, then what we do with our minds actually matters. Attention becomes creative. Intention has weight. The inner world shapes the outer.

We are not separate.

The sense that I end at my skin and you begin at yours—useful for navigating traffic, perhaps, but not ultimately true. Metaphysics points toward a deeper reality: interconnection, interdependence, a fabric of being in which separation is functional illusion, not fundamental fact.

This isn't just poetry. It's increasingly supported by physics, ecology, and systems theory. The boundaries we draw are conventions. Useful, but not final.

Meaning exists.

Against the nihilism that haunts modern life—the sense that we're cosmic accidents on a rock hurtling through indifferent space—metaphysics insists that meaning is woven into the structure of existence. That there's intelligence in the unfolding. That your life isn't random, even when it's painful.

This isn't naive optimism. It's a philosophical stance with deep roots in every wisdom tradition. And for many people, it's the difference between despair and the capacity to keep going.

Transformation is possible.

You are not fixed. Your past does not determine your future. The patterns that have run your life can be interrupted, rewritten, transcended. Metaphysics insists on human plasticity—the possibility of genuine change, not just coping.

This is radical. And it's true. People do transform. Consciousness does evolve. The caterpillar does become the butterfly, and not by trying harder at being a caterpillar.

Where Metaphysics Leaves Us Stranded

The problem of suffering.

If thoughts create reality, if we attract our experiences, if consciousness shapes matter—then what about the child with cancer? The village destroyed by earthquake? The genocide?

Here's where much popular metaphysics collapses into cruelty. The implication—sometimes stated, often unspoken—is that victims are somehow responsible for their victimization. That suffering indicates spiritual failure. That if you're still struggling, you must not be doing it right.

This is monstrous. And it's a distortion of deeper truths.

Yes, consciousness participates in reality. No, that doesn't mean a three-year-old manifested leukemia or that Holocaust victims attracted their fate. The relationship between mind and matter is real but not simple, not linear, not reducible to "you create your reality" bumper stickers.

Metaphysics needs a theology of suffering that doesn't blame the sufferer. It mostly doesn't have one.

The bypass problem.

Spiritual bypassing—using spiritual ideas to avoid dealing with painful emotions, unresolved trauma, or difficult realities—is epidemic in metaphysical communities.

Feeling angry? "Rise above it." Grieving? "They're in a better place." Anxious about climate collapse? "Focus on the positive."

This isn't wisdom. It's avoidance wearing wisdom's clothes.

Real transformation requires moving through the difficult emotions, not around them. The wound is the door, not an obstacle to the door. But much metaphysical teaching encourages people to skip the hard part—and then wonders why they stay stuck.

The privilege problem.

"You create your reality" lands differently depending on where you start.

If you're educated, resourced, and relatively safe, the idea that your thoughts shape your circumstances is empowering. You have slack in the system. Room to experiment.

If you're working three jobs, fleeing violence, or trapped in systemic poverty, being told that your mindset is the problem is not just unhelpful—it's insulting. It individualizes what are collective failures. It spiritualizes what are political problems.

Metaphysics without justice analysis is incomplete at best, complicit at worst.

The action problem.

When everything is consciousness, it's easy to conclude that consciousness work is enough. Meditate more. Visualize harder. Align your vibration.

But the world also needs people to show up. To build. To fight. To get their hands dirty in the messy, material work of change.

The mystic who only meditates while the world burns isn't enlightened. They're dissociated.

Real spiritual maturity integrates inner and outer work. It knows when to sit in stillness and when to stand in the street. Much metaphysical teaching overweights the inner, leaving practitioners spiritually sophisticated and practically passive.

What Metaphysics Forgot It Knew

Here's what often gets missed: the metaphysics we're critiquing is a flattened version of something much older and deeper.

Advaita Vedanta has been teaching nondual awareness for thousands of years—not as a manifestation technique, but as direct recognition of what you already are. The goal isn't to get things. It's to dissolve the one who thinks it's separate from the whole.

Indigenous spiritual traditions around the world carry sophisticated understandings of consciousness, interconnection, and humanity's relationship to the living earth—teachings that dwarf most New Age workshops in depth and rigor. These aren't primitive precursors to modern metaphysics. In many ways, they're what metaphysics forgot.

The Hermetic tradition, Kabbalah, Sufism, the Christian mystics—all of these point toward realities that popular metaphysics barely touches. They understood that consciousness is creative, yes. But they also understood ego death, shadow integration, the dark night of the soul, and the necessity of genuine transformation rather than self-improvement.

Even within New Thought itself, the founders knew they were teaching an introductory level. Ernest Holmes, for all his practical instruction on treatment and manifestation, constantly reminded students to "stay open at the top." He knew there was more—dimensions of realization beyond what he was publicly teaching. He wasn't hiding anything; he was acknowledging that spiritual unfoldment doesn't stop at manifesting parking spaces.

The problem isn't metaphysics itself. It's that we took the practical, accessible layer and forgot there were depths beneath it. We taught the techniques and lost the transmission. We got good at the how without understanding the what or the why.

What Would Complete It

Metaphysics doesn't need to be abandoned. It needs to grow up.

A both/and understanding of causation. Consciousness shapes reality and material conditions shape consciousness. It's not either/or. Holding both requires more sophistication than most popular teaching offers.

A place for mystery. Not everything can be explained. Not every tragedy has a lesson. Sometimes the honest answer is "I don't know." Mature spirituality makes room for uncertainty without collapsing into meaninglessness.

Integration with justice. If we're all one, then your suffering is my suffering. Oneness isn't just a meditation insight—it's a call to action. Metaphysics that ignores systemic oppression isn't spiritual. It's narcissism with better vocabulary.

Respect for the body, the earth, the material. Spirit isn't trapped in matter, trying to escape. Spirit is matter, experiencing itself. The physical world isn't illusion to be transcended. It's sacred ground.

Shadow work. The parts of ourselves we've exiled don't disappear when we focus on the light. They run the show from the basement. Any metaphysics worth its salt has to include a descent, not just an ascent.

The Invitation

I still believe consciousness is fundamental. I still believe transformation is possible. I still believe meaning is woven into existence.

But I hold these beliefs differently now. More lightly. With more room for what I don't understand.

The best metaphysics doesn't give you answers. It gives you better questions. It doesn't make you certain. It makes you curious. It doesn't solve the mystery of existence. It deepens your capacity to live inside it.

If your spiritual philosophy makes you feel superior to those who suffer, it's not wisdom. If it lets you bypass your own pain, it's not healing. If it has no response to injustice except "raise your vibration," it's not mature.

The invitation isn't to abandon metaphysics. It's to let it grow up—to become capacious enough to hold suffering and joy, action and stillness, the absolute and the relative, the light and the shadow.

That's the metaphysics we actually need.

And it's still being born.

Larry De Rusha is the author of The Uninvited Life trilogy and host of the Higher Reality podcast. Subscribe for more essays at the intersection of consciousness, culture, and transformation.