Transpersonal psychology is being developed as a theory of integral development including body, mind, soul and Spirit, and as a new science of consciousness that joins scientific approaches and spiritual tradition, promoting consciousness awakening beyond the ordinary limits of personality, aiming at the awareness of the interrelated nature of the human being and the world, and the realization of the Sacredness.
In the transpersonal perspective, the assumption of the spiritual nature of the Self is fundamental to the understanding of human nature and consciousness development. It helps to define the entire spectrum of human evolution and suffering, hence the meaning and relationship of the human being with life.
The spiritual nature of the Self is witnessed in all sacred science.
"The soul - says Jacob Bohm, the great Christian mystic - is an eye of the undetermined Eternal, a similitude of eternity, a perfect image and figure of the first Principle, and in its eternal nature it is similar to God the Father in His person."
"A human being is not important because of his ego or personality, but because as a soul he is part of God" says the yogi sage Yogananda.
Realizing the Self and its supreme identity with the "divine" is the very perfect aim of the integral growth and evolution.
In the Advaita Vedanta tradition followed by the writer, Self Realization and unity with the divine Principle is realized in a "non-dual state of consciousness" in which the separation between the individual self and reality disappears. Non-dual consciousness is realized in the nirvikalpa samadhi, that is perfectly analogous to the nirvana of Buddhism, the satori of Zen, the mystic union of Christianity, etc.
As transmitted by all sacred tradition, the non-dual consciousness coincides with a state of enlightenment of the supreme Truth, and of liberation from the suffering of the ego encapsulated in the body. The way enlightenment is portrayed in all cultures points to the existence of unexplored frontiers of human potential. It clarifies that so-called normality actually represents a developmental block at a childish stage in personality growth, in which the individual lacks a realistic vision of life and is unable to have any lasting peace or well-being.
As compared to the holistic and undivided perception of enlightenment, that which is considered to be the normal perception is actually a sort of collective short-sightedness, caused by reductions and deformations of mental factors, that show a separate and threatening world.
Enlightenment is a result of a radical transformation of personality, of a metanoia, as Plato would call it, which requires the ego-transcendence that can be realized in a meditative path.
In Vedanta, the meditative path of ego transcendence requires a discipline which has elements common to all the other spiritual traditions consisting of an ethical transformation toward unconditional love and service, mental transformation toward calmness and silence, and study of ancient wisdom: all these elements have relevant meanings in psychotherapy.
The practice of meditation transforms factors of mental suffering, widens awareness and provides strategies for cultivating a positive attitude toward humanity and nature revealing itself as a means of optimal well-being in addition to liberation from ignorance.
Although the meditative path represents a process toward health, awareness, self-knowledge, love and joy, it can be interspersed with difficulties and crises that represent the so-called transpersonal suffering.
Part of the transpersonal suffering is caused by "spiritual emergencies", as defined by Assagioli and Grof, a type of disturbances which include the phenomenon of inflation caused by a premature transcendence of the ego. An opposite type of transpersonal suffering is due to the conflict between the attachments of the ego and the call of the Self: it is the pain of detaching oneself from personal habits and conditioning factors. When this suffering is transcended, new pains can appear, resulting from the recognition of one's incompleteness.
In a metaphor from a sacred text, it is said that when a snake casts off half of its skin, the new half looks with disgust at the other half. This disgust symbolizes the suffering of the person who, having completed part of his purification and transformation, and yearning for the Self, feels the burden of his incompleteness.
A more mature transpersonal suffering is related to one's being in the world but not of the world. This state corresponds to a stage characterized by a painful lack of interest in material reality. Its illusory nature has been recognized, but one is still forced to live in it.
Detachment from craving, realized through discrimination of the illusory nature of all objects, gives rise to the experience of ascetic solitude, that can at times assume disheartening and barren tones.
At further advanced stages, pilgrimage toward the Eternal encounters the pain of exile from the Divine. This is a feeling of despair at perceiving one's remoteness from the Divine, described by Saint John of the Cross as the "dark night of the soul".
Whereas personal ego suffering is regressive and connected to egocentric needs, transpersonal suffering is connected to the path toward liberation, and implies evolution and salvation. Transpersonal suffering leads the way to the perception of the interrelated nature of all things and the encounter with the sacred Principle, where all the things rest and remain.
Both the path toward transpersonal consciousness which leads to enlightenment, and the sufferings of the path, are fields of research in transpersonal psychotherapy and require that the seekers follow a meditative discipline, practicing and intelligently reflecting on their own experiences and transformations
This new science of consciousness, promotes a spiritual work applied to being in the world, and develops the role of the psychologist as a gnostic mediator at the service of life.
We suggest that a unified human being is an achievement which is not a birthright but only a potentiality.
This semantic point being stated, a "medicine of unification" seems easier to conceptualize.
Looking at unification as an evolutionary process allows us to understand better the phenomenological links between the absolute on the one hand, the mind and the body on the other hand. Such an approach does not take into consideration any concept of the absolute, philosophical or religious, which is not rooted in actual experience. In other words, this phenomenological absolute is a state of consciousness to be experienced; it is not a debatable theory, nor a dogma to accept on faith. The question we are addressing is not: "what is the absolute?" but rather "how can I reach that absolute which is here and now?"
We suggest that this unifying process requires a freely accepted discipline added to objective knowledge, either transmitted or revealed (or "discovered"). This last hypothesis leads us to the field of grace, genius, or intuition. We will not address it in the framework of this discussion.
The aim of such a discipline is to develop a specific quality of attention of the mind and the body that would free them from their automatic conditioning, allowing one's true identity to awaken. Any other discipline is at best moralistic or in the worst case, another form of conditioning.
A "medicine (or psychiatry) of unification" is then, assisting the body and the mind when serving a purpose of a different order than themselves.
It is remarkable that the thinkers of ancient Greece did not separate philosophical, psychological and religious knowledge, but had them gravitate around a unique and sacred knowledge: the knowledge of the self by the self. Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and Montaigne have shown us the way.
A law of healing states that "diseases are but a misshapen image of divine possibilities". According to this law, sickness would be due to the pressure that the Soul exerts to express Beauty, Good and Truth, and the resistance of the personality to oppose to this spiritual flow of energy. The matter of our bodies is too inert, too opaque for these energies, and it is too slow to improve itself. Sickness is the result of this friction between matter and the influx of spiritual energy. As uncomfortable as they are, diseases therefore bear witness to the evolutionary process at work in all of us and carry within themselves the promise of a greater expression of the truth. Thus, it is only when the soul is so perfectly integrated in one's body that these do not inhibit its free expression that man can be free of disease. Individual and subjective causes of disease can only be ended through initiation.
Medically speaking, spirituality can be considered as a health hazard. Therefore, all those who aspire to a "spiritual achievement", who orient their existence toward their soul, who try to contact the soul's enlightenment by meditation techniques, expose themselves to the "consuming fire" of the soul and thus to the risk of accident and sickness.
It is precisely because the influx of spiritual energy increases during the course of evolution that diseases are so frequent among mystics, candidates and disciples. Most of these diseases are caused by overstimulation of the etheric body's power centers, the acceleration of the "awakening" process of the etheric body, the intensification of the transfer of energy from the inferior to the superior centers. Regarding symptoms, nothing distinguishes these diseases from those which affect the whole of mankind.
Other diseases affect more specifically disciples and candidates. The effect of the Soul's energies on the nervous system can cause serious imbalances (nervous breakdowns, paranoiac tendencies to control everything...). The influx of "light" may also cause sudden irruption of fragments of vision in consciousness, "revelations" that can bring about delirious fantasies and fanatic behavior if the individual is not sufficiently mature, if he is unable to cope with the situation.
The problems related to the development of psychic powers in answer to the Soul's energies must also be mentioned. These powers, an extension of physical senses, are a menace for the disciple if he is not wise enough to avoid using them. As a matter of fact, it is by developing his mental strength that man has succeeded in building a bridge of light which connects him to the Soul. When in possession of those powers and because of the advantages they procure, the mental focusing may weaken and contact with the Soul can be broken.
When the process of harmonization of the different aspects of the personality is accelerated, when the personality itself must be attuned to the Soul's frequency, thereby renouncing its oldest habits, severe psychological crises shake the foundation of the entire subjective structure of the personality.
Certain diseases are conditioned by group existence. Taking into account the fact that spiritual life will be more and more connected to group work, the frequency of these problems will increase substantially in the future. Some heart diseases and breathing problems may be caused by the currents of energies which circulate among groups. Indeed, the emotional or mental climate which prevails in the group may be polluted and intoxicate the group members. Group activity contributes also to creating etheric ties that connect each member, via his cardiac center, to the other individuals of the group. The flow of energy in that sensitive organ may sometimes exceed its resistance and provoke sickness.
Thus, many dangers are to be found along the spiritual path. Yet, there is no alternative. The forward drive of evolution is so strong that one cannot turn back. And even, if for a time, for a cycle, man seems to have lost sight of his spiritual aims, the Soul maintains its pressure in the background. If conflict between the Soul and the form cannot be avoided, one can, on the other hand, try not to make the problem worse by adopting a wrong attitude. The disciple must not become identified with his difficulties, but through a "spiritual reading" of the events in his life he must, on the contrary, try to decipher their meaning. He must be aware of the risks involved in all energy manipulation techniques. A life of greater service constitutes the best way of avoiding the accumulation of Soul's energies in his own body. He must strive to widen his outlook, to enrich his culture if he wants to avoid sectarian or fanatical reactions. He must cultivate... a sense of humor, of proportions, and detachment.
This is according to the medicine of five bodies. We have indeed five bodies spiritual, mind, unconscious, energetic and physical. The problem which begins in one of the superior bodies flows from body to body till it reaches the most dense where it creates illness. The most important living problems come from our basic aim in life and from our realization of the highest level: spiritual and holy. The greatest trauma is the incapacity to realize why we have been born into this life. But it is also very secret and we hide ourselves with shame and bad faith. This treachery can fall in the mind and be confused with, for example, a contagious or isolated delirium. With the contagious, we have a delirious attack, ending as quickly as it begins, and with the isolated, it is enclosed in a topic or a field which is used for ever as an exutory.
Normally all these problems and unsolvable clashes crawl in the unconscious. They join all that we reject and repress, or we repress the sublime and the Holy as being sordid; our dreams and actions are shaped by these traumas, these complexes and fantasies. Troubles develop in the energetic body and after excess or deficit of energy fall in the physical body as illness (psychosomatic, stammering, bulimia, cancer...).
The cause of this waterfall of trouble is the division. The personality is divided and sometimes split into distant fields. Inconsistencies arise and they cannot live in peace: they are and they are not, they do and they feel guilty. Divergences become contradictions. This is because dissonance, discordance, and disagreement lead to dislocation. The best teaching on this topic is to study Multiples. With a very dangerous trauma, somebody can only escape by exploding his self into pieces which act separately without knowledge and recognition. The study of these Multiples is a huge help for everybody, even without a dissociation of personality or a stroke of depersonalization.
The source of all these processes is the identity notion. But we must not only interpret it from the point of view of Occidental psychology. Eastern psychology is more incisive and acute. Identity is in fact the result of an identification process which always acts. But with identifications of childhood or youth (mother, father, a grand-parent, our best friend, a teacher, a movie star, music, sport...), we forget the most important. We do a disservice on ourselves in forgetting the little seed which tries only to germinate, the sesame seed which opens the cave of the heart.
The work we have to do is to become one, but this is not easy and automatic. It is not easy to join what comes from our mother and father, and to be the bridge and the tie between two families so dissimilar. In reality, everybody reacts the drama of humanity, going from polytheism to monotheism or to reach for national unity. But unity is not exclusion, and we have to integrate all the pieces. This is easy for immigrants who have to assimilate two cultures.
Integration is the psychological work. It is like physical assimilation but more subtle. We cannot be one with all because we are varied and we always change. In one life, we have to integrate the baby, the child, the teenager, the youth, the adult, our anima and our animus... In the same manner we have to integrate our readings, loves and various experiences. And all this has to be done in the greatest harmony.
Harmony was for Plato the source of soul. All that cannot be one has to be in harmony. Our roles are very varied: student, sports, religious, artist, politician, professional... The more we can have together during a long time the roles of son and father, producer and consumer, pedestrian and driver... But we will now proceed to the basics.
Spiritual crisis are periods of self-doubt and self-questioning which help us to grow. Psychotherapeutic work can provide motivation for life, self-esteem and values. This motivation for life can prevent us plunging into deep depression. Self-esteem can develop from all psychotherapies, but, because of all difficulties, one must be highly motivated. Positive values can help as these are good reason for living. As long as we have a selfish, self-centered way of life, confined to our deficiencies and what we lack, we will never find satisfaction and will always complain. Our values are what help us escape our ego and reach our higher Self. Thus it is possible to reach a transpersonal level by expanding consciousness and discovering our real Being.
At this point, curiously, I am reminded of a Hinduist that points out that Nirvana's door cannot be opened without having first passed through human nature. This means that the human condition is characterized by the fact of providing the "Being" with a specific and peerless System: the body, our body whose specificity is to give to the logos and to the word the power of:
"God needs men". This common place assertion may be explained by the fact that the potential of being conscious of the absolute for itself, must necessarily go through the creation of a "time-space". Thanks to this "time-space", the ultimate link - the human being - to whom language has been grafted and driven to the utmost significance. the absolute is able to be aware of "Being".
God or rather his characteristic that one calls "no time / no space" has no direct access to speech, except through the Intervention of human being. Hence, our very painful and delightful incarnation becomes a necessity. In fact, it seems that logos and "life" can be linked together through this precarious bridge which is humanity.
Obviously, our body is the athanor, the receptacle of this amazing experience which is absolutely not easy to digest and accept.
The conception of each being, therefore, can be explained as "a passage" from the plane of the unconditioned being, "back-drop" or "without form" (xian tian or "Anterior Heaven"), to the plane of the multiplicity, of subject and objects, or the experience of the body and the world as we know it (hou tian or "Posterior Heaven").
The motor of conception, the first act of incarnation, expresses itself in a negative mode: a lack of being, a deficiency, an active void or a total demand, which can be qualified as a demand for love. This operates throughout life, at the heart of all trajectories of energy, from those which maintain the body consciousness, to those which open at the heart of individual consciousness, centered and attentively listening.
This call for being, this active absence which already is manifested as the essence of a presence, will determine the desire of the parents. This secret response will be inscribed in the heart and body of the father and mother, as an internal tension which will become a tension directed towards the other, and will determine the fecundating act.
The response of the parents to this call for being will be made in both a personal and impersonal way, through the concrete intermediary of their ovum and sperm (jing or "Essence").
This shock of the encounter of the cosmic poles of masculine and feminine at work during fertilization, will provide a base, a place for surging forth and concrete expression of the creative, elaborating and transforming forces (shen or 'Spirit') of the new living being.
The Individual's entire existence, in his body and in his psyche, will be expressed by this lack, this call for being, this black hole to which the coupled energetic movements, the combined flux of energies will respond 'a minima', and in their encounter are orchestrated and harmonized like the different parts of a symphony.
The body represents the cache of all memories where the legacy of our ancestors, their wants, their fears and their desires are recorded.
The body is a kind of mansion of the past, a mansion of the ancestors, housing the influences which have prepared us and which demand to be accepted and transformed.
However, we are never totally or definitively conditioned, at least potentially, by the forms that we actualize and that we endure.
We are always in the position to question, if we so desire, to turn towards the interior of ourselves, in the direction of the hollow point from where the energies and forms appear and are transformed.
Recognition of this quality of being 'at the source' which integrates all the intermediary layers of thought, energy and individual body, is the way to meditation.
There are two Chinese words which designate two fundamental aspects which each human being can apprehend in his investigation: xing, "True Nature" and ming, "Destiny".
The True Nature of a being represents the quality of his presence, beyond all expressible characteristics, the intensity of his consciousness and the richness of his personal terrain. It summarizes the dynamic weaving, of spatial dominance, which makes the fabric of the individual and is the result of the force of the call for being and of the response of Heaven-Earth within himself. Through its clarity and tranquillity, the True Nature transmits a reflection of the plane of the unconditioned being in the dual consciousness of the person, and only reveals itself in everyday life spontaneously and in an unpredictable manner.
Destiny or ming represents the melodic line and thread of individual time which is exhausted at the very moment of expression, like the burning wick of an oil lamp. It is in the proper sense, the tree that organizes our energies and the form which our life takes directly depends on it.
Nature and Destiny are inseparable and combine in each being as two complementary poles, which associate for Nature, the open and conscious space of feminine essence, and for Destiny, organized, active and transforming, individual time of masculine essence.
At other times the urgency of our need to know dissipates, and we discover ourselves just being--free of any compulsion to analyze the past, or manage the future. We are satisfied to simply be, without needing to understand the meaning or significance of this event. At this point, any contextual obligation to interpret or explain what we are experiencing is viewed as an insensitive intrusion into the peace and ease of being in a simple and non-strategic way.
These two ways of being--one strategic and the other non-strategic--are often experienced as opposed to each other. Our need to analyze and interpret is threatened by an absence of intellectual stimulation. Our need to simply be, is threatened by any pressure to explain or analyze where we are. For many people, intellectual processing and "being" tend to exclude each other.
In this presentation we will observe, in the here and now, our tendencies to reject, or consolidate, a particular identity. We will observe our preferences and predispositions to avoid, or indulge, our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, with a view to exploring a way of being that seamlessly integrates and harmonizes:
The body is fed by the attention which fluidifies the moving energies, and is cleansed by the breathing which reduces the density of the matter and expands the gross and subtle bodies.
Therefore, we can explore and know the body in a quite intimate way.
This observation opens the understanding of the bonds between thought, memory, psychological resistances and physical tensions.
Indirect knowledge becomes experiential.
After having seen, felt and observed the body, the attention can leave the object of perception and return toward that what sees, feels and perceives.
It is a first movement in which the observator becomes an object of observation.
A second movement dissolves the observator into observation.
This quality of observation is not related to memory or filtered by the patterns of the personality.
Such an observation cannot be defined, it means that it cannot be qualified as wide, narrow, warm, cold, pleasant or unpleasant.
This observation is out of the field of mental knowledge, but knows itself as a direct observation, free from the thought "I am observing".
In this background, the body appears and disappears, the sensations emerge and are resorbing, the perceptions alternate endlessly.
The observation of the body is therefore an opportunity to discover ourselves as free of the body.
This freedom brings a deep release of the psychical and physical structure, which contributes to health, understood as a resorption of conflicts.
Unconditional love is also referred to as divine love: a love without expectations, a radiance which we receive, feel, and transmit. It differs in particular from the conditional love employed in our bargainings with each other, which can be illustrated by the statement: I will love you if..." It implies the threat of a retraction of love if the object of that love does not behave as expected. To be able to love and learn to forgive oneself as well as others, adults as well as children need unconditional love. We can thus see the experience of love as a source of learning and as a vector of inner transformation- not as a series of traumas to which we fall victim.
We are at present accustomed to a psychosomatic approach to illness whereby the illness is perceived as a sign of psychic and emotional suffering which in turn causes more psychic and emotional suffering. In effect, some diseases appear as the result of an overload in the process of integrating life experiences; this occurs when we confront the qualitative as well as quantitative limits to our systems of representations, and when our ability to transform the affects which are bound to experience is insufficient.
The process of healing normally requires a period of time and rest, creating the distance necessary for the integration and in a sense the absorption of this new experience. One can, in addition, derive support from the aid of a practitioner or a medication prescribed with the ability to defeat pathological processes often perceived as originating from the exterior, which is in line with the common representation of illness having an external causality. In the case of serious or chronic illnesses, however, questions pertaining to their origin and the means by which they are cured arise when medical care appears insufficient. It then becomes tempting to idealize alternative treatments, either medical or through the intervention of healers. Such an idealization is associated with the too-frequent tendency to perceive of death as a source of injustice, and thus reject it.
A knowledge of illnesses and their progression has permitted the compilation of statistics: certain illnesses, once in evidence, have a predictable prognosis. However, practitioners as well as the general public regularly report the cases of individuals who are exceptions to the rule, and who overcome illnesses thought to be incurable. Are these the popular myths which serve as agents of hope? Or are they the result of diagnostical errors? In fact, without going so far as to claim the miraculous results tallied at Lourdes, it has indeed, in more ordinary instances, been possible to observe the favorable outcomes- unexpected but hoped for-of certain diseases.
For several years, as the result of research in the experiences and phenomena of clairvoyance, I have observed and sometimes participated in the work of healers. I have listened to their clients and recorded their testimonies. And I have felt the effects of unconditional love within myself.
The majority of the healers with whom I have worked believe that love is the source of the healing in their clients. For them, it is of prime importance to develop the capacity to transmit an unconditional love stemming from a divine source. In their places of work, which are true sanctuaries, their regular spiritual activities create a perceptable atmosphere of peace and meditation. A veritable ray of love emanates from them to their clients. The facial expressions of these clients are often transformed even when, as happens, few words have been spoken. I have seen people leave the site of the healings in a completely open and relaxed state.
Receiving unconditional love breaks down defenses and allows the client to let go. The tension related to the demands of the ego, to rancor and to the manifestation of pride, hatred, and fear can dissolve instantaneously during this opening-up process. A psychic pain or an emotional tension at the source of an illness can thus be alleviated by letting go of this investment and turning to the new experience, so marvelous and liberating.
Of course, when daily life is resumed and this experience is not maintained, previous ways of living, reacting, and seeing the world again take precedence and the benefits of the healing may be lost. Practices which serve to maintain this opening-up process involve the experience of giving and receiving; alongside the particular system of ethics to which one proscribes, prayer and meditation are the most direct ways to maintain this radiance. Considering the positive aspects of every experience also puts one in a position conducive to unconditional love, and conducive as well to the transformation of one's conflicting affects so long as they are not denied.
The search for a cure which leads sufferers towards healers who have rich spiritual life may not only lead to the appeasement of physical pain or even somatic cures, but one can more over receive a "spiritual cure". Unconditional love allows the soul's wounds to heal and permits the spiritual path to be initiated or to re-commence when pains that are too great have interrupted progress.
As psychotherapists, we can also be healers. In his description of the psychoanalytical framework, Freud underlines the need for benevolence and neutrality. The need for neutrality refers to an absence of judgment which is necessary to avoid prejudices toward the patient. Benevolence is allied in my opinion to unconditional love. A loving reception (which is by no means amorous or needy) allows the patient to feel confident, to open up, and to encounter hidden emotions of which he or she was not consciously aware. While psychotherapeutic treatment involves the spheres of the mind and the emotions, however, what of the body? There are several approaches such as haptopsychotherapy, relaxation, and certain uses of hypnosis which take the body into account. A part of the positive results which have been recorded are probably due to the involvement of the body in the therapeutic process. Even if the body is neither manipulated nor touched, seeing it and speaking of it can bring it into the framework.
Love is not usually mentioned in the medical world. Apart from the nature of the field, viewed as technical, one can also consider that the aesthetic of the representation of the word "love" is not always positive in our times, when "success", "rapidity", and "strength" are often considered of greater value. The word "love" is often linked to an image of weakness. In effect, being open to love creates vulnerability, but the infinite resources to which it gives access cannot be underestimated.
Your real nature cannot be localized and therefore cannot be experienced. Whatever you experience, it can never be your real nature, however splendid it may be. Wherever you look you cannot see your real nature - neither inside nor outside of you. It is nowhere to localize. Consciousness is not all-pervasive either, because then it would be as if there were something outside consciousness that could be pervaded which is not consciousness. That amounts to the same thing as the idea that the universe is suspended in something. That which is absolutely the precondition for all concepts, that which precedes and goes beyond all concepts, cannot be captured in a concept. It cannot be understood. That in which understanding and non-understanding are manifest is what you are but what you will never be able to see. The paradox is that when you see this - which cannot be understood - you are free. But that is not enough.
Those who know Advaita well are already free from wanting to understand. You know at a certain point that there is nothing to understand, but you are still not free from non-understanding. You already know what you are not, but you don't know what you are. And because of this, you feel perhaps still more entangled than when you seemed to understand that there was nothing to understand. The matter has become increasingly absurd. For this reason, these days will be entirely and completely devoted to being free from understanding and non-understanding.
Consciousness cannot be localized, and that is for most of you something scary. To disappear in "nothing" seems very creepy, although no one can avoid it. That "nothing" or "no thing" is actually the availability itself.