(6-minute read) – Transpersonal psychology offers great hope for the salvation of our species and protection of our planet. Transpersonal psychology is a meeting of spiritual and scientific methods. It appeals to many people.
Our spiritual and psychological dimensions are only separated in theory. In actual human experience they are the same.
Transpersonal psychology, also known as spiritual psychology, is based on this understanding of the human condition.
The central question of psychology
The central question of psychology is how we can free ourselves from habitual perceptions and behaviours programmed into us through nature and nurture. In other words how can we overcome the hang-ups, the anxieties and the tinted glasses we have grown used to.
Psychotherapy is the application of psychology by a therapist to help patients beyond the automated self to a place of freedom to change. The goal of psychotherapy is to see the world without your particular set of tinted glasses. The goal is to see new possibilities, to see new light, free of the tinted and tainted self-perception.
Psychotherapy is a massive industry. Psychiatric medication is too. The reason is that all people want to be free. All people want to feel contentment, peace within themselves, happiness and love. Just like all people want to have healthy bodies, so we want healthy minds too.
Spiritual traditions address the same questions
The spiritual traditions are based on the same human endeavour. At their core they are about a human striving for truth about who we are and how we relate to one another and the rest of reality.
There are a many manifestations of this psycho-spiritual yearning. They range from a million religious variations with their dogmas. To a thousand psychological methods and psychiatric treatments.
Religious dogma and medicine focus on symptoms and treatments that misunderstand the basic human condition.
For example a religion makes its members feel belonging and self-worth by self-righteously creating barriers with anyone outside their particular dogma. In the short term, the members feel relief from their insecurities. In the long term they still feel lost. Only now the situation is worse. They need more and more of the barriers to make them feel better about themselves. The addiction of dogmatism sets in.
Or a psychiatrist focuses on treating the symptoms of anxiety with medicine that inhibits chemical activities in the body. The patient feels short-term relief. But in the long-term the patient has become dependent on the foreign chemical intervention. The root cause of the anxiety is still there. There has not been a cure. A new addiction has just taken hold to suppress the condition.
Combining psychology and spirituality
Transpersonal psychology combines spiritual insights and depth psychology to address root causes of a person’s state and seek curative transformation. It engages in the long and sometimes painful journey of profound insight and human transformation.
Transpersonal psychology uses methods like meditation, mindfulness practices and consciousness rituals to help patients let go of negative programs and open to renewal. These are traditional spiritual methods that talk of transcending the ego. They talk of letting go of false self and dwelling at the central level of deeply connected true self. These methods talk of mystical union and coming to know the benevolent reality that underlies everything.
John Davis’ transpersonal psychology
Doctor John Davis writes:
“The core concept in Transpersonal Psychology is nonduality, the recognition that each part (each person) is fundamentally and ultimately a part of the whole (the cosmos). As obvious as this might sound, it has radical implications for psychological systems founded on the premises of mechanism, atomism, reductionism and separateness. From this insight come two other central insights: the intrinsic health and basic goodness of the whole and each of its parts, and the validity of self-transcendence from the conditional and conditioned personality to a sense of identity which is deeper, broader, and more unified with the whole.”
Davis, who holds a PhD degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder, writes in academic style and detail. But he is saying nothing other than what the mystics of most religions say. Namely:
- There is a mystical union to reality
- This union is radically different from ego perception of reality
- The union, the whole, is good
- Our sense of self is transformed by this goodness
These basic facts are accepted by modern depth psychology and spirituality.
What is the basic tenet?
Disagreements and bigotry arise when psychology and religion try to develop these basics into schools of psychology and religious doctrine respectively. Separateness and conflict ensue. The very systems of thought that started with humanity’s most basic nature become humanity’s curses, namely over dependence on medicine and dogmatic religion.
Both psychology and religion hold profound value for humanity when we keep to their basic tenet. What is the basic tenet of both?
It is surely this: to let go of ego.
Out of this basic tenet comes transformation by the basic goodness of the whole – transformation by and to love.
Saving ourselves and our world
The best method for letting go of ego is meditation. It is the practice of letting go of the ego as contained in the mind’s identity.
Good psychotherapy assists in letting go, if not explicitly by meditation than by deep and trusting opening of patient to therapist.
The psychiatrist, Scott peck once said, “The essential ingredient of successful deep and meaningful psychotherapy is love.”
The essential ingredient of letting go of ego is love. Love is the divine psychotherapist.
The concept of letting go is frightening without love. We are scared to move into the unknown beyond the various familiar habits and programs of our egos. We need gentle love to lead us by the hand.
After all, these habits and programs have stood us in good stead in our lives so far.
Or have they?
A million mystics and a thousand psychotherapists will answer no. Nor have our egos stood our world in good stead. In fact, some would argue that we are on the brink of personal, societal and ecological disaster.
Humanity faces a dire fate if we do not collectively let go of ego.
Transpersonal psychology gives us a modern road map to escape this dire fate. It borrows from the spiritual masters and it appeals to contemporary people. I have hope that it is not too late for us to let go of ego. I have hope that love will endure and increase.
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