Spiritual Transcendence and Psychological Struggle
What distinctions do you make between psychology and spirituality? I make some comparisons in “Spirit and Psychology: Ego and the Greater Self” – my guest post now at Spirituality and Self Help.
I’ve known people who seemed to try to use spirituality to transcend psychological issues. They seemed to believe that if they meditated or lived in the moment enough, they could get over or around their issues without addressing them.
Speaking personally, I had baggage from my childhood relationship with my father that weighed heavily on me from my teens into my early twenties. In my mid twenties through my late twenties, I took an honest look at myself, went through a period of insight and struggle, and by the time I was thirty, had it pretty well behind me. But I had to go through it – I couldn’t go around or over it. Going through it allowed me to go further spiritually. It helped clear the way.
On Friday one of my two guest posts will be at Quest for Balance. It concerns negative thinking. My QFB post will raise another question related to psychology and spirituality: when is it beneficial to focus on our unhappiness and when is it not such a good idea?
I’ve known people who seemed to try to use spirituality to transcend psychological issues. They seemed to believe that if they meditated or lived in the moment enough, they could get over or around their issues without addressing them.
Speaking personally, I had baggage from my childhood relationship with my father that weighed heavily on me from my teens into my early twenties. In my mid twenties through my late twenties, I took an honest look at myself, went through a period of insight and struggle, and by the time I was thirty, had it pretty well behind me. But I had to go through it – I couldn’t go around or over it. Going through it allowed me to go further spiritually. It helped clear the way.
On Friday one of my two guest posts will be at Quest for Balance. It concerns negative thinking. My QFB post will raise another question related to psychology and spirituality: when is it beneficial to focus on our unhappiness and when is it not such a good idea?
Posted by Paul at 8:11 PM Permalink
10 Comments:
In my guru-phase I encountered hundreds of crazy persons who were certainly trying "to use spirituality to transcend psychological issues". It's not for me to judge if they succeeded or even could have succeeded. Suffice to say that I knew personally more than 6 who took their own lives.
On the other hand, the therapy industry probably has a similar record, enticing crazy persons away from the traditional certainties (never mind if they were right or wrong certainties)---and many of them take their own lives as well.
If you ask me (you've actually asked a different question) I say "A plague on both their houses!" Everyone has to establish his own world and what possessions he has, and what he is supposed to do with them. Then he has a chance.
Both spirituality and psychology are muddy battlegrounds, with enough gore soaked into them to remind us not to get involved in other people's wars.
Vincent - I was thinking of the two realms of inner life - how we have different words for them, yet differentiating them isn't always easy.
As two disciplines led by psychologists/gurus, certainly their track record is mixed when it comes to helping people out.
Was it because after writing "I was thinking of the two realms of inner life" you reflected that if there are two realms of inner life, there might be three realms or an infinite number of realms?
I was about to protest "But Paul, there is only one realm of inner life!"
I've done the same thing, written comments and pulled them later, knowing that subscribers will already have seen the text.
So I respond, "What do you mean, two realms of inner life? There is inner life. It doesn't come with tags, saying which department of inner life it belongs to. That is a process of analysis. And the analysis is muddy and subjective."
I too have went through the same kind of path in my early 20s. And I agree with you, we have to work in out and come to terms within our own self.
I don't believe we can forget the past. I think the best thing we can do is to grow from our past, take the lessons from the past and grow from that.
Thank you for sharing.
Giovanna Garcia
Imperfect Action is better than No Action
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