Glimpses of Spiritual Psychology

Spiritual psychology, what is that? It is a helping profession dedicated to relief of human emotional suffering, grounded in the idea that all persons begin life as shining lights of holistic integrity, seeking to guide clients back to that awareness of wholeness; long the realm of the shaman. Spiritual psychology is like the old joke quoting Gandhi as saying about Western Civilization, “It would be a good idea.” 
Spirituality - that misty field of esoteric somewhat unknowables. Psychology - awash in neurochemistry, still desperate to be thought of as a real science. Can it be that we are perhaps on the way to a blending of the two, without fear of one swallowing the other – of psychology drowning in a sea of superstition or spirituality disappearing under the weight of materialism?                                                                                                            Humanist and transpersonal branches of psychology have initiated dialogue with the psychologies of emotional healing and actualization from other cultures; Sufi, Zen Buddhist and Yoga come to mind. A rich world of indigenous practices await our acceptance.                                                                                                            From the perspective of Religious Science, all this cross-fertilization of ideas and practices, including the development of psychology itself, is the expansive creativity of God manifesting Itself into form. Awareness or consciousness is a property innate to all matter; one of its qualities is increasing order amid expanding complexity. I believe that out of the wealth and breadth of theories and practices blending in the West, from psychoanalysis to the Science of Mind to Sufi practices that open the heart, humans are cooking up the consciousness to advance to the next step, the marriage of psychology and an intercultural spirituality which can utilize the insights from all the world’s wisdom traditions.                                                                                                               This spiritual psychology will effectively address the stresses of the modern world. It will celebrate people’s yearning toward the transcendent and see the whole person. It will honor all paths to wholeness and readmit the idea of the sacred into the search for emotional health. Spiritual psychology will help us remember we are Divine beings when we forget, as the yogis teach; will encourage us to detach from our yearnings and judgments in order to find relief from suffering, as the Buddha taught; and will playfully dance and chant us into love and peace the Sufi way. And, in mixing together the powerful and peaceful practices of the world, spiritual psychology will develop a global heart tank (rather than think tank), a United Nations of spirituality. 

Befriend Yourself

You can nurture a healthy friendship with yourself. It’s a sure way to build inner security, inner trust. Listening within ourselves with an attitude of friendship is an essential spiritual practice.Two others are key to true security - gratitude and forgiveness.

Gratitude has been mentioned by enlightened masters of all the world’s wisdom traditions as the royal road or fast track to an inner sense of security. Be grateful for every single thing you can think of, many times a day. Make a game of it.

Feeling bored sometime? Make a list, mental or written, of all the things you are grateful for at that moment. It's a fine way to pass the time while waiting in line, for example. When we express genuine gratitude to another person, we build a sense of two-way trust. It is the same inside us as it is between us.

As for forgiveness for ourselves and for others, it is never about forgetting damage we have suffered. We take care not to move toward more of that. It is not about condoning.

It is only about dropping the righteousness we may feel, the victim or aggrieved stance. We stop manufacturing emotional heat about the event or the person. We forgive ourselves for the part we have played in the situation, we bless the other participants and we move on. We acknowledge that each element of the event and each person is God participating in the playing out of life. There is nothing but God, anywhere. That includes you and me. Humans blend transient, mortal life with eternal, immortal life. So, allow the Divine in you to forgive the human imperfection in you and in all others. It's the healthy thing to do.

What we do not forgive we waste our energy carting around; at the same time, we school ourselves to be on guard against that same judgment being leveled at ourselves. Criticism of others is a sure sign of self-judgment, of keeping ourselves walking on eggshells – in other words, self-fear. This is stress. 
What we think about others is we think about ourselves too. What a sad thing for God to do to Itself.

We can befriend ourselves and feel much more secure with ourselves, in the world and with God.

It’s a lifelong process of learning to love and trust – an essential foundation for expanded awareness of God within, speaking as intuition.

Spirit, as you, deserves no less.

Is Beauty Meaningless?

In my nearly four years in graduate consciousness studies I've repeatedly been reminded that, amid all its glorious insights, modern science insists that existence is meaningless. As someone who has come to my current appreciation of the Science of Mind philosophy through my love of science, I have always taken this with caution. After all, scientists vary in their spiritual beliefs like the rest of the population.
But this week, the starkness of that existential nihilism, that life has no meaning or intrinsic value, hit my heart full blast.
I'm in the habit of searching through the DVD collection at a local library and found there a film I've been wanting to see, the science fiction drama, Sunshine. As a sci-fi buff for over 50 years deeply enamored of our star, I just had to see the effects used to depict a mission to the sun. And they were glorious. While the film is largely a psychological drama about the stresses of the mission, the sun was a main player - gorgeous, awesomely powerful and horribly dangerous without any intention to be so.
As is my habit, I played both of the film's commentaries while puttering about and doing chores. The first commentary was a normal one with the director, Danny Boyle. I enjoy hearing about the creation of a film; it is such a totally collaborative mix of arts. The second commentary was more unusual, with Dr. Brian Cox of the University of Manchester, England, the science advisor on the film. What a treat, I thought, to hear about the dance between drama and fact from the perspective of the scientist. And it was a treat I recommend to anyone fascinated by physics and astronomy.
Amid the details of compromise, scientific rigor and personal insight Dr. Cox repeatedly spoke of the beauty of the universe and it's intrinsic elegance. He confided that this beauty is what motivated him as a scientist and stated his not so surprising belief that this beauty motivates most of his colleagues, whether they are physicists, biologists, astronomers or specialists in other sciences. Over and over again, he spoke of the beauty of nature, the beauty of the sun, the beauty of the universe. I could hear the passion in his voice, the aliveness of his words.
Then, somewhere amidst all that, he "reminded" the listeners that, of course, all this beauty is meaningless, just happened that way. He went so far as to proclain human life as meaningless too. I found myself speaking aloud to his voice on the TV. "Hey, Doc, all that beauty? Is beauty meaningless, Doc? Is elegance of no importance?" The beauty is certainly meaningful to him; he had gone on and on about it, to my delight. What about the elegance which mathematicians and experimental scientists rely on as evidence in the absence of more grounded data?
I submit that Dr. Cox and all those who insist that life is meaningless are missing the messages of their own hearts. Beauty is more that the familiarity with our surroundings down through the ages. Those who lived in Nazi concentration camps for years probably never came to see their barracks and barbed wire as beautiful.
While at some level, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, at another level it is an ultimate value. Dr. Cox never had to explain why he thinks the universe is beautiful; we all get it.
It simply is so, just as love simply is so. Those who say human life is meaningless would do well to compare the love they carry for their children, parents or life partners to their motives for being scientists. Love and beauty always will transcend the cool rationality of their work.
Quantify that love, Doc. Dissect it. Show it to me. Where is it? Do you dare to say it is meaningless? If so, I wish for you an awakening to the precious, awesome magnificence intrinsic to life, the universe, the human heart and everything.

Sit to Sense Inner Wisdom

First, thanks are in order to Rev. Betsy Elliott whose Sunday message today brought me back to my inner self.
Over the years, I developed a subtle form of meditation in which I found the silence behind and between experiences, a rich world embedded in the ordinary world. Because I spent so much time aware of the silence that always is going on, I could meditate deeply while doing other things, at least for moments at a time - in check-out lines, in waiting rooms, in airports, while listening to music, while doing chores. Joy and peace accompanied me throughout my day. I felt grounded almost effortlessly, at least for a while.
All that has been put in the past tense because I have lost that ability during ministerial school. The way I see it, I have become too focused on doing, loving all the doing brought to me by my classes. I have also discovered the thrill of service to others when it springs from my authentic core of gifts, more doing. All those joyful doings have taught me that my life has purpose and that I can dare to do what my heart says yes to. This has been very good for me. I am less selfish and less fearful of life.
Along the road to uncovering the joy of authentic doing, I let my meditation practice languish. I forgot that the ability to find the meditative sweet spot within experience was actually rooted in many years of sitting. The capacity to find the silence behind experience came from those years of disciplined sitting.
In Rev. Betsy's talk today she said "sit and sense the Presence" and I really heard her. I came home and sat. I found moments of silence intermittently between my mind's now mostly undisciplined chatter. I have much to recover. I am glad to be reoriented to the Presence of Joy, Love and Peace within. My outer experience of life will again flow with abundant harmony as I reclaim this great gift.

The Scripture of Nature

The phrase "the scripture of nature" comes from then Atlantic Monthly writer Fitzhugh Ludlow. I heard it in one of the lovely PBS National Parks films by Ken Burns. A perfect phrase for the profound feelings and healing energies of spending time in nature.

Go out into the natural world. When I started doing that as a child, I noticed the deep stillness behind the rustling leaves and gurgling stream, behind the sounds of birds and insects. The profound, awesome still presence of nature has always been my favorite experience.

Going out into nature was my way to meditate as a young person, though I did not have those words. I felt it though, much the same way I now also feel the calm witness presence in me when I meditate.

We live in the world. We are it and it is us. We are as beautiful as the Eagle Nebula. We are as powerful as the sun. We are as eternal as consciousness.

Lift your perspective to the birds in flight. Be as tenacious as a green shoot pushing up between slabs of concrete. Live in the flow like a river winding its way through obstacles. The Tao Te Ching says “The highest good is like water. It flows in places people disregard. It does not strive.”

And as for diversity – oh my! How lovely if humanity could live like a forest or meadow – many species of trees or wildflowers living in dynamic harmony. Each one claiming its space but without need to eradicate the other kinds around it.

Truly, whether we thinks of ourselves as spiritual or religious people or not, being in nature restores something essential to the human spirit.

Or, as the Seer of the Sierras, John Muir put it (also found in one of the National Parks films):

 “The eye of the poet or seer never closes on the kinship of all God’s creatures and his heart ever beats in sympathy with great and small alike as Earthborn companions and fellow mortals equally dependent on Heaven’s eternal Love.”

Go getcha some Love out in nature this week!