After the final ripening of this stage of spiritual searching, when these ultimate questions refuse to be silenced and one despairs that anyone can answer the ultimate questions about life and consciousness, one eventually discovers that we have not, indeed, been left to our own chaos, confusion, and disorientation. On the contrary, there is help. Just as parents naturally assist their children in adapting to the external forms of life, just as teachers supervise the social and intellectual maturation of their students, just as counselors aid in the processes of attaining psychological stability, so it is in the sphere of spiritual learning and unfolding. There are individuals who, having truly mastered the learning of the spiritual levels of their own being, are available for spiritual counsel and guidance. In some spiritual traditions, such figures are known as gurus. In other traditions, they are called murshids.

​

It is one of life’s greatest joys and privileges to associate with such figures. They have lived all of the processes of personal life, so they understand the twists and turns of our confusion. They have threaded their way through the unfolding of consciousness, so they radiate love in complete purity and unimaginable abundance. They have realized the meaning and significance of life in its many dimensions, so their knowledge and guidance can lighten the distress and uncertainty of those of us who still see through a glass darkly.

 

The western world is largely unfamiliar with such figures. For most Westerners, the term “guru” conjures up vague images derived from hearsay, exotic teaching stories from other cultures, and media stereotypes. But a true guru is not an exotic figure only marginally connected with practical living. Quite the opposite: an authentic guru is someone (to use Meher Baba's words) who has realized at all levels that, “to penetrate into the essence of all being and significance and to release the fragrance of that inner attainment for the guidance and benefit of others, by expressing, in the world of forms, truth, love, purity, and beauty, is the sole game which has intrinsic and absolute worth.”

​

​First Look

At Psychology, Spirituality, and Intuition

​

Question: On the surface, it often looks as though spirituality and psychology are working at cross-purposes. For example, psychology sees strengthening the ego as its task, while spiritual literature recommends dissolution of the ego. Do psychologists and spiritual Teachers mean the same thing by the term “ego”? If so, why do they have different views of it?

​

Avatar Meher Baba once described this spiritual age in which we live as “psychological and intuitive”. He referred especially to the western world, and he meant that there would be vital interest here in understanding both the breadth and the limitations of psychological forces which underlie human behavior. He also meant that fresh attention would be directed to understanding the way spiritual principles first interact with, then cross-fertilize, then finally separate from psychological principles.

​

The forces which initiate human growth at a spiritual level are not well understood by professional psychologists. In fact, there is not even an accepted vocabulary for such forces. The range of inner spiritual feelings which could offer a basis for such a vocabulary are outside the boundaries of human experience framed by the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry. This occurs because this octave of inner life is usually outside the personal experience of professionals in these fields and also outside the experience of their clients.

​

These central inner feelings form the basis of a wholly different and often unimagined realm of knowing. This domain of human knowing comprises the subject matter of spiritual teaching. Since its terms, principles, and experiences are all founded on the dynamics of love, spiritual teachings have always focused exclusively on levels, qualities, and dimensions of higher love.

​

In recent years, an increasing number of psychologists have tried to extend the limits of their discipline to include the subject matter of love. But since such subject matter is both intellectually abstruse and concretely practical, these attempts have met with limited success. The subject matter of love cannot be understood and the force of love cannot initiate an entirely new phase of growth unless love itself is lived. That is, love must inform all thought, all feeling, all action, all social conduct. When love is given encompassing expression in all arenas of action in the real world, perception of the real world changes. When this process gains enough momentum to establish a new fulcrum of life, inner dimensions grow and expand. At this stage of learning, orderly changes of growth and internal dynamics which balance that growth can no longer be described adequately by psychological principles. Now we are dealing with the spiritual dynamics of growth based exclusively, as they must be, on a life of love.

​

The word “psychology,” as it is used currently by professionals, refers to personal dimensions of life which collectively describe the ego or the personality, its integration, its levels, and its own separate and distinct boundaries of selfhood. The motivating force of the personal ego is directed towards four goals: to defend against forces which threaten it; to extend its own power and personal mastery; to stabilize itself; and to insure its own survival.

​

The natural mode of thought for a spiritual Teacher is intuition. Although a full exploration of this pattern of thought is beyond the limits of our discussion, it can be described briefly as an accelerated, condensed mode of knowing. As such it proceeds with electric speed and accuracy, but at a very high level – a level far beyond words and the usual canons of logical thought. It is instantaneous, piercingly correct knowing, possible only because it is entirely free from egoistic restraints of psychological dynamics. Spiritual students also find that much of their learning becomes intuitive. Although always reducible to some approximation in words (narration or poetry), it is most easily and broadly communicated in a form of artistic expression which celebrates the integration of simplicity, grace, and harmony. The product of that integration we call “beauty”.

​

Beauty in its fullest refinement is radiant beyond description and representation in any one form. It radiates and is regenerated in all temporary materializations of life. It is Divine. It is God. It is the Real Self. It is the Real Ego. It lies behind the fragments of Him which have been shattered and cast out in a joyous, near-endless proliferation of separate forms, frozen for this moment of existence in the matter of time and space. From these forms, at this time, and within this space, we are to learn.

​

Automatic deification and defense of one's personal ego is a necessary stage in this sweeping process of total human learning, but higher understanding cannot begin until that middle stage of human psychological learning is over. That middle stage is the subject matter of contemporary psychology. Were the ego or the personality not of crucial importance to the current understanding of humanity, the discipline of psychology would not have captured the imagination, attention, and respect of our society. Interest in the principles of psychology has steadily accelerated over the last four decades. During that period there has been a huge increase in the number of professionals trained to apply psychological principles to their therapeutic work with individual clients. Whole new disciplines and professions have evolved to meet this social need. The subject matter and the professional fields based on it are maturing. The field of psychology itself is ripening. It would appear that humanity itself is at a stage of learning when its collective psychological ego demands expanded understanding.

​

In sum, psychological principles are of consuming interest within the contemporary western culture in which we live. And there is at least a budding interest in principles of human growth which lie beyond the personal ego. For a few, this budding interest will flower into an overriding obsession. These few will be irresistibly drawn to an exciting, stimulating vortex of new learning and new growth. The product of this learning, which proceeds step by step over hundreds of lives, is non-material. It lies beyond words, beyond form, and beyond the phenomena captured by semantics. It is based on internal processes of increasingly comprehensive knowing. It gradually transmutes any form of thought and feeling into an increasingly discriminating knowledge of love. At every step, this knowledge is validated by an unspoken commitment to everyday life lived fully and vigorously. Beauty and joy become the modes of expression. Realization of God Himself is the Goal. That realization brings about a full identification with the only Real Ego. The Real Ego is God.

 

 

Copyright © 1981 by Searchlight Seminars

​

​

​