|
The Goal of Spiritual Psychotherapy is best defined
as the enhancement of the Hero's Journey. Spiritual Psychotherapy provides tools and experiences to assist the suffering
seeker in using his symptoms to consciously accelerate his Journey.
The Hero’s Journey
Jacob Needleman raised the question of how the sacred can provide
a bridge between spirituality and our world of injustice and lies. He explores the idea that the cultural hero of our present
age is the seeker, not the warrior, or the lover, or the savior, or the adventurer or the wise man. This archetypal hero is
the seeker of wisdom and meaning. The warrior has become the warrior of the search, and the lover the lover of the search.
When your get ready to take the Hero’s Journey, consciously,
and begin to walk on The Road Less Travelled, you may not get much human support, but you will get the entire support
of the cosmos (including nature, the hierarchy, the angelic hosts, and the godhead), which is already functioning in oneness,
fullness, and freedom.
From our vantage point, the modern hero is involved in an absolute
search for the secret knowledge, and the bridge between the finite and the infinite is the symptom, the painful companion
of our distorted, illusory story.
- We absolutely search for and avoid the Infinite
at all times and in all ways.
- We are absolutely paradoxical infinite/finite beings: too aware
that we are finite; too unaware that we are infinite. We act as though we are infinitely vulnerable if we care and finitely
invulnerable if we don’t care. We act as though we could be finitely intelligent even if we acted infinitely stupid.
We act as though we are infinitely empty and that we can solve that problem by being finitely full.
- From birth to death we are always looking for and resisting
the Infinite in our own finitely ridiculous and radical, but necessary, ways.
- We look for the Infinite because we believe we are finite;
we resist finding the Infinite because we assume we would lose the finite.
- We are both infinite and finite and there is nothing that we
can do to gain or lose either, except through awareness.
- Through awareness we lose the assumption that we are merely
finite; through awareness we gain the realization that we cannot lose the infinite.
- Avoiding and denying the infinite minimizes the meaning of
the finite. Clinging to or attacking the finite only seems to distance us from the infinite.
- You can pretend to be only finite, and you can seem to suffer
from being a victim of the finite, and you can moan and groan about your lacks and entrapments, but you are an infinite/finite
being.
- You can scare yourself silly; you can guiltify yourself with
heaviness and burdensomeness; you can attack and belittle yourself with envy and spite; you can avoid yourself with endless
distractions and rationalizations; but nothing ever changes, even though everything constantly changes: you are an infinite/finite
paradoxical being.
- You are aware of your finiteness, but not of its meaning; you
may avoid the experience of your infinity, but not its existence; you can be infinitely unaware or finitely unaware, but you
are still finite/infinite awareness.
- All apparent problems and compulsive solutions arise from the
distorted awareness of your finite/infinite nature.
- You are totally responsible for the cause and false cures of
these distortions. You unwittingly cause them and you can deliberately awaken yourself from these nightmares. Each and every
moment you are choosing to tell yourself that there is a problem out there and an answer out there. There are no such problems,
only our misperceptions.
- If we were to allow ourselves to fully experience our searching
and our avoiding, it would become apparent that we are infinite/finite beings.
- You already are what you search for. You are an infinite, eternal,
unlimited, indestructible being having finite, time-bound, limited, and sometimes "destructive" experiences.
- You have deliciously wicked experiences, and nauseatingly
good experiences, but you pretend that it is either/or. You pretend that life is made up of villains and victims, but there
are no such things.
- All apparently finite experiences are infinitely meaningful.
You cannot claim either the finite or the infinite and exclude the other. If you deny one or the other it will circle around
like a boomerang and hit you in the back of the head.
- Everything is sacred in its infinite essence, and therefore
in its finite existence. You spend your whole life trying to separate and segregate the good and the bad, the worthy and the
worthless, the sacred and the secular, the sheep and the goats, but it cannot be done.
- You think that narrowing or broadening your mind will do it,
that being more conservative or liberal will do it, that being more unselfish or selfish will do it, that being tougher or
gentler will do it. But you are all of it. All of the striving for and avoidance of this allness will not do it. You are all
of it, all of the finite and all of the infinite. Embrace it. Fully experience in your infinitude all of the finite judgments
and feelings you have denied and avoided for lifetimes. Even in the most hellish experiences, behold Thou art there. (Ps.
139:8) Let go and find out that hell is just a misjudgment of heaven. We have made a hell out of paradise. Beyond and within
the imagined finite hell and heaven you tried to create and control, there is the infinitely Real.
- Insofar as you are unaware of your Infinite/finite nature,
you will experience symptoms of that unawareness.
Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover
the limits of the Almighty? It is high as the heavens, what
can you do? Deeper than hell, what can you know?
Job 11:8
Thou wilt not abandon my soul to hell
Acts 2:27
The Hero’s Journey, then, is a search for the unifying
and infinite truth in society, in science, in religion, in philosophy, in the good and evil we experience, and particularly
in human suffering and symptoms.
WE ARE ON AN ADVENTUROUS JOURNEY
from the finite ego to the infinite spirit.
from who we think we are to who we really are
from victim to master
from illusion to truth
from mortality to immortality
from logic to paradox
from visible to invisible
from entrapment to freedom
from indulgence to discipline
from lack to abundance
from conformity to individuation
from insecurity to power
from loneliness to all-one-ness
from separation to re-union
from knowledge to wisdom
from attack and defense to understanding
from rigidity to spontaneity
from needs to love
from shyness to gusto
from struggle to grace
from fear to courage
from arrogance to humility
from self-centeredness to self-awareness
from security-seeking to risk-taking
from blame to responsibility
from complaining to accepting
from gossiping to blessing
from anxiety to peace
from stuck to flow
from weakness to empowerment
from adversary to advocate
from failure to learning
from fault-finding to encouraging
from control to release and surrender
from gripes to gratitude
from enchantment to awakening
from humanity to divinity
from Adam to Christ
from symptoms to healing
from limitations to potentialities
from finite ego to infinite spirit
Ego de-generates energy; infinite imagination re-generates energy
The ego wastes energy; infinite imagination restores wasted
energy
The ego abuses energy; infinite imagination transforms abused
energy
The ego divides energy; infinite imagination re-unites divided
energy
|
