Psychology Is Spiriual

Just a general thought I would like to see what others think about. I believe that psychology is spiritual. There are certainly aspects of spirituality which extend beyond psychology, but psychology is a very significant part of spirituality. In fact, I really think this is a significant omission among the spiritual. And I think it is unfortunate that psychology, as generally seen, is quite divorced from spirituality. Really I think it is unfortunate that our society sees psychology as something primarily for the 'mentally ill.'

Psychology is the study of the human mind. How could this not be valuable for all? "Know thyself." Coming to an understanding of the Self is one of the highest spiritual aims. How can psychology be divorced from this? Spirituality often aims at some such goal as transcending the ego. While I do consider this to be spiritually important, I feel that it has the tendency to influence people to disregard their psyche. This is a mistake, I believe.

We should consider the transcendental level of reality/self to be a layer of your Being. The idea should not be to ignore all of the other layers. I think that lack of integration with the more personal layers of one's being/psyche may perhaps be the reason for impermanence of spiritual states. Because the transcendental is great, but the other real, legitimate aspects of your being, your personal psychology, are all inevitably going to pop up. And if it hasn't been thoroughly understood and integrated, it will contradict the transcendental, and stress will be induced. Spiritually can largely be seen as the journey to understand the Self, and its relationship to the larger reality. This must include both the transcendental aspects and the personal, psychological aspects.

Psychology is scientific I would say not spiritual. It is empirical (least that is what my psych lecturers would want me to say). But I am not sure if I understand the concept of spirituality as I have always believed in the scientific approach. I think what people believe to be a transcendental state or level is a cognitive mechanism or physical property of the brain. Stress is usually caused by a conflict between possible choices. But that's me- I have no understanding of spiritualism. Great thread.
cheers

Have you ever heard ofTranspersonal psychology ?

And yes, space I believe you're right about psychology being spiritual...

originally posted by: grumpy64
Psychology is scientific I would say not spiritual. It is empirical (least that is what my psych lecturers would want me to say). But I am not sure if I understand the concept of spirituality as I have always believed in the scientific approach. I think what people believe to be a transcendental state or level is a cognitive mechanism or physical property of the brain. Stress is usually caused by a conflict between possible choices. But that's me- I have no understanding of spiritualism. Great thread.
cheers

Certainly psychology is empirical, and logical. Thus it can be systemized, which is why it has become an institution. This is certainly good and useful, but as I say we shouldn't see psychology as being primarily concerned with the mentally ill. We all have a mind, we should all understand it. And I personally do not see the idea of transcendental states and cognitive/physical properties of the brain as being contradictory. I think the immaterial reality of things is reflected in the material reality of things. It's not one or the other, which is why the scientific approach can be so valuable. Yet we should not divorce it from the spiritual. Though some may not have an affinity to the idea of 'spirituality.' But nonetheless, if they try to truly understand themselves, in my opinion that IS spiritual.

originally posted by: samsamm9
Have you ever heard ofTranspersonal psychology ?

And yes, space I believe you're right about psychology being spiritual...

Yes I have. I think it is definitely good to integrate the personal with the transpersonal, so it's great that there is a movement supporting that.

Yes it is part of the spiritual along with other things such as thoughts and dreams. If you cannot touch it, it is part of your spirituality. Intellect is an aspect of the spirit, as are the senses or anything else that cannot be seen or touched.

a reply to: TheJourney
You are quite correct in that we shouldn't view psychology as being primarily concerned with the mentally ill as we should be thinking in terms of mental health. Everyone needs to think about their mental health at all times as things happen in life to affect us in many ways. There should be no stigma attached to this. We all need to think about the way that events and people have affected us and those around us. If this is what you mean by being spiritual, more power to you!
cheers

The op imo is absolutely correct that psychology is spiritual.

The basic definition of spiritual in practical terms is the science dealing with the unseen—that subtle world(s) that rules reality which we do not perceive with the ordinary 5 senses.

In order to go beyond the 5 senses and perceive higher realities that lead to God is through psychological methodologies.

Therefore psychology is an integral part of Spirituality

a reply to: TheJourney

No doubt about it, it is spiritual. Spirituality is the ability to look with awareness at anything and peel away the layers.If not one is destined to be controlled by any particular idea, situation, relationships etc etc in other words bound by anything. Spirituality is about liberation and Psychology"s goal is liberation from that which limits human life and experiences.I would call it a tool which can be used whilst working on and in one's spiritual path.

Or is spirituality psychological?

Transpersonal and analytical psychology are my favorites.

a reply to: TheJourney

Well, I have been into psychology since I went to a class in college about it - same with the world religions.

But I know the difference between spirituality and religion. I also know where all the religions came from and why each one came about. I have read the bible from front page to last page and even more. I was taught meditation from the far East.

For the bible, it was a screaming of a peoples, for them to jot down an account in history which was given to them in oral tradition. There are mysterious events claimed to have occured, a reasonable person can think it is possible then we find evidence like the pyramids at Giza - it's crazy people actually believe that humans can place 15 ton stones in the air without a crane every 16 minutes 24 hours a day nonstop, that is the calculation for what they teach. Some of the stories in the bible which are most fantastic they are actually taken from a foundational story that was further back in history, relating it to their times, so in no way should a person try to use those words to attack today's planet and society like they do, but it has been getting better.

The very first religions originally started pagan, we can consider this to be because humans we naive when they were making the transition from neolithic to civilization around the land of Sumer. But it gets shaky because in the last 200 years archaeologists and researchers alike started discovering that these people in the very beginning all said the same thing - which means it was an account of oral tradition passed down through the ages because of no writing system. Part of the account says strange things about a lower group of gods and higher group of gods, but talks about them physically coming down to earth. So one can say that they were ignorant and actually thought that people had created earth in the distant pass, or people from the sky really did come down and establish themselves upon ancient earth. But that part agrees with the bible, because the bible came after that.

The religions started from a person in all cases. The very purpose of the earliest religions was to serve, the act of serving. So whenever an influencial figure came up they were very influential and the religion was created to serve in their name, and people will not create a division between the figure and religion because of the Divine Spirit. That is not bad, assuming that most of these ancient people wanted to help mankind. But let's stop there for a second, what is a spirit?

The Divine Spirit is a ghostly presence that is large because it extends down from the sky unto earth. It is part of the galaxy, part of the solar system, part of the planets, and part of all that is on earth. That means we are all One. So the biggest preaching of spirituality is that we are all One. Then we start going deeper and deeper into psychology because we learn that the whole world doesn't agree with this. Ever since the beginning with Moses it was written that the Most High was not picky over names, so we can say that this Divine Spirit is a Divine Presence.

In psychology we learn it is the truth that human beings have an ego which is their perception and thoughts, and they have a subconscious which is still them but it is the conscious underneath our reality. It is even more smarter than our perception - it is like a computer.

So indeed I want to learn how to be and act out of my subconscious, parts of my conscious mind would be switched off, like a hypnotic state, but the goal is to achieve ultimately what is under the conscious.

Psyche originally meant soul. Even as Jung used it, he meant it more as "whole being," which would probably be suitable for a modern usage. The hyperfixation of modern psychologists on the mind is evidence of the dominance of the behaviorist subset. In reality, nothing truly spiritual is psychological, although spiritual things might have psychological effects. There is a kind of emotionalism which is internal to the person that is the true seat of spirituality in human beings. Many poets have tried to describe it, but the reality is that these experiences are so far outside of the basic human reality that there is no accurate way to relate them between people who have dissimilar experiential backgrounds.

Any true mystical book has nothing whatsoever to do with either the human psychology or this world. It is entirely allegorical and it is entirely extra-dimensional. This is why so many texts state that "those with the keys to understanding" will find them useful. Not all mystics have the "pearls before swine" attitude towards the uninitiated, but there is a huge language gap that cannot be easily overcome. Unfortunately, either you have a motivation which transcends the basic needs of this world, or you do not. You cannot teach spirituality. You can only shine your own light into this world and hope that others will find their own way.

A yes and a no.

Spirituality can be, depending on well, the spirituality. Praying to a universal creator all the time to solve ones problems, or wishing vengeance ain't really a good sign of stability. IMHO of spirituality, it the practice of finding ones place, as well as make one comfortable with being, a being in the cold, abyss called the universe. Albeit, some cultures are better at this then others.

While psychology has no roots being tied with spirituality, I believe they have tried to assess spirituality, but requires more ideas considering when they try to analyze things from a text book view. I do recall, when I was college, my elective was esctacy and addictions, and their was a small part that had mention spirituality and addictions. However, I threw my notes away after getting the A.

a reply to: Nechash

That. Exactly and so well said!
I wish I could give you 10 stars!

a reply to: TheJourney



Are you maybe blending philosophy into this?


Sounds like it.

"Know thyself" is more of a philosophical thing.

Whether knowingly or not, one is always knowing thyself.
Knowing thyself knowingly is Gnosis.
Knowing thyself unknowingly is ignorance.
Yet it is impossible to know any thing other.

a reply to: TheJourney

The word "ego" appears alot in meditation and self-actualisation doctrines, however, it is really a psychological term, exploring the psychological meaning of "ego" might shed some light on issues when dealing with our own egos.

From my observations about the "ego" I maintain that it is a program that allows us to express ourselves vocally and verbally, and provides a "template" for the "personality" - without the "ego" we might not be as straight-forward about our thoughts, and would find our mind and subconsciousness to be a confusing place without the facade that the ego provides.