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88 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
The mystery of man’s existence is that he must live simultaneously in two realms—in body-mind and in the spirit. Like Sai Baba, we too must transmute sky into earth (by bringing spiritual reality into manifestation on earth) and earth into sky (by transmuting the outer world and mind into spirituality). We must try to be happy, to fulfill our needs and desires—which is part of the nature of our life on earth—yet simultaneously we must work to transcend them.
LIVING ON TWO LEVELS
This living on two levels is a complicated process in life and in therapy. How does the therapist deal with both earthly fears and desires related to interpersonal relationships and, at the same time, to mortal fear if it arises simultaneously. Both issues require attention, perhaps using different approaches and techniques. The problem may, in fact, be beyond the mind’s comprehension and is answerable only to the higher consciousness afforded by meditation and devotion.
MEDITATION
Here is where the therapist as well as the patient can benefit from spiritual knowledge. Instead of relying on a dualistic approach such as psychoanalytic free association, with its valuing of fantasies and emotions, both therapist and patient can benefit from the process of devotional meditation leading to union. Through any number of meditation techniques—such as observing the breath or visualizing light—the mind is quieted.
Detaching from all personal desires and needs, as well as thoughts, feelings, distractions and biases—becoming an unaffected witness, open to all possibilities—brings a marvelous freedom in which intuition, creativity and real caring and love flourish. In this inner stillness, mind is directed by the will of the observer to rest on an aspect of the divine. In this way, one may experience God’s omnipresent, infinite love and, eventually, the merging of the witness and the witnessed— the “I” and the “that.” Jesus referred to this as “the peace that passeth all understanding.”
Nurtured in this way, consciousness reaches out and merges more deeply with the other, affording expanded knowledge of the other. This kind of listening and being, for both therapist and patient, allows for detaching from and mastery over the mind, and the use of it as a