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10 SPIRIT AND THE MIND
based as well. For it seems clear to me that the great scientific discovery of our time—taking shape now in the behavioral sciences—is that consciousness is far more than a function or product of the individual human mind centered in the physical brain. It is nothing less than the creative force of the universe. I believe we are drawing closer to scientific confirmation of the intuitive insights of the great spiritual systems, which see mind, as well as the material cosmos itself, as creations of a Universal Consciousness—the divine. If so, then morality may be a major force directing the unfolding of man’s individual consciousness as it evolves, through mind, toward eventual awareness of its own divinity.
In the course of my work I have been struck by a remarkable lack of appreciation in our field for the wealth of information from spiritual systems. One may speculate that the spiritual dimension is so subtle as to defy scientific exploration. Or perhaps this lack of appreciation represents our criticism and skepticism toward a system, which, in many cases, has given rise to overly punitive practices damaging to psychological health. Or we ourselves may hold strong spiritual beliefs (some say that psychology itself is a spiritual system for many in the West), which protect us from uncertainty and the unknown.
Because such beliefs provide safety and protection in an otherwise frighteningly mysterious and unfathomable world, we may cling to them so rigidly and dogmatically that they may enforce a narrowness of vision. Then again, some of us may intuitively grasp that the spiritual dimension is important, yet not know how to integrate it into our everyday lives.
But even taking all these factors into consideration, I have found that this avoidance, this marked resistance observed in psychotherapists from all theoretical persuasions, represents something even more fundamental: a basic, inherent problem the mind has in dealing with the spirit—a hidden conflict which cries out for illumination. Therefore, I wish to investigate not only the dynamics of man’s unfolding and expanding consciousness, but our resistance to this opening process as well, our resistance to conceiving ourselves as linked in some way to the timeless and eternal: to the possibility, in other words, of our own immortality.
I’ll start by investigating this resistance—a technique with which all therapists are familiar and which will lead us more quickly and