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Basic Assumptions 15
between the breath control exercises, body postures and moral and devotional practices of Eastern yoga, and the mentally-oriented talk therapies of psychiatry. A deeper appreciation of spirituality would bring valuable understanding here.6
Why isn’t spiritual insight being more seriously integrated into Western psychology? Why isn’t its wealth of ideas being translated into treatment strategies and approaches? Spirituality has been treated as taboo by psychology for far too long. Not even the subject of childhood sexuality presented by Freud at the turn of the century met with such resistance. Charles T. Tart, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and well-known author in the field of transpersonal psychology and altered states of consciousness, recognized this resistance when he wrote:
Orthodox, Western psychology has dealt very poorly with the spiritual side of man’s nature, choosing to ignore its existence or to label it pathological. Yet much of the agony of our time stems from a spiritual vacuum. Our culture, our psychology, has ruled out man’s spiritual nature, but the cost of this attempted suppression is enormous. If we want to find ourselves, our spiritual side, it is imperative for us to look at the psychologies that have dealt with it . . .7
CONSCIOUSNESS
Most spiritual systems teach that Universal Consciousness and love, or spirit—most commonly called God—is the most fundamental reality, beyond any kind of boundary or limitation, including space and time. Yoga says that by some sort of “divine play” (which I will discuss in Chapter 4), Universal Consciousness created not only the delusion of being limited (this substratal delusion is called maya by the Hindus), but the vehicle which perceives, promotes, protects and sustains this delusion as well—mind.
Universal Consciousness created mind with the unique power to deceive itself into believing it is limited. By virtue of the mind’s senses, which focus attention to the outer world and perceive things as separate and distinct entities . . . by virtue of the strength of the mind’s desires, which trick consciousness into believing that one thing is better than another, and that meaningful gratification and happiness are found in the fleeting and momentary pleasures of the


































































































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