The Nature of Spiritual Development - Paragraphs 3 and 4

I know this is supposed to be a paragraph-by-paragraph approach to the text but given Robert’s paragraphs have grown smaller, at least in this section, let’s visit two of them again. Here’s this week’s text:

“The goals and norms of psychology may even be diametrically opposed to the requirements of spiritual development. When the spiritual goal is lowered to focus on the psyche - one’s own consciousness or self - instead of on God, then we are being led in a direction opposed to authentic spiritual development. Only total dedication to God’s revelation can bring us to the final destiny God intended for man. Anything less only stunts and retards human development.

So revelation is the key factor in spiritual development; it is the cause of the soul’s transformation and subsequent change of consciousness. Since man’s soul is open-ended we do not know how far it is destined to develop, or to what extent the Maker will expand its original limits. But just as we did not make ourselves or choose to be human, so too, we cannot limit ourselves to our ordinary biological and psychological dimensions.”

When Roberts says that “the goals and norms of psychology may even be diametrically opposed to the requirements of spiritual development” I do not believe she means there is no value in psychological development. What I believe she is saying is that at some point on the journey we are invited to relinquish control over the rearrangement of the personality and move into authentic spiritual transformation. In other words psychological therapies, at some point on the journey, become nothing more than the ego cleaning itself up.

Someone who says this well is Bourgeault in her book The Heart of Centering Prayer, which is quoted at length here. 

“Recovery, wellness, and mindfulness are the secular buzzwords of our times, and it is clear that the heart of the action is unfolding right there… Whether through psychotherapy, men’s work, AA, yoga, mindfulness for stress reduction, enneagram work, dream work, soul work, or a host of other modalities, contemporary men and women are awakening to the realization that life is indeed an inner journey as well as an outer one… Once established…wellness issues become less tied to preserving the small self and more tied to opening a far wider gamut of spiritual inquiry.” 

Another person who understands this movement away from egoic work towards the work Mystery does for or on us is Caryll Houselander. She recounts a story in The Reed of God that as a small child she gave her mother for her mother’s birthday her own favorite candy. Houselander says, “We are apt to treat God in this way, to offer Him the thing we shall enjoy ourselves.” And for many years this is what we do, and you know what, there is nothing wrong with that. We should become more psychological and emotionally sound, but this work is often done, if we are honest, to make life a more pleasant experience. But our efforts to improve ourselves will only carry us so far, at least when it concerns the subtle nature of the spiritual world.

Roberts provides us a very telling clue as to the real thrust of her message when she uses the words “only total dedication to God.” This total dedication, even abondonment to God, is the turning point at which we come to see that we can not fix what we are and that only something other than ourselves can provide what is needed. Even Einstein says, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” In other words we must relinquish all efforts to fix ourselves. That is why she goes on to say that “revelation is the key factor” at this point in the journey, and it is not only the revelation but the surrender to that makes the turning possible.

Another way to think about this, and what I believe she is referencing, is the difference between insights that we read or are taught versus authentic personal experience. For instance, an insight many mystics describe is that God is within. Now I know a lot of folks who would say “well, of course, God is everywhere,” but if you watch and listen closely to their language, both body and verbal, it will reveal their actual belief is that God is out there, even up there. Their eyes go heavenward, or their arms go outward, but their heart goes unnoticed. There remains a real sense that God is set apart from them, which is a sad reality when that set apartness is not the truth of the matter.

Now that we’ve pinpointed Robert'‘s thesis here, ego work versus Love’s work, the above ponderings become my understanding of the text. But what is this text asking of me? As I contemplate the text what I sense for myself is the intentional commitment to dedicate myself to the Mystery we call God. To surrender as much of myself as I can today to what I sense as Love. To honor, even worship, this subtle and gentle guiding hand that lives in me. Many of the mystics call it the flame and this is an apt term. While the psychological pieces still come forward, almost daily, for examination and release, it is now done in service to the Flame as opposed to the ego’s need for gratification.

This is the daily rhythm of my life; do justice, love mercy, walk humbly. This adage is akin to Buddha’s three gates of speech. Are these words true? Are they necessary? Are they kind? In a word; surrender. The road of Love requires a surrender that my ego is not interested in doing. I cannot even see the blocks and blinders clearly until the insights and intense burning remove them. I hope the joy of this surrender finds its way to you.