Integral Psychology

Yoga, Growth, and Opening the Heart

Brant Cortright
INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY
SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology
Richard D. Mann, editor
Integral Psychology
Yoga, Growth, and Opening the Heart

Brant Cortright

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK PRESS

Published by
State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2007 State University of New York

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Cortright, Brant, 1949–

Integral psychology : yoga, growth, and opening the heart /
Brant Cortright.
p. ; cm. — (SUNY series in transpersonal and humanistic psychology)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7071-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7914-7072-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Psychotherapy—Philosophy. 2. Holistic medicine. I. Title.
II. Series
[DNLM: 1. Psychotherapy. 2. Holistic Health. 3. Mind-Body Relations
(Metaphysics) 4. Spirituality. 5. Yoga—psychology.
WM 420 C831i 2007]
RC437.5.C67 2007
616.89’14—dc22
2006016538

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Dedicated to the Divine Shakti,
Mother of the Universe
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 Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1

Part 1: Integral Psychology

Chapter 1. Integrality 9
Chapter 2. Our Psychic Center 29
Chapter 3. The Core Wounding of Our Time 53
Chapter 4. An Evolutionary Vision of Health 71

Part 2: Integral Psychotherapy

Chapter 5. Psychotherapy As Behavior Change:
Karma Yoga 89
Chapter 6. Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice:
Jnana Yoga 111
Chapter 7. Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart:
Bhakti Yoga 125
Chapter 8. Designing Psychotherapy for the Right Brain,
the Left Brain, and the Soul 149
Appendix A. The Philosophical Foundation of Integral
Psychology 165
Appendix B. An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 187
Notes 207
References 223
Index 229

vii
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 Acknowledgments

I would like to thank many helpful friends, colleagues, students, and

clients for their impact in shaping this book. Paul Herman first invited
me to co-teach a course on Integral Psychology with him some 20
years ago, which eventually evolved into a course I currently teach
yearly at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Paul’s support at
an early phase of my involvement in integral yoga was important to my
continuing to work in this field. I am eternally grateful for this early
collaboration.
Many colleagues, friends, and former students have read chapters
of this manuscript and provided both critical feedback and encourage-
ment. Among these are Michael Kahn, Robert McDermott, Brendan
Collins, Bahman Shirazi, Richard Stein, Bryan Wittine, Paul Linn,
Olga Louchakova, Matthijs Cornelissen, Neeltje Huppes, Ananda
Reddy, Aster Patel, Uma Silbey, Kathleen Wall, and Nicolo Santilli.
Mytrae Meliana read the entire manuscript and gave invaluable feed-
back that greatly enhanced the final result.
The staff at SUNY Press has been extremely helpful and highly
professional. I want to thank Jane Bunker, Editor-in-Chief, for her
guidance in this project and Michael Haggett for his precise and help-
ful editing.
I am deeply grateful to all.

ix
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 Introduction

Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
—Rudyard Kipling, The Sayings of Rudyard Kipling

Eastern and Western visions of psychology have lived in different

worlds until recently. While they have begun to touch and even have
some influence on each other, a wider synthesis has not yet occurred. In
part, this is because Western psychological systems tend to be separa-
tive, dividing into competing schools and theories, and because spiri-
tual systems also separate along a great divide, with seemingly mutually
exclusive approaches to Spirit. Integrating the many streams of spiritu-
ality in a way that does not privilege one over the others has so far been
elusive.
This book attempts a far-reaching integration of the East’s and
West’s rich diversity of psychological thought. It brings together many
things—East and West, body and mind, spirituality and psychology—to
create an integral psychology and psychotherapy. It grows out of several
decades of involvement in both Eastern and Western psychology and
more than 20 years’ immersion in Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga. For
much of this time, my interests in spirituality and psychology moved
along parallel tracks. Synthesizing these two directions into a unifying
vision took much time and experimentation, traveling in different direc-
tions that sometimes were fruitful but other times came to dead ends.
My teaching at the California Institute of Integral Studies has been cru-
cial in integrating these two dimensions of human existence.
The integral yoga and integral philosophy of Sri Aurobindo is a
gold mine of spiritual and psychological wisdom. What is hard to
understand is why his philosophy is not better known, not only in the
West but in India as well. While efforts have been made to popularize
his writings, using philosophy as the medium for this has not yielded
1
2 Introduction

notable results thus far. My own hope is that this may happen through
psychology, and this book charts some first steps toward an integral
approach to healing, growth, and transformation.

A BRIEF DIGRESSION INTO THE SPIRITUAL CONTEXT

(Note: At this point, the interested reader is encouraged to read a fuller
account provided in appendix A.)
All psychological systems arise within a particular spiritual and
philosophical context and construct their view of the human being
from basic assumptions embedded in this context. Whether this philo-
sophical context is materialistic or spiritual has profound implications
for the psychology that emerges. The field of psychology was born and
grew up in a materialistic atmosphere. Freud, the founder of modern
depth psychology, was adamantly atheistic, and his theories and most
of those that followed him reflected this bias. Academic psychology,
attempting to mimic the natural sciences in its early years, also excluded
spirituality from research and hewed to a purely empirical, materialis-
tic paradigm.
This book presupposes that it is better to explicitly examine the
spiritual context than to suffer the consequences of unexamined,
implicit assumptions in our psychological systems. In a materialistic
philosophy that holds biology to be ultimate, psychologies that proceed
from this assumption lead to certain conclusions about consciousness,
behavior, and the possibilities for human growth. Even the idea of heal-
ing, of what is possible and how far it can go, is skewed by this context,
for the healing force is seen to be entirely physical rather than spiritual,
and this severely limits the possibilities that can be envisioned. On the
other hand, when our spiritual nature is affirmed as the foundation of
human consciousness, the psychologies that emerge from this view are
radically different in how they view the psyche and its potentials. The
greatest thinkers from the religious traditions of the world are unani-
mous in their verdict that failing to see the spiritual dimension of
human consciousness as fundamental leads to limited and ultimately
incorrect psychologies.
Informed by a postmodern sensibility that acknowledges the his-
torical, cultural, and linguistic contexts operative in the construction of
all knowledge, psychology has been undergoing a quiet revolution.
 Introduction 3

Knowledge, according to postmodern thinking, can be constructed

from infinite perspectives, and therefore there must be a plurality of
viewpoints that have truth value. Here postmodernism and Eastern
spiritual systems coincide. They come to the same fundamental posi-
tion, namely, that the human mind can never know Truth. Mental know-
ing is inherently perspectival and partial, so it is incapable of truth
unalloyed.
This is precisely what the East has said for more than 2,000 years:
Ultimate truth is beyond the mind’s grasp. The futility of mind’s
attempt to grasp truth is an astonishing point of agreement between
ancient traditions and postmodernism.
However, here postmodernism continues on and makes another,
entirely unjustified assertion: Therefore, there is no ultimate truth. Post-
modernism leaps beyond its own recognized limits to assert a claim that
it has just conceded cannot be made, an observation made by several
commentators but that has not yet corrected the problem (e.g., see
Smith, 1982.) It is a seductive leap, yet a strictly postmodern position
can only be agnostic on the question of ultimate truth.
While postmodernism helpfully shows how personal perspective
shapes the construction of knowledge, postmodernism, by its incapac-
ity to penetrate beyond surface appearances, does psychology a disserv-
ice in denying all deeper realities and essentialist claims to truth. All
psychologies rooted in postmodernism will thus be psychologies of the
surface, helpful so far as they go but confined to a view of frontal
appearances. A unifying view of psychology therefore requires a more
encompassing perspective.
Here Eastern psychology comes to the rescue. The Eastern tradi-
tions declare that there is an essential truth, an essential spiritual real-
ity that is known by many names, imaged in many forms, including
formlessness, represented by the mind in infinite ways yet beyond all
concepts and formulations. To go beyond the surface mind and experi-
ence this deeper reality is the goal of Eastern practices. When the goal
is wholeness, only methodologies that go beyond the mind’s fragmen-
tary approaches can comprehend this wholeness.
When Swami Vivekananda first brought Hinduism to the West at
the dawn of the 20th century, he correctly proclaimed Vedanta India’s
most precious gift to the world. Hinduism is one world religion that
does not originate from the experiences of a single man. Instead, it is
the combined wisdom of many centuries of sages and saints who have
4 Introduction

explored the inner realms of consciousness from a thousand different

directions. This work draws on the psychological discoveries of
Vedanta, particularly the integral Vedanta of Sri Aurobindo, a culmi-
nating figure in India’s philosophical history who made a highly sophis-
ticated integration of the major systems of Indian philosophy.
The world’s spiritual traditions tend to fall into two broad classes:
theism, or the vision of the Divine as a Personal, Supreme Being, and
nontheism, or the vision of the Divine as an Impersonal, infinite con-
sciousness. Viewing the Divine as both Personal and Impersonal corre-
sponds to our dual spiritual identity—soul and spirit, also called
antaratman and atman, or psychic center and Buddha-nature.
Integral yoga philosophy puts spirituality into an evolutionary con-
text. Life is a divine unfolding, and the foundation is sat-chit-ananda
(i.e., the Divine is a self-existent, blissful consciousness). The Divine
throws itself into form to create this entire universe as a play of self-dis-
covery. Out of matter evolves life, out of life evolves mind, and now
with these evolved instruments, spirit is emerging in physical form.
However, it takes time for consciousness to evolve. Consciousness does
not spring fully into being or leap miraculously from an insect to an
enlightened sage. It undergoes a systematic growth, a developmental
process of ever-increasing power, amplitude, depth, and capacity. Since
it is a gradual, incremental development of consciousness that is occur-
ring over great spans of time, this requires a number of different phys-
ical forms within which to evolve, so reincarnation becomes a logical
and practical necessity, with birth and death as incidents or transitions
in the soul’s growth.
The purpose is a joyous and conscious participation in the evolu-
tionary play, not a withdrawal from life, not fleeing embodied existence
into a heaven or nirvana. Existence is not viewed as a mistake or a
cosmic nightmare from which we need to escape. Integral philosophy
is life affirming, not life negating, like the doctrine of illusionism (or
mayavada), which had such a destructive effect on India and much of
the East. The Divine is not seeking to annul its own creation. Life is
real, not merely an illusion, though it is an ignorance in our current
state. The goal is to wake up to our deeper identity so we can align with
this larger, Divine movement of love and delight. Life is a spiritual
adventure in the evolution of consciousness. Spiritual embodiment is
the goal, not a disembodied transcendence. For this we need to discover
our soul, our psychic center, which is the evolutionary principle in us.
 Introduction 5

Integral philosophy is an integrating framework for all the world’s

spiritual traditions—theistic and nontheistic, Eastern and Western. It
includes all spiritual paths without privileging one over another. Every
spiritual tradition is honored, for all lead to the one Divine (Brahman,
God, Allah, Buddha-nature, Tao.)
There is a striking image in the Hindu tradition of a statue or pic-
ture of Shiva dancing. Twirling four arms, in perfect serenity and bliss,
Shiva brings this world into manifestation through his dance. Shiva
dances for the sheer bliss of dancing. There is no other motive or goal,
just the pure joy of dancing. To see that the Divine, out of the fullness
of self-expression and the utter delight of play, has manifested this
entire universe gives a new appreciation for life’s potential for delight
and fulfillment.

THE DESIGN OF THIS BOOK

Two important terms are used throughout this book that are necessary
to understand at the outset: soul and integral. “Soul” is used in so many
ways today that it can be hard to know what is meant. Generally, soul
means the deeper parts of the personality, or sometimes the mind or the
mind and heart together. At other times it means the immortal, eternal
soul of spiritual traditions. In this book, soul has the latter meaning,
though with a unique understanding that the soul is an evolving entity.
The soul is our inmost identity, our psychic center, and the evolution-
ary principle in human beings. It survives death and creates a new
body-heart-mind complex each new lifetime through which it
expresses itself.
The word “integral” is becoming popular these days, and there is
understandable confusion about what it means. Integral has two basic
meanings: large and narrow. In its larger, generic sense, integral means
whole, complete, and holistic, and it can include such things as body-
mind-spirit as well as East-West. This is the sense in which it is usu-
ally used by such people as Gerard (1988) and Wilber (2000.) The
narrow meaning of integral comes from the integral yoga and integral
philosophy of Sri Aurobindo, sometimes called India’s greatest mystic
philosopher. It was in this sense that an Indian psychologist, Indra Sen,
first coined the term “integral psychology” in a series of professional
papers in India throughout the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. Curiously, the
6 Introduction

narrow meaning includes the larger meaning, although the large mean-
ing does not include the narrow. It is this more specific sense of inte-
gral that is meant throughout this book—the integral psychology and
integral psychotherapy that emerges from the integral yoga of Sri
Aurobindo.
Part 1 of this book brings integrality to bear on psychology. Chap-
ter 1 integrates Eastern and Western psychology’s many voices into a
coherent whole. Chapter 2 brings out an immensely important discov-
ery of integral psychology about the nature of the psyche that has never
been clearly seen by Western psychology. Chapter 3 explores how the
core wounding of our time has a clouding, obscuring effect on our
awareness of our deeper identity. Chapter 4 provides an integrative
vision of psychotherapy’s potential and points toward new evolutionary
possibilities for psychological health.
Part 2 brings integrality to bear on psychotherapy practice, synthe-
sizing Eastern and Western methods for discovering wholeness. Using
the lens of the three traditional yogas—karma yoga, jnana yoga, and
bhakti yoga—provides a way of organizing the methods of psychother-
apy into an integral psycho-spiritual practice. The final chapter then
provides an integrative approach to psychotherapy.
 Part 1

Integral Psychology
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 Chapter 1

Integrality

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior.

—American psychology textbook

Psychology is the science of consciousness.

—Sri Aurobindo, Essays Divine
and Human

This book aims to integrate two diverse streams of psychology: West-

ern and Eastern. Each of these streams has made profound discoveries
about the psyche, human consciousness, the nature of fragmentation,
and the possibilities for wholeness. Yet psychology in the West and psy-
chology in the East have traveled from two different directions and
developed very different areas of knowledge. This chapter begins with
a broad characterization of these two streams of psychological thought
in order to highlight these differences.
Psychology in the West looks from the outside in, whereas psychol-
ogy in the East looks from the inside out. These two perspectives give
two very different views of psychology. By looking from the outside in,
Western psychology has developed very detailed, precise maps of the
outer being, the body-heart-mind organism and the self, whereas East-
ern psychology’s view from the inside out has generated very detailed
maps of our inner being and the spiritual foundation of consciousness.
Each has essential knowledge about human existence, yet each focuses
on only half of this psycho-spiritual totality. Each requires the other to
9
10 Integral Psychology

complete it, and only in bringing them together does an integral view
of psychology emerge.
Western psychology ascribes our lack of wholeness and painful
fragmentation to the universal experience of psychological wounding.
We do not know the fullness of who we are because our wounding makes us
unconscious of it. While some people are wounded more severely and
some less, we all are wounded. To be born into this world is to be emo-
tionally hurt and scarred growing up. Our response to this wounding is
to push it down, contract, and develop a defensive structure in which
large portions of our very self become unconscious. We become lost,
isolated from others, cut off and alienated from our own deeper self.
Western psychotherapy is an attempt to understand and repair this
fragmented wholeness.
Eastern psychology sees a different cause for our fragmentation and
suffering: We are cut off from the spiritual ground of our being. We iden-
tify with the surface life of our body and ego—our desires, feelings, sen-
sations, thoughts—and so are unconscious of our spiritual source.
Eastern psychological practices aim at bringing peace and harmony
into our living, so we may go deeply inside to find the true fulfillment
intrinsic to our spiritual core.
The human predicament, then, is characterized by a double frag-
mentation. It is a dual diagnosis from which we suffer—a psycho-spir-
itual fracture—and dual, therefore, must be the path to wholeness.

THE QUEST FOR WHOLENESS

Every human being seeks a better life. Whether clearly experienced or
only vaguely felt, there is a sense that something greater is possible.
This search may take a superficial form such as striving to acquire
money, position, or power; it may manifest as a yearning for fulfillment
through relationships and love; or it may lie in seeking higher values
such as meaning, peace, or helping others. But through all of this there
is an intuitive feeling that what we seek lies beyond all these first reach-
ings. For once beyond looking outward for this deeper fulfillment in
things and people, we realize that it is an inner state we are seeking.
This search, at bottom, is a quest for wholeness.
 Integrality 11

Western psychology seeks for wholeness in both theory and prac-

tice: in the search for a comprehensive understanding of human nature
and in the search for methods to heal the wounded, divided self. Yet
like the human being it attempts to understand, Western psychology
itself is a field divided, fragmented into a bewildering array of compet-
ing theories and conflicting therapies that makes it seem more like a
fractious and unruly mob than a well-ordered, consistent discipline.
The current state of Western psychology resembles the biblical story of
the Tower of Babel: Cognitive psychologists do not talk to body thera-
pists. Psychoanalysts look down on gestalt therapists. Academic psy-
chologists complain that clinicians are not scientific, and clinicians
complain that academic researchers are superficial. Jungians do not
send their children to schools run by behaviorists, and for their part,
most behaviorists would not be caught dead talking to a Jungian about
soul. Psychology as a whole is characterized both by the explosive
growth of its many disparate fragments and its lack of an integrating
structure that brings together the various factions into a coherent
whole.
Further, a postmodern perspective raises the question of what
becomes “knowledge” in psychology. Historically, what constitutes psy-
chological knowledge has been narrowly Western and has excluded cul-
tures in which the depth of psychological thought in significant ways
surpasses the West. It must be conceded from the outset that while
Western psychology has generated a great mass of detailed knowledge
of the surface of the psyche, it has failed to penetrate its deeper mys-
teries, for even depth psychology is but a psychology of the frontal self
and its unconscious processes. Western psychology has only explored
the surface of consciousness, because its instruments of investigation
are fragmentary and limited.
As science so often reminds us, real understanding comes when we
look past the surface appearance of things into their deeper nature.
Otherwise, for example, we are led to believe the initial view given by
our senses, that the sun travels around the earth. Just as we need to look
beyond first appearances in astronomy, physics, and other hard sciences,
so we need to look deeply in psychology. As more sophisticated instru-
ments have advanced the hard sciences—microscopes, telescopes, par-
ticle accelerators—so more sophisticated methods of consciousness
12 Integral Psychology

exploration have allowed Eastern psychology to come upon a deeper,

wider, more fundamental knowledge of the psyche than Western
psychology.
To understand the depths of human consciousness, the instrument
of exploration can only be consciousness itself. The West’s “outside in”
approach of external observations, brain imaging instruments such as
MRIs, fMRIs, EEGs, PET scans, and so on, and even the surface
introspective methods of depth psychotherapy, helpful as they are, will
only take us so far. To bring about a more complete understanding,
well-defined methods of inner exploration must be employed, and it is
in this area that the Eastern meditative traditions excel, for Eastern
spiritual systems are the result of centuries of rigorous, precise applica-
tions of methods for examining inner states of consciousness.
Eastern spiritual systems, and India in particular, have made a
highly disciplined study of consciousness and the psyche for millennia.
Although traditional Western psychology has relegated Eastern psy-
chological thought to philosophy or religion, a current appraisal of psy-
chology must include Eastern cultures’ contributions to psychology. As
globalization increases, the current Western-centric view of psychology
(Cushman, 1995) is being counterbalanced by developments such as
India’s recent movement of “Indian psychology” (Cornelisson & Joshi,
2004), which seeks to re-own Indian psychological insights and situate
them in their proper field of psychology, following Gardiner Murphy’s
pioneering work (Murphy, 1958.) From a global perspective, a strictly
Western definition of psychology that excludes the East’s profound dis-
coveries appears to be a rather parochial view of psychology.

THE MEETING OF EAST AND WEST

East and West come together in the melding of Eastern spiritual
wisdom with Western scientific knowledge. The East has looked inside
to discover the ultimate spiritual truths of existence. The West has
looked outside to discover the powerful but relative truths of science.
As psychology represents the West’s scientific effort to understand the
inner psyche, it becomes the common ground where these two great
streams of knowing join, the natural meeting place of East and West.
To understand the depths of the human psyche, traditional psy-
chology is necessary but not sufficient. Academic psychology and sci-
 Integrality 13

entific psychology in the West have made a massive study of the outer-
most surface of the body, heart, and mind, and the depth psychologies
fill out a deeper picture of our frontal organism. For the most part,
Western psychology has now moved beyond the mind-body split that
characterized much of psychological discourse during the first two-
thirds of the 20th century to see this outer identity in holistic terms,
that is, as an organismic, body-mind unity.
From an integral perspective, this is true as far as it goes. It does
well represent our surface experience. But as we look farther, a more
complex picture reveals itself. The self is only the outer edge of con-
sciousness, where many inner strands of experience meet and fuse into
a totality of organismic experiencing. But as Eastern psychology insists,
a deeper, spiritual core manifests this outer mind, heart, and body. The
frontal organism we identify with and call ourselves is an expression of
our deeper being, and only in reference to this deeper foundation can
there be a more complete psychological understanding.
Integral psychology begins with the ancient Vedantic conception of
the koshas, or sheaths of consciousness. On the surface, these consist of
the body, heart, and mind (annamayakosha, pranayamayakosha,
manomayakosha) that form the human organism. Body, heart, and mind
are precisely what Western psychology has studied. Indeed, this is all
that is admitted by conventional psychology. But integral yoga charts
three other levels of consciousness: the inner being, the true being, and
the central being. These other three levels invisibly provide the founda-
tion for this frontal organism we call our physical, emotional, mental
self.

THE FRONTAL ORGANISM: THE MENTAL LEVEL

To understand the frontal body-heart-mind organism, we begin with
the level of mind. Integral Vedanta charts three distinct parts of the
mind, called the physical mind, the emotional mind, and the mind
proper. This tripartite division has now been confirmed by recent devel-
opments in neuroscience. These three divisions correspond to what sci-
ence now calls the triune brain: the reptilian brain stem that runs the
body, the mammalian, emotional brain or limbic system, and humans’
most recent evolutionary development, the neocortex, which is the seat
of abstract thinking and language (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 2000).
14 Integral Psychology

While we share the lower, reptilian brain with lower animals, and we
share the emotional brain or limbic system with mammals, allowing us
to feel emotions and to experience an emotional connection to others,
only human beings have a developed neocortex capable of abstract
thought.
Medical research has generated much knowledge about the body
and brain, and the examination of emotional and physical responses to
our thinking patterns has led behaviorism and cognitive psychology to
make some limited but significant contributions to psychotherapy,
especially in the areas of depression and the continuum of stress, anxi-
ety, fear, and panic. Cognitive therapy has shown how our thoughts
(cognitions) significantly determine how we feel, and it also has proven
effective for certain types of depression (Beck, 1979, 1985, 1987).
Additionally, behaviorism’s insights into the importance of relaxation in
the treatment of stress, anxiety, panic, and phobias have had a major
impact in this area of therapy. Behavior therapy is the treatment of
choice for phobias and for certain kinds of symptom relief in anxiety
and stress. But even though it can provide symptom relief for certain
symptoms and even certain personality disorders, its power to bring
about deeper change is limited, because it restricts its attempts to
change to manipulating the surface components of conscious thinking
and muscular tension.
Academic and behavioral approaches to psychology provide an
explanation of the visible effects on the surface but not the deeper
causes within. For this it is necessary to bring in the different schools
of depth psychology. However, the many competing theories initially
present a confusing picture. However, in seeing Western psychology
within the organizing framework of integral psychology, it becomes
clear that the various schools of psychology have each made a special-
ized study of particular levels of our being. Different schools of psychology
are windows into different levels of human consciousness. Each major
school of psychology is a vision of the whole seen through the level in
which it specializes. From the vantage point of integral psychology, all
of the conflicts and squabbling among the various schools of psychol-
ogy are but conflicts between different levels of consciousness. Simi-
larly, different Eastern systems tend to focus only on part of our inmost
identity, and the conflicts between traditions stem from this difference
in emphasis. Each school of psychology, Western or Eastern, is an
important piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
 Integrality 15

The clinical branch of psychology has made understanding the

dynamics of the psyche its field of study. As the depth psychologies
have brought to light, the center of the human psyche lies in the affective
core of the self, our heart or emotional nature.

THE EMOTIONAL LEVEL

What characterizes living beings is the vital principle, a vitality or life
force (prana) that animates all living creatures. In human beings the
vital principle manifests as the emotional level of the heart—our
desires, our instincts, our feelings, our aspirations, our zest for living.
Much of modern depth psychology can be read as rigorous research
into the heart and emotions. Beginning with Freud’s revolutionary dis-
coveries about the unconscious, depth psychology has had an enor-
mous impact upon the world and has shattered the view of the human
being as the “rational animal” that had been humanity’s self-image
since Aristotle’s time. As Freud plumbed the nonrational realms of the
unconscious, a more modern account of psychological life emerged, in
which desire, instinct, and strong emotional forces shape psychologi-
cal life.
Depth psychology began over a century ago with Freud’s search for
ways to heal the sufferings of the human heart. In the process it uncov-
ered the universal phenomenon of emotional wounding and how the
human heart protects itself by developing defenses against this emo-
tional wounding. In our family of origin there are failures to attune to
the emotional state of the infant and young child, there are accidents,
there are traumas, there is inevitable emotional pain growing up. The
parents, who due to their own emotional wounding can only respond
empathically to some of the child’s emotions and self, tune out what is
emotionally threatening. To cope with this and to maintain the vital
bond with the parents, the child holds down this pain, represses certain
impulses, and disavows certain feelings, and after a period of time, this
all becomes automatic and unconscious. The child internalizes the
parental prohibitions and develops a coping strategy that adapts to the
family system, but in so doing adopts a false self that is alienated from
the authentic self buried within. Large portions of the authentic self
become unconscious and create deficits or gaps in the structure of the
self, large areas of feeling and impulse become unconscious, the child
16 Integral Psychology

dissociates from the body in the process, and so portions of physical

awareness also fade away.
Integral yoga charts three gradations of the emotional level that
range in frequency from greater density to greater refinement. At the
lower end lies the lower emotional, our animal inheritance of primitive
impulses and instincts. The central emotional level consists of the ordi-
nary emotions and feelings that make up most of daily life. And the
refinement of the higher emotional is the level most open to the cre-
ativity of our inner being, the light of spiritual experience, and our
higher life aspirations.
While all schools of psychotherapy address the emotional level,
psychoanalysis has charted this level most thoroughly. The three layers
of the emotional correspond to the three major movements within psy-
choanalysis: classical psychoanalysis maps the lower emotional, con-
temporary psychoanalysis maps the central emotional, and Carl Jung’s
analytic psychology maps the higher emotional level.
The lower emotional is the realm of classical psychoanalysis that
was popular during the first half of the 20th century. The lower emo-
tional is the most animalistic part of our being, inherited from our long
evolutionary past, called by Freud the “id.” Freud’s image of the id as “a
seething cauldron of desire” vividly captures this dimension of the
psyche. The lower emotional includes sexuality in all of its many libidi-
nous forms, along with our aggressive impulses (Kahn, 2002).
Freud distilled two poles to our instinctual nature that he named
Eros (sex) and Thanatos (aggression). The lower emotional encounters
each experience through this lens of our biological urges and desire:
“Can I eat it, mate with it, or kill it?” Sometimes we can be absorbed by
the pure taste of food, its smells and textures. Other times we feel
aggression and rage at the world and those who hurt us. Still other
times we want to immerse ourselves in sexual passion, the instinctive
yearning for the pleasures of erotic embrace.
This level translates all social interactions into its own terms. At
this level we greet every new person with the inner questions: “Is this
person friendly or hostile? Am I safe, or do I need to defend myself?
Am I attracted to this person or not? Is this person a potential lover or
a competitor?”
Freud began his psychoanalytic investigations toward the end of
the Victorian era, a time when the repression of sexuality and the body
was at its height in Western civilization. The lower emotional dimen-
 Integrality 17

sion looms large when it is strongly repressed, and naturally this is

what emerged most forcefully when the lid of repression was lifted.
Though Freud believed this level was the defining element of the
psyche, in hindsight we can see that this exaggeration had an impor-
tant evolutionary purpose—to bring to light our repressed animal
nature as a universal dimension of human consciousness. Freud simply
did what every major psychological theorist has done since—he took
the discovery of one part of our being and viewed all the rest of the
psyche through this lens.
Toward the end of his life, Freud shifted his focus from the id to
the ego, which presaged the next significant shift in psychoanalytic
thinking, namely, the emergence of object relations, self psychology,
and intersubjectivity. What psychoanalysts such as Melanie Klein
(1975a, 1975b), D. W. Winnicott (1967, 1971), W. R. D. Fairbairn
(1954), and Heinz Kohut (1971, 1977, 1984) recognized, particularly as
society itself changed and no longer was so repressive of the lower emo-
tional, is that the self is more influenced by relationships than by
instincts.
The central emotional level is the focus of study for Kohut’s self
psychology, the various schools of object relations, the interpersonal
schools, family systems theories, the variety of intersubjective
approaches, and all of what is generally referred to in contemporary
psychoanalysis as the relational model. In the language of integral psy-
chology, it is not the lower emotional level that best characterizes the psy-
chological world of most people but the central emotional level.
The central emotional level sees the world through the sense of self
and its relational world. The central emotional asks the questions: “Do I
feel good, whole, with a healthy glow of self-esteem, or do I feel bad,
fragmented, afraid of feeling ashamed or insufficient? Do others see me
as effective and worthwhile, or as barely competent or faking it? Do I
feel anxious, stressed, threatened in my interactions with others, or at
ease, peaceful, secure? Are there people in my life who affirm and love
me? Am I seen deeply for who I am? Are there others I respect, look up
to, and feel reassured and strengthened by? Do I have loving, support-
ive, intimate relationships with close friends, partner, family, or am I
estranged, afraid to share my true feelings, lonely, or not as intimately
connected with others as I would like to be? Am I aligned with my
deeper self ’s ambitions and actual talents, or do I feel alienated from
work and career? Do I feel real and solid or somehow unreal, anxious, or
18 Integral Psychology

vaguely uneasy? Do I have enough personal space and autonomy, or am

I impinged upon, engulfed, my self subsumed by family and society?”
As most people today are centered in the central emotional level of
their being, they are preoccupied by their sense of self and their rela-
tionships. Contemporary psychoanalysis sees the self as fundamentally
relational and takes the central emotional as the defining dimension of
human experience. The self is the central organizing principle of the psyche,
not the instincts. This is the conceptual revolution within psychoanaly-
sis that has occurred in the past several decades. However, from an inte-
gral perspective, it remains an incomplete description without reference
to a third area, the higher emotional.
Carl Jung, one of Freud’s two most gifted students, rebelled against
the materialistic and reductionistic trends in Freud’s thinking.
Acknowledging the spiritual, the intuitive and creative, the validity of
higher aspirations that cannot be reduced to thwarted sexual strivings
or sublimated libido, Jung pioneered the mapping of the higher emo-
tional level. The higher emotional is more open to the spiritual and
operates at a more refined vibration than the lower or central emo-
tional. Though it is not the source of our spiritual, artistic, philosophi-
cal, and higher strivings, the higher emotional is the most receptive to
their influence.
In addition, the higher emotional takes on a mentalized quality.
The higher emotional is the dreamer, the source of our plans and hopes,
our visions of what can be, our strivings for beauty and for a better
world. The higher emotional asks: “What is possible? What can I do,
what can I create, what might I become? What leads toward a higher
life?”
The higher emotional accesses the imaginal realm of visualization,
imagination, and visionary experience. Being the part most open to the
inner vital and its creative inspirations, it is no accident that Jung used
active imagination and visualization as key therapeutic techniques in
his therapy, for imagination is the coin of this realm.
Freud and classical psychoanalysis chart the lower emotional, con-
temporary psychoanalysis charts the central emotional level that typi-
fies the average consciousness at this point in evolution, and Jung’s
analytic psychology charts the higher emotional realm. However, as the
depth approaches of humanistic and existential psychology point out,
this is still incomplete, because it fails to acknowledge the immense
importance of the body.
 Integrality 19

THE PHYSICAL LEVEL

Our physical body is an extraordinary instrument, unique among all
life-forms in its capacity to house the mind and consciousness of the
human being. The Aitareya Upanishad relates a myth in which the
gods (which in this symbolism represent the functions of the human
mind) continued to reject one after another of the various animal
bodies that the Divine Self offered to them. It was only when the
human body was developed that the gods exclaimed, “This indeed is
perfectly made,” and consented to enter in.
Integral Vedanta’s view that not only mind but our emotional life
emerges out of the physical and retains its roots in bodily existence is
shared and has been amplified by humanistic and existential schools of
psychology. These depth approaches emphasize that feeling life is
embedded in bodily experience. Wilhelm Reich, who along with Jung was
the other of Freud’s most gifted students, first recognized that emo-
tional experience emerges from the body, and the humanistic and exis-
tential schools that followed developed this insight further.
Reich’s theoretical heirs include Fritz Perls (1969; Perls, Hefferline,
& Goodman, 1951) and gestalt therapy, Alexander Lowen (1975) and
bioenergetics, Eugene Gendlin (1981, 1996) and focusing, John Pier-
rakos (1990) with core energetics, Ron Kurtz (1990) and hakomi, and
the many other body-centered approaches, including Charlotte Selver’s
sensory awareness. Even Carl Rogers’ (1961) client-centered therapy
was theoretically grounded in the primacy of organismic experiencing.
And while existential psychotherapy emerged from a different direction
out of European philosophy (Yalom, 1980), its key concepts of actual
lived experience and the importance of moving beyond intellect into
bodily experiencing align closely with Reich’s bodily focus. The explo-
sion of body disciplines during the last decades of the 20th century led
to a radical reevaluation of the importance of the body for full self-
awareness.
The organism acts as an organized whole to create psychological experi-
ence. This is the conceptual revolution that humanistic-existential psy-
chology has brought about, a holistic vision of psychological
experience. Humanistic and existential schools confirm that childhood
wounding not only brings about a lack of integration but also a disso-
ciation of the self from the body that psychoanalysis overlooks. Our
defenses result in losing awareness of both our emotional and physical being.
20 Integral Psychology

A complete vision of health must include not only integration and self-
cohesion but also a more vibrant, sensorily alive state, a state with the
joy, beauty, and pleasure that is the glory of embodiment.
At this level of bodily experience we ask, “Do I feel vibrantly alive,
sensing and tasting what I do, from showering or walking, to sitting
and talking? Or do I feel distracted from my sensory life, lost in my
thoughts? Do I see the clouds and sky, or do I barely notice them? Do
I experience my feelings as rooted in my body sensing, or am I hardly
tuned in to them? Can I sense how my feelings live in me, energize me,
course through my body? Am I aware of how verbalizing my feelings
deepens my somatic experiencing of them? Do I feel how my breath-
ing supports my excitement and the intensity of my feeling states, or do
I find myself holding my breath, constricting my breathing and stifling
my feelings? Do I feel grounded in my physical being or lost some-
where in my head?”
How rooted we are in bodily experiencing is difficult to assess, for
everyone believes they are “in their body.” In one sense everyone is
right, because we are embodied beings. But there is a wide continuum
of experiencing, ranging from a deep sense of being an embodied
being-in-the-world to feeling like a mind “in” a body. Given how much
dissociation is considered “normal” in our culture, there are very few
people who have healed this split and are deeply rooted in their physi-
cal being.
No matter how cohesive the self may be, until the dissociation from
the body is healed, the self will always feel some sense of unreality and
vagueness. The physical dimension of self-experience gives concrete-
ness to our experience, a quality of aliveness and sensory grounding that
makes us realize in a definite way, “I exist now, here, grounded in this
bodily form.” For the body lives in the present, and when we come
more fully into our body, we enter the domain of the eternal now,
another area where humanistic and existential therapies converge.

THE LEVELS OF SELFHOOD

Organizing the various schools of psychology into the different levels
of consciousness in which they specialize leads to the following simpli-
fied chart:
 Integrality 21

Mental level The Mental self Cognitive psychology

Higher emotional The Imaginal self Jungian psychology
Central emotional The Relational self Contemporary psycho-
analysis, self psychology,
object relations, intersub-
jectivity, family systems
Lower emotional The Instinctual self Classical psychoanalysis
Physical The Embodied self Humanistic and existen-
tial schools

Note that this chart is not a value hierarchy, for each level is impor-
tant, but it is a hierarchy in density of consciousness. Each school of
psychology has a unique gift to offer the world, a unique domain of
consciousness that it illuminates. It must be emphasized that each
school is not restricted to its chosen level. Just because the analytic tra-
ditions first charted the emotional level does not mean that the emo-
tional is the exclusive province of psychoanalysis. It is not that each school
only addresses a particular part of our being, but that each school excels by its
primary focus on one part, even as it downplays other parts of our being.
It would be inaccurate, for example, to say that classical or con-
temporary psychoanalysis disregards the higher emotional or the body.
On the contrary, psychoanalysis has made important contributions to
the study of creativity and imagery. But psychoanalysis has concen-
trated its attention on the lower and central emotional, and the higher
emotional, with its spiritual strivings, has been considerably deempha-
sized. Similarly, psychoanalysis does not completely ignore the body,
but its map of consciousness so downplays this dimension of psycho-
logical experience that we need the discoveries of the somatic and exis-
tential therapies to adequately guide us here, while recognizing that
they, too, tend to reduce everything to their level.
Due to that universal narcissistic tendency for each new discovery
to be enthroned as the highest and best, each school annexes one part
of our being, proclaims its centrality for human happiness, and stops
there, translating the rest of our being through the lens of that level.
The schools of psychology begin by liberating us, but, in the end, the
particular level of consciousness in which each school specializes leads
to a new cul-de-sac, a new limitation preventing further expansion.
Unless there is a greater psychology that encompasses and goes beyond
22 Integral Psychology

the conventional schools of psychology, there can be no release into the

fullness of deeper being.

THE INNER REALMS OF BEING

This is where conventional psychology stops—a detailed and thorough
mapping of our outer being—our body-heart-mind organism.
Only recently has psychology opened the door to the inner being
through the transpersonal school. Perhaps now we are ready to admit
the spiritual literature for what it is—rich phenomenological reports
from thousands of individuals over many centuries. Eastern psychology
provides important clinical data that can no longer be ignored or
pathologized but must be accounted for by any psychology that tries to
be inclusive. Transpersonal writers such as Stan Grof (1975, 1985,
1989), Ken Wilber (1986, 2000), Hameed Ali (Almaas, 1986, 1988,
1996), and Michael Washburn (1988, 1994) have provided provocative
glimpses into the deeper realms of our inner being, although this terri-
tory has only been partially mapped.
In the West the first sense of something deeper was originally
brought to light by Carl Jung. Jung made psychology’s initial incursion
into the inner being, and the archetypes of the collective unconscious
immediately greet us in this domain. The collective unconscious serves
as the psychological raw material out of which we construct our per-
sonal identity. In itself, it is a zone of transition between the cosmic
forces and the human, where universal forces— universal emotional
forces, physical forces, mental forces—take psychological shape. But
the collective unconscious only exists by reference to what is beyond it,
namely, the inner vital, inner mental, and subtle physical worlds.
Integral psychology delineates three inner realms of being that
form the foundation for the frontal self: the inner being, the true being,
and the central being. The first realm, the inner being, consists of an
inner or subtle body, an inner heart or vital, and an inner mind. This
layer of our inner being is a much enlarged, more powerful dimension
of consciousness that is in direct touch with the universal forces of the
intermediate plane. While wider, more fluid, and more expansive than
our outer being, open to a larger scale and more subtle range of experi-
ence, the inner being is still of the same basic substance as the outer
 Integrality 23

mind, heart, and body and therefore is more open to the cosmic forces
of ignorance and darkness as well as to spiritual experiences.
The inner being opens to the intermediate plane, also sometimes
called the astral plane, etheric plane, or subtle plane. This is a plane of
experience that Eastern psychology has mapped extensively and is
acknowledged by every spiritual tradition in the world. Native cultures
and shamans view the world through this intermediate plane, and there
is a considerable New Age fascination with the subtle energies and
powers that can develop here, such as clairvoyance. Eastern traditions
warn of the dangers here and advise the seeker not to get detoured by
this sideshow, for the true goal lies beyond.
However important the intermediate plane is, it remains a very
mixed realm of experience. But a beginning of definite spiritual experi-
ence can come by entering into the third realm, the true being. Here
lies the true physical, true emotional, and true mental being (physical,
emotional, mental purusha). This appears to be what Ali (A. H.
Almaas) refers to as the world of “essence” and of Jung’s “Self.” The true
being is a more essential spiritual plane, where the atman is represented
on each of these levels, and it can be a point of entry into our imper-
sonal spiritual nature.
The fourth, inmost level is the central being. What has not been
clearly understood by the different Eastern traditions is the twofold
nature of our spiritual identity, spirit and soul. Integral yoga elucidates
how the central spiritual being is differentiated into the atman and the
psychic being (or true soul). High above is the atman or Buddha-
nature, the silent Self that is our universal identity with the Divine,
eternal and nonevolving. Below, here within the manifestation, is our
spiritual individuality, antaratman or psychic center, called in the Upan-
ishads the chaitya purusha, our immortal, evolving soul. Atman and
antaratman are the two aspects of our deepest spiritual nature that cor-
respond to the Impersonal and Personal Divine, spirit and soul.
The atman can be experienced in its negative or nirguna aspect as
Buddha-nature or pure emptiness, a vast space of nothingness, formless
yet containing all form, without any qualities or attributes other than
pure consciousness. This is the perspective of the Eastern psychologies
of Buddhism, Taoism, kevala advaita, and certain tantric schools. In
other schools of Vedanta, the atman also can be experienced in its pos-
itive or saguna aspect as the Self, a sea of consciousness, peace, light,
24 Integral Psychology

and knowledge that is spread out infinitely. Usually only experienced in

Samadhi, there are overhead planes where this divine consciousness
ascends into greater light, power, and knowledge, called by Sri
Aurobindo higher mind, illumined mind, intuitive mind, overmind,
and supermind.1 Though the atman’s native home is above in the over-
head planes, it can descend into the manifestation and be experienced
on any plane.
Enlightenment is the full realization of the atman or Self (and not
just the temporary experience of atman). Enlightenment liberates a
person from the ego, the separate sense of self. It is this realization that
is known in Vedanta and Buddhism as nirvana, or extinction of the self.
In place of the separate ego sense there remains the atman or Buddha-
nature.
The atman’s identity is essentially one with the impersonal Brah-
man. It is this realization that is at the heart of kevala advaita vedanta.
“Atman is Brahman, Brahman is atman,” in the words of the Upan-
ishads. The atman of one person is in essence the same as the atman of
all others. Its characteristic is oneness, an identity of individual con-
sciousness with Brahman. The metaphors of the river flowing into the
sea or the drop of water dissolving into the ocean illustrate this loss of
the lower individuality of ego in order to gain a higher identity with
Brahman.
The atman stands outside the evolution, unaffected by the passing
show of this ever-changing world. The realization of atman (or
Buddha-nature) is the final goal of spiritual practice in kevala advaita,
Buddhism and Taoism. Calm, unchanging spirit, the atman or Self is
the detached, observing witness of this earthly manifestation, ever
abiding in eternal peace and silence.
Integral Vedanta highlights not just the atman but the antaratman
or soul. While integral psychology holds both aspects of the central
being equally, initially there is greater emphasis upon the psychic
center, because the soul’s growth is the first order of business. Also,
because the atman realization or enlightenment is so rare, at best per-
haps one in several million, it is only an indirect influence on the lives
of most seekers. It contributes a sense of peace and spaciousness, but
until enlightenment occurs, it does not fundamentally alter the sub-
stance of the consciousness. The awakening of the true soul or psychic
center, however, is far more accessible to the ordinary person, and it can
 Integrality 25

become a palpable influence that fundamentally transforms our ordi-

nary consciousness.
The word “soul” is the cause of much confusion in English. His-
torically in Europe over the last several hundred years, soul meant the
self or ego, and even now it generally refers to our heart or to our heart
and mind together. Soul can mean the deeper parts of the personality
or even the capacity to feel intensely. Even when soul is used in its spir-
itual context of “the immortal soul” in Christianity, Islam, Hinduism,
or Judaism, it implies an unchanging, eternal substance rather than a
growing being, for traditional theistic religions have failed to under-
stand the evolutionary dimension of the soul. To clarify this confusion
of meanings, Sri Aurobindo coined the term “psychic being” or “psychic
center” to refer to this eternal core of the human psyche, for “psyche”
itself originally meant soul.
The psychic being or soul, antaratman, is described by the bhakti
schools of Vedanta, as well as by the Western traditions of Christianity,
Judaism, and Islam.2 In integral yoga, the psychic center is the evolu-
tionary element in human beings. Whereas our frontal self and organ-
ism are but temporary masks that we wear for this one brief lifetime,
our psychic center is our deepest psychological core and most authen-
tic self. As the psychic center slowly develops, its power to influence the
frontal self or ego increases, and it begins to turn the person inward,
toward the spiritual depths within.

It is an ever-pure flame of the divinity in things and nothing

that comes to it, nothing that enters into our experience can
pollute its purity or extinguish the flame. This spiritual stuff is
immaculate and luminous and, because it is perfectly luminous,
it is immediately, intimately, directly aware of truth of being and
truth of nature; it is deeply conscious of truth and good and
beauty because truth and good and beauty are akin to its own
native character, forms of something that is inherent in its own
substance. It is aware also of all that contradicts these things, of
all that deviates from its own native character, of falsehood and
evil and the ugly and the unseemly; but it does not become these
things nor is it touched or changed by these opposites of itself
which so powerfully affect its outer instrumentation of mind,
life and body. (Aurobindo, 1970, pp. 891–892)
26 Integral Psychology

The awakening of the psychic being brings an immensity of relief

from life’s stresses, a source of deep peace and inner joy that ever bub-
bles forth like an eternal spring, an intrinsic loving presence that nour-
ishes our inner life and the lives of those around us. It is the true pith
of the self, what makes our self uniquely ours.
Different schools of psychology have been tentatively groping
toward this inmost core but have not yet come upon it. Our deepest
identity is our psychic center. Our frontal self and organism are an
expression of this deeper source, and it must be placed at the very center
of any comprehensive vision of psychology. According to integral psy-
chology, as long as Western psychology fails to recognize the psychic
center, it will miss the defining essence of the human being. This would
be an ironic fate for a field whose entire purpose is to understand
human nature.

INTEGRAL PSYCHOLOGY
Eastern psychology studies the inner dimensions of consciousness that
are the foundation for the surface levels of the psyche (the frontal self )
that Western psychology studies. The inner dimensions of conscious-
ness can best be studied by the most sensitive instrument known to
psychology—human consciousness. As more and more people have
direct and personal experience with these inner realms of being, it
becomes more difficult for psychology to ignore this domain of human
experience.
The journey of plunging deep within to discover our true psychic
center is hard to manage without some kind of psychological orienta-
tion, for so many of the barriers to this inner opening are psychological
in nature. Without realizing it, depth psychology’s various schools have
charted the initial barriers to this inward deepening by bringing to light
the heart’s hurts and wounds, the unconscious defenses that compen-
sate for this wounding, and the loss of awareness that results. When the
schools of depth psychology are synthesized into an integral whole,
then the full power of Western psychology’s discoveries can be brought
to bear on the greater work of awakening our real center.
In integral psychotherapy, every level of the self is healed, inte-
grated, and allowed to unfold—physical, lower emotional, central emo-
tional, higher emotional, mental. But this is not all, for the authentic
 Integrality 27

self, no matter how fully actualized and fulfilled, still operates in the
darkness and obscurity of the superficial consciousness of this outward
life. It needs a greater light by which to live, and this means awakening
the psychic being (evolving soul) and bringing it forward. Integral
authenticity means raising each level of our organism—body, heart,
mind—to its highest level, guided and infused by the psychic center.
When all of these levels can be developed, our authentic nature
comes forth. And as Eastern psychology reminds us, our svabhava
(essential or authentic nature) can be a pathway to our inner, spiritual
depths. The different Eastern traditions have generally emphasized
only half of our core nature, either soul or atman (Buddha-nature), but
integral psychology brings together both. Our central being is both
personal and impersonal, becoming and being, dynamic and static.
All systems of depth psychology describe a frontal authentic self
that is who we most truly are. Even though there is a profound depth
dimension to this frontal self, Western psychology does not penetrate
to its most inward spiritual core. Rather, Western psychological systems
describe this authentic nature in entirely psychological terms—gestalt
therapy calls it the wisdom of organismic self-regulation, existential
therapies call it authenticity, self psychology uses the phrase nuclear
self, object relations uses true self, Jung calls it the Self—but they are all
pointing to a deeper, more authentic level of our being that is the key
to a fulfilling life.
When we ignore this authentic self, we drift far from our true path
and experience alienation, fragmentation, and psychological pain. On
the other hand, when we follow our authentic self, we are led along a
life path where relationships and career become ever more deeply sat-
isfying and life becomes more coherent and integrated. The problem is
that because of our childhood wounding we develop a false self that is
cut off from our deeper essence. We do not know our authentic self or
know only part of it. The many compromises we make in growing up
lead us away from authentic living. The farther away we are from our
authentic self, the more false our life becomes. Instead of coherence and
integration, we have fragmentation and disorder. Most of our difficul-
ties in life stem from this identification with our false self and inau-
thentic life.
While Western psychology studies the outer authentic self, Eastern
psychology studies the inner roots of our essential nature. Different sys-
tems describe different facets of this inner being —soul, antaratman,
28 Integral Psychology

chaitya purusha, spirit, atman, Buddha-nature. In integral psychology,

the psychic center or evolving soul is our most essential individuality.
The body-heart-mind is an expression of this deeper soul, an instru-
ment or a vehicle through which our soul manifests in the world. When
this psychic center is open, awake, guiding our way, life is a joyous spir-
itual adventure. When it is closed or covered over, life can be a night-
mare of pain, frustration, and perplexity. Finding our center is the key
to life’s fulfillment.
It is the evolving soul in us, the psychic center that puts forth a new
body-heart-mind each new lifetime and is behind the authentic self. As
our journey opens into these inner realms of being, we come upon an
inner source of peace, self-existent delight, radiant love, and tenderness
that is the very fount of wholeness we are seeking. With sincere aspira-
tion, our authentic, essential self can lead to this, for it has its origins in
and is a surface expression of this evolutionary center within. Our true
soul aspires always for “the good, the true, and the beautiful,” as Plato
so trenchantly put it, but only as this aspiration turns inward toward the
spiritual life does it find its real goal.
Although Eastern and Western psychology both point to a deeper,
authentic nature, they often travel in different, even opposite, directions
to find it. For example, each of these two traditions relates to desire very
differently. Western psychology charts the unfolding of desire as the
path to fulfillment. Eastern psychology, on the other hand, speaks of
the refinement and transcendence of desire as the path to fulfillment.
At first glance these seem to be mutually exclusive paths, but there is a
larger unity to which these different traditions are pointing, a hidden
harmony in which their seeming divergences converge and their con-
tradictions are reconciled.
In today’s world, with access to the riches of the world’s psycho-
logical traditions, an integral vision of psychology can at last be formu-
lated. Western psychology lacks an integrating framework and
meaningful context by which to understand its extraordinary discover-
ies. Eastern psychology lacks a way to overcome the dense uncon-
sciousness of the self ’s defensive structures, which pull ever downward.
Only by enlarging psychology to include the inmost depths can we
construct a true psychology of wholeness. This is the meeting of East
and West, a union of the West’s outer, empirical science of psychology
with the East’s inner, spiritual science of consciousness.
 Chapter 2

Our Psychic Center

The pure psychic being is of the essence of Ananda, it comes from the
delight-soul in the universe; but the superficial heart of emotion is over-
borne by the conflicting appearances of the world and suffers many reac-
tions of grief, fear, depression, passion, shortlived and partial joy.
—Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga

The finding of our true psychic center and the practical means for
unveiling it are perhaps the most significant contributions of integral
psychology to human welfare, for the discovery of our psychic center
profoundly changes the entire experience of living. Instead of the
stressful play of opposites that characterizes normal living—pleasure
and pain, frustration and satisfaction, hope and despair—there is a
steady light of inner guidance, a peaceful, loving presence that is ever
fresh, ever new, a joyous, self-existent bliss in the center of our being.
It is an extraordinary notion that the essence of our deepest iden-
tity is a self-existent joy, an immense peace, an unfaltering guidance and
discernment, an inexpressible sweetness, love, and light. This view runs
so counter to prevailing psychological thought as to be revolutionary.
Yet this is precisely what Eastern psychology has confirmed for thou-
sands of years. Integral psychology reorients psychology from its exclu-
sive preoccupation with the frontal self and organism to include the
deeper, guiding psychic center within.

29
30 Integral Psychology

THE CENTRAL BEING

As discussed earlier, our fundamental identity is spiritual, and this cen-
tral spiritual identity consists of two aspects, called by various names:
spirit, atman, Self, Buddha-nature, on the one hand, and soul, psychic
center, psychic being, antaratman, chaitya purusha, on the other. The
Self or atman is our eternal, unevolving oneness with Brahman, the
Divine. It stands outside the evolution—silent, detached, impartial, and
unaffected by life. The soul or psychic center, however, participates in
the evolution and itself undergoes a dynamic development. It is both
immortal and growing in the evolution, developing new powers and
capacities in each lifetime, actualizing new potentials in its journey
toward maturity.

The ancient, effulgent being, the indwelling spirit, subtle,

deep-hidden in the lotus of the Heart, is hard to know. But the
wise person following the path of meditation, knows him and
is freed alike from pleasures and pain. (Katha Upanishad, pp.
17–18)

The Upanishads are generally regarded as the high point of Vedan-

tic philosophy, and in the Upanishads it is the chaitya purusha, located
in the secret cave in the heart, that corresponds to the psychic center.

According to the ancient teaching the seat of the immanent

Divine, the hidden Purusha, is in the mystic heart—the secret
heart-cave, hrdaye guhâyâm, as the Upanishads put it—and,
according to the experience of many Yogins, it is from its
depths that there comes the voice or the breath of the inner
oracle. (Aurobindo, 1973b, p. 149)

It must be remembered that the psychic center is not located in the

physical heart or in the heart chakra, though it is often confused with
this heart center. It is located behind the heart chakra, deep within on
an inner plane. The many images of the Christ pointing to his own
open heart confirm Christ as the great Western teacher of this inmost
soul within the heart, for the opening of the heart chakra is a precon-
dition for the full emergence of the psychic center.
 Our Psychic Center 31

The psychic being in the old systems was spoken of as the

Purusha in the heart (the secret heart—hrdaye guhayam) which
corresponds very well to what we define as the psychic being
behind the heart centre. It was also this that went out from the
body at death and persisted—which again corresponds to our
teaching that it is this which goes out and returns, linking a
new life to former life. Also we say that the psychic is the divine
portion within us—so too the Purusha in the heart is described
as Ishwara [Personal Divine] of the individual nature.
(Aurobindo, 1971a, p. 289)

All theistic traditions focus on the centrality of the soul—Chris-

tianity, Judaism, Islam, bhakti schools of Vedanta. All theistic traditions
view our inmost identity as an immortal soul. What integral yoga adds
to these descriptions is the evolutionary aspect of the soul. Sri
Aurobindo’s writing is unparalleled in its rich phenomenological
descriptions of the actual experience of the soul or psychic center. The
significance of the soul as our evolutionary guide could not have been
appreciated by the earlier theistic traditions, because the evolutionary
nature of the cosmos was not yet emphasized. The significance of the
psychic center as the evolutionary principle within us becomes clear
only as the evolution of consciousness is seen as the great theme of
world existence. However, even as far back as the Vedas there was an
awareness of the soul’s upward movement and of the importance of the
soul’s guidance in this process.
The evolutionary nature of the soul can be confusing, for it is both
an eternal and indestructible portion of the Divine and simultaneously
a growing, developing center of consciousness. It is initially a seed of
potential that contains all Divine possibilities within it. Its growth is a
process of unfolding these latent powers. The psychic center is spirit in
manifestation, ever alive, ever whole, ever pure, yet also progressing as
it evolves new abilities out of itself. We are accustomed to think that
eternal = static or pure being, but this applies only to the atman, the
immobile, nonevolving portion of our spiritual nature. Eternal also can
be in the mode of becoming, and it is this becoming that completes our
spiritual identity and fulfills the evolutionary movement of the Divine
creation. We are both an eternal being and becoming, at one level a static,
silent witness that supports all impartially while simultaneously, on
32 Integral Psychology

aother level, an evolving becoming, a divine participant on the world

stage growing toward fullness.

It is necessary to understand clearly the difference between the

evolving soul (psychic being) and the pure Atman, self or spirit.
The pure self is unborn, does not pass through death or birth,
is independent of birth or body, mind or life or this manifested
Nature. It is not bound by these things, not limited, not
affected, even though it assumes and supports them. The soul,
on the contrary, is something that comes down into birth and
passes through death—although it itself does not die, for it is
immortal—from one state to another, from the earth plane to
other planes and back again to the earth-existence. It goes on
with this progression from life to life through an evolution
which leads it up to the human state and evolves through it all
a being of itself which we call the psychic being that supports
the evolution and develops a physical, a vital, a mental human
consciousness as its instruments of world-experience and of a
disguised, imperfect, but growing self-expression. All this it
does from behind a veil showing something of its divine self
only insofar as the imperfection of the instrumental being will
allow it. But a time comes when it is able to prepare to come
out from behind the veil, to take command and turn all the
instrumental nature towards a divine fulfillment. This is the
beginning of the true spiritual life. The soul is now able to
make itself ready for a higher evolution of manifested con-
sciousness than the mental human—it can pass from the
mental to the spiritual and through degrees of the spiritual to
the supramental state. Till then there is no reason why it should
cease from birth, it cannot in fact do so. If having reached the
spiritual state, it wills to pass out of the terrestrial manifesta-
tion, it may indeed do so—but there is also possible a higher
manifestation, in the Knowledge and not in the Ignorance.
(Aurobindo, 1971a, pp. 438–439)

In the spiritual history of humanity it appears that full enlighten-

ment, or the permanent realization of atman or Buddha-nature, is
exceedingly rare. There are probably no more than a handful of fully
 Our Psychic Center 33

enlightened beings on earth at a given time. However, consciousness

of the psychic center is a far more available and common experience,
and its realization leads not away from the earth plane but to an active
involvement with earth’s ongoing evolution. As the aforementioned
quote implies, the psychic emergence is the flowering of the evolu-
tionary journey and the beginning of another step in humanity’s evo-
lutionary progress. Such a transformation requires a continuity in
identity, and this means the realization of the soul, our true spiritual
individuality.
Integral yoga psychology begins with the assumption that this uni-
verse does have a purpose, so that simply to nullify existence through
nirvanic extinction cannot be the entire meaning of life. In seeing our
life’s journey as an evolution of consciousness, discovering our psychic
center assumes the highest importance, since it is through our true
identity that we can more consciously and creatively participate in the
miracle of this living universe. The increasing influence of the psychic
center is not only accessible to ordinary people, it also is the path of ful-
fillment in daily living, for it holds the key to finding our way amidst
the confusion of the world around us.

THE NATURE AND GROWTH

OF OUR PSYCHIC CENTER

The experience of the psychic center is of a self-existent bliss, an

intense inner happiness. A very palpable sense of joy is usually the first
thing that greets us as the psychic center awakens. This strong joy is in
no way dependent upon outer circumstances. It is intrinsic to the psy-
chic being. Its essential nature is ever possessed of an exquisite, inde-
scribable contentment and utter fulfillment.
This is a fulfillment that is unlike any other, for it is a fulfillment
that does not simply bask in itself or remain static. This is a dynamic
fulfillment that is energizing, inspiring, and seeks creative expression
and further divine fulfillment. The experience of this inherent joy far
surpasses the fleeting, surface satisfactions of regular life. Although
people seek satisfaction through people and things, religious traditions
suggest that it is this inner, spiritual wholeness that is being sought
through these outer pursuits. A single taste of this psychic happiness
34 Integral Psychology

can be enough to change the direction of a person’s life, for it opens us

to possibilities undreamed of before. For many people it is just such an
experience that marks the beginning of the spiritual journey.
Along with this unparalleled contentment comes an inner quietude
and a deep peace, in the biblical phrase, “the peace that passeth all
understanding.” This peace comes from deep within, and when it
extends to the surface it brings a tranquility and calm to the mind and
heart. This sense of peace brings an overpowering relief from the stress
and anxiety that so pervade everyday life. It brings a comfort and solace
that relieve our cares and burdens.
Spiritual traditions also concur that to experience soul is to experi-
ence a vastness of love and compassion that makes the ordinary experi-
ence of these feelings pale in comparison. Jesus Christ is the best
known exemplar in the West of the realization of the soul and the pos-
sibilities that can manifest with the psychic transformation. Christ
emphasized the power of love in the experience of the soul, and it is no
accident that all theistic traditions have a strong orientation toward the
heart, along with practices of love and devotion. In experiencing the
vastness of spiritual love, we see what a diminished figure love assumes
in everyday life, even as it originates from this deeper, purer immensity.
The psychic center feels a loving kinship with all other beings and the
whole of creation. And most of all, the psychic center feels a loving rela-
tionship with the Divine, for it brings an awareness of the Presence of
the Divine. As a portion of the Divine, it aspires for full union. As the
experience of the psychic center grows, the awareness of the Divine
grows stronger and more clear and definite.
The psychic center moves always toward harmony, truth, beauty,
goodness, and tenderness. Its intrinsic nature is spiritual, and to these
higher spiritual values it is irresistibly attracted. But at first its voice is
overshadowed by the clamor of the body, heart, and mind.
Every living being has a spark of the Divine within. This spark soul
is present in every bacteria and unicellular organism. The atman at this
beginning evolutionary stage is identical to the atman at all other evo-
lutionary stages, but the psychic center, though its potential is fully
present, has yet to be unfolded and actualized. In plants this psychic
presence becomes stronger and more developed, but it remains a spark.
In animals this psychic presence becomes stronger and better defined,
as anyone sensitive to animals can feel. There is a beginning of mind in
animals and therefore a greater means of expression than in plants, but
 Our Psychic Center 35

in animals this mentality is still barely developed and is imprisoned by

the senses.
Psychic development reaches a new stage in human beings. Here
the spark has become a flame. A definite psychic center has been
formed, though it is still far from maturity. In the first stages of human
evolution, this psychic center continues to focus on building up the
body, heart, and mind and has little influence on the life of the person.
Developing the frontal, instrumental nature is its first task, as the out-
wardness and density of the surface instruments obscure the soul’s inner
intimations. During these first stages of the human level, the person is
almost completely lost in the outer world, seeking only to satisfy phys-
ical, emotional, and mental desires. The surface instruments run the
whole show.
As the psychic center progresses it works to refine and purify this
frontal nature so that body, heart, and mind will be responsive to this
light and take their true place as instruments that express the inner
soul. The guidance of the psychic center is a direct form of spiritual
knowing, for the psychic has within it a discernment that is not misled
by outer appearances but can see beyond to the deeper truth that sur-
face appearances often hide.1 In our life journey, our psychic center is
our true guide.
As the psychic center matures and grows stronger, it exerts an
increasing influence upon the frontal nature, and the person begins to
turn inward, to experience a greater depth in living rather than being
confined to the superficial life of the surface. Our psychic center draws
us toward higher, more noble things in life. It is what attracts us to gen-
uine love, to truth, to beauty, to peace, to bliss, to people whose hearts
are open and whom we feel nourished by, to real tenderness, to shining
joy and exuberance, to honest, truthful people, to those who strive for a
higher way of life, to authenticity, to health, to wholeness. Sometimes,
especially when the psychic center is less developed, we are attracted to
an image of these things and get lost in the outer appearances, such as
sentimental piety, proclamations of love but not its inner feeling, rau-
cous energy, blind passion, moralistic rules, or even repressive Puri-
tanism. But such mistakes are necessary in the soul’s growth, for by trial
and error we learn the difference between surface appearances, desires,
and our deeper psychic guidance.
Through this the psychic center becomes stronger, more insistent,
more able to influence the frontal self. It acts to edify and cleanse our
36 Integral Psychology

frontal nature so that we can choose more freely and clearly, less
enslaved by the insistence of our impulses and emotional nature. As the
psychic center awakens, it brings a guidance, a light, a new and deeper
perspective that changes the orientation of the person and leads him or
her inward.

There are always two different consciousnesses in the human

being, one outward in which he ordinarily lives, the other
inward and concealed of which he knows nothing. When one
does sadhana, the inner consciousness begins to open and one
is able to go inside and have all kinds of experiences there. As
the sadhana progresses, one begins to live more and more in
this inner being and the outer becomes more and more super-
ficial. At first the inner consciousness seems to be the dream
and the outer the waking reality. Afterwards the inner con-
sciousness becomes the reality and the outer is felt by many as
a dream or delusion, or else as something superficial and exter-
nal. The inner consciousness begins to be a place of deep peace,
light, happiness, love, closeness to the Divine or the presence of
the Divine, the Mother. One is then aware of two conscious-
nesses, the inner one and the outer which has to be changed
into its counterpart and instrument. (Aurobindo, 1971a, p.
307)

At first these are two seemingly unrelated worlds—the inner spir-

itual world and the outer world of regular life. Though the inner light
seems faint at first, gradually it becomes brighter. Over time, this light
shines farther outward and begins to illumine our way in the outer
world, even as it is still easily overshadowed by our mental patterns and
emotional preferences and habits. Indeed, as we shall see, it is our
wounding, our unconscious defenses, and our emotional reactivity that
are the greatest barriers to the psychic light. To fully liberate this light
is a goal of integral psychology.
This process of psychic emergence, of living in two parallel worlds
or consciousnesses, is difficult to navigate at times. It is easy to doubt
or dismiss what is occurring when the inner world is just starting to
open, because it is so easily overcome by the momentum of the frontal
self. For a long time, these two worlds may seem very distinct and sep-
arate, like oil and water. But through sustained practice and aspiration,
 Our Psychic Center 37

the psychic light grows stronger. Progressively, it becomes a guiding

force in daily life, not separate from but part of outer living. Finally, as
the psychic influence pervades the body, heart, and mind and trans-
forms these surface instruments, at last the psychic center comes to the
front of the consciousness and takes direct charge of the organism,
opening the person fully to the spiritual realm.

As the crust of the outer nature cracks, as the walls of inner

separation break down, the inner light gets through, the inner
fire burns in the heart, the substance of the nature and the stuff
of consciousness refine to a greater subtlety and purity, and the
deeper psychic experiences, those which are not solely of an
inner mental or inner vital character, become possible in this
subtler, purer, finer substance; the soul begins to unveil itself,
the psychic personality reaches its full stature. The soul, the
psychic entity, then manifests itself as the central being which
upholds mind and life and body and supports all the other
powers and functions of the Spirit; it takes up its greater func-
tion as the guide and ruler of the nature. A guidance, a gover-
nance begins from within which exposes every movement to
the light of Truth, repels what is false, obscure, opposed to the
divine realization: every region of the being, every nook and
corner of it . . . is lighted up with the unerring psychic light,
their confusions dissipated, their tangles disentangled, their
self-deceptions precisely indicated and removed; all is purified,
set right, the whole nature harmonized, modulated in the psy-
chic key, put in spiritual order. This process may be rapid or
tardy according to the amount of obscurity and resistance still
left in the nature, but it goes on unfalteringly so long as it is not
complete.
This is the first result, but the second is a free inflow of all
kinds of spiritual experience, experience of the Self, experience
of the Ishwara and the Divine Shakti, experience of cosmic
consciousness, a direct touch with cosmic forces and with the
occult movements of universal Nature, a psychic sympathy and
unity and inner communication and interchanges of all kinds
with other beings and with Nature, illuminations of the mind
by knowledge, illuminations of the heart by love and devotion
and spiritual joy and ecstasy, illuminations of the sense and the
38 Integral Psychology

body by higher experience, illuminations of dynamic action in

the truth and largeness of a purified mind and heart and soul,
the certitudes of the divine light and guidance, the joy and
power of the divine force working in the will and the conduct.
These experiences are the result of an opening outward of the
inner and inmost being and nature; for then there comes into
play the soul’s power of unerring inherent consciousness, its
vision, its touch on things which is superior to any mental cog-
nition; there is there, native to the psychic consciousness in its
pure working, an immediate sense of the world and its beings,
a direct inner contact with them and a direct contact with the
Self and with the Divine—a direct knowledge, a direct sight of
Truth and of all truths, a direct penetrating spiritual emotion
and feeling, a direct intuition of right will and right action, a
power to rule and to create an order of the being not by the
gropings of the superficial self, but from within, from the inner
truth of self and things. (Aurobindo, 1970, pp. 907–908)

The psychic transformation occurs by degrees. First there is an

opening to our psychic center, an experience that profoundly reorients
our life and direction. Difficulties, pain, trials, and suffering still come
as they do to everyone, but there is a center of bliss inside that no outer
event can touch. Mistakes are still made, since we cannot listen per-
fectly to the deeper guidance, and the surface self ’s habitual reactions
have a strong forward thrust. But slowly, as the psychic center awakens,
it becomes a guiding force in our lives. This inner guidance also pro-
tects us from the dangers of the inner journey, for in integral yoga psy-
chology the psychic center brings discernment (viveka) and is the only
part of the being that cannot be touched by the tempting powers of the
intermediate zone. As this proceeds our life harmonizes with our inner
being, so that all parts of our existence become increasingly aligned
with our deeper psychic center—our work, our play, our relationships,
our diet, our exercise, our entertainment, the books we read, the influ-
ences and experiences to which we are open. In this process the ego
becomes more and more transparent, purified, receptive to the psychic’s
direction. The frontal self undergoes a psychic transformation that
thoroughly alters its makeup.
In Western psychology, however, our psychic center is viewed from
the perspective of our ordinary, frontal self. To more clearly understand
 Our Psychic Center 39

the psychic center or true soul, it is necessary to consider what it is con-

fused with by Western psychology and hides it—the ego, the self.

WESTERN UNDERSTANDINGS
OF OUR PSYCHIC CENTER

We all experience life from the perspective of a subjective self, an ego,

the sense of “I.” It is a fact of our daily life. What is the essence of this
“I”-ness? It lies in this: the feeling of identity, of being a person, a sub-
jectivity. It is not only a sense of presence or being or existence but of
being a presence, a being, an existence, the experience and feeling of,
“I am, I exist.” From where does this fundamental source of selfhood
come? What exactly is this self we so take for granted? Why do we
have a self or, rather, why are we a self? Further, amidst all this con-
tinual flux and flow, why is it that we experience our self as being con-
tinuous and stable? Is this merely an illusion? Or is there a deeper
reality to our psyche that radiates out to our surface experience? Is
what we take to be our self actually our real identity? What lies at the
core of our being?
What Western psychology has studied in great detail is the self,
the ego. In conventional psychology, the ego is generally regarded as
the center of psychological life. Psychoanalytic theory even goes so far
as to define the ego as “the seat of consciousness.” Further, it delineates
numerous characteristics and functions of the ego, such as reality test-
ing, memory, the control of motility and impulse control, orientation
in space, and it is the center of perception. It integrates the demands
of external reality with inner psychological life, resulting in the devel-
opment of the unconscious, for the ego controls the unconscious
defense mechanisms that keep unacceptable feelings and parts of the
self out of awareness.
Yet despite how much psychology has learned about the self, there
remain fundamental questions that cannot be resolved within the par-
adigm of conventional psychology, for Western psychology, like all of
science, starts from the surface appearance of things and tries to under-
stand the deeper structure from without. But this method has definite
limits in the field of psychology. Traditional psychology has been
unable to plumb the inner depths of the psyche, because its methodol-
ogy of empirical observation can only go as far as the physical mind can
40 Integral Psychology

go. It is unable to see beyond into our deeper being. The self, for all that
psychology has learned about it, remains a mystery.

CURRENT VIEWS OF THE SELF

Beginning with Freud’s investigations into “das Ich” (the “I”), the self
has been the central focus of inquiry for the field of psychology. James
Strachey, the original German translator of Freud, tried to impress
upon his English-speaking audience the scientific nature of Freud’s
work and so translated “das Ich” into the Latin term ego. Although
Freud used ego in two different ways, as self and as mental apparatus,
usage in most psychoanalytic circles today has developed to where ego
and self are used interchangeably.
The most sophisticated understanding of the self comes from the
current object relations and self psychology schools of psychoanalysis,
which have made a detailed study of the origins and structure of the self
(Fairbairn, 1954; Guntrip, 1969; Jacobson, 1964; Kernberg, 1975, 1980;
Klein, 1975a, 1975b; Winnicott, 1958, 1965, 1971; Kohut, 1971, 1977,
1984). Object relations theory describes the self as a growing compos-
ite of images that begins to take shape from the moment of birth. From
its earliest experiences, the infant begins to take raw bits of undifferen-
tiated experience and organizes these into emotionally charged images
of self and other (or “objects”). The first distinction is between inside
and outside, me and not me (Klein, 1975b). Then the various images,
good and bad, helpful and hurtful, consolidate to form stable images of
self and others. Based on our earliest relationships, especially with our
mother and father, we internalize images of ourselves and others, slowly
building up internal representations of the self and other. The infant’s
capacity for perception and memory and for establishing representa-
tions of itself and others is furthered by the development of symbolic
and abstract thinking. We construct an internal world with an inte-
grated sense of self and an integrated sense of others, a “representational
world,” a kind of virtual reality that becomes for us our experience of
ourselves and the world. It organizes an otherwise chaotic internal and
external experience.
This process continues through our entire life cycle. We continu-
ally add to and take away from this self system as our life unfolds, just
as we continually modify our image system of the world. However,
 Our Psychic Center 41

although the self and object world are under continual construction and
modification, the more superficial layers of this image usually undergo
change, as much of our enduring sense of self is established by age six
or seven. The self is powerfully molded by our earliest experiences in
our family of origin and lays down the foundational images of self and
other in these early years. The emotional wounding we all experience in
childhood is instrumental in forming this early representational world. One
aftermath of this early wounding is the development of the unconscious
where forbidden feelings and impulses are relegated, a defensive system
for keeping portions of the self off-limits, and the arrest of major devel-
opmental lines of the self, which results in deficits in the structure of
the self.
When certain developmental needs are unmet or traumatized, in
effect this freezes the developmental process in significant areas of the
self. And as behaviorism has shown, the first time we are exposed to a
new situation, especially a situation that has a high degree of arousal
and emotional intensity, this learning has a particular power for form-
ing long-lasting impressions. This is known as “the primacy effect” and
forms a kind of template or lens that shapes how we view similar expe-
riences in the future. The self adapts to the conditions of the original
family system so that it can best maintain its vital ties with mother,
father, and other caregivers. The primacy effect of childhood experi-
ences in our family creates a profound and lasting imprint upon our
psychic structure and self-image. Neurologically, these early experi-
ences create neural networks that are strengthened over time and tend
to override alternative pathways, becoming fixed grooves that reinforce
these same neural circuits and allow new pathways to develop only
under special conditions.
These imprints and neural pathways, in fact, are so strong that they
are modified only under certain conditions, conditions rarely found
outside of the special situation of intensive psychotherapy. They cannot
be deeply modified merely by cognitive techniques, for this only affects
the surface self and leaves the more deeply held structures of the self
untouched. Real fundamental change to the self structure needs to be a
deeply emotional experience, just as the original conditioning occurred
in a deeply charged atmosphere of intense affects. Only a concentrated,
contained environment such as is found in depth psychotherapy can
replicate the original conditions in order to remobilize the derailed
developmental needs so that deep and lasting change can occur.
42 Integral Psychology

This view of the self is very appealing and has a good deal of
explanatory value. It explains why people behave emotionally and relate
to others, particularly their most intimate relationships, along the lines
of childhood patterns, even though they may function well in a given
role or professional career. It explains why people get into marriages
and friendships that tend to repeat ongoing dysfunctional patterns. It
explains a great deal of neurosis and human unhappiness, and it even
shows ways to heal and restore development.
However, there are other things it does not explain.

• It does not explain why we experience ourselves as a self, a

person, for in this view the self is a kind of empty shell or
holographic image with nothing within it. The self becomes a
new version of the “ghost in the machine.” It explains the
self-image but not the self.
• It does not explain why the self is experienced as a stable con-
tinuity.
• It does not explain the higher motivations of the self or its
spiritual aspirations.

To deal with some of these problems many people have turned to

Buddhism for an explanation, for object relations theory fits in nicely
with the Eastern psychological views of Buddhism that see the self as a
series of self-images that is fundamentally empty. Buddhist psychology
has performed an even more microscopic examination of the self than
object relations and has emerged with a more thorough deconstruction
of the self. Buddhist texts report that when the self becomes the object
of meditative inquiry, in looking closely at the images of the self it is
discovered that there are spaces between these images. There actually is
nothing to hold these images together. In meditatively penetrating the
spaces between the images, it is found that there is no self, and empti-
ness is seen to be fundamental. It is this deeply experienced insight that
liberates the person and leads to enlightenment.
The continuity of the self is explained as a kind of optical illusion,
similar to watching movement in a movie. Although in watching a
movie we see continuous movement, in reality we are looking at a series
of rapidly flickering still photos that we interpret as continuous motion.
The illusion of the continuity of the self is based upon a similar mis-
 Our Psychic Center 43

perception. Thus Buddhist and object relations views of the self as an

image converge, and the conclusion that the self is an illusion can seem
convincing. Further, the Buddhists argue (along with the kevala advaita
Vedantins) that if the self is not an illusion, then how can it drop away
in enlightenment and never return, as the spiritual literature clearly
documents? If the ego really is real, then how can it disappear? It dis-
appears because it never was real to begin with, goes the argument.
However, there are several problems with this position. First, the
explanation of the self as only an image or a composite of images is
incomplete. Why should a self-image give rise to the feeling of being a
being or “I”-ness? Why does the self-image not remain an empty series
of images, for images lead only to more images, not to a palpable sense
of inner being or personhood. From self-image to self is a gigantic leap
that object relations and Buddhist descriptions fall short of explaining.
Indeed, from Buddhism we get the statement that the self is empty,
devoid of a true being or soul. But from where does our feeling of iden-
tity come? Why do we sense ourselves as a being, as a person?
This description of self as self-image explains neither the intrinsic
sense of selfhood nor the continuity of the self. The metaphor of the
movie projector to clarify the continuity of the self rests on static
images of the self with gaps between these static images. But are there
any such static images at all? Upon closer inspection we find that these
apparently static images are not at all static but are put together
moment to moment. The self-image is really a self-imaging process that
is being constructed in each moment. There are no static images any-
where, not in the actual imaging process itself or in the spaces between.
There is only movement and flow.
So from where does the sense of continuity come, for from discon-
tinuity and flux we get only further discontinuity and flux, not conti-
nuity and stability. To dismiss continuity as only an illusion is to explain
away the problem rather than provide genuine understanding. The
ego’s sense of identity and feeling of selfhood cannot be understood at
the level of the self-image. The self-image is a surface reflection of a
deeper reality, and attempting to analyze this is like attempting to dis-
sect a mirage or holographic image. Of course, it appears empty and
without inherent substance, just as Buddhist texts insist. But this is only
its husk or outer form, not its central reality or inner essence. An analy-
sis that restricts itself to the self ’s frontal appearance, no matter how
44 Integral Psychology

thorough and microscopic this analysis may be, will fall short of a com-
prehensive understanding. It is only by reference to something beyond
the self that the self can be understood more fully.

SVABHAVA
From an integral perspective, both the sense of self and the sense of
continuity emanate from our psychic center, our true soul. Without ref-
erence to this eternal soul the experience of selfhood cannot be under-
stood. Object relations and Buddhism are committed to worldviews
that exclude the soul and are therefore unable to grasp central aspects
of the experience of self. Here we find that psychoanalytic self psychol-
ogy provides some help.
Self psychology accepts the reality of the self more fully than object
relations or intersubjective approaches that see only self-other images.
Kohut defines the self as “an independent center of initiative that is
continuous in time and space” (Kohut, 1971). While contemporary
trends in self psychology focus more on self experience than on meta-
psychological theory, traditional self psychology fleshes out three lines
of development as being especially important. There is a line of expan-
sive ambitions, an area of skills and talents, and a line of ideals and ide-
alization (Kohut, 1971, 1977, 1984.) This recasts the psychological
content of Freud’s tripartite id-ego-superego while discarding the
clumsy mental apparatus model of the mind that became so theoreti-
cally problematic for conventional psychoanalysis (and both Freud’s
and Kohut’s models can be seen as a way of describing the lower emo-
tional, central emotional, and higher emotional levels of the heart). But
from where does this “center of initiative” come?
Self psychology reaches to what Kohut called the “nuclear self,” a
seed of potential from which the self emerges. Unfortunately, this con-
cept is limited by Kohut’s tether to his roots in classical psychoanalysis
in its attribution of the origins of this seed to the earliest relationship
with the mother and father. The “nuclear self ” contains the “nuclear
program” for the self, the capacities and direction for life that require
sustaining, supporting human relationships in order to unfold through-
out the life cycle. Self psychology is not alone in looking beyond the self
for the source of the self. Most depth systems use some version of this
explanation. In gestalt therapy, the self emerges from the organism, and
 Our Psychic Center 45

as Perls (1969) said, “The ego knows very little, the organism knows
everything.” Existential therapy speaks of the “authentic self ” that
emerges from the ground of being. Jungian psychology refers to the
archetype of the Self as the organizing principle for the ego. All of these
are powerful speculations that seem to point to something similar,
namely, a source beyond the ego of identity and potential, some greater
ground of wisdom from which the self emerges.
These theories begin to touch upon the outer half of a more pre-
cise Vedantic conception of svabhava, defined earlier as intrinsic nature,
essential self, or natural constitution. Vedantic psychology holds that
our true psychic center is the soul, called the chaitya purusha or antarat-
man in the Upanishads, and is the real spiritual person within, our
evolving soul. Each unique “soul is a force of self-consciousness that
formulates an idea of the Divine in it and guides by that its action and
evolution, its progressive self-finding, its constantly varying self-expres-
sion. . . . That is our Svabhava, our own real nature” (Aurobindo, 1973b,
p. 502).
In this material world, however, the psychic center expresses itself
by putting forward a unique body-heart-mind complex that, in the
early stages of evolution, is barely or poorly attuned to its deeper nature.

There too it acts, but is not in full possession of itself, is seek-

ing as it were for its own true law in a half-light or a darkness
and goes on its way through many lower forms, many false
forms, endless imperfections, perversions, self-losings, self-
findings, seekings after norm and rule before it arrives at self-
discovery. . . . It is always Svabhava that is looking for
self-expression and self-finding through all these things, a
truth which should teach us universal charity and equality of
vision, since we are all subject to the same perplexity and strug-
gle. These motions belong, not to the soul, but to the nature.
(Aurobindo, 1972a, p. 503)

Western psychology has made an extensive study of this frontal

organism and self, and this frontal self is seen to emerge from a deeper
“nuclear self ” (or organism or authentic nature). This idea is remarkably
similar to the svabhava or essential self that integral Vedanta describes.
In integral psychology, the origins of the self lie not with the parents,
as traditional psychoanalysis suggests, but rather in the essential self
46 Integral Psychology

with which we are born. As any discerning parent can see, each new
child comes into this world with a highly differentiated, unique essence
that goes far beyond what each parent contributes genetically or his-
torically, even though this essential nature is profoundly shaped by early
experience. In integral psychology, neither the ego nor the authentic
self can be adequately comprehended without reference to the psychic
center.
It is from our psychic center that our sense of self ultimately
derives. The psychic center manifests this instrumental nature and
infuses our organismic existence with its sense of identity, and the var-
ious self-images and identifications form its outward skeletal structure.
The psychic center fills in this skeletal structure of the self-image to
provide the feeling of being a person, a being. It is because of the deeper
soul that we have the phenomenological experience of being an exis-
tence, a presence, instead of being an empty succession of images with
no person within. Integral psychology suggests that the self‘s sense of
stability and continuity is present because it reflects a deeper spiritual
fact of our existence, the eternity of our soul. Continuity and stability
are facts of our deepest, most essential being and reflected on our sur-
face experience, animate, and fill out the self-image to produce the feel-
ing of stable, continuous selfhood.
Conventional psychology looks to the body, heart, and mind to
explain our sense of selfhood and aliveness, but this fundamental sense
of being transcends and is not reducible to physical sensations, emo-
tions, or mental images. It resides deeper in our spiritual center. Our
uniqueness and most essential identity is our soul, our true individual-
ity, and all theories of the self that omit this will be lacking. A more
comprehensive psychology is necessary, one that is not afraid of all
things spiritual lest it appear unscientific, for if spirit is the fundamen-
tal nature of reality, then both reason and science demand that we
pursue this wherever it may lead us.
If, as the highest wisdom of Eastern (and Western) cultures has
affirmed for millennia, our psychic center is an eternal spiritual being,
if our frontal organism is only a temporary vesture worn by our deeper
soul for this brief lifetime and not our basic identity, then this radically
changes our conception of who we are. The mystery of the psyche
cannot be uncovered through outer means or through an introspection
that fails to penetrate past the frontal self. Understanding of the self
 Our Psychic Center 47

and psyche must come through a deepening inner vision of which only
the spiritual traditions have been capable so far, an inner sight that
extends all the way to our psychic center.

TOWARD AN INTEGRAL VIEW OF THE SELF

Integral psychology sees the self as the centralizing function of the
frontal consciousness. As the soul puts forth a body-heart-mind organ-
ism in each new human incarnation, it needs a way to organize the
organism’s experience into an integrated whole. There must be some
central guidance process and command center, a way to integrate the
body’s perceptions and actions (the physical system), the heart’s
impulses and feelings (affective system), and the mind’s thoughts and
perceptions (cognitive system). All of these various data streams need
to be synthesized into a coherent whole, otherwise we would never be
able to get out of bed, let alone wash, get dressed, eat, work, interact,
and function on many different levels throughout the day.
For the organism to survive and adapt it must centralize control,
otherwise the body will pull in one direction, the heart in other direc-
tions, the mind in still others. The self acts both as a command center
and as a guiding, orienting process, a center for coordination and syn-
thesis of our internal needs and desires with our external perceptions
and actions. The self coordinates the information flow from the three
sheaths (koshas) of the body, heart, and mind. It not only processes
information, it evaluates information and determines what action to
take and so serves as the crucial executive function. The self is a devel-
opmental necessity, not just an accident or an illusion or the result of
wounding. It centralizes consciousness on the surface.
Behind the self lies a deeper psychic center that gives the sense of
identity or selfhood to the ego. The psychic center maintains contact
with its surface instruments through the self. For the first stages of
human evolution, this contact is minimal. The psychic center is young
and less individualized, not strong or developed enough to exert sig-
nificant control over the self and the frontal being. The self is almost
completely run by its physical, emotional, and mental nature. As the
psychic center develops further, however, it increases its influence and
guides the self toward deeper values—truth, love, beauty, goodness,
48 Integral Psychology

spirituality. However, this contact is on an inner plane and beyond the

view of ordinary consciousness, hidden behind a veil, as Eastern psy-
chology puts it.
The gradual growth of the psychic center and its purifying and
refining effect upon the self proceeds without conscious awareness for
a long period of time. As the refinement of the self proceeds, there is a
greater inner and spiritual orientation, a magnetic attraction to the
deeper sources of psychic life, as the inner dimensions of being start to
open. The self becomes more translucent, more responsive to the
promptings of the spiritual essence within. First the mind and the
higher emotional parts turn toward a deeper life within and toward
spirituality, but the frontal instruments are still accustomed to act on
their own.
At some point the experience of the psychic center becomes con-
scious, and a new dimension of existence opens up. The psychic center
is like a new organ of consciousness. It opens up a new dimension of
awareness. At first this new perception is faint and unclear, though with
time it gets stronger and more definite. At a later stage, the ego itself
disappears, as the psychic center realizes its oneness with atman and
comes forward to assume the executive functions of the instrumental
being.2
Alain Grandcolas has researched the emergence of the psychic
center or evolving soul in a number of individuals (Grandcolas, 2004.)
There seem to be common elements in the experience of the psychic
“bursting forth” from its egoic shell. These include the experience trig-
gering “a sudden great joy without external cause,” accompanied by “a
strong feeling of love,” and an awareness that “the individual harbours
something immortal” within. Once the psychic “bursting forth” has
occurred, it seems to remain a permanent part of consciousness in most
individuals. Although Grandcolas discovered numerous individuals
who have undergone the psychic “bursting forth,” which may be
likened to a hole being broken open in the shell of ego consciousness,
he did not find anyone in his survey who experienced the full “coming
to the front” of the psychic (which the Mother called a “reversal of con-
sciousness”). The process of the soul coming to the front can be expe-
rienced as a gradual enlargement of the hole in the shell by which the
psychic center’s influence on the surface self becomes greater and
greater. This enlargement of the hole indicates the process of psychic
transformation (or psychicization).
 Our Psychic Center 49

At present, most human beings are identified with their frontal

being. It is in this atmosphere that Western psychology has grown up—
a nearly complete identification of the self with the instrumental
nature. Though our identification with our frontal self and organism is
almost total, most everyone has had some glimpses of the greater pos-
sibilities of our inner being. Freeing ourselves from this preoccupation
with our frontal nature and finding our true identity are the key goals
in integral psychology. It is not that our frontal self is not real, it is just
superficial, the outermost covering of who we are.
Western psychology helps identify and engage with our self. It
maps the self ’s powers and realms. It has captured the skeletal outlines
of the self but not its flesh-and-blood or inner psychic essence. From
the perspective of Western psychology, the self will always remain a
mystery. As Kohut put it:

The self . . . is . . . not knowable in its essence. . . . We can

describe the various cohesive forms in which the self appears,
can demonstrate the several constituents that make up the self
. . . and explain their genesis and functions. We can do all that,
but we will still not know the essence of the self as differenti-
ated from its manifestations. (Kohut, 1977, pp. 310–312)

Kohut is correct, so far as he goes, but integral psychology goes far-

ther. What animates the self, what gives it its distinctive individuality,
is not simply the nuclear self (or Jung’s “Self ” or gestalt’s “organism” or
whatever we choose to call it). What is possible, even certain, at some
point in our development is to directly experience the psychic center
from which our self derives. This is our true individuality, our very soul
and deepest self. Integral psychology provides a satisfying answer to the
puzzle of selfhood, to what the inmost core of subjectivity is, the sense
of being a being. Until we find and experience our psychic center, we
will not know who we most truly are.

IMPLICATIONS OF THE PSYCHIC CENTER

FOR PSYCHOLOGY

The deep psychic center is the evolutionary principle within us. Its
upward evolutionary journey is reflected in the self it puts forth.
50 Integral Psychology

Growth and development are the essence of being human. The authen-
tic self, in spite of its protective strategies and defensive impasses, is
characterized by a relentless growth and expansion, a vital need to
affirm itself, express itself, to expand beyond its limits.
Two lines of development are occurring: an outer line of the phys-
ical-emotional-mental self, which Western developmental psychology
studies, and an inner line of psychic or soul development, to which
Eastern traditions point. In studying the development of the frontal
self, even this outer line of development cannot be fully understood
without reference to the development of the psychic center and its pro-
gressive influence and refinement of the frontal being. As the psychic
center develops in its unique way, it successively puts forth an expres-
sion of this uniqueness in each new incarnation. This becomes the
essential nature (svabhava) from which the authentic self emerges. As
the frontal ego progressively aligns with its deeper essential nature, this
can become a path by which to realize its higher nature or psychic
center and undergo a psychic, spiritual transformation. However, there
are significant obstacles to this path of psychic realization.
Just as the light of the stars cannot be seen during the day because
of the sun’s overpowering light, so the inner light of our psychic center
is initially difficult to see because of the brightness of our mind, emo-
tions, and body. Until the glare of these frontal instruments is subdued,
there is little chance of the psychic center’s light getting through. The
first task in all spiritual traditions is to dim the glare of the instrumen-
tal nature so the greater spiritual light can be seen. Integral psychology
seeks not to extinguish these lights but to transform them so that first
they will be responsive to the inner spiritual light and then themselves
become instruments through which the soul’s light may shine.
The movement toward the psychic center is open to all, natural,
and in the course of evolution, inevitable. What is required is an aspi-
ration and a sincerity of seeking, for it is through the heart’s power that
the inner being opens and the psychic light emerges. The mind alone,
which is what we are most used to exercising, is helpless to affect this
inner opening, although the mind’s assent and will are necessary. We
approach our psychic center most naturally through the heart, and it
therefore becomes crucial to clear away the obstructions along the
heart’s path, which fall into two major categories:
 Our Psychic Center 51

• The fragmentation that results from the wounds, structural

deficits, and defensive structures that make up so much of the
unconscious. This universal psychological wounding is per-
haps the single greatest obstacle that no spiritual tradition has
yet been able to surmount on a large scale. A century of con-
certed effort by psychology has uncovered pieces of this
puzzle that only now are we ready to synthesize into an inte-
gral whole. It needs to be considered first, because the diffi-
culties it presents are so formidable that efforts to deal with
the second category tend to be overpowered by it and easily
degenerate into spiritual bypassing.
• The heaviness or obscurity of our consciousness that Eastern
psychology and all spiritual practices work to purify. This will
be taken up in ensuing chapters, along with how the two cat-
egories work together and can be clearly separated only on a
conceptual level.

If psychology is to be a discipline that goes beyond the surface to

include the full range of the psyche, then it must incorporate Eastern
discoveries about human consciousness. Acknowledging that the
deeper nature of psychic life is ultimately spiritual brings about a para-
digm shift that fundamentally changes the field of psychology.
This page intentionally left blank.
 Chapter 3

The Core Wounding of Our Time

. . . for that is the pressing need of the individual, to arrive at the highest
truth of his own being, to set right its disorders, confusions, false identifica-
tions, . . . to know and mount to its source.
—Sri Aurobindo, Synthesis of Yoga

If our deepest identity is a joyous, loving, luminous center of peace,

then why do we not experience this? Why in fact do we so often expe-
rience the very opposite?
Eastern psychology unambiguously declares that our deeper iden-
tity is veiled by the activity of the ego. This activity of the self kicks up
so much dust that it clouds or obscures the inner light. Such obscura-
tions as attachments and desires of all kinds pull us outward, and the
ensuing fear, anger, stress, and emotional storms cover the deeper light
and lull us to sleep. Until this activity is quieted and “purified,” the light
cannot get through, or at best it is glimpsed only in rare flashes.
Eastern traditions have considered impurity a single phenomenon,
and spiritual practices are methods to quiet and purify the self. But spir-
itual practice works extremely slowly for most everyone. For a tiny few,
spiritual practice succeeds magnificently, but religious traditions have
been notably unsuccessful in bringing about a spiritual transformation
in the world at large. The reasons for this become clear as we bring
depth psychology to bear on this issue. An integral perspective reveals
two different aspects to the self ’s “impurity”:

53
54 Integral Psychology

1. Fragmentation or lack of integration of the self

2. Dense, heavy, “gross,” or opaque consciousness

The problem with a purely spiritual approach to purification is that

attempting to purify a fragmented self is a bit like trying to fill a sieve
with water. A fragmented self works against itself, even in its spiritual
practice. Spirituality works to refine the density or opacity of con-
sciousness, but it is poorly equipped to deal with unconscious defenses
and the self ’s fragmentation, for which it was never designed. Psy-
chotherapy, on the other hand, was designed for and works to integrate
the fragmented self, but it does not attempt to spiritualize or refine the
consciousness, nor does it have the theoretical understanding by which
to understand such an effort.1
The self, which centralizes consciousness and regulates affect, is
also the result of innumerable wounds and unconscious defenses to
cope with them. These wounds to the self are of paramount importance
for inner development, because the fragmentation that results from this
wounding makes any turning inward problematic. From infancy on, our
senses pull us outward. We quickly become attached—to people, to
emotional satisfactions, to mother’s love and fear of disapproval, to
physical pleasure such as nursing, eating, walking, moving, exploring.
We soon develop a self that organizes our actions. As the self grows,
desires and attachments multiply, drawing us out into the world. We
come to identify with our surface body-heart-mind self and desires as
we lose contact with our deeper nature.
We also are emotionally wounded in the process of development,
and our attempts to cope with our wounding result in the growth of a
dense underbrush of unconscious defenses against our emotional pain.
The momentum of our turning away from our pain builds habitual
attentional patterns over the years that eventuate in enduring psycho-
logical structures. Structures are psychological processes that abide,
acting along repetitive grooves. When these neurological pathways are
formed after much repetition, they become entrenched ways of coping
that change only with concerted effort and under special circumstances
of emotional arousal (such as depth therapy), otherwise they persist
throughout one’s lifetime. Getting through these unconscious defensive
structures is something few people can do successfully through spiritual
practice alone, except in sporadic flashes.
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 55

Our defenses work against inner deepening. The self has hidden
from itself and becomes an unwitting victim of its own defensive
maneuvers. Trapped in a web of its own making, it becomes hard to see
more than a quarter inch below the surface, and the self has little
chance of penetrating the still deeper veils that cover the psychic center.
Whether a particular spiritual practice aims at opening the heart or
greater mindfulness, the self is confined to a small circle, tethered to the
unconscious defenses that prevent it from widening and deepening into
the interior spaces of inner being.
So many obscurations are the result of fragmentation—incomplete
gestalts, inhibitions, projections, fantasies and daydreams, self-manipu-
lations, shoulds, shame, fear, guilt, obsessions—just what depth psy-
chology studies in minute detail. What can we make of this tangle?
How can it be straightened and clarified so that our deeper nature may
shine through? It is here that Western psychology can be of great help.
Western psychology breaks new ground with its in-depth investi-
gation into the nature of psychological wounding. Depth psychology
has put psychological pain under the microscope, and over the past cen-
tury a remarkably consistent picture has emerged of the self ’s develop-
ment, its wounding, and the defensive strategies employed to cope with
this pain.
The core wounding of our time is a rip in the very fabric of the self. This
wounding tears apart the delicate formations of the self just as they are
first forming, producing holes or gaps in the self ’s structure, blocking
development in key areas, and disowning large portions of the self ’s expe-
rience that become unconscious and unavailable.2 Dissociation from the
body is the second major effect of wounding, and all of this is further
exacerbated by trauma, which adds an additional push into dissociation,
for dissociation is the defense of choice in trauma. Though clients who
have been abused or traumatized often believe that trauma is the only
problem, trauma is usually in addition to the pervasive structural wounds.
There are three major conceptual streams by which psychology
understands this wounding and ensuing lack of integration, each of
which contributes an important piece to the puzzle. They are the cog-
nitive-behavioral schools, the psychoanalytic schools, and the human-
istic-existential schools. While wounding is an extraordinarily complex
phenomenon, the global outlines of wounding come into focus when
informed by these three streams. Let us take each in turn.
56 Integral Psychology

The cognitive-behavioral schools of psychology have studied in

great detail how our cognitions or thoughts have an important influ-
ence on how we feel. One aspect of fragmentation, with its concomi-
tant depression, anxiety, and other painful feelings, is unrealistic,
illogical thinking. Cognitive and behavioral therapists have discovered
that bringing about better, more logical thinking can reduce such
symptoms. For many people, this is sufficient. They are content to
simply feel less pain and fewer symptoms and are not interested in
inner deepening or a more complete working through. However, a
change in thinking deals only with some of the most obvious surface
manifestations of fragmentation, not the underlying causes. To under-
stand the self ’s lack of integration it is necessary to consider how
wounding is seen by the major streams of depth psychology—the psy-
choanalytic and the humanistic-existential.

STRUCTURAL-RELATIONAL DIMENSIONS
OF CORE WOUNDING

Contemporary psychoanalysis views the self as emerging from early

family relationships. Throughout life, the self is imbedded within a
relational matrix that it needs for its ongoing nourishment and support.
From the earliest moments of life to its end, the self requires a respon-
sive environment of attuned people in order to thrive.
Different object relations schools and intersubjective and interper-
sonal schools are in wide agreement that a key aspect of psychological
life is the self ’s ability to regulate its feelings and affects, with particu-
lar importance given to the needs to feel safe and free from anxiety.
Classical self psychology (Kohut, 1971, 1977, 1984) adds three impor-
tant lines of development: (1) an expansive sector of the self, out of
which come our ambitions, (2) an idealizing aspect of the self that
forms our ideals, and (3) an area of skills and talents by which our
ambitions and ideals can be realized.
Kohut originally called the expansive pole the exhibitionistic-
grandiose self, for this is how it presents itself in its earliest forms. Every
child needs to feel wonderful and beloved—the fairest of them all—and
looks to its parents as mirrors to confirm this greatness. If the main care-
taker, usually the mother, is free enough of her own narcissistic concerns
to look at the child with a gleam in her eye that says “You are an incred-
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 57

ible child!,” then this need can be met. Note that Kohut stresses that it
is not the words of the mother that count here, it is the warmth in her
eyes, her tone of voice, the energy with which she shows delight in her
young child. Of course, even a theoretically perfect mother would be
unable to provide this all of the time, but when occasional failures are
not traumatic or overly intense, this “optimal frustration” allows the
grandiosity to become modified, so that gradually the need to be the
fairest of them all or perfect recedes, replaced by a solid feeling of self-
worth. Internal structures of the self emerge during a slow developmen-
tal process that provides the person with healthy self-esteem and
energizing ambition. This is the expansive dimension of the self.
A second need of the child is to feel that at least one parent, often
the father, is calm, wise, strong, and powerful. Having contact with the
idealized parent allows the child to partake of this calmness, strength,
and power so that gradually these can be internalized as guiding ideals
and self-soothing structures within the self. The prototype for an ide-
alizing relationship is a parent picking up a crying child and soothing
it, allowing the child to merge with the parent’s calm and settling
down. Again, over time, the child recognizes that its parents are not
perfect and omnipotent, and if this perception is gradual and nontrau-
matic, then through internalization the person establishes the capacity
to tolerate his or her own powerful feelings and impulses, to self-
soothe, and to express or contain feelings as appropriate.
A third need of the self is to feel similar to other people, a person
among other persons, an identification with someone with whom there
is a likeness or similarity. This allows the child to feel part of the human
community and to be encouraged in activities, paving the way for
unfolding the innate skills and talents by which ambitions and ideals
can be realized.
The development of the self and its potentials requires the world
and human relationships to bring forth these capacities. Current trends
in psychoanalysis emphasize the relational nature of the self and its
need for nourishing relationships to sustain it throughout life. Con-
temporary self psychology emphasizes the functions that relationships
play in facilitating a person to integrate affect, particularly those
warded-off feelings and emotional experiences that are painful or
fragmenting.
Ideally a child develops a cohesive self, in touch with ambitions,
guiding ideals, and the skills and talents by which these ambitions and
58 Integral Psychology

ideals can be realized, and the child is able to form relationships in

which these aspects can be nurtured and brought forth. However, the
world is far from this. Virtually everyone is born into a family in which
there is deep wounding to the self. The average or normal self is not of
one piece, cohesive and integrated. It is more like Swiss cheese, with
numerous holes or deficits in the structure of the self. The result of
countless “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” the deficits in the
self ’s structure are larger or smaller depending upon the type and
timing of the injury, with developmentally earlier injuries having the
greatest impact. Such a fragmentation-prone self can “fall apart” or
fragment when slighted; this produces a disruption in the self ’s coher-
ence, which we experience as lowered self-esteem, embarrassment, or
humiliation.
The core wounding of our time results in a disruption of the coher-
ence of the self, feelings of shame, and a sense of being intrinsically
“bad,” defective, or unlovable. Those affects and potentials most central
to the self are the most vulnerable to wounding and shame. Unless they
receive sustained, attuned, loving, and affirming nurturance (and every
human being requires a good deal of this over long stretches of time),
some degree of wounding is inevitable. According to affect theory and
research (Nathanson, 1992; Tomkins, 1963), shame interrupts those
affects that are most pleasurable and essential to the self, such as sexu-
ality and the need for love, affirmation, and safety. Shame occurs when
interest and excitement outstrip ability, which is why it can be experi-
enced even in the first weeks of life, leading to a sense of a “defective
self ” (Nathanson, 1992.) It is a psychological version of “original sin.”3
Shame is perhaps the most painful affect. Tomkins describes it like
this:

If distress is the affect of suffering, shame is the affect of indig-

nity, of transgression and of alienation. Though terror speaks to
life and death and distress makes of the world a vale of tears,
yet shame strikes deepest into the heart of man. While terror
and distress hurt, they are wounds inflicted from the outside
which penetrate the smooth surface of the ego; but shame is
felt as an inner torment, a sickness of the soul. It does not
matter whether the humiliated one has been shamed by deri-
sive laughter or whether he mocks himself. In either event he
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 59

feels himself naked, defeated, alienated, lacking in dignity and

worth. (Tomkins, 1963, p. 118)

The greatest power of shame, however, comes later on as the self is

developing amidst its interpersonal world. During the initial years in
the development of the self, when the urgent needs for affirmation and
love are intensely felt but empathically attuned, responses from the
mother or caregiver are insufficient, shame is an inevitable outcome,
leading to a sense of being “unloved and unlovable” (Wurmser, 1981).
This leads the self to fall from its developmental path and to adopt
a false self that it hopes can be loved and affirmed. Shame precipitates
our move into inauthenticity. By this move the child hopes to get back
into the parents’ good graces and to protect what cohesion is left. But
by sacrificing our own authentic nature in the process, our self ’s defense
against core wounding amounts to selling ourselves out, abandoning
our true nature for a counterfeit image in order to maintain the
lifeblood of ongoing parental approval. Shame causes us to separate
from our original wholeness, to hide from ourselves (Broucek, 1991.)
Shame highlights what we believe are failures, especially failures of the
most vulnerable, central areas of the self. Our deepest sense of aliveness
and excitement, the joy of being a being, and the most pleasurable
dimensions of our self ’s experience are the most vulnerable to shame.
As failures of emotional attunement are inevitable in the trial-and-error
process of self-expression, shame becomes a universal component of the
self ’s experience.
Shame is such an aversive feeling that we immediately avoid what-
ever feelings and parts of the self feel shameful. To keep shameful feel-
ings at bay, anxiety and fear (which in affect theory are forms of the
same affect) warn us when we are in danger of feeling ashamed. Freud’s
discovery of signal anxiety, which alerts the unconscious that unaccept-
able feelings are beginning to emerge, takes on new significance as the
key to neurotic contraction and avoidance. Anxiety/fear and shame are
the two primary affects that run the neurotic, defensive coping strate-
gies used to shield us from our core wounding. However, these defen-
sive coping strategies, in keeping so much of the authentic self
cordoned off, fail to nourish and engage the full self. By reinforcing the
inauthentic patterns designed to minimize anxiety and fear and shame,
symptoms result, such as depression, stress, anxiety, addictions,
60 Integral Psychology

intimacy and relationship problems, and so on. Generally only a con-

certed psychotherapeutic effort can overcome our tendency to stay away
from shameful feelings to heal the wounding that shame covers.
Structural difficulties are reflected in problematic relationships.
Without the wisdom and discernment of the authentic self, the
wounded self recreates the dysfunctional relationship patterns of the
original family. The imaginal capacities of the higher emotional get
hijacked by the repressed, disavowed energies of the lower and central
emotional and used for unconscious fantasy, profoundly influencing
daily relationships. The use of the higher emotional’s creativity to
express the lower and central emotional forces—sexuality, power,
aggression, self-esteem, and so on—results in a loss of the imaginal’s
role in receiving the inner being’s higher inspirations. The creativity of
our inner being is dimmed as creative capacity is channeled into the
ego’s ambitions, hopes, and fears.
The role of unconscious fantasy in organizing a person’s life and
relationships is a central discovery of psychoanalysis. Sometimes
referred to as “organizing principles” (Stolorow, Brandchaft, &
Atwood, 1987), our first family relationships lay down in the brain
neural pathways that create prototypes for our relational world and are
strengthened over time by repeated use. These emotional prototypes
(“attractors”) lead us to find potential lovers similar to the original
attachment figures of mother and father. The unconscious pull of these
attractors is unerring in locating conflicted, difficult relationships that
are unfulfilling in old, familiar ways. Indeed, without a good deal of
inner work, such relationships are about the only ones that are com-
pelling and magnetic. In contrast, people who are truly loving and
nourishing hardly even register on the radar. As a result, only a fraction
of the intimacy and emotional nurturing that relationships can provide
is ever developed, since so much of the self and its relational potential
is “off-limits.” Living in an interpersonal desert, it is just a short step to
withdraw further from relationship and seek gratification in things,
drugs, food, electronic entertainment, and compulsive activity.
Whereas in the West defects in the structure of the self are the
result of isolation and lack of attuned contact, in the East the distur-
bances in the self ’s structure tend to be more related to impingements
upon the self by family and society that do not allow the authentic self
to emerge. This enmeshment and lack of clear boundaries submerge
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 61

the authentic self and result in a false self that has a greater identifica-
tion with the collective ego or group self of family and society. In the
West the narcissistic wounding is the result of and results in isolation
and estrangement from others; in the East the narcissistic wounding is
the result of and results in enmeshment and failure to differentiate from
others. While neither one is better or worse, the result is that both pre-
vent the authentic self from emerging. A healthy, cohesive, and differ-
entiated self can emerge and thrive in either cultural climate if family
conditions are right. There is no “preferred” cultural condition for the
self ’s development. Optimally, the diversity of cultures around the
world would bring about different kinds of cohesive selves that result
from widely varying self-other configurations.
In its wounded and defensively contracted state, the self looks very
much like the fragmentation-prone self of contemporary psychoanaly-
sis. Psychoanalytic theory beautifully depicts the self ’s struggle for
cohesion amidst a malattuned family history and an interpersonally
challenging present, but it has not recognized the embodied nature of
the self and the larger organismic reality of the psyche. Psychoanalysis
takes the culturally average dissociated state of an overly mentalized
existence as normal rather than as a consequence of the self ’s wound-
ing. As noted in earlier chapters, the early wounds bring not only
repression and disavowal but dissociation from the body as well. The
self leaves the body and retracts into the mind to cope with these early
wounds, and the resulting fragmentation involves both a splintering of
the self ’s structures and a separation of mind from body. It is here that
the humanistic and existential approaches enlarge our view.

SOMATIC DIMENSIONS OF CORE WOUNDING

Wilhelm Reich was the first depth psychologist to chart the somatic
roots of the self, and the myriad somatic therapies since then trace
their lineage to his groundbreaking work. The rise of humanistic and
existential schools of psychology derives from the powerful truth that
we are a holistic body-heart-mind unity whose feeling life is embed-
ded in the body. Further, our human organism is a source of innate
intelligence. When the self aligns with its deeper organismic wisdom,
we move naturally in the direction of actualizing our potentials and
62 Integral Psychology

talents. Embodied life has profound depth and meaning when we

open to the marvel of our organismic experiencing, in contrast to
which the overly mentalized life of the average person seems relatively
empty and shallow.
The humanistic and existential schools of depth psychology are in
accord with psychoanalysis, that early experiences in the family are
responsible for how the self develops, is wounded, and defends against
those wounds, but they stress wounding’s impact on our experience of
the body. In an optimal family, the parents would empathically attend
to the child’s emotional hurts and provide support and soothing so that
intense affects could be integrated. When this happens the child can
assimilate and cope with even extremely painful and strong feelings and
continue to sense these feelings as they stream throughout the body and
come to their natural conclusion.
However, when the parents are not well attuned, as inevitably hap-
pens, the intensity of the feelings in the body causes the child to con-
tract against this pain, to inhibit breathing in order to reduce the
intensity, and to flee into the mind to escape such painful, overwhelm-
ing feelings. The child dissociates from uncontrollable bodily feelings
into the mind, where there is more control. In so doing, the child main-
tains this contracted, retracted stance and braces against further injuries
from this place of greater safety in the mind. Each new wounding fur-
ther reinforces this stance, and soon it all becomes automatic, uncon-
scious, and even seems natural, for it is a coping strategy that does work
to reduce the strength of feelings.
However, as depth psychology has discovered, all defenses come at
a price. And the price of leaving our body is vast and complex. The first
consequence of dissociation comes as we contract our muscles against
our pain. We squeeze ourselves, hold ourselves in, and tighten up
against the distressing feelings in order to inhibit the flow of feeling
within us. We literally get a grip on ourselves and then maintain that
grip, even when we are safely out of danger and could relax. Contract-
ing the muscles of the body, especially the deep muscles of the core,
succeeds in deadening the intensity of feelings. However, when we relax
this constriction, feelings begin to flow once again, usually starting with
where they left off, and this is exactly what needs to be avoided. To
ensure that these feelings are safely cordoned off, this bodily tension
needs to be maintained. This eventuates in what Reich came to call the
body armor, a system of chronically contracted muscles throughout the
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 63

body that inhibits every facet of our feeling life and deadens bodily
awareness.
The net result of this chronic inhibition is that we become rigid,
uptight, and forever on guard against deep, intense feelings. Our feel-
ing life is muted and suppressed as we work to reduce our own alive-
ness. We become neurotically deliberate and lose the spontaneity of
living. This also amounts to a terrible waste of energy as we work
against ourselves, protect ourselves from our own feelings and impulses
by pushing down the very life energy that enlivens us.
Concurrent with contracting against our feelings comes holding
our breath. Excitement and strong feelings require metabolic support to
uphold them. Just as fire needs oxygen to burn brightly, so the body’s
energetic aliveness depends upon oxygen to maintain it. Breathing
freely occurs naturally in infants as the breath changes constantly in
response to the baby’s interests and excitement. Contracting our mus-
cles and inhibiting our breathing are the two main ways that feelings
are suppressed and eventually repressed. Holding our breath reduces
the intensity of feelings, and over time this strategy also becomes
chronic and habitual. With it also comes a reduction of our entire feel-
ing capacity, for it is a truism that “You can’t go higher than you can go
low.” Restricting the intensity of painful affects has the unwanted side
effect of restricting the intensity of pleasurable feelings as well.

REPRESSION, DISAVOWAL, DISSOCIATION

While primitive defenses such as denial, splitting, and projection are
favored in severe psychological disorders, in the normal neurosis of our
time the major defenses that an injured self utilizes are repression, dis-
avowal, and dissociation. Repression keeps the early, frustrated needs
down and away from consciousness. Disavowal keeps the self from
acknowledging the importance of important relationships. Dissociation
removes the self from the intensity of bodily reality as it retreats into
the mind. Begun and reinforced in the family of origin, there is great
pressure to protect both the parents and the child by minimizing the
impact of painful and conflictual interactions. The family engages in a
conspiracy of silence not to speak about the feelings with which the
parents have difficulty or by which they are embarrassed. Children need
a supportive relationship that will help them identify, tolerate, express,
64 Integral Psychology

and integrate their feelings; without this, children quickly learn to pre-
tend that certain interactions do not have an emotional impact or to
hide this impact from others and from themselves.
Growing up in such an environment teaches the child to disavow
feelings and the impact of other people in all settings. As the child ven-
tures out into the world, it appears as if the whole of society is engaged
in a vast conspiracy of silence, for there are very few places where it is
safe to acknowledge deep feelings or express them freely. As psychol-
ogy’s influence permeates the larger society, this is slowly changing, but
the shame over feelings still takes a heavy toll on every individual.4
One consequence of disavowal as an ongoing defense is not recog-
nizing the immense importance of our relationships for psychological
health. People grow up not knowing their interpersonal needs, hardly
realizing that they have these needs. Psychology has contributed to this
by its insistence, during its first 75 years on independence and auton-
omy, on a belief that being dependent on others was bad or indicated
psychopathology. This is still a popular view of healthy independence
held by many people. However, contemporary depth psychology has
radically altered its first views of independence and now sees clearly just
how deeply dependent or interdependent everyone is. Life is a team
sport. The self exists in a relational matrix of important relationships.
When too isolated or estranged from this relational matrix, the self
fragments or “falls apart.”
We live in a time where most people experience only a small frac-
tion of the power and beauty of intimacy. The richness of emotional
connection, the deeply meaningful union with others, the depths of
love and the emotional seas it is sometimes necessary to cross to come
upon these depths, and the infinite variety of relationships and the new
parts of ourselves evoked in them reveal dimensions of relationships
that wounding and its defenses make off-limits.
In the West this produces a fragmentation-prone self that is beset
with shame, anxiety, depression, and stress, preoccupied with its own
competence, fearful in relationships, and rarely capable of true intimacy,
alienated from its own deeper self, committed to an inauthentic life of
distraction and entertainment, addictions, and pseudo-intimacy, with at
best sporadic periods of feeling emotionally nourished by relationships
or work. In the East disavowal results in a fusion of self and culture.
Fear of alienating family, friends, or coworkers causes the self to be sub-
merged by the needs of the group. This eventuates in a failure to dif-
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 65

ferentiate and realize the fullness of individuation that is possible. In

the West the failure of individuation produces a pseudo-independent,
fragmented self divorced from its authentic depths. In the East the fail-
ure of individuation produces an enmeshed self that also is divorced
from its authentic depths.
In dissociating from the body, we lose touch with our natural func-
tions: breathing, speaking, sexuality, eating, moving, sensing. We
squeeze our voice so that it becomes constricted, shrill, higher, and more
forced than when we are relaxed and more deeply centered. Since
breathing is restrained, our capacity for sexual excitement also is
reduced. The intensity of pleasure that we can tolerate, the power of
breathing to support sexual arousal, the freedom of the body to move
and the pelvis to swing freely in supporting and building sexual feelings,
the ability to vocalize freely, the strength of orgasm, and even the degree
of relaxation afterward are affected by this overarching inhibition.
In moving from the body to the mind, we also leave behind the
immense richness of the sensory world. Part of the wonder of child-
hood is the intensity and awe of drinking in the world through our
eyes, ears, and body. Our sensory awareness is our most fundamental
reality. Taking in the beauty of nature’s sights and sounds, feeling the
joy of our body moving in space in even simple activities such as walk-
ing or reaching up in the cupboard for a glass, really seeing the people
we talk to, feeling the softness of the skin in our hand as we walk a child
across the street—our life is a sensory feast. But in becoming addicted
to the mind, thinking and fantasy replace sensing. “Lose your mind and
come to your senses,” Fritz Perls counseled. The average person today
is lost in a fantasy world of thinking, planning, rehearsing, chewing over
unfinished situations from the past, and imagining future triumphs,
immersed in the past and future but lost to the present moment. In
losing the present moment, we lose presence; we are only “half there,”
no longer fully engaged in our actual, living experience.
Another facet of overly mentalized living is losing awareness of
how our feelings live in the body, how they stream through us in a phys-
ical way. Feelings cannot be reduced to body sensations, for even ath-
letes and those who are physically active are generally typically
unconscious of feelings. But the capacity to sense our feelings is part of
our embodied existence. Through dissociation we lose touch with our
felt sense and the ever-moving stream of our physical-emotional expe-
riencing. On a more subtle level, we also lose touch with our life energy
66 Integral Psychology

and the subtle physical underpinnings of the body. The process of

tightening up and holding ourselves down has the effect of shutting off
more subtle levels of perception. This coarsening of perception blunts
our sensitivity and keeps us from sensing more refined energies in our
body and environment.
Emotional-physical suppression affects the subtle body and energy
field, which then has a direct effect on physical health as well. Chronic
inhibition and emotional repression result in immune suppression, as
the new mind-body field demonstrates (see, e.g., Pert, 1997, 1998;
Goleman & Gurin, 1993). The fact that greater disease susceptibility is
linked to the unconscious, defensive processing of emotions has
immense implications for health, which is only now being explored.
Eating is another casualty of leaving the body. In abandoning the
body, in place of body awareness we have a hole, an inner emptiness,
and food is one way of filling it. Yet this divorce from the body makes
it hard to even sense when we are full, so the body’s own self-regulat-
ing system is thrown out of kilter. Eating itself becomes something else
to control, and in trying to control eating, the self ends up being
controlled by emotional pressures. Food becomes used for emotional
regulation, a way to calm down, numb out, and deaden the constant
uptightness created by chronic contraction, which then requires stimu-
lants to offset it. Living in the mind, we hardly even taste or smell our
food. We become alienated from chewing, a basic avenue by which we
take in nourishment. Instead, we seek foods that are easy to swallow.
The rise of fast food in the culture points to how deeply alienated so
many are from the function of eating. Attempts to control eating alter-
nate with out-of-control binges that are hard for the person to under-
stand when attempts to dominate the body backfire and the body
revolts.
The net effect of dissociation is a self and culture that are discon-
nected from the natural world, life out of balance. While it is important
to realize that we are more than our body, defensive dissociation is nei-
ther integration nor spiritual detachment; it is alienation. In losing
touch with our functions of breathing, eating, sexuality, speaking, and
moving, these become fragments of our total self. Cut out of the con-
text of relatedness, they become isolated, compartmentalized, and
objectified. Our body becomes a thing to be dominated, like everything
physical—animals, the planet, women, native peoples—another indica-
tion of estrangement from our full being. When we no longer feel the
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 67

depths of our bodily reality, we are uprooted from our ground. This dis-
sociation is essential to heal for an integral living.
The spiritual consequences of wounding are far-reaching. More
than anything else, the defenses against our wounding close our heart.
Through repression, disavowal, dissociation, and other defenses we lose
our inborn openness and vulnerability. We abandon our heart and flee
into a fantasy world of mental images. We harden our hearts to stop
feeling our own pain and to protect ourselves from being wounded
again. A closed heart diminishes love, compassion, and mindfulness.
A major dimension of spiritual purity is consciousness of our own
narcissism. When narcissistic wounding is unconscious, the pain of this
trauma, the archaic, unmodified grandiosity that has been disavowed,
and the consequent defects in the self ’s structure seriously retard spiri-
tual development. When spiritual experience does break through, it
tends to be captured by the unconscious narcissistic demands and used
for ego inflation and self-aggrandizement. Primitive grandiosity is, in
one sense, impurity itself, for it feeds egoism and claims for the ego
what is the Divine’s. So much of the spiritual marketplace today is a
result of this—teachers who have had passing experiences or minor
realizations that are then taken over by archaic grandiosity and narcis-
sistic demands. Without a good deal of psychotherapeutic work to heal
the narcissistic wounding so that a more mature, modulated, healthy
sense of self-esteem can develop, unmodified grandiosity remains
unconscious and blocks further spiritual development.
Wounding and its attending defenses limit mindfulness by keeping
so much of the self ’s experience off-limits and unconscious. Mindful-
ness works well to bring awareness to the physical body and breath, but
it has a very limited effect on bringing out the emotional dimension
and undoing defenses such as repression, disavowal, and dissociation.
For this reason Buddhist practice aims at first opening the heart
through devotional (metta) practices, but here again such practices have
little effect on the defensive structure. It is the same problem theistic
traditions face with devotional or bhakti practices. They tend to be lim-
ited to the higher emotional realm and hardly touch the central emo-
tional or lower instinctual emotional levels of everyday life. The self,
with its unconscious needs, grabs the heart’s aspiration and twists it to
its own narcissistic ends.
A fragmentation-prone self is preoccupied by its self-image and
with how others see it, so there is a continual pull outward into inter-
68 Integral Psychology

personal anxiety and stress that prevents the calm and peace so neces-
sary for spiritual deepening. This is why so many spiritual practices
leave relationships and the world behind, so that they will not distract
the seeker from the central spiritual aim. However, on a path of inte-
gral transformation, such a strategy only avoids the problem rather than
solves it.
Spiritual bypassing, which is the use of spiritual ideas and images
to bolster psychological defenses, is unavoidable for most without a
good deal of psychological awareness. The neurotic separation of the
mind from the body and feelings is bolstered by world-shunning
philosophies that counsel a spiritual retreat from the world to a heaven
or nirvana. Spiritual bypassing makes virtues of defensive detachment
and dissociation. In an integral approach, this dissociation needs to be
healed, and the body and feelings need to be owned. True detachment
follows from owning, but it is unhealthy when it bypasses it.
It is not possible to enumerate all of the spiritual obstacles created
by the narcissistic and somatic dimensions of wounding, just as all of
the psychological sequelae are too numerous to detail, but so many have
their sources in this area. Even those obstacles that are more a function
of the density or murkiness of consciousness are further obscured by
unconscious defenses. All forms of unconsciousness have darkening
and lowering effects on consciousness. Anything of an inner nature—
higher or deeper—passes through the self to reach the ordinary surface
consciousness. The self seizes on and funnels all experience through its
distorting, defensive processes. Until integration and coherence are
brought to the self, this fragmentary action will disperse the inner light
in a thousand directions.
In summary, core wounding affects every level of the self:

• Inner conflict as the self does battle with itself, dividing itself
into conscious and unconscious sectors
• Mind—distorted, illogical thinking as mental clarity is sacri-
ficed to defensive cognitions
• Higher emotional—loss of imaginal capacity, constriction of
imagination and fantasy life as it gets channeled into day-
dreaming, erosion of ideals, less openness to inner planes
• Central emotional—disavowal, fragile or low self-esteem, dif-
ficulty finding nourishing relationships, anxiety, depression,
 The Core Wounding of Our Time 69

alienation, crippled capacity for intimacy, failure to find true,

creative work
• Lower emotional—repression, inhibition of sexual and
aggressive feelings, low vitality
• Body—dissociation and retreat to an etheric, disembodied
mind state, loss of realness and sensory vividness, impaired
immunity and health, reduced physical energy
• Reduced coherence of the self ’s integrity and coherence, loss
of authentic self and relationships, development of a false self
that covers up or compensates for wounds and deficiencies
• Spirit—fragmentation that makes inner deepening extremely
difficult

Therapists of different orientations stress parts of this wounding

proper to their own school, for example, a classical Freudian will
emphasize the loss of instinctual energies, a Jungian will emphasize the
loss of imaginal capacities, a relational therapist will focus on structural
deficits and relational impairments, a somatic therapist will focus on
dissociation from the body, and so on. But in all of this the path of heal-
ing leads through these two stages—the structural/relational and the
somatic—before the psychological transformation culminates in the
emergence of the authentic self.
This is a good beginning and is entirely sufficient for many people,
but it leaves out our higher possibilities. It leaves the authentic self in
the dark, guided only by its own reflected light. The authentic self only
approximates wholeness; it comes close to it but cannot fully embody
it, for true wholeness means an opening to our psychic center and spir-
itual ground. The psychic center is wholeness unalloyed. Psychological
work leads up to psychic awakening, but stops short of it. The psychic
opening is needed to complete and fulfill it, which takes us into areas
of growth and transformation that are little known.
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 Chapter 4

An Evolutionary Vision of Health

The coming of a spiritual age must be preceded by the appearance of an

increasing number of individuals who are no longer satisfied with the
normal intellectual, vital and physical existence of man but perceive that a
greater evolution is the real goal of humanity.
—Sri Aurobindo, The Human Cycle

The healing of the many levels of our early wounding, accompanied by

an increasingly authentic life, brings us to the highest potentials envi-
sioned by Western psychology. Yet to stop here is to stop far short of
our human possibilities. From an integral perspective, the evolution of
consciousness entails two lines of development—an outer, surface line,
where a new body-heart-mind develops each new lifetime, and an
inner, soul line, where the psychic center develops over many lifetimes.
The evolution of consciousness is the central feature of psychological life.
All of psychology must be seen against this backdrop of evolving con-
sciousness.1 Out of all our difficulties and trials, frustrations and
achievements, confusions and bafflement, even through apparent fail-
ures and disappointments, we are developing a greater, deeper, higher
self. Hidden at first but then progressively sensed and felt, this deeper,
truer center unfolds ever-greater powers and abilities, extending and
deepening our capacities for feeling, thinking, willing, acting, and cre-
ating. It is the goal of integral psychology to align with the cosmic
evolutionary impulse as fully as we can to unfold our potentials.
This perspective has two implications:
71
72 Integral Psychology

1. Developing our instruments is the goal of embodiment. The

growth of our body, heart, and mind is necessary for the full-
ness of living (a focus of Western psychology).
2. Finding our evolutionary center is key. Discovering the evolu-
tionary element within us brings forth life’s evolutionary
guidance, a light that illumines our way amidst the darkness
of the world (a focus of Eastern psychology).

Integral psychology seeks to do both: to develop our physical-emotional-

mental self so it is a coherent, integrated expression of our authentic
being (psychological transformation) and to find our psychic center so it
becomes a guiding influence in our life (psychic transformation).
Integral psychology sees an inseparable interplay between these
two dimensions. The psychic center is less developed in the initial
stages of human evolution, where the emphasis is on developing the
outer instruments, but as evolution proceeds, the deeper psychic center
becomes stronger and more insistent, and it draws our attention
inward. In moving consciousness beyond the superficial life on the sur-
face, the depth dimension of the psyche opens to an inexhaustible rich-
ness and beauty. Psychology has not known how to go deeper than the
self, and spiritual practice has not known how to work through the
unconscious defenses and blocks that result from emotional wounding.
An integral working includes both in our next evolutionary steps.
One of the great paradoxes, and one of the hardest for the human
mind to accept, is the growth of consciousness through the opposites:
from initial unconsciousness we find greater consciousness; through
loneliness we realize the importance of others; out of brokenness and
fragmentation we come upon wholeness; in pain and suffering the hard
walls of the heart melt, and we open to love and joy; in the depths of
shame can be found self-acceptance; in the darkness of hitting bottom
we discover a redeeming light that raises us; in working through and
deconstructing the false self we create an authentic life. As hard to bear
as our wounding is, within it lie the seeds of our fulfillment.

THE SACRED WOUND

We are so used to thinking of our hurts and wounds only as a source of
pain and trouble, yet gems of incalculable value are found in the heart
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 73

of our darkness and pain. Our wounding, if we have eyes to see it, is a
gift, wrapped in the dark camouflage of tears and suffering but con-
taining the precious jewels of our salvation.
The world wounds everyone born into it. No one escapes life’s
blows. These blows hammer the ego’s primal narcissism and grandios-
ity that claim for itself what belongs to the Divine. To defend against
these blows the self defensively contracts and hardens. It develops only
partially behind the shielding it erects to protect from future blows. The
self, contracted and stunted, develops a false self as a coping strategy
but becomes estranged from its authentic source.2 However, this self is
not entirely false. It is an amalgam of primary, authentic structure and
defensive, false structure. This mixture of real and false composes the
normal self. Psychological symptoms and suffering are signals that the
self has been thrown off course.
Our symptoms and pain, much as we are ashamed of them and
want them to go away, are stepping-stones to finding ourselves and
unfolding our potentials. Symptoms result from the self disowning its
own experience. The self wages a battle against itself, trying to cut itself
off from itself. But disowned portions of the self do not just go away.
They remain in the unconscious, continually seeking expression, which
in turn demands continual, ongoing defense against them. This defen-
sive process is never completely successful, and these disowned feelings
leak out, pushing and pulling us toward people and activities that then
create symptoms.
As noted earlier, wounding affects all levels of the self—somatic,
lower, central, and higher emotional, mental. What depth therapy has
discovered is that our pain is not something meaningless or useless to
feel. Rather, when we fully embrace our suffering and reexperience the
early feelings that our symptoms activate, our healing becomes a path
for bringing forth buried parts of the self, allowing us to feel real once
again, this time no longer as a mostly unconscious child but now as a
more fully self-conscious adult.

HEALING, GROWTH, AND TRANSFORMATION

As used in this book, healing is a reparative process of working through
old wounds and emotional hurts and trauma. Growth is the emergence
of something new, new potentials unfolding, new feelings, new
74 Integral Psychology

experiences, new parts of the self coming forth toward actualization.

Transformation occurs when there is enough healing and growth to
bring about the emergence of a new organizing principle that alters
our entire being.
Beneath most old wounds lie new aspects of the unrealized self,
dormant potentials that await healing and integration. Psychotherapy
brings this buried self back on-line so its energies may enliven and
enhance our life. However, this new growth does not emerge fully
developed. It undergoes a process of maturation and development in
which the new self ’s structure is built little by little, as small increments
of growth consolidate over time. The new self ’s structure, like all new
growth, is generally vulnerable and fragile, like new sprouts that ten-
derly reach up toward the light. Just as a greenhouse supports plants at
first, so a safe, emotionally nourishing atmosphere (such as a therapeu-
tic relationship) helps ensure that the self ’s new structures and growth
are not uprooted and blown away by the world’s jarring energies. After
a period of development, these parts of the self become stronger and
better able to withstand the world’s forces. Our psychological wounds
are the greatest impediment to our growth. Healing our wounds sets the
stage for new growth, but growth must reach a critical mass before it
becomes transformation.
Although most people want immediate transformation, there are
no such sudden miracles. Transformation takes time. For example, the
psychological transformation from normal neurosis to having the real,
authentic self as the foundation of the psyche involves years of healing
and growth to work through the false self formed in the person’s family
of origin.
In the spiritual realm, Sri Aurobindo was the first to point out the
differences between experience, realization, and transformation, which
are often confused with each other. Experiences come and go. Spiritual
experience is a temporary entry into a spiritual state. It prepares the con-
sciousness for a new level of realization, but it is not itself that new
level. Realization is a permanent shift into a new realm of being, how-
ever, it leaves the outer nature relatively untouched. Much religious
teaching is aimed at realization, an inner freedom but with the outer
nature (prakriti) left to the momentum of its past karma. Many reli-
gious traditions maintain that transformation of this earthly nature is
impossible, so that only when the body drops at death can there be total
freedom. However, integral yoga holds that realization can extend to an
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 75

entire transmutation of our outer nature, including the very cells of our
body. When the power of the inner realization infuses and transmutes
the outer nature, this is transformation. Realization is an inner attain-
ment, but transformation changes our entire being, both inner and
outer.
In the traditional path of realization there is no need to expand the
self ’s capacities, because the self itself is seen as an impediment to be
transcended rather than as an instrument to be developed. But in the
integral path of transformation, our instrumental nature of body, heart,
and mind is important—every level of our being that we are develop-
ing in this lifetime. In following the path of transformation, our ordi-
nary life becomes the field for our development. Our relationships, our
work, our play, our mating, fighting, fearing, and loving become the
basis for our deeper unfolding. Rather than life leading away from the
path, life becomes the path.

TWO TRANSFORMATIONS
An evolutionary vision of health starts with the unifying principle of
svabhava. Health emerges from our authentic nature.3 Pathology, dis-
ease, and disorder are expressions of fragmentation and inauthentic
being. Health, healing, whole, holistic, holy—it is no accident that all
of these words come from the same root. Health is an expression of
wholeness, at whatever level of our being—physical health, emotional
health, and mental health. As every person born becomes wounded,
fragmented, and inauthentic to some degree, there is some amount of
imbalance and pathology that comes with each incarnation. Similarly,
the urge for healing and wholeness is an evolutionary urge felt by all,
for it is inherent in the very nature of embodiment. Integral psychology
sees two dimensions of this movement toward wholeness: a psycholog-
ical transformation and a psychic transformation.

The Psychological Transformation

Western psychology charts the possibilities for psychological health at

each level of the self. These health values reflect the highest possibili-
ties envisioned by the different schools of psychology. Generally they
76 Integral Psychology

are presented in isolation, each school declaring its own, level-specific

view of psychological health. An integral view unites these disparate
potentials into a unified whole.
Mind: At the level of mind, health consists in the capacity to think
clearly, logically, and critically, without cognitive distortions, illogical
reasoning, or irrational beliefs.
Higher emotional: Health at this level involves creativity, a rich fan-
tasy life, intuition, and an openness to the imaginal realm and spiritual
impulses. Creativity is not confined to painting a picture or producing
a work of art but is an outflow from the depths of inner being. It can
infuse everyday life and relationships as well as work and activities.
Central emotional: Health at this level involves a cohesive self
inwardly and nourishing, loving relationships outwardly. Inner cohe-
sion is expressed by a glow of healthy self-esteem and wholeness. Cre-
ative work where the person’s true abilities, passion, and purpose
converge is another hallmark of authentic selfhood. Genuine relation-
ships of all kinds round out the central emotional. Some key forms
authenticity takes are relationship with a lover; with family, close
friends, and trusted colleagues with whom we can relax and be our-
selves as well as with whom we can be vulnerable and intimate; and
with mentors, guides, and teachers we respect and look up to.
Lower emotional: Here health takes the form of healthy sexuality,
healthy aggression and self-assertiveness, and the enjoyment of the
instinctive side of our nature.
Physical: Health at this level means a vivid sense of embodiment,
not dissociated or disconnected from our physical being but alive to the
sensory world and the beauty of nature; a body that is healthy, vital, and
relaxed rather than contracted and uptight; a sense of rootedness in
physical being with breathing freely supporting the energetic excite-
ment of our feeling life coursing through our body.
When these health potentials become actualized, a state of inte-
gration results, or to use the vocabulary of neuroscience, coherence.
Coherence means to hold together, to hang together, or cohere
together. Just as a laser beam consists of coherent light waves that move
together over great distances versus a beam of conventional light that
disperses quickly, so psychological coherence produces a shimmering
vibration of energy that is harmonious and concordant. What unifies
the different parts of our being is our authentic nature (our svabhava),
so our body, heart, and mind vibrate to a similar wavelength and create
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 77

a harmonious self-expression that is consonant with our essential

nature, rather than the jagged, dissonant, jarring, incoherent vibration
of fragmentation.
Western psychology has produced a very precise map of our phys-
ical-emotional-mental self, and each school of psychology contributes
to the healing, growth, and transformational possibilities of each level.
Integral psychology synthesizes these insights into a larger whole that
embraces each part of our being and raises them up to their highest
potentials. However, as we progressively recognize, even the most fully
developed, coherent self, no matter how actualized and fulfilled it may
be, is still lost in the darkness of surface, fragmentary living. Full, inte-
gral living requires plunging still more deeply inside to find our psychic
center. Even at its best, psychological wholeness is only a partial and
diminished figure of wholeness. But spirit is wholeness itself. Spirit is
the very principle of wholeness that puts forth this outer body-heart-
mind. Psychological wholeness derives from this underlying spiritual
wholeness. The psychological experience of selfhood is the experience
of a fragment seeking wholeness.
The psychological transformation is a first approach to wholeness.
We get glimpses of it in psychological states of coherence—states of
flow and full engagement, states of authenticity and integration, states
of deep intimacy and resonance with others, or communion with
nature. Such states provide previews into the greater possibilities of
wholeness that evolution is moving us toward. But such previews
become a permanent reality only as we awaken to our psychic center
and it comes forward.

The Psychic Transformation

Here we come upon new, evolutionary, emergent territory that is just

beginning to be manifested. Putting health values in an evolutionary
context reveals that psychological health changes as the outer, psycho-
logical nature spiritualizes. As the psychic flame in the heart burns
brighter, the outer self refines and transforms. An inner consciousness
opens, lighting up our outer nature. When the psychic center progres-
sively exerts its influence, the course of our life changes, bringing us
into contact with what we need for our growth—teachers, books, rela-
tionships, work, experiences. Challenges and adversity continue to be
78 Integral Psychology

there, for difficulties come to all. But the ups and downs yield in the
end to a dawning of the psychic light.
First comes the awakening of the psychic center, its realization as a
frequent or constant part of our inner consciousness. The second step is
the coming forward of our psychic center. As the soul comes to the front,
the psychic consciousness begins to infiltrate our normal consciousness,
permeating it with its light, joy, peace, discernment, love for all creation,
gratitude, devotion, and aspiration. This psychic transformation brings
forth the inner soul qualities into our surface being. Psychicization
transmutes every level of the self. It is an infusion of soul force and soul
consciousness that uplifts our outer nature and makes it a fitting instru-
ment of Spirit. What does the psychic transformation look like?
Mind: The psychic transformation of mind brings a deep, vast
peace and quietude to mind’s incessant noise. Thought is not just more
logical but becomes more intuitive, more luminous, more God centered
and God focused. Greater mindfulness comes as we wake up to the
present moment.
Higher emotional: Transforming this level means opening ever more
to the spiritual, inner realms. Creativity becomes more linked to reveal-
ing visionary experience and appreciation of the all-beautiful Spirit in
all of its manifestations. A growing need in our depths for beauty in our
lives, a growing awe of the immense beauty of nature, and aesthetic
experiences of beauty and delight permeate our daily experience.
Central emotional: As the psychic center’s joy, love, and self-existent
bliss are increasingly felt within, our relationships with others trans-
form. As we appreciate just how relational we are, we find greater joy
and fulfillment in relationships, together with greater recoil from those
who are harsh and insensitive. In opening to an inner source of joy and
an inner relationship with the Divine, our reliance on others diminishes
(but does not end—trying to do so results in one kind of spiritual
bypassing). Relationships that do not have a spiritual or psychic basis,
those with only a mental, vital, or physical tie, are less energized and
tend to lessen, whereas relationships with fellow seekers or spiritual
community—sangha—become more important. Authenticity in rela-
tionships becomes even more valued, and when instilled with a psychic
touch such relationships become priceless soul-to-soul connections.
There is more love, more light, and more joy inwardly brought into
relationships. The psychic consciousness brings greater sensitivity,
empathy, sweetness, and tenderness into all contacts. A loving connec-
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 79

tion to all people and nature exists on an inner level, even though on an
outer level there may be conflict and discord.
The psychic change brings about a shift in the self ’s equilibrium.
The psychic center’s inherent wholeness, joy, and fullness of being
begin to permeate the self. Questions of self-esteem, whether high or
low, arise less and less and then hardly at all, for this is a state complete
in itself. This does not substitute for the healing and growth of the self
but fulfills it and brings it to its acme.
Lower emotional: Here anger and aggression refine to become
Force, an Energy or a Power to be used when needed. It is a power of
assertion that becomes freer from hostility. Here the teachings of the
Gita become more understandable, where Krishna tells Arjuna to fight
powerfully but with a mind filled with peace and love.
The energies of sexuality may develop in several directions. One is
the traditional way of sublimation, where sexuality is channeled into
spiritual practice, used to elevate the consciousness rather than being
thrown outward. A second direction lies along the path of Tantra, where
sexuality becomes a form of worship and devotion. India’s discovery of
Tantra is unique in the world’s spiritual traditions, for it provides a pos-
itive model of sacred sexuality along with information on how to use the
energies of sexuality in the service of spiritual development. Here love-
making becomes an electric meeting of souls, a devotional yoga involv-
ing body, heart, mind, and spirit. Rather than drawing away from sexual
passion, these energies are harnessed and used for consciousness devel-
opment. It may be that for most people, both of these directions will be
used, both conserving energy and, when expressed, channeling it toward
devotion, worship, and opening the heart.
Physical: The body senses changes in two directions. There is an
increasing sense of the body being just a fringe on the surface, a super-
ficial part of us. At the same time, there is an expansion of the body
feeling into an immense depth, as we open up to its foundation in the
subtle body. We come to experience the body as energy, and there is
often a movement from purely physical exercise to forms of subtle
physical exercise, such as yoga, aikido, tai chi, or qi gong. The bliss of
the energy body comes with a sense of lightness and vitality, and the
mystery of embodiment opens up new depths of profundity.
Spiritual: Unveiling the soul within reveals a fount of light, bliss,
love, and peace that does not depend on any outer circumstances. The
psychic center progressively infuses the outer self, refining its density
80 Integral Psychology

and heaviness, so the outer being becomes responsive to the inner soul.
The opening or awakening of the psychic center generally takes many
years to come forward, as its transforming light slowly raises the outer
being to a higher level.
The psychic transformation takes up each strand of our being—
body, heart, and mind—and refines their energies, infusing each part
with the psychic vibration and consciousness. The dross and impurities
are slowly burned away. The grossness and heaviness of the body con-
sciousness are refined so that its dense, apparent unconsciousness awak-
ens and becomes lighter, subtler, raised to a finer vibration, sensitive to
the subtle physical energies of the energy body. The energies of the
emotional—lower, central, higher—are uplifted and infused with the
love, joy, and peace of the psychic center. The rajasic vehemence of the
emotional, its brash impulsivity and insistent, demanding sense of enti-
tlement, is calmed, softened, and ennobled by the psychic’s energies,
purified so that the sensitivity of the emotional consciousness can be
receptive to the inner promptings. The mind’s self-assurance and arro-
gance are clarified and elevated, quieted so that in peace and silence the
mind may receive true inner guidance.
The refinement of the psychic transformation changes each part of
us, slowly or quickly as our nature demands and as the opening pro-
ceeds. The less integration of the self, the more it is divided into con-
flicting sectors, the more difficult it is to awaken the psychic and for the
psychic influence to refine the self. Upsurges of vital desire and emo-
tional storms of all kinds seize the self, throwing it into outwardness
and deflecting it from its focus on awakening the true soul and psychic
center. On the other hand, the greater the integration and coherence of
the frontal self, the more readily the psychic influence and transforma-
tion can proceed.

COHERENCE, REFINEMENT, RESONANCE

Coherence is the result of the psychological transformation, a growing
state in which increasing integration of the self ’s levels vibrate together,
in harmony with the authentic nature native to the person. This greater
coherence also brings about greater physical health and immune capac-
ity, as recent medical advances document. Coherence is built upon
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 81

authenticity, which extends into our relational world. It is a positive

spiral of greater health, good feeling, and richness and fulfillment in
work and relationships.
Refinement is the result of the psychic transformation, an evolving
purification of the outer nature and self, bringing forth the inner qual-
ities of the psychic center—peace, light, bliss and utter contentment,
discrimination, gratitude, truthfulness, purified devotion and surrender,
and openness to spirit. The surface instruments become more receptive
to the inner source of consciousness, more loving, and more in touch
with the inherent delight of being.
Coherence and refinement bring with them a third treasure—an
increased capacity for resonance. The more coherent the self, the
greater its capacity for resonance with others (Siegal, 1999). Resonance
is pulsation at the same level, a sympathetic vibration in which we
respond from similar parts of our being. In resonance we enter into an
empathic immersion and depth of relatedness with another; together
we participate in being. Resonance is a form of communication
between two people, a form of sharing. Sometimes this is limited to the
verbal level, but at its highest, we are able to resonate emotionally, men-
tally, and somatically, communing with one another at every level. It is
true meeting and touching. A person’s capacity for resonance with
others is limited by the degree of coherence the self has achieved. A rel-
atively less coherent self has significant limitations around intimacy and
the capacity for resonance with others. Greater coherence brings with
it the delight and fulfillment of deep capacity for resonance with others.
This capacity for resonance with others is not restricted to
people—the other can be nature, animals, flowers, the natural world,
music, or art. Resonance is the ability to be touched deeply, to be open
and vulnerable and responsive to the reverberations of the world around
us. The more fully we can be touched, the greater our fulfillment in life
and relationships.
As the psychic transformation proceeds, it becomes clear that our
capacity for resonance and deep intimacy with others is limited only by
our connection to ourselves. We can only go as deeply with another as
we can go into ourselves. Greater coherence on the personality level
opens up immensely the potential for intimacy with others. However,
even here it is still limited by the degree of sympathetic vibration that
two distinct personalities can achieve. When we awaken our psychic
82 Integral Psychology

center, the possibilities for deep intimacy expand infinitely, for we feel
a oneness with all at the level of Being. Thus we get the example of
great souls with an awakened psychic center, such as Jesus Christ, who
related to all people, including the outcasts and the dark side of human-
ity—lepers, prostitutes, the insane—at the level of spirit or Being.
We sense an inner resonance and loving vibration—even if, at the
level of personality, there is dissonance, discord, or even conflict. So
while Krishna enjoins Arjuna to fight and destroy the enemy with a
mind at peace and a heart full of love, on the inner plane there is peace,
love, and light, even in the midst of war and destruction outwardly.
Such a poise of consciousness creates the best chance for harmony and
peace, but even if conflict or war is unavoidable, it can be carried out
skillfully and mindfully. And when, instead of war, loving and intimacy
are the goal, then how much more can be realized with the psychic
center as the basis?
One of the great insights into the nature of reality that comes out
of the schools of India Tantra is that all existence is vibration (spanda).
Each particle, rock, blade of grass, planet, and star is a form of vibra-
tion. Embodiment in this manifest world is a vibratory adventure.
From an integral perspective, evolution is a movement from a simple to
a progressively more complex vibrational state. Greater complexity has
the potential both for greater and more varied forms of dissonance (dis-
cord and unhappiness) as well as for greater and more varied forms of
coherence (harmony and joy). Health is a coherent vibrational state that
harmonizes the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions
of our being.
Love is the master harmony of the universe. The vibration of love
is the crown of existence, the goal toward which we all are moving, the
vibration that secretly animates this universe. To feel the profound bliss
of love, its overpowering peace and profound depths in our daily life
and relationships, is our highest fulfillment. This cannot be imposed
but must emerge naturally. For this deep, inward vibration to be felt,
consciousness must be still, coherent, and receptive. The soul, our psy-
chic center, is spontaneously one with the vibration of Divine love. To
come upon this state and express it in our lives is integral psychology’s
goal.
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 83

THE F URTHER REACHES OF

HUMAN TRANSFORMATION
Conventional psychology has given up on a human being realizing an
enduring state of fulfillment, overflowing love, and abiding peace and
happiness. At best, such things are fleeting, alternating with their oppo-
sites, and conventional wisdom maintains that most of life is a muddle
somewhere in the middle. As long as human living is confined to the
physical, emotional, and mental range of experience, this is perfectly
true. The ordinary life of samsara is a ceaseless flux, oscillating between
pleasure and pain, love and hate, and anxiety and safety. However, in
the evolution of consciousness, there is a greater depth of being toward
which humanity is moving.
Psychological transformation brings increasing coherence, while psy-
chic transformation brings increasing refinement. Together they repre-
sent the next step in evolution—the growth of consciousness into its
highest and widest fulfillment. With greater coherence and psychic
refinement, new possibilities open up for relationship. We all long for
connection and the fulfillment we experience in deep emotional reso-
nance. The most complete and satisfying form of emotional resonance
occurs in love. Love is the greatest attunement between two beings, and
at its highest, it leads to union, the fullest resonance possible. This is
not merger or loss of individuality; rather, it is an experience of joining
together in the vibration of love, a state of utter completeness and relat-
edness. As the psychic transformation unfolds, relationship and reso-
nance extend beyond other people to all of creation.
Transformation takes time. There is no getting around this hard
fact of evolution. But if we invest ourselves, apply ourselves, and give
ourselves a few decades for this important work, we will see a powerful,
lasting change in ourselves, our relationships, and our world. The inner
life is the only way out, the only satisfying answer to the problems of
existence. Living from the inside out, refashioning our outer life from
within by turning the powers of our inner being upon our surface
nature, we can make our outer life a luminous expression of our deep-
est soul.
An evolutionary approach to health sees that
84 Integral Psychology

• there are depths to our subjectivity that far surpass previous

views.
• the self is seen not just as a social construction or an error but
as an evolutionary formation and expression of our deeper
being.
• the developing soul has a unique evolutionary pathway, a pur-
pose, a destiny, work to do, and lessons to learn. The growth
of consciousness is the central fact of our life. “Good” is what
facilitates the growth of our consciousness, and “bad” (“evil”)
is what impedes it.
• there is a source of self-existent bliss, light, love, peace, and
power within us. It also is a source of wisdom and guidance
that can be trusted completely. It is not merely socially con-
structed or culturally conditioned, although it is usually inter-
preted through our social and cultural conditioning. This
deepest guidance can be trusted even when the mind does not
know the reasons. For most of us, learning to discern the psy-
chic center’s quiet voice is a lifelong process (at least). Mistak-
ing the mind’s overconfident ideas, the heart’s insistent
impulsions and desires, and the body’s habitual preferences
for the soul’s “still, quiet voice within” is an inevitable and a
necessary part of our learning as the psychic center develops.
• states of cohesion or fragmentation become even more impor-
tant, because they are seen to facilitate or block the deeper
psychic guidance.
• beyond the psychological transformation that brings coher-
ence to the self, the psychic transformation works to refine,
purify, and psychicize the self so it becomes transparent, flexi-
ble, and responsive to the soul’s light.
• the relational nature of the self expands to include our origi-
nal and deepest relationship, to the Divine inwardly; from
there it extends to all people and all creation outwardly.
• relationships that are of a psychic nature may be rare, but they
are exceedingly precious. There is a role for all kinds of rela-
tionships, including those that are primarily mental, emo-
tional, and physical, or some combination of each. As the
psychic center comes forward, every relationship has its
unique meaning.
• the inner heart becomes the center of embodied life.
 An Evolutionary Vision of Health 85

• opening the heart is central to full living, so that the heart

center can be a beacon in our life. When large portions of
feeling life are unconscious and defensively repressed or dis-
avowed, access to our psychic center is seriously impeded.
Freeing up the heart and bringing it fully on-line is helpful in
awakening the psychic flame.
• finding our authentic self is a guiding value in living.
Although this does not in itself bring us to our psychic center,
the authentic self is an important step along the way and a
means of expressing our psychic center as our contact with it
deepens.
• authentic relationships become a spiritual imperative. Creat-
ing our life from the inside out means reaching out, finding,
and building the authentic relations that further our psycho-
spiritual growth. Inauthentic relationships stifle and impede
our unfolding, and as we grow, such relationships tend to
shrivel and fall away, replaced by relationships and activities
that reflect our true feelings and interests. Authentic self-
expression is how the soul brings itself forth and participates
in the world.
• love is the master harmony of life. To the degree that we can
create and foster authentic, loving, and nourishing relation-
ships, we approach a divine living. To the extent that negativ-
ity, toxic relationships, and harsh feelings characterize our
relationships, we are living in hell. Learning to love authenti-
cally is a high priority (versus inauthentically living from
images of a loving relationship and trying to force relation-
ships into these images, a common form of spiritual bypassing
that is epidemic and part of the legacy of Christian condi-
tioning from which Western culture is still struggling to free
itself ).

In undergoing these two transformations, the self becomes more

uniquely itself. It is not sameness or uniformity that evolution is head-
ing toward but the opposite. Evolution creates ever-greater diversity,
differentiation, and individuation. A soul-centered psychology sees that
the highest function of psychological development and education is to
cultivate individuality, developing one’s authentic nature of body, heart,
and mind while keeping the central focus of discovering one’s psychic
86 Integral Psychology

center. Each soul and self is distinct, an incomparable portion of Spirit.

In entering ever more deeply into the depths of our unique psychic
center, we experience our oneness with all—without losing our unique-
ness. It is simultaneously union with all and a flowering of our individ-
uality. In this we see how the Divine manifestation is an essential unity
that expresses itself through an endless diversity of forms and selves. In
diversity is unity, not dissolving one into the other but both existing in
a rich harmony.
From this perspective, the task for non-Western cultures is to grow
more in the direction of its members’ individuality, freeing individuals’
creative capacities for differentiation without losing the relational and
social cohesion that is their source of strength. The task for Western
cultures, on the other hand, is to grow more in the direction of related-
ness and away from isolation and fragmentation, without losing the
drive toward individuality that is the West’s strength.
Greater relatedness and connection is the West’s next evolutionary
step. Yet it must be on a new, authentic basis, not on the old basis of
obligation and meaningless family roles and ties, something outdated,
outgrown, or dead or dying that deserves to be cast off as an impedi-
ment to a freer, more expansive life. Authentic connection must grow
on a new psychological and spiritual basis of true relationship, genuine
love and interest, real caring and respect, and truth in relating.
The central question is: How can this dual transformation be
brought about? Which methods, practices, and discipline can we follow
to awaken and bring forth increasing coherence and psychicization?
That is the subject of the second half of this book.
 Part 2

Integral Psychotherapy
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 Chapter 5

Psychotherapy As Behavior Change

Karma Yoga

Whatever a man’s work and function in life, he can, if it is determined from

within or if he is allowed to make it a self-expression of his nature, turn it
into a means of growth and of a greater self-perfection.
—Sri Aurobindo, Essays on the Gita

The three powers of our human instrument—body, heart, and

mind—have produced in India three major paths to the Divine:

• The path of action in the world, or karma yoga

• The path of mindfulness and the mind, or jnana yoga
• The path of love and the heart, or bhakti yoga

Each traditional yoga uses the powers and capacities of one part of
our nature as a lever to lift us toward Spirit. In so doing, each yoga
develops splendidly one part of us but unfortunately neglects the other
two-thirds of our natural being.
Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga attempts to correct this one-sided
development with an integral growth of each part. It recognizes that
each person may favor or lead with one part, but that when carried to
the end, each path leads naturally to the others, culminating in a unity
of surrender, love, and knowledge.
It is the rich flowering of our whole being that we seek to develop.
Though in any particular lifetime we may emphasize one power more
than others, nevertheless it is an integral harmony that is our birthright
89
90 Integral Psychotherapy

and evolutionary goal: body, heart, and mind raised to their full capac-
ities, led by the psychic center through an increasingly psychicisized
and refined authentic self.
Individual differences have been problematic for the schools of psy-
chotherapy, which often try to make one size fit all. But consciousness
is evolving along different pathways, and this must be considered in
inner development. The wisdom of Eastern psychology as embodied in
the three classical yogas recognizes that each individual has natural
routes for inner development—karma yoga, for action-oriented people
immersed in the world; jnana yoga, the path of the mind for contem-
plative natures; and bhakti yoga, the path of the heart for emotionally
attuned natures. The outer being or instrumental nature of body, heart,
and mind (the koshas) is being developed by the evolving soul in differ-
ent ways. So, too, in psychotherapy—an integral psychotherapy must
allow for individual differences and be able to use what natural
strengths and abilities a client has to further the psychotherapeutic
process. One way of thinking about these differences lies through the
koshas and the classical yogas that spring from them.
Each gateway to the inner being is more accessible for certain
people than others, yet everyone has some way to make this inward
turning, even if it is only a first start. A first point of entry into the inner
world is through behavior. This pathway is open to everyone, even
those whose natural inclination is not to look within, for everyone acts.
Behaviorism has come upon a similar insight that behavior is univer-
sally available as a way to change. And, as we shall see, each pathway
eventually leads to, takes up, and includes the others when followed
along its natural direction, for in the end this is a path of wholeness and
integral evolution.
People generally enter psychotherapy in pain. Many clients are not
interested in why they are in pain, they just want it to go away and to
feel better. For such clients the natural starting point is a behavioral
approach. Psychotherapy of whatever persuasion finds that unskillful
behavior creates pain, and that feeling better comes by acting differ-
ently. This fundamental insight unites all schools of psychotherapy. The
differences between orientations consist only in how to best bring
about this change in behavior: behavior therapy uses outward means,
while depth therapy uses inner means.
In focusing on outwardly observable learning and behavior, behav-
iorism does not concern itself with deeper levels of consciousness, only
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 91

their visible, behavioral expressions. B. F. Skinner, the father of modern

behaviorism, referred to behaviorism as a “black box” model of the
psyche, meaning that behaviorism does not and should not speculate
about the inner workings of consciousness but must stick to outwardly
verifiable behavior. Only recently has behaviorism even admitted
thinking as a valid area of study by classifying it as an internal behavior
of talking to ourselves or “self-talk.” Consequently, behavior therapy,
cognitive therapy, and all of the various offshoots of cognitive-behav-
ioral methods are concerned with getting clients to behave and think
differently in order to reduce symptoms. The goal is behavior change,
and any new awareness is an extraneous, though not unwelcome,
accompaniment.
Feeling bad is feedback that indicates certain behavior does not
meet our needs. Feeling better, in cognitive and behavioral therapies,
comes by changing body, cognition, and behavior:

1. The body—for example, teaching relaxation techniques to

reduce muscle tension, or teaching fuller, more relaxed
diaphragmatic breathing; it also includes the use of physical
means to directly change the brain’s chemistry and to thus
alter feeling states such as tranquilizers and anti-depressants.
2. Cognitions—challenging old thinking patterns and suggest-
ing more rational thinking
3. Behavior—supporting the person in doing what is being
avoided

Anxiety, stress, fear, and phobias are areas where cognitive-behav-

ioral approaches have been shown to be most effective. Some types of
depression and certain behavioral disorders such as bulimia and child-
hood conduct disorders also have shown some promising results when
treated behaviorally. Although cognitive-behavioral methods are being
used in other areas, these results have been more partial.

KARMA YOGA
Although all schools of psychotherapy deal with behavior, behaviorism
and cognitive-behavioral therapies make most use of the vocabulary of
behavior change. Similarly, while every world religion deals with the
92 Integral Psychotherapy

problem of action in the world, the Indian school of karma yoga spe-
cializes in this question. Karma yoga (karma means action, work, or
works, though a more current translation might be behavior) is one of
the three traditional Hindu yogas. The clearest and most influential
articulation of karma yoga appears in the Bhagavad Gita, one of India’s
most revered sacred texts. The Bhagavad Gita is actually a small part of
a much larger work, the Mahabarata, an epic Indian tale of a struggle
between royal cousins over the rulership of an ancient Indian kingdom.
The essence of the story is a conflict between the forces of good
and evil, where evil threatens to engulf the world, and the Divine forces
must fight to restore the reign of the good. The forces of light are rep-
resented by five brothers, the Pandava princes, who lost their kingdom
for a period of time in a rigged gambling game. The forces of evil and
corruption are represented by the hundred sons of Kuru, who cheated
the Pandava princes out of their kingdom. When the sons of Kuru
refuse to give back the kingdom at the agreed time, the Pandavas must
wage war to regain their rightful territory. But these two clans of the
Pandavas and Kuru were raised together and have many relatives,
teachers, and friends in common. War is a terrible prospect, because
many family and close friends will be killed.
Krishna, an avatar or incarnation of God, is officially neutral in this
dispute but lets Arjuna, the hero of the Bhagavad Gita and a great Pan-
dava warrior, choose between having Krishna’s army fight on his side or
having Krishna as his charioteer. As the Bhagavad Gita begins, Arjuna
has chosen Krishna as his charioteer and asks Krishna to drive his char-
iot to the very center of the battlefield between the two armies. Arjuna
then looks out over both armies facing each other. As he surveys the
scene, he sees sons, brothers, teachers, grandsons, uncles, and friends
and realizes almost all of them will be killed in this great battle. At this
dramatic moment, time freezes.
Arjuna is plunged into an existential crisis when he sees the devas-
tation about to occur. He becomes overwhelmed with fear, grief, and
the thought that even if he wins the battle, the slaughter of so many
people he loves dearly will not be worth it. He throws down his bow
and refuses to fight. He declares he wants to become a monk and to
withdraw from the world.
The Bhagavad Gita, then, is a discourse by Krishna to Arjuna in
which he enjoins Arjuna to stand up and fight, to stop avoiding his
work as a warrior, and to lead the forces of justice in restoring right-
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 93

eousness to the world. But, counsels Krishna, fighting must not be done
out of anger or fear but must flow from one’s essential nature (svab-
hava) and as a spiritual practice. Krishna then takes Arjuna on a philo-
sophical teaching in which action in the world becomes a means of
liberation—karma yoga, or the yoga of action. In karma yoga, all of our
activities are to be done as a form of worship, in a spirit of surrender to
the Divine and openness to Divine guidance. By the end of the Gita
Arjuna picks up his bow and joins the battle, which is finally won by
the Pandavas at a great cost to both sides as the Mahabarata continues.
Each of us, of course, is Arjuna on the battlefield of life—anxious,
scared, and overwhelmed at the existential realities of loss and death,
confused about what to do, and tempted to withdraw and avoid the
stresses of the world. In the face of Arjuna’s refusal to fight, Krishna, as
the divine teacher, does what any good behavior therapist would do—
he works with Arjuna to change his behavior. Krishna works on two
levels: changing Arjuna’s outward phobic behavior of avoiding battle,
and changing Arjuna’s inward behavior, his thinking, by changing his
cognitive framework. Arjuna’s fear is apparent in his graphic descrip-
tion of his physical symptoms. Arjuna says:

My limbs sink down

And my mouth dries up
And my body trembles
And my hair stands on end. (Sargeant, 1984, I, 29)

Krishna initially responds rather unempathically and even shamingly in

his initial attempt to get Arjuna to change his behavior:

Whence this timidity of thine,

Come to thee in time of danger,
Not acceptable in an Aryan, not leading to heaven
Causing disgrace, Arjuna?
Do not become a coward . . .
This, in thee, is not suitable.
Abandoning base faintheartedness,
Stand up! Scorcher of the foe. (Sargeant, 1984, II, 2–3)

Cognitive-behavior therapy works most effectively with phobias

and fears of various kinds. Phobic behavior maintains itself by
94 Integral Psychotherapy

reinforcing the fear every time the feared object is avoided. The essen-
tial therapeutic strategy for eliminating phobic behavior is to confront
what is avoided. Just as Arjuna’s initial fear on the battlefield caused
him to recoil and avoid behaving as a warrior, Krishna works to change
his thinking patterns and behavior, to face the enemy and engage the
battle, to act according to his nature rather than out of fear. Thus the
Gita recommends exposure to what is feared—the great behavioral
prescription, for what decades of psychological research into fear have
discovered is that exposure heals fear.
However, it should be noted that not just any kind of exposure is
healing, for exposure accompanied by fear and distress can simply rein-
force fear. It must be a safe and controlled exposure, done with a rela-
tively relaxed body and calm mind. Here the Gita encompasses the
truth of controlled exposure and surpasses it when Krishna tells Arjuna
that his action is not to be done in an agitated state or in anger but must
be done from a state of deep peace and equality. This peace and equal-
ity come out of the inner spirit, and it is from these depths that action
must ultimately spring.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy produces a reduced version of this by
teaching relaxation strategies and changing catastrophic, rigid thinking
patterns, then proceeding with controlled exposure to the feared situa-
tion. For example, in working with a man who has a bridge phobia, a
behavior therapist may teach him how to relax his muscles and to
breathe from his belly as he relaxes. Drugs also may be prescribed for
relaxation. The therapist challenges the man’s catastrophic thinking and
gets him to reevaluate more realistically the actual danger of bridges.
Then the therapist works with the man to gradually walk toward a
bridge. As the man’s anxiety increases, the man would be instructed to
stop or back up a few steps, to relax and calm down before proceeding.
Then the therapist would encourage him to approach the bridge again.
As the man’s anxiety builds, the therapist counsels him to stop and
relax. This stop-start pattern continues until gradually the man is
standing in the middle of the bridge. In surrendering illogical to logi-
cal cognitions, in surrendering contracted muscles for relaxation, and in
surrendering avoidance of bridges to exposure to other bridges, the
man’s bridge phobia is resolved, and he is able to act differently.
Depression is the other major symptom for which cognitive-behav-
ioral therapy can be effective. Arjuna speaks to Krishna not only of anx-
iety and fear, he also speaks of overwhelming grief and depression from
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 95

the death of so many loved ones. With “this sorrow of mine which dries
up the senses,” Arjuna declares that he is better off being killed himself
than killing others, as the Gita’s first chapter, “The Despondency of
Arjuna,” ends by Arjuna

Throwing down both bow and arrow,

With a heart overcome by sorrow. (Sargeant, 1984, I, 47)

Like a master cognitive-behavioral therapist, Krishna works first to

change Arjuna’s thinking by reframing this battle and explaining that
there is nothing to grieve. No one really dies, for the true soul is immor-
tal. All that dies is the body, for that which is born must die. What is
there to mourn in this natural event?

Truly there was never a time when I was not,

Nor thou, nor these lords of men;
And neither will there be a time when we shall cease to be; . . .
No one is able to accomplish
The destruction of this imperishable (the atman.)
Neither is this (atman) born nor does it die at any time,
Nor, having been, will it again come not to be.
Birthless, eternal, perpetual, primeval,
It is not slain when the body is slain . . .
As, after casting away worn out garments,
A man later takes new ones,
So, after casting away worn out bodies,
The atman encounters other, new ones . . .
For the born, death is certain;
For the dead there is certainly birth.
Therefore, for this, inevitable in consequence,
Thou shouldst not mourn. (Sargeant, 1984, II, 12, 22, 27)

Arjuna is heartened by Krishna’s words. But though Krishna’s

reframing helps reduce his depressive feelings, Arjuna seeks more than
this. Just as a cognitive-behavioral approach to anxiety and depression
oftentimes works, at other times it is not enough. Directly changing
behavior and cognitions is an important dimension in psychotherapy. It
is a surface approach that produces a surface change in behavior, think-
ing, and feeling. For certain clients it is sufficient to reduce symptoms
96 Integral Psychotherapy

to a tolerable level, for this is all many clients are concerned with, so
behaviorism and drugs may be enough. Indeed, given the current evo-
lutionary level of humanity, it is no wonder that behaviorism and drugs
are such popular methods of treatment, for there has not yet entered
into the general population the power of a deeper and more inward
living. Additionally, given the limitations of many life circumstances,
for example, a depressed elderly client whose faculties are failing, and
who has neither the time nor resources for depth psychotherapy, drugs
and behavior therapy may be the best that can be reasonably expected.
But a cognitive-behavioral strategy is only a first approach to changing
behavior.
While drugs and cognitive-behavioral therapies have their place,
human psychology is more complex than these approaches compre-
hend. For many other people, behavior therapy and drugs are ineffec-
tive or achieve only temporary results. Clients often sense that there is
much more to their issues than a simple Band-Aid can remedy. The
schools of depth psychotherapy seek to understand these larger
domains of the human psyche. They begin to lay their hands on the
deeper levers of human behavior to effect change.
Like many clients, Arjuna is not satisfied merely with a behavioral
prescription or a cognitive reorientation. He prods Krishna to go far-
ther to unlock the secret of right action. And the teaching of the Gita
is more profound than just getting Arjuna to act differently. By the end
of the Gita Arjuna not only behaves differently but acts from a differ-
ent consciousness. Action in the world (behavior) as a field for the
growth of consciousness is the Gita’s greater message.

AN INTEGRATING PRINCIPLE FOR EAST AND WEST

Eastern psychology is a ringing refutation of postmodernism’s denial of
deeper realities. The unanimous testimony of Eastern psychology is
that there is indeed a core being beyond our frontal ego, if only we have
the eyes to see it. This inner being is something to which the Western
depth psychologies have been intuitively pointing, but only vaguely and
imprecisely. Further, as we enlarge our view of psychology, we see that
this essential being includes and surpasses the frontal physical-
emotional-mental self.
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 97

Integral psychology draws on the yogic understanding of essential

being or uniqueness as a unifying principle of wholeness. The Sanskrit
word svabhava (pronounced sva - bha’ - va) means our essential nature
or uniqueness, and it can be translated in many ways, including intrin-
sic self, inherent nature, or self-being. This essential nature is inherent
in our spiritual being. As it develops over many lives, the influence of
the spiritual nature increases, so that more and more of the frontal self
follows one’s svabhava. What Western psychology studies as the
authentic self is but an expression of the inner, essential uniqueness that
Indian psychology studies as the soul or psychic center.
Indian spirituality has declared for thousands of years that with a
spiritual aspiration, we can follow our authentic nature to a higher,
spiritual fulfillment. Following our svabhava leads to a path of self-
realization (svadharma) or action that follows the authentic develop-
ment of the self. In India’s most revered sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita,
Krishna states that one’s intrinsic nature can lead to the highest spiri-
tual liberation:

By worshipping with his own proper action (svadharma)

Him from Whom beings have their origin,
Him by Whom all this universe is pervaded,
A person finds perfection.
Better one’s own innate action (svadharma), though imperfect,
Than the innate action of another well performed.
One should not abandon one’s inborn action
Even though it be deficient,
Indeed, all undertakings are enveloped in deficiency
As fire is in smoke. (Sargeant, 1984, XVIII 46–48)

Krishna, who like Christ or Buddha is seen as a divine teacher, here

states a central teaching of the Gita. Following one’s own essential
nature leads to liberation. Following another’s path is dangerous for the
soul (III 35) and blocks our inner growth, for it is external and imposed
upon our genuine inner being. Even if we are more outwardly success-
ful at something foreign to us, or even if our own path seems defective,
we must realize that all human work is deficient to some extent. That
should not make us abandon our own unique path and gifts. Indeed,
through meditation and inner discipline, we can align our life and
98 Integral Psychotherapy

actions with our essential nature (svabhava) and reach a supreme

spiritual perfection.
This is very much in accord with the teachings of modern psychol-
ogy. Although Western psychology has not yet fully understood the
nature of our essential being, it points toward an authentic self through
which we find ourselves and fulfillment. Western psychology has not
comprehended the deeper, spiritual nature of our essential being, but it
does recognize the importance of honoring our unique nature. Here, in
a nutshell, is the reason what psychology calls self-actualization feels so
good and so right, for in a larger, more integral view, self-actualization
is part of a larger process of spiritual unfolding. Self-actualization
touches into the deeper essential spiritual being without fully recogniz-
ing it.
The quest for wholeness is a search for the full integrality of our
being—body, heart, mind, and spirit. On the psychological level, this is
a search for the authentic self, an integrated, cohesive self that is an
expression of our true nature. Psychological healing and growth are
important steps toward this but are not sufficient, for full integrality is
rooted in spirit, and only as the quest for wholeness comes to include
the deeper spiritual aspiration does it move toward fulfillment.

DEPTH PSYCHOTHERAPY AND

BEHAVIOR CHANGE
Using action and behavior as a way to expand awareness is another way
to approach behavior change. Depth psychotherapy seeks to change
behavior through deepening awareness. Limited consciousness results
in limited behaviors that produce pain. Expanding consciousness yields
expanded behavioral possibilities. From this greater freedom flows
more skillful and more rewarding behavior. Behavior changes with
greater consciousness.
Action and behavior run on a continuum from more subtle behav-
iors such as talking and thinking to more outwardly dramatic expres-
sions such as hitting or yelling. We cannot help but act, as Krishna
points out:

Indeed, no one, even in the twinkling of an eye,

Ever exists without performing action . . .
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 99

And even the mere maintenance of thy body

Could not be accomplished without action. (Sargeant, 1984, III,
5,8)

While action-oriented therapies often disparage verbalization as

“just talk,” it is through the action of talking that most people interact
and spend most of their interpersonal lives. And it is through the action
of thinking that we make sense of the world and orient our lives. While
most of the psychotherapy field enters the psyche through talking, a
number of depth psychotherapies, such as gestalt, bioenergetics, drama
therapy, and psychodrama, use more expressive behaviors and action.
Their strategy is to use such techniques as role-playing, behavioral
experiments, voice exercises, exaggerating or suppressing behaviors,
contracting and relaxing muscles, breathwork, hitting pillows, and
trying on new behaviors to enhance awareness in the movement toward
behavior change.
For example, with most therapists a woman client with relationship
issues would spend the hour talking about her feelings and relation-
ships. Depending upon the orientation of the therapist, she would be
encouraged to explore her deeper feelings, their childhood roots, and
how her current patterns may be a replay of earlier family relationships,
as well as how these patterns also show up in her relationship with her
therapist and other people in her current life. An action-oriented ther-
apist might suggest that she role-play her husband, her father, her
mother, and other significant relationships in order to bring greater
awareness to her feelings. Whether a therapist uses words or action
techniques, the underlying assumption is that we discover ourselves
through our actions, our words, and our behavior.
When time freezes at the beginning of the Gita, a sacred space is
created in which only Arjuna and Krishna seem to exist. About two-
thirds of the way through their dialogue, Krishna provides Arjuna with
a profound experience of Krishna as the all-pervading godhead. Its
effect upon Arjuna is powerfully mind-boggling and humbling, and it
shakes Arjuna to the core. An astonished Arjuna sees Krishna in a new
light, and from that point on he takes his discourse far more seriously.
In a similar way, psychotherapy must be a profound and an intense
experience if it is to be healing and growth inspiring.
Whatever behavioral pathway is used, whether words or actions, it
must not remain “just talking” or even “just hitting or just yelling,” even
100 Integral Psychotherapy

though these may be intense or lead to some kind of discharge. It must

lead to inner deepening. It is the deepening of experience that engages
the client on the inner journey. Psychotherapy is the creation of a sacred
space where inner depths can be plumbed. The boundaries that form
the psychotherapeutic container for psychotherapy, such as a consistent
time frame, space, fee, confidentiality, and so on, make for a safe space
in which to open and explore new depths.
Expecting specific, immediate results impedes the exploration of
inner depths. Psychotherapy is a process, and it is by attending to the
client’s inner process that inner deepening occurs. The Gita’s teaching
is very much in accord with psychotherapy in this regard, for it also
counsels attending to process rather than focusing upon results. This
comes by offering the results of all actions to God, letting go of the
fruits of action, and focusing upon the action itself. This allows con-
sciousness to deepen by bringing peace and equality into everyday acts.
As Krishna says:

Thy jurisdiction is in action alone;

Never in its fruits at any time.
Never should the fruits of action be thy motive. (Sargeant, 1984,
II, 47)

The unfolding of the self in psychotherapy always occurs in sur-

prising and unexpected ways. It does not always proceed along the
stages according to a particular school’s map. As all therapists learn but
soon forget, such maps are helpful but must be held lightly, otherwise
there is the danger of missing the territory by fixating on the map.

FROM UNSKILLFUL BEHAVIOR

TO SKILLFUL BEHAVIOR

“Yoga is skill in actions,” Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. A

more modern rendering might be, “Yoga is skillful behavior.” From one
perspective, neurosis consists of unskillful behavior. Psychological
health is skillful behavior.
Karma yoga aims at skillful behavior through surrender: surrender-
ing our desires and ego-based living to the Divine, to allow our spiri-
tual nature to emerge and guide our life. Psychotherapy also can be seen
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 101

as a process of surrender: surrender to our deeper self, surrendering

neurotic over-control so that our authentic nature may emerge and
guide our life.
When we act from the false self, we create needless pain for our-
selves, for we are acting out of the original coping strategy we devel-
oped in our family of origin. This served us at the time. It shielded us
from our pain and allowed us to cope with the wounded psyches of our
mother, father, and other family members. It was, at the time, a creative
adaptation to difficult circumstances. The problem is that the self
becomes fixated in a given coping pattern. The self develops only along
certain lines that are reinforced in the original system, deficits in the
self ’s structure are inevitably created, and false, defensive structures
compensate for these gaps. Because the self ’s development gets
arrested, the self becomes tied into acting in repetitive ways, which
Freud called the repetition compulsion. The self looks for love in the
same ways that it looked for love in the original family, for example, by
being attracted to men or women who are unavailable in similar ways
as father or mother was. The self is trying to work out the original
wounding, trying to complete the unfinished gestalt from childhood,
but unfortunately it keeps recreating the scenario in ways that keep it
incomplete, and it reinforces the old patterns. This unskillful behavior
creates unnecessary pain.
Depth psychotherapy changes this by changing one’s conscious-
ness. By healing old wounds, filling in the deficits in the self ’s structure,
exploring behavioral patterns in relationships, and freeing up the static
object relations matrix that perpetuates repetitive patterns, new behav-
ioral possibilities open up. Depth psychotherapy proceeds little by little
in “peeling the onion” of the psyche. As defenses erode, deeper feelings
emerge, which in turn will give way to new layers of defenses that need
further working through. Gradually the early wounds and roots of the
psyche are exposed, cleansed, and healed. This process alters the bal-
ance of forces in the psyche. As the inner forces of the psyche shift,
there is a resulting shift in behavior. The goal of all depth psychother-
apy is to act from a deeper source, increasingly from the authentic self.
Acting from our deeper, authentic nature allows us to act more
skillfully, for we then are in full possession of our powers, no longer
hampered by having much of our feeling, sensing, and thinking self
repressed and unavailable. Neurosis is like operating with impaired
vision and hearing and without the use of an arm and a leg. Of course,
102 Integral Psychotherapy

neurotic behavior is unskillful, for the self is operating at only partial

capacity. But in acting from our authentic depths, we more skillfully
navigate our life’s course and are able to find relationships that truly
nourish us rather than perpetually frustrate us and to find our true call-
ing, a form of creative work that integrates our ambitions, skills, and
ideals. Freud once defined the cure of neurosis as “the ability to love and
to work,” but the profundity of his statement is easily missed. Love and
work are the two major dimensions of embodied life. Pain results when
either sphere is frustrated.
The need for deep, intimate, vulnerable, and loving relationships is
by now fairly well known. But the importance for a creative work that
employs the self ’s full capacities is often overlooked. Alienation from
work is so widespread that it is taken for granted. Having to work is
often seen as a burden, one of life’s necessary hardships. Yet work is our
primary way of engaging the world. Finding true work, and having this
develop and mature over one’s lifespan, brings an incomparable depth
of fulfillment.
The paramount significance of authentic work is one of the Gita’s
strongest messages. “By works the worlds are created,” say Krishna,
“Without works the world would fall into ruin.” Following our true
nature (swadharma) leads us to our proper work and, further, can
become a means of spiritual development.
What the Gita teaches is that developing the capacities we have
leads to right livelihood and our true direction in life, the means by
which our deeper self (svabhava) can manifest, and further, that such
action can lead to spiritual liberation. Without using the language of
psychology, the Gita provides the spiritual basis for self-actualization.
In karma yoga what is paramount is the consciousness with which
we work. Work that flows from our essential, authentic nature (svab-
hava) engages the full self—our gifts and capacities. This kind of
engagement produces a state of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990, 1997),
a state where our consciousness is in harmony with its own nature and
action is a free outflowing of our being. Such work is simultaneously
the most fulfilling and the most growth enhancing for our evolving
consciousness. Work is a field for the growth of consciousness—this is the
whole pith and sense of the Bhagavad Gita, and it is a psychological and
a spiritual fulfillment.
If the growth of consciousness is the secret meaning of life on earth
and the central principle of the self, then whatever aids our growth may
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 103

be broadly defined as “good,” even though it may be unpleasant, and

whatever retards our growth can be seen as “bad” or evil, even though
pleasant. Karma (action, behavior, activity, work) is the means for our
unfolding in the world. Work, as our primary way of engaging the
world, then assumes the utmost importance. Alienating work that does
not make use of our true capacities may be regarded as toxic to the self
or bad. Work that is in alignment with our self and provides a rich envi-
ronment for self-unfolding and self-expression is to be highly valued.
The dream of making enough money to retire and stop working
reflects a person’s alienation from work. When work is a creative
engagement of the self ’s capacities, work is a joy and fulfillment. Not
working is then the tragedy, along with the fragmentation and ensuing
withdrawal into distractions, pleasure, or numbing entertainment.
Krishna enjoins Arjuna to perform his true work as a warrior, and
it is clear to all that this is his sacred duty. In a simpler world, where
family and society determined much of a person’s work and relation-
ships, such choices were more limited. Sri Aurobindo, in line with other
important philosophical thinkers who came after him, such as Jean
Gebser and Teilhard de Chardin, saw society evolve as individual con-
sciousness evolved. He posited an evolutionary development in society
from earlier forms that are typal and conventional, where a person’s
place in the world is entirely regulated by outer circumstances, such as
family and society, as was the case in medieval Europe and India. As
evolution proceeds, these give way to societies that are more rational,
individualistic, and subjective, that offer and demand more individual
choice, such as the increasingly complex and specialized modern world.
As individuals evolve, they become more complex and differentiated
and, as a consequence, society becomes more complex and differenti-
ated. For the growing soul, an increasing self-awareness accompanies
this evolutionary development, and earlier, more primitive forms of
society become constraining, because they limit the freedom and
growth that come with choice.
However, the increasing freedom and choice that accompany evo-
lution’s greater “complexification,” as De Chardin termed it, cannot be
navigated merely with an increasingly complex mind but will require
deeper self-awareness. It is in this evolutionary context of a more indi-
vidualistic and subjective world that psychotherapy arises. Itself a prod-
uct of life’s increasing complexification, psychotherapy increases
self-awareness and individuation. In today’s complicated world, the
104 Integral Psychotherapy

discovery of meaningful work that engages our total self—our capaci-

ties, ambitions, ideals—demands a degree of self-awareness that neuro-
sis often blocks. Depth therapy works to melt these blocks to
self-awareness so our true calling becomes clear.

OPENING AND SURRENDER

The teaching of the Gita is that our action (behavior) can be a path to
spiritual realization. The Gita prescribes opening and surrender: opening
to the Divine and the surrender of our will to the Divine will, surrender
of our motivation (desires) to the aspiration for the Divine, surrender of
ego to Self or self to spirit, surrender of ego-centered activity to Divine
service, surrender of self-determination and mental guidance to a higher,
Divine leading. Depth psychotherapy utilizes the same principles of
opening and surrender in its work with the frontal self. Psychotherapy
involves opening to the inner depths of the psyche and progressively sur-
rendering to its wiser guidance. It is a surrender of the false self to the
authentic self, a surrender of fear and defenses to faith in the authentic
self ’s abilities, a surrender of ego control to organismic wisdom.
However, this psychological transformation does not happen
overnight. It is a progressive process of healing, growth, and slow
transformation. First there is a turning within to feel and sense deeper
realms of our being. Inevitably, inner layers of shielding are encoun-
tered that prevent further deepening, and this takes time to work
through. In opening to the deeper layers of the psyche, painful though
they may be, there is a sense of coming home, coming back to our-
selves, of feeling more solid, more substantial, more real than ever
before. As the false self gives way, the true self begins to come forth.
We discover more fully how we truly feel, what we truly need in our
relationships versus what we thought we needed, where our interests
and talents lie, and what our true work is. In short, our authentic,
essential self or intrinsic nature (svabhava) is discovered. The Gita
declares that following our svabhava as a spiritual practice leads to our
spiritual ground.
In the language of integral psychology, in opening and surrender-
ing to our authentic self we come into greater alignment with our
evolving soul and essential nature. Our aspiration for the true con-
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 105

sciousness, for wholeness, becomes a passage toward our spiritual

nature, self-actualization leading to Self-realization. It becomes a way
to discover our spiritual being. This aspiration is not the ego’s desire but
the soul’s need. Tuning into this inherent aspiration lights a fire in the
heart that begins to change the course of our life and guide us in the
right direction.
What is necessary in this deepening aspiration is faith, a word that
has been corrupted in the West by its long association with mere belief.
But as the Christian mystics testify and the Gita confirms, faith goes far
beyond belief. The Gita even goes so far as to say:

Man is made of faith.

Whatever faith he has, thus he is. (Sargeant, 1984, XVII, 3)

The power of human consciousness is such that it manifests what

it focuses on. If a man thinks of himself as worthless, then his ensuing
depression soon confirms this judgment. Cognitive therapy attempts to
exchange this man’s faith in his worthlessness for a thinking and feel-
ing pattern that honors his value so the depression will lift. All psy-
chotherapy proceeds on faith in our greater possibilities.

Faith does not depend upon experience; it is something that is

there before experience. When one starts the yoga, it is not usu-
ally on the strength of experience, but on the strength of faith. It
is so not only in yoga and the spiritual life, but in ordinary life
also. All men of action, discoverers, inventors, creators of knowl-
edge proceed by faith and, until the proof is made or the thing
done, they go on in spite of disappointment, failure, disproof,
denial because of something in them that tells them that this is
the truth, the thing that must be followed and done. Ramakr-
ishna even went so far as to say, when asked whether blind faith
was not wrong, that blind faith was the only kind to have, for
faith is either blind or it is not faith but something else—rea-
soned inference, proved conviction or ascertained knowledge.
Faith is the soul’s witness to something not yet manifested,
achieved or realized, but which yet the Knower within us, even
in the absence of all indications, feels to be true or supremely
worth following or achieving. (Aurobindo, 1971a, p. 572)
106 Integral Psychotherapy

During the first period of the soul’s growth, faith in spirit is weak
and faith in sensory reality and all things physical predominates, creat-
ing a materialistic life lived mainly on the surface. As the evolving soul
matures, faith in spirit grows stronger, and inner psychological and spir-
itual realities emerge more clearly. As faith in the soul’s aspiration for
wholeness develops, this aspiration proves itself in the end by trans-
forming utterly the entire experience of living. Depending upon the
vision and faith of a client, psychotherapy leads to very different out-
comes. For some clients, psychotherapy will stay limited to the small
field of behavior change. For others, behavior will be a stepping-stone
to inner deepening. Behavior as a way to deepen consciousness, to dis-
cover and act from the authentic self can, the Gita teaches, proceed even
further to the discovery of the inner spirit.
One reason for the Gita’s preeminent place in India’s sacred litera-
ture is its widely embracing vision of the Divine as both Personal and
Impersonal, along with its acceptance of different spiritual paths.
Depending upon one’s nature, one can travel the path of action in the
world (karma yoga), the path of the mind or mindfulness (jnana yoga),
or the path of the heart or devotion (bhakti yoga.) The Gita concedes
that the impersonal path of the atman or Buddha-nature is steep, stren-
uous, and inaccessible to all but a very few.

The exertion of those whose minds

Are fixed on the Unmanifest is greater;
The goal of the Unmanifest is attained
With difficulty by embodied beings. (Sargeant, 1984, XII, 5)

The easier and more natural path for the great majority lies
through the heart. Krishna holds a revered place in Indian tradition as
the object of devotion in many of the bhakti schools of Vedanta, and
this is reflected in the Gita’s preference for the path of the heart. The
heart is the seat of the immanent Divine, as the Gita makes clear in this
reference to the soul, located deep within the heart center.

The Lord abides in the heart

Of all beings, Arjuna. (Sargeant, 1984, XVIII, 61)

Karma yoga is a surrender of our ego to the Divine. Psychotherapy

is a surrender of our irrational beliefs and behaviors to more rational
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 107

beliefs and behaviors; more deeply, it is a surrender of our limited, fear-

based behavior patterns to a greater range of risk taking and reaching
out; deeper still, it is a surrender of our neurotic, false self to our
authentic self. Finally, integral psychotherapy encompasses these and
includes a surrender of our outer living and surface self to our inner
being and psychic center.

DOING PSYCHOTHERAPY AS KARMA YOGA

Being a psychotherapist also becomes a practice of karma yoga. It
becomes a process of dedication and offering work to the Divine, of
opening to inner guidance, and the (very difficult) process of letting go
of the fruit of the reward. The first step is consecration, or dedicating
one’s life to the Divine, which not only karma yoga but every spiritual
tradition advocates.
In psychotherapy consecration is dedicating oneself to “becoming a
pro” as Bugental (1978) puts it. This means dedication to working on
ourselves psychologically, in our own therapy and lives, as well as devel-
oping a commitment to our professional growth as lifelong learners.
The learnings of psychotherapy are profoundly life changing, affecting
relationships and who we relate to, how deeply and intimately we can
go in our relationships, and our relationship to ourselves, our feelings,
our body, and our dreams. Each therapist changes in different ways
through his or her own inner work, and psychological growth is a
process without end.
Consecrating ourselves to becoming a professional is the first level;
the second is consecrating ourselves to the Divine. This means concen-
trating all of our energies on this one aspiration, which we cannot do—
at least the surface self cannot do it, since it runs in so many other
directions. In integral yoga and integral psychotherapy, this dilemma is
resolved by seeing the need for a central, harmonizing focus, an inte-
grating center around which to organize our life. This central organiz-
ing principle is the psychic center. The aspiration for awakening
becomes paramount in becoming an integral psychotherapist.
A second aspect of therapy as karma yoga is surrender. Depth psy-
chotherapy involves a progressive surrender to our deeper, authentic
self. Integral yoga psychotherapy carries this a step farther in surren-
dering our entire being to the Divine. Here again, what the frontal self
108 Integral Psychotherapy

cannot do, the psychic center can. We can give all of ourselves to the
Divine and surrender our desire for the fruit of the reward to whatever
result the Divine deems best.
Giving up our attachment to the reward and focusing on the work
itself is probably the best advice that can be given to a psychothera-
pist (or anyone, for that matter). Yet there is nothing harder to do, for
one of the most central motives for human beings is to feel compe-
tent. Self-esteem is directly linked to competence. We do something
well and feel good about ourselves; we do something poorly and feel
bad about ourselves. Some personality theorists maintain that compe-
tence is the basis for all of personality development (see, e.g., Basch,
1988). For the therapist, this is a real dilemma, since feeling effective
is essential to feeling good about ourselves. For example, we want our
clients to get better, to improve, to feel better, and to move on in their
lives, partly because we compassionately want them to get better and
partly because we want to feel competent and good about ourselves.
When clients do poorly or therapy fails, the self-esteem of the thera-
pist suffers, and anguish results. Letting go of outcome is very diffi-
cult to do.
One way of resolving this is to differentiate reward as feedback
about process versus reward as the goal. In seeing the reward (clients
getting better) as feedback, the focus is still on the process—receiving
necessary information about whether the work is moving in the right
direction or not. If the client is dissatisfied with the therapy, then this
is essential feedback. Perhaps something is off or a transference disrup-
tion is occurring that needs attention. Either way, it is a way of focus-
ing on the process. This is quite different from focusing on the reward
as a goal, for instance, a business that focuses just on the bottom line
and pegs self-worth to net worth.
Opening to the Divine for guidance, for healing, and for spirit’s
transformational energies is another aspect of psychotherapy as karma
yoga. Opening to the Divine for guidance and intuition can be tricky,
because this can be a cover for opening to our own unconscious—our
needs for power, for love, for looking smart, for admiration—or to
subtle energies and beings from the intermediate plane. All we open to
may not be the Divine. The psychological literature is full of warnings
about the dangers of blindly following our own “intuition” and clinical
hunches, since these often are rationales for indulging our own coun-
tertransference feelings or acting out impulses that are not in the best
 Psychotherapy As Behavior Change 109

interests of the client. Similarly, the spiritual literature is full of warn-

ings about opening the dangers of blindly following whatever lesser
lights or inner forces we find inside, for these may not all be of the
highest origin—they may even be hostile or anti-Divine forces. Here
again it is the discrimination provided by the psychic center that is cru-
cial in steering clear of these dangers.
Finally, the concept of svabhava is important. Is being a psy-
chotherapist part of our svabhava or essential nature? Is it right liveli-
hood and an authentic expression of our true self? If so, what is our
svadharma, or our unique style of psychotherapy? Which kind of ori-
entation, which techniques, and which types of clients do we work best
with? Discovering what psychological methods we resonate with most
fully, and the parts of our being that we are developing in this lifetime,
reflects which schools of therapy we gravitate toward. In honoring our
svabhava and individual path of development, this leads us toward our
psychic center. As the psychic center emerges, as we consciously make
the Divine more central in our lives and work, our outer practice of psy-
chotherapy becomes a means for opening to spirit.
Psychotherapy becomes a means of working on ourselves as we
make our work an offering to the Divine. Psychotherapy is service to
the Divine that allows us to bring forth into our outer nature the inner
realizations. In the path of transformation, inner realization is not
enough; only a change of our entire outer being is complete, therefore,
karma yoga is an essential dimension of an integral working.

CONCLUSION
In this enlarged vision of psychotherapy as a form of karma yoga, the
goal includes behavior change and increased coherence as the authen-
tic self comes on-line and defensive structures of the false self dissipate;
but it goes beyond these conventional goals to identify the source of the
authentic self as the evolving soul or psychic center, whose influence,
power, and consciousness increasingly become the guiding light and
center of consciousness. Greater psychicization is integral psychology’s
goal, accompanied by the self ’s greater coherence. This integrates East
and West in an enlarged vision of karma yoga, synthesizing the East’s
deeper maps and methods with the West’s more precise understanding
of the ego and the unconscious for an integral working.
110 Integral Psychotherapy

Besides karma yoga, two other key paths have evolved for finding
spirit. The path of the mind (jnana yoga) uses mindfulness and dis-
crimination to discover atman or Buddha-nature. The path of the heart
(bhakti yoga) uses devotion, love, surrender, bhakti, and aspiration to
discover the psychic center or true soul. These two pathways to the
inner depths, mindfulness and heartfulness, have profound implications
for psychotherapy, and an integrally comprehensive psychotherapy
incorporates both.
 Chapter 6

Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice

Jnana Yoga

Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in exis-

tence—it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that
creates the universe and all that is in it—not only the macrocosm but the
microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself.
—Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga

Beginning in India with Buddha about 600 B.C.E., together with Lao-
Tzu in China, Shankara in India, and culminating with modern teach-
ers of the Impersonal Divine, such as Krishnamurti and Ramana
Maharshi, the East has produced a steady stream of teachers of mind-
fulness as a path to realization. Buddhism, Taoism, and kevala advaita
Vedanta all reveal the Spirit as an infinite, impersonal consciousness,
the atman that is Brahman and the all-pervading ground from which
all arises. The path to atman (or Buddha-nature) is called jnana yoga,
which uses mindfulness or the mind’s discrimination to sift through the
mind’s illusions and discover the foundation of consciousness.
The path of mindfulness is the path of the eternal Now. All that
exists is this present moment—right here, right now. But the ego lives
in the past and future, spinning out fantasies and inhabiting a kind of
virtual reality that is more akin to dreaming or being half asleep.
Because of gross desires for things, people, sensory pleasure, and avoid-
ance of pain, consciousness becomes dull, tied to a fixed groove of
sleepwalking. The spiritual practice of mindfulness penetrates this
habitual stream of reactions and begins the process of awakening.
111
112 Integral Psychotherapy

Many varieties of witness consciousness or mindfulness practice

have been developed by different traditions. Tibetan Buddhism refers
to mindfulness, in Theravada Buddhism it is called bare attention or
vipassana, and in Zen Buddhism it is known as zazen. Krishnamurti’s
non-method of “choiceless awareness” is a contemporary rendering of
this ancient Buddhist practice into a more modern vocabulary. Simi-
larly, Gurdjieff ’s “self-remembering” is yet another variant. In India’s
Samkya tradition, as well as in Sri Aurobindo’s integral yoga, it appears
as the process of detaching the observer from the nature (prakriti), a
standing back from the contents of consciousness to discover a silent
witness within. In the kevala advaita tradition, the mind’s discrimina-
tive awareness discerns the real and eternal atman from all that is
noneternal and illusory. Nisargadatta Maharaj’s searching for who
seeks and Ramana Maharshi’s method of self-inquiry and progressive
disidentification from body, heart, and mind also are contemporary
versions of this practice.
The many varieties of mindfulness practice that have evolved share
some central characteristics. Essentially, mindfulness is a process of
paying attention to whatever arises in consciousness, bringing full
awareness to our experience, awareness of thoughts, feelings, and sen-
sations rather than being carried away mindlessly by their flow. Mind-
fulness practice in some Buddhist traditions begins by focusing on the
breath—paying careful attention to the many subtle sensations of
breathing in and out. This is a first stage of mindfulness, and when con-
centration increases and attention can witness the depths of physical
sensations of breathing, the practice then expands to whatever feelings,
thoughts, and fantasies arise in consciousness. There is no directive
other than to observe whatever arises and passes away, like watching a
cloud pass in the sky, observing without judgment, condemnation, or
justification. Observing in this way becomes an inquiry into the self,
and insight develops that reveals the nature of mind.
Through observation and awareness, the mind’s habitual activity
settles down. As it becomes still, the mind becomes like a polished
mirror that reflects back whatever it sees with pristine clarity. At some
point, awareness expands to see how the ego is itself a series of thoughts
and images put together moment to moment out of desire and memory.
In penetrating the spaces between these images, we enter a vast and an
impersonal emptiness that shows our fundamental identity to be pure
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 113

consciousness rather than the contents of consciousness with which we

usually identify (i.e., bodily sensations, feelings, impulses, thoughts, and
images). This pure consciousness is none other than the atman that is
Brahman, one without a second.
From the negative side, called Nirguna Brahman, this is a void, a
no-thing-ness, an emptiness beyond all forms. Forms are revealed to be
ultimately empty, and this emptiness is seen to be the support of all
forms (“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,” as the famous Buddhist
sutra proclaims). It is the Tao, the impersonal movement beyond all
words. It is a void that is entirely empty and therefore infinitely full of
everything.
From the positive side, called Saguna Brahman, this is a state of
pure, blissful Being, a Self existence beyond ego, a source of identity
containing all wisdom, eternally at rest, a silence that supports every-
thing, an Impersonal witness that sees all equally in a profound silence,
the source and goal of all. The Sanskrit terms sat, chit, and ananda are
the three positive descriptors of Brahman—existence, consciousness,
and bliss. Brahman is an infinitely blissful, conscious existence out of
which everything comes.
The jnana yoga path to this consists of various types of mindful-
ness practice designed to still the mind and end all identification with
one’s outer body, heart, and mind. When the mind slows down and
becomes silent, mindful discrimination can penetrate the ego’s
thoughts to find the underlying reality of pure consciousness.

MINDFULNESS AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Applying mindfulness to psychotherapy frames the therapeutic process
in terms of consciousness. This harkens back to Freud’s view of the goal
of therapy—to make the unconscious conscious—but goes well beyond his
ideas about what the unconscious is and what the possibilities are for
full consciousness. Unconscious defenses result in fixation and develop-
mental arrest. Psychotherapy brings attention to these avoidances,
defenses, and contractions of awareness. Unconsciousness keeps a
person stuck; mindfulness brings movement and growth.
When psychotherapy is founded on the principle of mindfulness, a
number of implications and health values emerge for psychotherapy.
114 Integral Psychotherapy

Here and Now

Grounding psychotherapy in mindfulness makes therapy present cen-

tered and shows how neurosis, wounding, and our defensive machina-
tions take us out of the now. Indeed, psychological health can be seen
as the degree to which a person is living in the present moment. All
forms of psychological impairment reduce present centeredness and
involve us in fantasies of the past and future.
Gestalt and existential therapies have spearheaded a present-
focused approach to psychotherapy. In seeing the present moment as all
that exists, the past is seen to exist here and now in the form of
memory, recall, history, and nostalgia. The future is seen to exist here
and now in the form of anticipation, hope, dread, despair, and fantasy.
When we remember the past or anticipate the future, we do so now.
Memory and anticipation are experienced now, and both past and
future are present constructions of thought.
In psychotherapy, which deals extensively with how past wounding
affects our current functioning, the past is seen to be present now in the
form of unfinished emotional business, incomplete situations that con-
tinue to be unfinished in each present moment. These incomplete
gestalten fester below the surface, clamoring for attention, drawing our
energy away from the present moment. When psychotherapy addresses
these unhealed wounds so they become healed in the present, the
energy invested in them then becomes available for current life con-
cerns. Slowly, over time, working through “old” business and the
defenses that keep them out of awareness brings about greater living in
the here and now. Another dimension of this sees psychological prob-
lems resulting from developmental fixations—fixations that occurred
historically but are still continuing in the present. When therapy
focuses on reactivating old developmental derailments, the client’s
growth process takes up where it had been and continues to be stuck.
Attending to this remobilizes the client’s natural movement forward, so
growth resumes once again.
Coming into the now extends to the therapeutic relationship. With
a temporal focus on the present, the transference is seen to be a present
manifestation of past relationships, for the past is alive in how the client
constructs and interprets the relationship with the therapist moment to
moment. The person of the therapist also needs to be included in this
understanding of the transference, for the actual behavior of the thera-
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 115

pist significantly influences what is evoked in the transference. This is

exactly the direction in which depth psychotherapy has moved over the
last 20 years, and a present-centered orientation makes the actual here-
and-now relationship with the client even more salient.

Focus on Actual Lived Experience

The experience of atman or Buddha-nature shows just how lost in

thoughts, images, and fantasies most people are nearly all of the time.
Ordinary experience consists of layers and layers of thoughts, memories,
feelings, impulses, desires, fantasies, and other mental constructions that
prevent us from living in actual, vivid contact with our senses and inner
being. The practice of witness consciousness seeks to eliminate these fil-
ters, but its effects are quite limited for most people. Psychotherapy has
discovered why this is so, namely, because a great deal of this virtual real-
ity consists of compensations for painful feelings and early wounds that
require a psychotherapeutic healing to truly resolve. Sustained mindful-
ness practice can reduce it for a period of time, but it is not possible for
most people to live their lives in a meditation retreat. Psychotherapeutic
working through, however, can have long-lasting effects and can clear
out major areas of thought and fantasy preoccupation.
The meditative focus on actual, lived experience coincides nicely
with existential therapy’s agenda to uncover experience as it is, with-
out preconceptions and an overlay of theories and therapeutic images.
Coming out of European philosophy, especially existentialism and
phenomenology, existential psychotherapy strongly distrusts theories
and mere theorizing. As helpful as such approaches as psychoanalysis
can be, theoretical structures can also become a kind of Procrustean
bed in which the client is stretched or shrunk to fit the theory. By
“bracketing off ” preconceptions and metaphysical beliefs, phenome-
nologically informed therapy seeks to uncover experience just as it is.
In encouraging a client to engage his or her experience fully, awareness
is brought to a client’s defenses and avoidances in working them
through.
When we live in our heads in this virtual reality in which most
people live, we are not in touch with actual reality. It is part of the shift
away from the body into the mind as a defensive maneuver. This brings
us to the next value.
116 Integral Psychotherapy

Sensory and Organismic Involvement

Witness consciousness brings us into the body. Integrating mindfulness

into psychotherapy means awakening the senses and eliciting a fuller
engagement with our body, our breath, and our organismic aliveness.
Gestalt therapy founder Fritz Perls used to exhort, “Lose your mind
and come to your senses!” (Perls, 1969). When we leave the virtual real-
ity of our mental constructions, we come into our body.
As consciousness “wakes up” through the process of attending to
the immediacy of our experience in the moment, there is a greater per-
ception of the felt sense emerging out of bodily experiencing. This shift
into coming back into our body once again opens the vistas and rich-
ness of sensory experience. The glory of sight with its colors and tex-
tures, the beauty of hearing and tuning into our background auditory
environment, the pleasure of sensing our body in movement or at rest—
the body lives in the present, and in waking up we wake up to bodily
experiencing.

The Being Dimension of Therapy

Health comes from Being, from the original wholeness that underlies
the psyche. In this perspective, the person is whole now. Wholeness is
not something to be achieved but is already here and immediately avail-
able if we can open to it. There is an infinite reservoir of untapped
capacity and potential enfolded in Being, and in opening to this part of
ourselves we discover we have the resources to deal with whatever sit-
uation with which we are faced. The Buddhist concept of “intrinsic
health” corresponds to this notion, for just beneath our pain and uncer-
tainty is the radical aliveness of the ground of consciousness.
The key is “being with” our experience. Rather than pushing or
manipulating ourselves and trying to be somehow different than we are,
this approach encourages us to simply accept and be with whatever
feelings and issues with which we are struggling. In this act of being
with, we are relating to ourselves in a different way, no longer pushing
away or recoiling from ourselves. In being with ourselves and staying
with our experience, our experience deepens and moves us naturally
toward greater resolution.
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 117

There are different strategies for relating to ourselves by “being

with” our experience. First is the gestalt method of being it—becoming
the anger or fear or whatever problematic feeling wih which we are
struggling. In no longer resisting it but identifying with it completely,
the feeling begins to open up and reveal itself, taking us deeper within.
Another approach is not to be it but to lean into it, to touch it but stay
apart from it, listening and sensing the feeling, letting it speak. In this
second way we maintain a slight separation from the feeling or impulse
but gently tap on it to see what it is. A third poise of consciousness is
to stand back from the feeling, to detach and observe it from a little dis-
tance, to disidentify from it and see it as different than oneself. In this
third way, which can be especially helpful in trauma or with feelings
that are difficult to tolerate, the distance allows the person to feel safe
and not overwhelmed by the problematic feelings. Yet in observing and
feeling them from a distance, the person opens to whatever the feelings
bring, allowing them to move through and complete themselves.
Each of these stances involves a different relationship to emotion:
fully identified with, close to, or more distant from. Each person has
easier access to emotional experience by “being with” feelings in one or
another of these ways. A mindfulness approach to therapy can utilize
all of these to see what works best for a given client. Ideally, the client
will move toward a flexible stance that can relate to feelings from any-
where along this continuum of identification as the situation demands.

Silence and Nonverbal Being

Mindfulness practice values nonverbal experiencing. The atman (or

Buddha-nature) is a silent, ever-peaceful ground beyond all words and
thought. The thinking mind, even when thinking about profound
issues, is a more superficial level of consciousness than the ground of
atman. Very often, interpersonal anxiety compels us to fill the air with
words and chatter, preventing us from appreciating silence and a non-
verbal level of being. Words and compulsive talking are ways of dealing
with and sometimes moving through anxiety, but they also can perpet-
uate anxiety and keep us at a more surface level of experience. When
we invite a deepening of awareness into nonverbal realms, we see how
much our words act as barriers to experiencing. As experience deepens
118 Integral Psychotherapy

(in therapy or meditation), we come closer to this silent core of our

being. There is a wisdom inherent in deeper being, which we can then
experience as we enter into this deeper peace and silence. Entering into
a deeper, nonverbal mode of being opens up a new appreciation for
words and verbal communication. Verbalization is most effective when
it flows out of Being rather than being compulsive chatter that blocks
deeper experiencing.

Acceptance of Whatever Arises

Mindfulness practice means accepting whatever emerges, without

defense or judgment. In mindfulness meditation, the instruction is to
nonreactively accept whatever arises in consciousness, to observe it
carefully, and to witness it passing away. This implies a good deal of
nondefensiveness. The problem, of course, is that our unconscious
defenses operate no matter what, even when we try to stop ourselves
from judging or justifying or defending.
Depth psychotherapy is the first psychological method developed
to decrease defensiveness. Mindfulness meditation practice, although it
may penetrate defensive structures temporarily in some moments, does
not actually work through defenses and allow them to drop away. Psy-
chotherapy, on the other hand, engages defenses directly through con-
frontation and indirectly through eroding defenses over time in the
accepting, empathic atmosphere of the therapeutic relationship. Mind-
fulness can support this process and can even carry it farther, encour-
aging therapist and client to let go of all preconceptions about what
should arise in awareness. Acceptance then leads directly to taking
responsibility for our experience, a key therapeutic value. Responsibil-
ity flows out of acceptance, in that once we accept a given feeling or
experience, we can then claim it as our own and respond appropriately
to it. Responsibility does not mean blame; it means ownership and
claiming personal experience.

Presence

As we progressively let go of defenses, avoidances, and inauthentic

modes of being, and as we complete unfinished business from the past
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 119

so that more of our authentic self comes into, we come more fully into
the present and experience greater presence. Presence comes as we wake
up into the present. We feel more centered, more connected to the
ground of our being, and more of us is available. We feel more “there,”
more responsive, more aware of our own depths. As our relationship to
our self deepens, we can connect to others at a deeper level. The depth
of our intimate relationships is limited only by how deeply we are con-
nected to ourselves.
In awakening to the present and becoming more aware of the ego
and its defenses, consciousness is able to go deeper within. New inte-
rior spaces open up, new vistas of inner being. We touch into a deeper
authenticity, our essential nature or intrinsic self, our svabhava as it
manifests in our frontal being. This is connected to our deeper inner
being—inner mind, inner vital, inner (subtle) physical—which has a
direct contact with the cosmic and universal forces. We then come to
the purusha or witness consciousness. Usually it is the mental purusha
or true mental being that is first contacted. This is the delegate of the
atman on this plane, and it is a silent, pure observer detached from all
contents. This witness consciousness can be accessed immediately, at
any time, although, as one Tibetan Buddhist teacher has stated, almost
no one can stay in this experience for more than a few seconds. Never-
theless, in tapping into this witness consciousness, a new dimension of
awareness becomes available that deepens presence still farther. Going
beyond this witness consciousness or true mental being, the psychic
center is the inmost level, though this is virtually an unknown dimen-
sion of consciousness.
Western psychology generally stops at the level of the observing
ego and the authentic self. Existential therapy moves in the direction of
Being but stops short at a finite being, the limited person. Though this
being is the border to a greater inner Being, very few approaches move
beyond. Ali’s diamond approach, Jungian psychology, and psychosyn-
thesis go farther into the inner being and true being but still stop short
of the psychic being. The inner space that opens up in these interior
realms is often conflated with other realms, and there is much confu-
sion about the sense of space, emptiness, and void that is encountered
in these deeper levels. However, the deeper within consciousness one
can travel, the greater the sense of Being and presence becomes.
In entering into the inner world, a new appreciation of aloneness
emerges. For the surface consciousness, loneliness is a great problem.
120 Integral Psychotherapy

The frontal self is fundamentally relational, and when the self is

deprived of relationships for very long, it experiences a state of defi-
ciency and lack, a longing for contact with others, and a sense of its own
insufficiency. The feeling of loneliness is hard to bear and makes many
people flee into escapes, drugs, and inauthentic living to cope with this
hard, existential reality. However, when the inner life opens up, the
experience of loneliness changes.
Being alone, rather than something to be avoided, becomes some-
thing valuable and nourishing. The initial feeling of inner deficiency
and emptiness that meets the surface consciousness opens into a vast-
ness when we stay with it rather than avoid it. Lonely insufficiency and
lack can give way to a sense of fullness and inward richness as the inner
being is accessed. Though contact with others remains essential to
nourish the frontal self, there can be a greater independence and inner
support as consciousness opens within. This greater freedom can then
devolve into a rationale for avoiding relationships, and so it can become
another form of spiritual bypassing when schizoid tendencies and
avoidant attachment patterns are not therapeutically worked through.
But with a psychologically attuned person, deepening presence can dra-
matically transform the experience of loneliness.

Vulnerability and Power

The Western image of power is a kind of John Wayne, macho “tough-

ness.” This image is held out by contemporary culture as a symbol of
strength, while vulnerability is often equated to being weak or fragile.
But in the context of psychotherapy, vulnerability means openness to
experience. There is great power in being open to our own deeper
being, for this is our ground and true support. In fact, a depth explo-
ration of a typical “macho” toughness reveals that this façade hides an
interior fragility and anxiety. The “tough” exterior is often a rigid set of
contractions, a closed, shut-down, constricted shield against life’s blows
that betrays a deeper sense of fear and powerlessness.
The capacity to be open, vulnerable, exposed to others, and accept-
ing of tender, soft, or even dark and shameful feelings takes great
courage. To be able to rest in our own emotional experience, to be
grounded in our fundamental openness to the world without barriers or
defenses, is a stance of immense power, for we are then rooted in our
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 121

depths, unshaken by passing storms on the surface. As Krishnamurti

(1958) put it, “To be vulnerable is to live, to withdraw is to die.” We are
powerful when we can be vulnerable and open—whether we are open
to tears or anger or love, for we then stand firmly in the power of our
emotional truth. This vulnerability is a power that can triumph over all
outer failures and defeats, for then we can flexibly cope with life and
move on.

Clarity

Clear seeing dissolves our unconscious conditioning and reactivity. This

clarity or movement of insight is a function of our deeper nature,
atman, or Buddha-mind. Witness consciousness brings us into a larger,
more expanded consciousness that has an inward spaciousness. As the
outer, surface mind settles down into interior silence, it opens to a cre-
ative, fertile void that clearly sees whatever arises, like a mirror that
reflects with pristine clarity what is put before it.

APPLICATIONS OF MINDFULNESS
IN PSYCHOTHERAPY

There are general and specific applications of mindfulness practice to

psychotherapy. Humanistic and existential psychotherapies were the
first to be significantly influenced by Eastern mindfulness practices.
There is a great similarity of language between Buddhism and gestalt
therapy, for example, and between existentialism and Taoism. Hakomi
(Kurtz, 1990) shows how mindfulness can be used in somatic work. In
the past decades, mindfulness practice, especially in the form of Bud-
dhism, has entered into the psychoanalytic literature (see, e.g., Epstein,
1996; Rubin, 1996; Engler, 1986). The therapeutic and health values
discussed earlier have begun to find their way into psychoanalytic
thinking and have become an important countervailing influence
against the focus on pathology and past-centered orientation that has
typified much of traditional analytic work.
Specific applications of mindfulness principles have emerged in
two well-known approaches. Linehan’s (1993) dialectical behavior
therapy uses mindfulness as a cornerstone in working with borderline
122 Integral Psychotherapy

personality disorders and now has considerable research validation

behind it that substantiates it as an effective methodology. Kabat-Zinn
(1990) has brought mindfulness practice into the area of stress reduc-
tion and pain management with equally impressive results. These two
examples show how mindfulness methods can be integrated into spe-
cific treatment approaches in psychotherapy.
A number of therapeutic strategies for becoming more mindful and
present-centered are used by different schools. These include the
following:

• completing old, unfinished business

• unfolding present potentials of the self, favored by existential
approaches
• bringing old, buried, undeveloped aspects of the self on-line
by completing interrupted developmental processes and filling
in deficits in self-structure, favored by psychodynamic
approaches
• behavioral prescriptions to act now to replace avoidance with
exposure to what is feared and expanding behavioral possibili-
ties
• coming into the body, both sensorily and emotionally,
through the bodily felt sense, an approach used by somatic
therapies
• coming into the here and now in the transference, an
approach pioneered by existential therapy and now gaining
wide acceptance in analytic circles
• reducing fantasy by enhancing sensory experience, or else
using fantasy as a gateway to working with emotional issues
• confronting defenses or having them erode through empathic
acceptance, as defenses drop away, more present-centeredness
results
• stopping addictive distractions and replacing them with gen-
uine, real satisfactions, that is, developing a more cohesive self
whose needs are more fully met rather than being lost in day-
dreams or fantasies
• letting go of inauthentic ways of being by seeing how they are
avoidances of difficult issues and affects, choosing and creat-
ing new, authentic ways of being that enhance aliveness and
mindful living
 Psychotherapy As Mindfulness Practice 123

Although these therapeutic strategies increase mindfulness, mindful-

ness is both the goal and the method. Bringing increased mindfulness
to bear on these issues increases the power of the therapeutic process.
Two important limitations of mindfulness practice need to be
acknowledged. The first is that mindfulness is a kind of “uncovering”
technique that works in the direction of unmasking or exposing
defenses. For most psychotherapy clients who are at a neurotic level of
functioning, this is precisely what is needed. However, with more severe
psychological disturbances, especially with clients who may be psy-
chotic, structure-building techniques are generally regarded as more
appropriate, since uncovering techniques can be disorganizing and
fragmenting. However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule. For a long time
it was believed that mindfulness practices were contraindicated for bor-
derline personality disorders (see Engler, 1986) for the same reason that
they could be disorganizing. However, Linehan’s (1993) work demon-
strates that mindfulness can be utilized quite effectively with this pop-
ulation, illustrating that it is better not to come to a premature
conclusion about this.
The second caution about mindfulness practice involves its focus
on mind rather than feeling. In the meditation world, practitioners of
mindfulness practice can easily fall into the trap of becoming clear but
cool—aware of thoughts and sensations but subtly and unconsciously
using mindfulness as a kind of super-ego judging and way to detach
from difficult affects and unpleasant emotions. Although this goes
against the fundamental guidelines for mindfulness meditation, in
actual practice this is difficult to avoid unless there is considerable psy-
chological work to undo the defensive avoidances of feeling. In psy-
chotherapeutic practice, this same tendency can arise. There can be the
appearance of mindfulness of inner states, while in reality problematic
emotions are only glancingly felt and dispensed with rather than gone
into and fully experienced.
Despite these limitations, mindfulness is a powerful practice for
exploring consciousness. It is in one sense the fundamental “method” of
all depth psychotherapy, “making the unconscious conscious” as Freud
first put it, but it illumines areas of consciousness that go far beyond
Western psychological maps and opens up the spiritual foundation of
consciousness. When brought into a psychotherapeutic context, it
makes psychotherapy a form of meditation, both for the client and the
therapist.
124 Integral Psychotherapy

DOING PSYCHOTHERAPY AS
MINDFULNESS PRACTICE
The process of being a psychotherapist involves inner psychological
work first and foremost, for only by engaging our own healing at a deep
level can we help others deeply engage their own healing. This princi-
ple also holds true for integrating mindfulness practice into psy-
chotherapy. It begins with the therapist’s practice of mindfulness.
When the therapist is established in an ongoing, serious practice of
mindfulness, then the process of doing psychotherapy becomes an
extension of this. In paying attention to the mind’s activity—the end-
less chatter, associations, images, and sensations—a gradual calming
occurs over time. Sustained attention and practice result in an inward
deepening as consciousness wakes up into its own interior spaces. In
becoming more centered in our own depths, we relate to doing psy-
chotherapy differently. There is a kind of depth perception that comes
where it is possible to see more deeply into the client, to empathically
grasp the client’s experience more fully. Mindfully observing our own
consciousness extends outward, so the therapist is better able to attend
to the client’s experience. In coming into direct relationship with our-
selves, we come into better contact with the client.
Witness consciousness results in a greater sense of being centered,
calm, and less reactive. No one can expect to be a perfect Buddha, silent
and without emotional responses, but with practice, greater equanim-
ity, steadiness, and clear seeing are within reach. Practicing psychother-
apy then becomes the practice of mindfulness. We can meet the client
more completely, because we are more awake and more present
inwardly.
Greater presence on the part of the therapist in turn facilitates the
therapeutic process. The therapist’s mindfulness creates an atmosphere
that profoundly influences the process of psychotherapy. While the
receptivity of the client is important, and the mutual influence of the
client’s consciousness on the therapist must be included, the greater the
therapist’s presence, the more effective the therapy will tend to be.
 Chapter 7

Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart

Bhakti Yoga

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
—Carl Jung

The third traditional point of entry to the inner world is through the
heart. Psychotherapy and spirituality can be seen to have the same goal:
opening the heart. Both seek to expand the heart’s capacity for feeling and
love, but they proceed in very different ways. Spiritual traditions work to
open the heart directly—through devotion, love, bhakti, positive emo-
tions, and disidentifying with negative emotions. Psychotherapy, on the
other hand, works to open the heart by seeing how it is closed—by explor-
ing the defenses against feelings and by reowning painful, negative emo-
tions, the avoidance of which so limits the heart’s emotional range.
The heart closes in several specific ways that have now been stud-
ied in great detail. Psychotherapy and spiritual practice work to open
the heart once again. But before examining how a synthesis of these
two approaches can open the heart fully and integrally, let us first exam-
ine how psychology and spirituality work on their own.

PSYCHOTHERAPY AS OPENING THE HEART

The history of psychology can be read as a dawning recognition of the
heart as the key to psychological life. Modern psychology began with
125
126 Integral Psychotherapy

Freud showing just how much the mind is at the mercy of powerful,
unconscious feelings and instincts, a puppet whose strings are continu-
ally pulled by emotional forces. As psychoanalysis evolved and the self
came into better focus, it has become even clearer how essential emo-
tions are for psychological functioning. Affects and affect regulation are
now seen as central functions of the self.
The last few decades have seen important advances in research,
especially in the fields of affect theory, emotion research, attachment
theory, and neuroscience. These scientific developments confirm what
the depth psychology schools have maintained for some time, namely,
that feelings are essential guides in life.
Of the vast amount of information coming into the brain, there
needs to be a way to order it, to prioritize what is important and what
is not. Emotion is the central way of organizing our brain and con-
sciousness. If this organization is disorganized and incoherent, then our
life is in disorder, with great suffering and pain. But if it is coherent,
clear, and in good order, then life is joyous and fulfilling. Organizing,
modulating, and regulating emotion is the key.
When a therapist asks a client in psychotherapy, “What does this
mean to you?” the therapist is asking, in effect, “What are your feelings
about this?” Feelings are inseparable from meaning. Meaning also con-
tains a cognitive component, but it is the affective dimension that
makes an experience meaningful. Recent research in neuroscience has
discovered that the way a person establishes meaning is closely linked
to social interactions. This is understandable, because the heart comes on-
line through relationships. Thus, meaning and interpersonal experience
are connected, because they are mediated by the same neural circuits
responsible for emotion (Siegel, 1999; Schore, 1999, 2003.) Feelings,
meaning, and interpersonal experience are intimately linked. This is
why deep psychological change, in the self and in the neurological
organization of the brain, requires an intense interpersonal experience
such as that which occurs in the therapeutic relationship.
Emotions organize our experience in four basic ways:

1. as information
2. as a way of evaluating situations
3. as a form of communication
4. as a direction for our behavior
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 127

Feelings give us information about people and the world that we get in
no other way. At the simplest level, emotions tell us what is good or
bad, nourishing or toxic, and they make this evaluation rapidly, without
a long, logical process of reasoning. Feelings also are a means of com-
municating with others and of expressing ourselves, a way we see others
and are seen by them. Additionally, feelings motivate us to take the next
step forward in our lives, giving us a guiding direction for how to act to
best meet our needs.
Affect theory and emotion research study the universals of emo-
tional life. Through rigorous research with infants and adults across
cultures, psychologists have discovered that certain basic affects appear
to be hardwired into the human brain. Infants from around the world
universally express these basic affects shortly after birth. Every culture
throughout the world displays these basic emotions through identical
facial expressions and voice quality, although cultures vary in their
degree of expressiveness.
The field of emotion research identifies eight basic emotions: joy,
interest and excitement, caring and love, fear, shame, anger, disgust,
and sadness and despair. These then combine, refine, and further dif-
ferentiate into an endless variety of feeling states. As we develop emo-
tionally, we experience increasing richness, subtlety, and differentiation
in our emotional life, which will continue to evolve throughout our
entire life.
The first three of the basic eight emotions often are called “posi-
tive” emotions and the last five “negative.” Of course, since all emo-
tions help us creatively adapt, they are all positive in that sense.
“Positive” or “negative” feelings generally refer to how people experi-
ence them, as pleasant or unpleasant. It is theorized that there has
been an evolutionary advantage in having a greater differentiation of
negative feelings, allowing a greater chance for survival. For example,
it is adaptive to feel fear as a lion approaches and to run away to safety,
or to feel anger and to fight off an aggressor. These feelings increase a
person’s chances for survival.
Just because there are more negative feelings than positive ones
does not mean we should feel negative more often; just the opposite is
true. When we are living in alignment with our authentic nature, we
generally feel a preponderance of joy, warmth, and positive feelings of
interest and engagement in our life. If we do not and instead feel
128 Integral Psychotherapy

primarily negative feelings, this is a signal that something is wrong. We

are not paying attention to something in our life. Our feelings are
telling us that something needs to change
Feelings allow us to navigate the complex interpersonal world in
which we all live. They help us evaluate situations. By magnifying what
is positive or negative in our experience, feelings are experience ampli-
fiers. For example, in eating rotting food, the unpleasant smell and taste
are amplified by the feeling of disgust, which causes us to expel it
quickly, something that also had great survival value for our ancestors.
This led affect researcher Sylvan Tomkins (1963) to note that feelings
make good things better and bad things worse.
Without feelings, we have no basis for knowing what is important
or what is irrelevant, who we can trust or mistrust, or who we can love
or avoid. Are we moving in the right direction in life? Are we with the
right people who nourish and support us, or are we choosing unhealthy
relationships that poison and deplete us? Only our heart can tell us.
Neuroscience researchers have discovered that people who have a
brain injury that eliminates their capacity to sense their feelings while
leaving their mental abilities unimpaired suffer a great disability in
living. Without our feelings to evaluate which options are best, life is
an overwhelming array of choices. Logic alone is insufficient. When all
options are possible, the mind spins off into hundreds of possibilities,
but it has nothing to anchor it. Without feelings, we are lost.
Feelings allow us to communicate emotionally with others. Our
heart allows us to read other people emotionally and, in turn, to be read
by them. Our emotional awareness tunes us into what others are feel-
ing, adjusts our feeling state appropriately, and signals back to others
what we are feeling. For example, a mother gently nursing her baby cre-
ates an unmistakable joy that the baby expresses through smiling bliss-
fully, relaxing, and gurgling with pleasure. This makes the mother feel
good and loving, and it reinforces her taking care of her baby, ensuring
that the baby gets the nurturing it needs.
Neuroscience has discovered that a key part of the brain that
processes emotion is the “mammalian brain” or limbic system that we
share with other mammals, though not with reptiles and lower life-
forms. The warm, emotional bond between a dog and its owner, for
example, transcends species. In contrast, any bond between a snake and
its owner will be strictly one-way.
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 129

Ideally our feelings guide us toward love, growth, and self-fulfill-

ment. But as depth psychology has long known and recent infant
research in attachment theory has confirmed, our early childhood
wounding leads us far astray. Attachment theory studies mother-infant
bonding and how these early attachment patterns persist over a life-
time. Attachment research shows how the heart’s guidance develops
through relationship. It is our attachment to our earliest caregivers that
brings forth our emotional intelligence.
Since feeling life begins with the first relationships with the mother
and father, an empathic, loving atmosphere is necessary to affirm the
child’s feelings so he or she can own them. Ideally the infant attaches
to a mother and father who are loving, responsive, and empathically
attuned. This secure base allows the growing child to relate the heart’s
feelings to a context of genuine love and attuned caring, setting up a
lifelong pattern of being able to choose people who are truly nourish-
ing. Unfortunately, this never happens perfectly and usually goes far
astray. The pervasive wounding that affects every person on the planet
distorts this process to some degree.
Feelings that are met with anxiety or shame by the parents are soon
driven underground. All feelings that are threatening to the parents
(due to their childhood wounding) are pushed into the unconscious.
The first priority of any child is maintaining the attachment to the
mother and father. This relationship must be protected at all costs. Any
feelings that threaten this relationship are shut down, limiting the
child’s access to feelings. We erect unconscious defenses against our
own feelings so that we no longer even know what our feelings are.
Little by little, the heart closes. Its guiding light dims.
Research into attachment theory clearly documents how early
childhood wounding constricts our attention and keeps us stuck in
rigid patterns. We look for love along the familiar grooves that we orig-
inally experienced in our family, setting us up to reenact the same repet-
itive patterns from childhood that frustrated and hurt us as children.
We become attracted to lovers and friends who are emotionally
unavailable in the same way our parents and family were. With many
repetitions and reinforcements, the neural pathways grow stronger as
the brain develops. Neuroscience has established how early condition-
ing becomes more entrenched in the brain’s neurological structure. We
keep trying to master this old, frustrating situation, but unfortunately
130 Integral Psychotherapy

these attempts usually keep us repeating it with only minor variations.

As the heart closes, our ability to relate shrinks, and we move in smaller
and smaller circles. This does not self-correct on its own but requires
some kind of intervention to change, which research shows can be
accomplished in psychotherapy. This is an example from my clinical
practice:

In his early 30’s, Richard entered therapy for depression. He

didn’t know why he was depressed or even what many of his
feelings were. He only knew he felt bad and was estranged
from his friends and work. His depression began after he ended
his third unsuccessful relationship with a woman he found
“smothering.” At the start of their relationship, Richard had
been attracted by her independent spirit. Yet soon after they
got together, he reported, this began to change. She became
more needy and clingy. Richard found himself letting go of
other friendships so they could spend more and more time
together.
This was a familiar pattern in Richard’s relationships. Even
though he wanted to keep seeing his friends, he found himself
irresistibly drawn into this relationship. At the beginning it was
intensely passionate, but soon their sexual excitement began to
wane. It seemed to Richard that the more he gave, the more
she needed, until he spiraled down and down, feeling hopeless
about either making her happy or feeling fulfilled himself in
their relationship.
The first period of therapy centered around Richard learn-
ing to better identify his different feelings and to more fully
sense his bodily awareness of them. As his emotional world
came into better focus, Richard was able to recognize the
familiarity of his feelings and how they resonated with earlier
feelings from long ago in his family. Richard’s mother had been
depressed and had looked to Richard to make her feel better.
But no matter how hard Richard had tried to save his mother,
it was more than he could manage. Richard was left feeling like
a failure in letting his mother down but felt he had no other
choice but to try still harder in this hopeless task.
A turning point came as Richard connected deeply with
the depleted, despairing little boy inside who had given up on
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 131

ever getting his needs met by his mother and who felt like
something was wrong with him because he was unable to
rescue his mother from her depression. Early depression
around this revealed a complex of anger, hurt, shame, and grief
that had been long banished because they jeopardized his rela-
tionship with his mother. As these early feelings were worked
through, new parts of Richard began to emerge. His lifelong
coping strategy of taking care of his partner gave way to a
greater vitality and enthusiasm in his life, and he found himself
attracted to new kinds of women, women who also could meet
his needs in the dance of relationship.

As psychotherapy proceeds, defenses gradually melt away. In the

safety of the therapeutic relationship, the heart progressively reemerges
as feelings guide the working-through process.
Because of our wounding and our defenses against this wounding,
the “normalcy” of living in our heads has become pervasive. Psychology
shines a light on the immense unconsciousness of such “normal” living.
The vast majority of people do not realize just how diminished their
feeling sense is, or to what extent they are moved in all of their actions
by their heart’s impulse. The crippled, shriveled heart that results from
even a “normal” childhood severely impairs the wisdom of our heart’s
guidance. If we do not know our own heart, then how can we recognize
true love?
Psychotherapy changes this by undoing blocks. It brings about self-
acceptance by working through shame. We come to feel healthy self-
love by working through our self-hate. We discover how to have loving
relationships in the present by working through frustrating, rejecting
relationships from the past. Psychotherapy has discovered that we
cannot go higher than we can go low, so going into our pain, we
increase our capacity for pleasure. The flow of feeling increases as we
stop constricting it. The heart opens by exploring how it is shut down.
At a basic existential level, all human beings feel a great deal of fear
and loneliness simply in being alive. Finding love and companionship
is essential to all of us at this level. Further, unless we find intrinsically
interesting work, we feel alienated and either bored or stressed, or both.
It is no wonder that we then try to distract ourselves by escaping from
what seems to be the emptiness and futility of existence. But in remov-
ing the defenses and blocks around the heart, escapes become unneces-
132 Integral Psychotherapy

sary. Closing the heart imprisons the authentic self; opening the heart
liberates it. There is no other way of self-finding than by way of the heart.

THE OPENING FROM PSYCHOTHERAPY

As the heart opens, the false self dissipates and the authentic self comes
forth. Our authentic self has a wide range of emotional capacities
essential for a good life, one that is richly textured with rewarding per-
sonal relationships, creative work, and deep meaning. The authentic self
develops to some degree the following 20 abilities, which comprise the
essence of emotional intelligence:

1. The authentic self has access to the full range of basic feel-
ings—joy, interest, affection, fear, shame, anger, disgust, and
sadness.
2. The authentic self can feel the full range of intensities of
feelings rather than a very limited range (for example, rather
than only feeling mild irritation and then later on exploding,
we are able to feel all of the different intensities of anger,
from mild irritation to annoyance to moderate anger, up
through rage and volcanic, white-hot fury).
3. Emotional awareness includes how the mind symbolizes
emotional experience. We learn to identify our feelings and
have a mental understanding or cognitive schema of differ-
ent feelings.
4. We become better at verbally and nonverbally expressing our
feelings skillfully in the variety of our relationships, such as
lover, family, friend, coworker, and so on.
5. We can empathically tune into others’ feeling states and rec-
ognize and respond to their feelings.
6. We are able to express or contain feelings as appropriate,
without resorting either to acting them out or repressing
them.
7. We develop the capacity to self-soothe and calm ourselves,
to modulate feelings of anxiety or distress internally without
resorting to external means such as alcohol, drugs, or food.
We can regulate our affects without being overwhelmed or
overstimulated by them.
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 133

8. Everyone struggles with a split between tender and sexual

feelings. Psychotherapy works to unite tender and sexual
feelings toward the same person. Another split is good and
bad, seeing another person as all good one moment and all
bad later on. Therapy works to end this splitting into good
and bad and achieving object constancy, the perception of
one whole person.
9. We can “go with” our feelings—to flow with emotional
experience and allow the feeling process to unfold (for
example, feeling the grief fully after a loss, intensely at first,
then decreasing in intensity over time, and eventually being
finished with it).
10. We can go deeper into our feelings to see what they connect
to in the past. This involves an awareness of incomplete
gestalts as we “peel the onion” of emotional experience. We
get a better handle on our reactivity or emotional buttons so
that we can work with past unfinished situations when they
are activated by present events.
11. We have an observing ego and are able to observe our feel-
ings nonreactively, a witness consciousness that prevents us
from being carried away and lost in feelings. This does not
mean becoming dissociated or overly detached under the
guise of witnessing.
12. We get a handle on our own defensiveness and are able to
recognize it and work with it, dealing with the underlying
threats to our self-esteem and self-cohesion.
13. We are guided by our feelings rather than by introjected
shoulds or internalized authority (for example, forgiveness
emerging naturally after having worked through our anger
rather than forcing forgiveness out of a should or an ideal).
14. We become more conscious of how feelings live in the body,
including awareness of the felt sense, the breath, and the
energetic experience of emotion. We can breathe freely to
support emotional experience, letting the strength of feelings
move the breath (for example, breathing deeply during high
arousal states, such as sexual activity or intense anger or
crying).
15. We are able to develop, maintain, and deepen a whole range
of relationships to meet our emotional needs. These include
134 Integral Psychotherapy

relationships with people who fundamentally love and affirm

us; people we look up to, admire, and respect (including
teachers and mentors who can provide guidance); colleagues
and coworkers we feel competent around; a lover or sexual
partner with whom we feel a special bond of intimacy and
love; and friends with whom we feel completely comfortable
and around whom we can be ourselves.
16. We can sense how feelings are symbolized in the mind
through fantasy, images, symbols, and words.
17. We become more resilient and better able to bounce back
after life’s inevitable emotional setbacks and shocks. We can
form and make use of a support system for emotional suste-
nance and nurturing.
18. Our emotional life develops toward greater complexity, dif-
ferentiation, subtlety, and richness. We cultivate the heart
and refine the feeling capacity so it unfolds from primitive,
archaic levels toward greater maturity and depth.
19. We can move between spontaneity and controlled deliber-
ateness as appropriate. Neurosis involves overcontrol and
lack of spontaneity. Other personality organizations such as
borderline conditions involve lack of control. Life demands
both capacities, and freedom consists in being able to shift
between “letting go” and “being deliberate” as the situation
demands.
20. Increasing freedom from early family patterns in our rela-
tionships. We develop new ways of relating to others that
reflect our increasing sense of realness, authenticity, and
aliveness.

As the authentic self emerges more fully, it has access to these emo-
tional abilities of the heart. Our heart is continuously giving us feed-
back about the people around us, our interactions, our present
environment, our past, and our future directions. Our heart’s guidance
is profound and essential for full living.
Psychology has discovered that through the process of feeling we can
disentangle ourselves from the snares of inauthentic living. By following
our heart’s true impulse, we find our way toward authenticity. Our
authentic self seeks to fulfill itself on every level—physical, lower emo-
tional, central emotional, higher emotional, and mental. It needs the
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 135

world to bring forth its full powers—an awakened body sense that reveals
the embodied richness of living, love and intimate connection and nour-
ishing relationships of all kinds, freedom of the imagination and creativ-
ity, and mental stimulation and meaningful work to express the self ’s true
talents. It is only the heart’s radical aliveness that reveals the richness and
intensity that come when these things are part of our life.
Using our heart’s guidance to find what we need for “the good life”
represents a major step forward in evolution. But as revolutionary as
greater authenticity is for human welfare, the human spirit requires
more. As discussed earlier, psychology leads to our outer authentic
nature (svabhava) but not our inner authentic nature. An authentic life
is a major development, but it is not enough. Psychology alone does not
give us a vision of a higher life. In our heart of hearts, our deepest soul
longs for more.

SPIRITUALITY AS OPENING THE HEART

Spirituality has a very different view of opening the heart, and it pro-
ceeds in quite a different way. Spirituality brings forth our true soul or
psychic center. In the traditional religious view, it is our psychological
material that covers up the soul’s deeper light. Spirituality tries to sep-
arate out this emotional dross from the pure gold that shines out from
the soul. Spirituality works to directly open the inner doors of the heart
through love, aspiration, and positive feelings while detaching from
their opposites. The very feelings that psychology sees as grist for the
mill, spirituality regards as impediments to an open heart. Spirituality
uses the higher, more refined emotions of love, devotion, aspiration,
bhakti, surrender, and adoration to purify and refine the consciousness
so the soul’s light can shine forth.
Rather than simply bringing about new emotional capacities as
psychology does, spirituality brings forth a new dimension of conscious-
ness. Just as the heart discloses another realm of consciousness than
body consciousness can provide, and just as mind opens to a level of
consciousness beyond the heart, so the soul or psychic center unveils
another dimension of consciousness. This new consciousness permeates
and infuses our current physical, emotional, and mental levels of being
and opens up something infinitely more and immeasurably precious. It
is an inner light that entirely changes our experience of living.
136 Integral Psychotherapy

When the lotus of the heart breaks open, we feel a divine joy,
love and peace expanding in us like a flower of light which irra-
diates the whole being. (Aurobindo, 1973b, p. 570)

When the psychic center or soul awakens, we open to a self-exis-

tent joy, a concrete, palpable sense of bliss that is ever present, ever
fresh, like an eternal spring eternally bubbling forth with an utter peace
and happiness. No matter what our external circumstances, this inner
fount of joy is ever available within.
This spring of joy also is a source of the sweetest love, a love that
simply is. This love is not dependent on any outer situations or stimu-
lation but is intrinsic to the soul’s nature. It is a continual unfolding of
the most sublime affection that gives an extraordinary perfume to life
and extends out into the world.
Discernment is a further characteristic of the psychic center.
Because it comes from the Divine Truth, it has an inherent truth sense
and an unerring guidance. It provides a discrimination (viveka) and a
sense of the world beyond the mind’s reasonings. Because the outer is
an expression of the inner, that is, because the self is an expression of
the evolving soul, the soul is the self ’s true real guide. It the evolution-
ary element within, and only the psychic center can show us the way
toward our future evolution.
The heart becomes a radiant center of inner guidance and joyous
love, and much of the world’s spiritual literature is an ecstatic poem to
this happy state. As the psychic center awakens, such a person becomes
“a friend to all creatures,” says Krishna in the Gita. The sweetness of
divine love surpasses even the highest bliss of earthly love, of which it
is a reduced, stepped-down version. Relationships become a rapturous,
loving encounter with the Divine’s infinite forms as the world trans-
forms into the soul’s sacred playground.

This veiled psychic entity is the flame of the Godhead always

alight within us, inextinguishable even by that dense uncon-
sciousness of any spiritual self within which obscures our outer
nature. It is a flame born out of the Divine and, luminous
inhabitant of the Ignorance, grows in it till it is able to turn it
towards the Knowledge. It is the concealed Witness and Con-
trol, the hidden Guide, the inner light or inner voice of the
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 137

mystic. It is that which endures and is imperishable in us from

birth to birth, untouched by death, decay or corruption, an
indestructible spark of the Divine. . . . This psychic entity
points always towards Truth and Right and Beauty, towards
Love and Harmony and all this is a divine possibility within us,
and persists till these things become the major need of our
nature. (Aurobindo, 1970, p. 225)

Generally, all of these effects do not appear fully and immediately.

More often it is a gradual coming forth of these qualities, like the
dawning of the sun. Three steps forward often are followed by two
steps back, as we assimilate these inner changes, but the movement is
progressively forward. Though we may be pulled outward and away
from it at times during the day, the psychic center is ever inwardly
awake.
We are unconscious of our deeper soul, however, because in grow-
ing up and developing as a separate ego, we are drawn outward by the
senses and desire. In identifying with these surface activities, the self
becomes alienated from the soul and its intimacy with the Divine.
However, through spiritual practice this separation can be healed. The
heart is the key.
Opening the heart is a developmental process.1 Spiritual develop-
ment begins with less pure devotion, love, and aspiration and grows
into more pure and intense forms of these feelings. Both Eastern psy-
chology and Western religion have developed essentially similar spiri-
tual practices, although the outward form varies between cultures. The
first stage of practice involves moral and ethical behavior, religious
instruction, and the fellowship of seekers. These practices direct the
person’s attention toward what is important (spirit) and away from life’s
many distractions. This preliminary stage also calms the mind. It elim-
inates the grossest forms of disturbance and lays a foundation for more
sustained devotion. The next stage of practice involves inner practices,
such as meditation, prayer, surrender, and devotional rituals. This stage
begins to awaken the inner consciousness that is normally veiled by
ordinary life. It deepens devotion and increases the soul’s thirst for
God. In the third stage, outer practices drop away and are replaced by
greater inwardness, devotion, and surrender. As the aspirant’s practice
continues, further concentration clears away remaining distractions, so
138 Integral Psychotherapy

heart and mind become progressively one-pointed. As devotion focuses

the aspirant lovingly upon the Divine, the Divine draws the soul closer
in an increasing intimacy toward ultimate union.
In India the path of the heart is known as bhakti yoga. Christian-
ity’s gospel of love is a form of bhakti yoga, and this devotional stream
is prominent in Islam and Judaism as well. Christ is often pictured
pointing to his radiant soul in the “sacred heart.” St. Teresa of Avila
describes God as “enthroned on our heart,” an almost identical image to
the Bhagavad Gita’s image of the “Lord abiding in the heart of all
beings.” Most of India is devotional, and the numerous schools of bhakti
yoga envisage the Divine in myriad forms—male and female, such as
Vishnu, Krishna, and Shiva, and many forms of the Divine Mother. The
path of the heart is the most prevalent spiritual path throughout the
world, for all theistic religions have a strong bhakti element.
Bhakti yoga views the Divine not only as an infinite impersonal
consciousness but as a supremely personal Being. In nondual theistic
traditions, love is the fundamental relationship of the Divine with all
creation. Individual souls are a portion of this divine Being and partake
of this divine reality through the relationship of love. It is not a merger
and dissolution of the ego, as in the traditions of the Impersonal
Divine, but a state of difference, even in unity. “I want to taste the
sugar,” said Ramakrishna, “I don’t want to become the sugar.”
Love of the Divine Presence beyond all form is one approach, but
most traditions focus upon specific forms or images of the Divine.
Vedanta describes six main forms of relationships that the seeker may
enjoy with the Divine.

1. The Divine Child: Viewing the Divine as an infant or as a

child, such as baby Jesus or baby Krishna, or Krishna as a
young boy, elicits tender, caring feelings in the aspirant that
increase and deepen through devotional practice.
2. The Divine Father: This is how Jesus looked upon God, as
does much of Western religion.
3. The Divine Mother: This relation often feels more close and
intimate than the relation of father. Ramakrishna is perhaps
India’s most well-known child of the Mother.
4. The Divine Friend: This is the form that Krishna takes in
many Indian stories and poems. The devotee is the friend or
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 139

playmate of Krishna in his lila (play), which brings out the

sweetness, playfulness, and equality of relation even in its
inequality.
5. The Divine Master: Here the devotee is a servant of the
Divine, surrendered to God’s will and acting as an instrument
of God’s action in the world. Islam and Judaism feature this
element strongly. In this path, action (karma yoga) becomes a
way to express devotion. In India, Hanuman serves as the
ideal servant of Ram (God) in the ancient story or the
Ramayana.
6. The Divine Lover or Beloved: The highest relation in India
also is the most intimate and passionate relationship possi-
ble—that of lover and beloved. This also figures in the Chris-
tian tradition through such saints as St. John of the Cross and
St. Teresa of Avila. Here the human passion for the divine
reaches its culmination, as lover and Beloved fuse in a blissful
union of love.

The path of the heart uses the rhythm of separation and return,
seeking and finding, losing and finding again to ignite and increase the
heart’s fire. At first the presence of the Beloved is intermittent. The
infinite peace and fulfillment of the divine Presence contrast sharply to
the pangs of separation and the sense of feeling bereft and empty when
the Beloved departs. But this serves only to increase the fires of long-
ing and the joy of being reunited. Deeper and deeper layers of impurity
and desire for outward things are burned up in the purifying fire of love.
The density and outwardness of ordinary life pale as the soul’s inner
relation with the Divine grows in fineness, light, peace, and devotion.
This is another case from my practice:

Ellen entered therapy after four years of what she called “the
dark night of the soul.” She confessed that although her spiri-
tual director assured her that she only needed more faith and
prayer to get through her “dark night,” one of her few friends
had urged her to seek out another perspective on her painful
life. It soon became clear that whatever spiritual process she
might have been undergoing, she also was depressed. She was
not in an intimate relationship, and her strong religious beliefs
140 Integral Psychotherapy

kept her life confined to a limited circle of activities, mostly

church related.
Ellen tried earnestly “to do God’s will” in the world.
Though she had toyed with the idea of becoming a nun in her
20s, instead she became loosely affiliated with a church-related
group. Now in her 40s, her work and relationships were cen-
tered around this spiritual community. Her images of God
were rather harsh, a severe, judgmental Being whose will she
was continually falling short of. Pleasures of the flesh were dis-
couraged, for they led one astray from the path of prayer and
purification.
As Ellen’s story came out in therapy, it became clear why
she was depressed. She had almost no sources of genuine emo-
tional gratification in her life. She felt bored with her work in
her spiritual community. Her friendships were confined to a
few other women whose lives were as strict and tightly regu-
lated as hers. She forever felt like a failure in her spiritual
progress, though she kept hoping for someone to recognize her
attainments. Her depression was a very healthy response from
her deeper self, a cry from her unconscious to stop ignoring so
many of her needs.
Ellen’s family, not surprisingly, also was very religious and
rigid. Her father was an angry, critical man who was continu-
ally berating Ellen’s mother and Ellen herself for their short-
comings. Ellen’s mother was a submissive woman who had
been physically abused by her father as a child, and whose
approval Ellen always sought but never received.
Over the course of a few years, Ellen worked through
much of the early wounding in her family of origin. As she did
so, her images of God changed as well, from a harsh, con-
demning figure that reflected her punishing father into God as
a loving and an accepting Being whom to she could turn for
strength and comfort. As her rigidity melted, she made more
friends, began to explore the wider world beyond her com-
munity, and eventually became involved in an intimate rela-
tionship with another woman from a different religious
community. Her spirituality, she felt, began to deepen once
again, and she began to experience some breakthroughs in her
practice.
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 141

A purely spiritual approach to opening the heart opens us up to

spiritual realms undreamt of by psychology, but historically the cost has
been to turn our back on the world. Traditional spirituality seeks
heaven by abandoning the earth.

THE ESSENTIAL CONFLICT

Psychology and spirituality seem to be fundamentally different, even to
run in opposite directions. What are we to make of these two very dif-
ferent approaches to opening the heart? Are we to feel and express our
anger, or do we let it go and focus on forgiveness? Is sexual attraction
good or bad? Should we explore our feelings of shame and self-hate or
disidentify with them and focus on self-love? Do we uncover the roots
of our anxiety or try to concentrate on bringing peace and calm into our
self? Does the good life consist of cultivating positive feelings such as
forgiveness and love, or is this a repressive strategy that leads to psy-
chological disaster?
Why do psychology and spirituality look so very different? And
why do they produce two very different heart openings? How can we
reconcile these divergent, contradictory strategies?
The answer is that psychology and spirituality open different hearts.
Or, perhaps more accurately, each opens different levels of the heart.
These two diverse approaches reflect the dual nature of the heart.

This ambiguity, these opposing appearances of depth and blind-

ness are created by the double character of the human emotive
being. For there is in front in man a heart of vital emotion sim-
ilar to the animal’s, if more variously developed. . . . This mix-
ture of the emotive heart and the sensational hungering vital
creates in man a false soul of desire. . . . But the true soul of man
is not there; it is in the true invisible heart hidden in some lumi-
nous cave of the nature: there under some infiltration of the
divine Light is our soul. . . . It is as this psychic being in him
grows and the movements of the heart reflect its divinations and
impulsions that man becomes more and more aware of his soul,
ceases to be a superior animal and, awakening to glimpses of the
godhead within him, admits more and more its intimations of a
deeper life. (Aurobindo, 1973b, p. 150)
142 Integral Psychotherapy

The heart is a double center. In front is the heart that psychology

studies, with all of its unconscious defenses and depths. Behind and
deep within lies what the spiritual traditions speak of, our soul or psy-
chic center. The failure to distinguish between these two dimensions of
being is the cause of much confusion and seeming paradox. Psychology
opens the frontal, outer levels of the heart but is utterly lost when it
attempts to go farther. Spirituality opens the inner heart but creates
chaos in applying its strategies to ordinary life and relationships.
The biggest problem with psychology is its limited vision of the
human being—it embraces earth and ignores heaven. But without a
larger, spiritual context, the self becomes the measure of all things. Any
psychology that grows out of this context inevitably has an impover-
ished view of human life.
The problem with a purely spiritual approach, on the other hand,
is that it sacrifices the outer life for the inner—it seeks heaven at the
cost of the earth. The West is still reeling from centuries of repression
inflicted by Christianity. Every major religion has cast a heavy weight
of repression on the culture and psyches of its people. Guiding spiritual
ideals become introjected as “shoulds,” super-ego judgments that crip-
ple emotional health. “Lower” or “negative” feelings, such as sexual
attraction, anger, and sadness, become split off, and the body is deval-
ued along with anything associated with it. In shutting down so much
of the heart’s feeling capacity, spiritual practice is crippled as well, for
this diminishes the very feeling capacities needed to open the inner
doors to the soul.
To maintain a connection to the heart, conventional religion has
emphasized the higher emotional, imaginal level of the heart. The
result is that much of conventional religion has become pietistic and
effete, too highly refined, ineffective for real change, and unable to pen-
etrate the inner veils that hide the true soul within. It is no accident that
imagination, visualization, symbol, and imagery figure so prominently
in the paths of the heart, for this is the language of the higher emo-
tional part of our being. But too often practice becomes stuck here, sat-
isfied with imagination or trapped in an inner fantasy world. Escape to
heaven comes as a natural result, for changing human nature seems too
difficult.
Many traditions try to remedy this disability by engaging the lower
and central emotional energies through such things as singing, dancing,
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 143

loud music, and rituals. Sometimes these practices can create inner
openings to genuine spiritual states. But their disadvantage is that stir-
ring up the emotional energies can produce a passionate froth and foam
on the surface of consciousnesss that destroys the inward peace and
calm so necessary for the inner journey. Even when an altered state
results, the noise and the frenzy of vital excitement can kick up a lot of
dust that obscures inner perception. The underlying intention of
engaging the full emotional being is laudable, but the means are often-
times inadequate.
Traditional religions have not yet discovered how to bridge daily
life and love (bhakti). As a result, religion is a thing apart, operating
both as a taming force on humanity’s baser instincts and as a harmful
force of repression that increases the power of the shadow to emerge in
unconscious, destructive ways.
Is there a way to embrace both heaven and earth?
Although psychological and spiritual strategies appear to compete,
actually each works to open up a different dimension of the heart. Each
has essential knowledge of its own domain, but each is ill equipped
when it ventures into the realm of the other. How can we integrate the
wisdom of each to create an integral approach to opening the heart?
Given the present state of the world, there may be no more pressing
issue facing human evolution than this one.

INTEGRAL OPENING
In front is the heart of emotion that psychology has mapped. Opening
this heart gives us access to the entire range of our feelings, in all of
their intensities and complexities. Within and behind the heart chakra
is the sacred heart, the soul or deep center that spirituality has mapped.
Opening this heart opens a new dimension of consciousness. Like
moving from two-dimensional Flatland to the world of three dimen-
sions, our psychic center unveils an inner realm of joy, loving peace, and
guiding light for our life. An integral approach to opening the heart
must include both, for only in this do we awaken to the fullness of
authentic being.
The authentic self is not incompatible with authentic spirituality;
just the reverse, as they flow naturally out of each other. This was not
144 Integral Psychotherapy

previously possible because, up until this point, humanity did not have
essential psychological knowledge of the self. Traditional religion has
historically sought to excise the self, to cut free of earth to gain heaven.
The full significance of the shadow side of the heart, the lower emo-
tional-instinctual nature, the central emotional, and the body was not
understood by religion. They seemed too unruly, too shut to the light,
leading only outward rather than inward. But the advent of depth psy-
chology changes this.2
What depth psychology shows us is that the biggest block to open-
ing the inner heart is a closed outer heart. Psychology is invaluable for
opening the outer heart but is lost when it tries to penetrate farther.
Spiritual strategies work for unveiling the inner heart but are not
notably effective at opening the outer heart. Both psychological and
spiritual methods are right, as far as they go. The difficulty comes from
applying the wrong method to the wrong part of our being.
Religion often seems like a world apart from ordinary living. Con-
temporary spiritual practice is moving toward a new way—approaching
what seems far through what is near, finding spirit through everyday
activities of living, loving, hurting, and fearing. For this we need to
deconstruct and reconstruct the traditional path of the heart. Depth
psychology allows us to see what is essential in these practices and to
strip away the unnecessary superstition, dead ritual, and historical and
cultural baggage that conceal their deeper truth.
Viewing psychotherapy as a process of opening the heart represents
a fundamental revisioning of psychotherapy. Modern psychology has
produced a more sophisticated understanding of the heart than we have
ever had before. As depth psychology shows, the self is striving for love,
for connection, for self-expression. What is needed is to align the
authentic self with the true soul—then a harmonization of our inner
and outer being will take place. As the psychic light illumines the outer
self, our life transforms. We have a light within, a source of loving joy
that uplifts all of our relationships and work, filling them with an
intrinsic peace and a fullness of being.
Opening to this light is necessarily progressive, taking time and
focus, but one thing is necessary—aspiration—aspiration for a deeper
living, aspiration for Spirit. Aspiration is the upward flame that carries
us toward our source and brings out the full force of our heart’s deep-
est desire.
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 145

It may not seem immediately obvious how aspiration bridges the

gap between our inner and surface hearts, and the rest of this book will
try to make this clear. For now, suffice it to say that aspiration is the call
of the soul in its upward evolution, and this aspiration for truth, good-
ness, love, and bliss grows ever stronger as the psychic center develops
and matures. In the ego, this takes the form of desire, but beneath
desire’s unquiet push lies the soul’s deeper aspiration.
This flame of aspiration is our highest light and inspiration, called
Agni’s fire in the Vedas. Aspiration, unlike love or bhakti, is present and
available to everyone. It is not difficult to find. It is this turning within
to our deeper aspiration, this lighting of the psychic fire in the heart,
that is of crucial importance.

DOING PSYCHOTHERAPY AS OPENING THE HEART

Becoming and being a psychotherapist is a process of opening the
heart. It is a long inner journey of exploring and working through innu-
merable tangles and blocks to our own feelings. And in bringing a spir-
itual aspiration to working as a therapist, it can become a practice of
devotion and love.
Love is a word that is used with great trepidation in psychotherapy
circles. This is understandable, given the litigious nature of today’s soci-
ety and the abuse of this word as a rationale for sexually exploiting
clients. But it seems ironic that a field that tries to get to the heart of
human experience should speak so seldom of this universal feeling so
crucially important to everyone. Carl Rogers came closest to under-
standing the importance of love in healing in writing of the therapist’s
“unconditional positive regard” for the client as an essential ingredient
in therapy, yet he too shied away from using the word.
Viewing the client as an expression of the Divine, as an embodi-
ment of Christ (as Mother Teresa would do), as a form of Krishna or
the divine spirit, allows us to open our heart in compassion and love. As
the psychic center becomes more awake inside, there is a spontaneous,
unconditional love for all beings, for nature, and for the unity of all
existence. The more deeply we go into ourselves, the more this love
emerges. To speak of loving our clients raises professional eyebrows in
suspicion. Yet if we cannot love our clients, then why become a
146 Integral Psychotherapy

psychotherapist? This love can be experienced on an inner level and

need not be expressed outwardly or verbally, yet this is the most pow-
erful force for healing that any therapist can offer. And when a thera-
pist can open up to this energy, psychotherapy can then become a path
of devotion and love that opens the heart of the client as well as the
therapist.

CONCLUSION
The heart is central to all living—the source of our actions, the key to
our relationships, the gateway to our deepest identity. Fully opening the
heart is both a psychological and spiritual process. What we are seek-
ing is our authentic self, infused and guided by our deeper, evolving
soul. To bring our life into alignment with this deeper center requires
opening our heart on every level. Such integral fulfillment represents
the coming evolutionary wave. Freud said at the beginning of the last
century that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious. Today, with
an expanded view of the psyche, we can say that the heart is the royal road
to the soul.
Heart-centered psychotherapy can be a bhakti yoga for the 21st
century that brings together our inner and outer hearts. In the path of
transformation, an inner freedom that rests on an inner joy and love can
only be a beginning, not the final goal. Joy and love and compassion
also must suffuse our outer life and heart. The surface, psychological
heart of vital emotion must transform to become a radiant center of
love in the world, for only by such a shift can the world grow beyond
its current adolescent stage of development.
Desire is the evolutionary ladder we climb until, reaching a certain
height, desire transmutes into aspiration, and aspiration leads us to love
and bhakti. Of course, aspiration is there all along underneath desire,
the basis of desire. It is the inner gold that produces the gross lead of
desire, but this is only barely perceptible at first. As the psychic center
matures and affects a greater refinement of the instrumental nature,
aspiration becomes more tangible. Psychotherapy must therefore focus
on liberating desire and aspiration, liberating the fetters of the heart so
it may feel freely and fully.
Psychotherapy and spirituality come together in the heart. The
heart is a pathway to immensely greater depths and richness in our life
 Psychotherapy As Opening the Heart 147

and relationships as well as to an exalted center of delight within.

When the psychic fire in the heart is lit, there is a steady stream of joy
and love that can act as a balm to even the darkest, most painful outer
circumstances that life gives us. Lighting this inner flame is the focus
of the final chapter.
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 Chapter 8

Designing Psychotherapy for the

Right Brain, the Left Brain, and the Soul

Awake by your aspiration the psychic fire in the heart that burns steadily
toward the Divine—that is the one way to liberate and fulfill the emotional
nature.
—Sri Aurobindo, Letters on Yoga

This book has been making the case throughout for a synthesis of psy-
chology’s many voices, for a vision of health that encompasses and
exceeds what each specific school of therapy holds as optimal, and for
an integration of methods to achieve this. It has further suggested an
integration of psychology with spirituality, for only in this can the
depth of the psyche be truly understood, as well as a joining of West-
ern and Eastern psychologies’ theories and practices. The body, the
levels of the heart, the mind, and the inner being and soul are necessary
for this more expanded perspective of psychology.
This chapter takes up these themes and places them in the context
of current neuroscience. Recent discoveries in neurobiology and neuro-
science have exciting correspondences to the planes and parts of our
being detailed by integral psychology. Although there is no perfect fit
in every detail, there is such close proximity that this knowledge pro-
vides yet another window into the larger view of psychology offered in
this book. Some research directions have even started to extend the
edge of materialistic science and touch the edges of the spiritual foun-
dation of consciousness, which we will see has implications for psy-
chotherapeutic technique.
149
150 Integral Psychotherapy

As neuroscience has matured over the last few decades, it has begun
to shed new light on some of the insights provided by depth psy-
chotherapy about the nature of the mind, the self, emotion, memory,
relationships, and development. A convergence of research in neurobi-
ology, neuroscience, attachment theory, mother-infant research, and
human development reinforces and clarifies many of the understand-
ings of depth therapy. It has become increasingly clear, for example,
that the earliest relationship experiences in the infant’s family with its
original attachment figures (mother and father especially) profoundly
influence the developing brain of the infant. Secure attachment is
highly correlated to peer acceptance, emotional resilience, leadership
abilities, and enhanced immune function, whereas insecure attachment
is highly correlated to greater vulnerability to psychopathology, prob-
lematic relationships, and reduced immune functioning (Stroufe, et al.,
1990; Fonagy, 2001; Russek & Schwartz, 1994).
As the brain develops from infancy to adulthood, emotion is the
central organizing process that shapes it toward coherence or incoher-
ence, and interpersonal relationships are the primary way in which
emotion is integrated and regulated by the developing mind (Siegel,
1999.) Affect, and the capacity to regulate it, plays a central role in
neural development and behavior, that is, the ability of the person to
self-regulate and self-soothe as well as to make use of relationships for
the integration and regulation of emotional states.
While split-brain research has investigated since the 1970s the dif-
ferent ways the right and left hemispheres process information, only
recently has this research focused on the different ways in which each
hemisphere processes emotion. Thus for some time it has been known
that the left hemisphere (which controls the right side of the body) is
primarily verbal, rational, and logical and thinks in terms of cause-
effect relationships. The right hemisphere, on the other hand, is more
intuitive and visually and spatially oriented, and in seizing the whole
rather than analyzing the parts it makes spontaneous leaps of insight in
its mental processing. As it turns out, these inter-hemispheric differ-
ences also reflect the different ways in which each side of the brain
processes emotion.
While some researchers interpret the data differently, there is
strong evidence to show that the left hemisphere processes emotion in
verbal, logical, and interpretive modes that construct a narrative to
 Designing Psychotherapy 151

make sense of emotional experience. Because it needs language for

symbolization, it comes on-line at a developmentally later time than
the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere processes affect in terms of
primary emotion, bodily sensed feelings, and relational context (Shore,
2003b.) Because it is dominant in the first three years of life (Chiron et
al., 1997) due to its early maturing (Saugstad, 1998), it is crucially
involved in the basic affect system (Gazzaniga, 1985) and in the mod-
ulation of primary emotions (Ross, Homan, & Buck, 1994). Thus when
the left and right hemispheres operate in an integrated fashion, a coher-
ent narrative emerges that reflects the bodily sensed, primary emotional
experience of the person. When the left and right hemispheres are not
integrated in their processing, however, the left brain weaves a story
that may be logical but not coherent, since it lacks the right brain’s con-
textual understanding and experience of primary emotion in the body
(Siegel, 1999.)
Certain kinds of emotional wounding affect primarily left hemi-
sphere development, while other kinds of emotional wounding affect
primarily right hemisphere development (Beebe & Lachman, 1994.)
Siegel (1999) gives the example of the avoidantly attached child’s and
the dismissing adult’s communication pattern as a left hemisphere-
dominated communication resulting from a dis-association between
right and left brain processing.
Similarly, we can think of different therapeutic approaches as
accessing either primarily left or right hemispheres for emotional pro-
cessing. Traditional psychoanalysis, with its emphasis upon verbal
expression and its minimizing of bodily states and somatically felt
experience, may reflect a left hemisphere dominance in technique.
Conversely, humanistic-existential approaches that favor bodily felt
experience and primary emotion but downplay verbal representation
and narrative processing reflect a right hemisphere preference in ther-
apeutic action. What an integral approach to psychotherapy that inte-
grates body-heart-mind-spirit aims to do, and what neuroscience
seems to be suggesting, is a synthesis of emotional and somatic
dimensions of experience, or in the language of neuroscience, a syn-
thesis of left and right hemispheric modes of processing emotion.
However, before embarking on such a synthesis, we need to consider
an additional dimension: the soul or the spiritual dimension of
consciousness.
152 Integral Psychotherapy

HEART AND SOUL

Intriguing research has explored the effects of centering consciousness
in the heart. Song, Schwartz, and Russek (1998) have reported that
simply focusing on the heart area increases heart-brain synchroniza-
tion, which in turn has a measurable effect on reducing stress levels,
increasing immunity, and enhancing mental performance (Childre &
Martin, 1999.) Researchers at the Institute of HeartMath have pub-
lished a series of articles detailing how focusing on the heart while feel-
ing a positive emotion such as appreciation, gratitude, or love results in
a series of physiological changes correlated to lower stress levels (Chil-
dre & Martin, 1999). These changes include lower blood pressure and
cortisol (a stress hormone) levels, increased DHEA and IgA (associated
with increased immunity) levels, reduced activity of the sympathetic
nervous system, and increased activity of the parasympathetic nervous
system (associated with greater relaxation).
A number of studies also have found greater synchronization
between heart and brain rhythms in such a state, and such heart-brain
synchronization is correlated to greater intuition and creative problem
solving. Conversely, there is a greater degree of incoherence between
heart and brain rhythms during periods of stress or experiences of neg-
ative emotion, which partly explains why people do not think as clearly
when stressed. However, it is not clear precisely what focusing on the
heart area means, or which part of the heart is being focused on, for in
integral psychology there are different levels of the heart: the physical
heart, the passionate heart of emotion, the heart chakra, and the soul or
psychic center, hidden in the “cave of the heart.”
While the techniques from HeartMath can be useful as a tempo-
rary relief from stress, they suffer from the same limitations that many
strictly behavioral techniques do, namely, they impose upon the person
a different affect state rather than facilitate the emergence of an
authentic, deeper level of feeling within.1 Helpful as this might be in
the short run, an integral working requires a more thoroughgoing
resolution.
The psychic center or soul, as discussed earlier, is located deep in
the heart, behind the heart chakra, on an inner plane. The psychic
center communicates not so much by thought as by an essential feeling,
according to Sri Aurobindo. Since the goal of integral psychotherapy is
not only the integration and coherence of the outer self but the refine-
 Designing Psychotherapy 153

ment and gradual psychicization of the self, the opening to the influ-
ence and guidance of our psychic center is essential. For this, two key
conditions are most helpful: centering consciousness in the heart and
an aspiration for the psychic opening.
Although Sri Aurobindo is clear that there is no shortcut to awak-
ening the psychic being, he is equally clear that spiritual practice can
accelerate the process considerably. Although many methods may be
employed, and the spiritual literature from around the world abounds
in numerous practices, Sri Aurobindo extracts the inner essence of
many such practices and describes two essential elements. The first key
condition is to center consciousness in the heart, not the physical heart
or even the heart chakra but the psychic flame behind the heart chakra,
in the middle of the chest close to the spine. The second condition is
to focus on a feeling of aspiration for the true consciousness, aspiration
for the Divine, and aspiration for the psychic center to awaken and take
the lead, or else a feeling of bhakti, love, devotion, or surrender.
Aspiration plays a pivotal role in integral yoga, as it does in integral
psychotherapy, but it is sharply differentiated from vital desire. The ego
desires, but the soul aspires. Vital desire is an unquiet, demanding, and
impatient urge that comes from the ego. Aspiration, on the other hand,
is the call of the soul in its upward journey. Aspiration is quiet and non-
demanding, and it accepts whatever the Divine gives. Aspiration can be
ardent and intense, but it is fundamentally peaceful, an urge from the
depths of our soul for the Divine and all things Divine: truth, beauty,
goodness, love, gratitude, and devotion. Sri Aurobindo’s distinction
between vital desire and aspiration is critically important, for it illu-
mines why so much of traditional spiritual practice is ineffective or only
minimally effective because it bases itself on vital desire and creates a
vital whirl that kicks up so much dust inwardly that it obscures the
deeper light of the soul.
The practice often recommended by Sri Aurobindo is twofold.
First, concentrate in the heart, not on the heart but in the heart (actu-
ally behind the heart chakra), as if physically located in this area. “The
heart in this yoga should in fact be the main center of concentra-
tion . . .” (Aurobindo, 1971a, p. 780). Second, from this station in the
heart, concentrate on a feeling or movement of aspiration (aspiration
for the Divine, for the true consciousness), devotion, bhakti, or love, or
surrender to the Divine. This feeling of aspiration (or love or surrender)
then takes one more and more deeply within. As the intensity of the
154 Integral Psychotherapy

feeling increases, the inner doors open, and the psychic consciousness
awakens naturally. “Aspiration, constant and sincere, and the will to
turn to the Divine alone are the best means to bring forward the psy-
chic” (Aurobindo, 1971a, p. 1100).
It will be seen that there is much in common with many Christian
practices, the prayer of the heart, Hindu bhakti practices, devotion,
love, and so on, but a crucial distinction is made in integral yoga. For
these practices to be effective, these feelings are to be psychic rather
than vital, for vital feelings only stir up the emotional being rather than
calming and purifying it. To awaken the psychic center or soul, the
means must be psychic. Vital means lead to vital results.
In integral psychotherapy, lighting the psychic flame in the heart is
the goal. However, along with this, integral psychotherapy focuses on
bringing greater coherence to the emotional-psychological self, and this
requires a good deal of effort to work through the many levels of psy-
chological, unconscious wounding that so afflict the heart of every
human being. To bring awareness to the heart’s depth of feeling and the
vast array of lower, central, higher emotional, and psychic influences is
the main focus of integral psychotherapy. In awakening our heart center
or psychic being, the path for most lies in working through layer after
layer of wounding and defense. A first step is focusing in the heart,
which begins to open the inner doors.

HEART-CENTERED FOCUSING
The pioneering work of Eugene Gendlin to develop focusing over
many years of exceptionally well-done psychotherapy research (1981,
1996) has shown how attending to our bodily sensed feelings is a cen-
tral process behind psychotherapeutic change. While focusing is in the
tradition of humanistic-existential approaches to psychotherapy, with
its attention to the somatic realm of experiencing, it brings out what
may be the key ingredient in all psychotherapy. In studying who
changed in psychotherapy, Gendlin discovered that whether a therapist
used free association, transference work, role-playing, cognitive therapy,
imagery, dream work, or verbal techniques, the underlying process, the
meta-technique behind all successful techniques, lies in psychotherapy’s
capacity to reveal the bodily felt sense to the client. In the language of
neuroscience, Gendlin brings into sharp relief the importance of the
 Designing Psychotherapy 155

right brain’s awareness of primary emotion and bodily sensed feeling in

order to construct a meaningful explanation (or coherent narrative) of
emotional experience. Interestingly, Gendlin discovered that feelings
are almost always sensed in the central part of the body or torso. This
makes sense from the perspective of the subtle body in which the three
chakras between the base of the spine and the throat are those involved
in emotional processing, so the torso is the area where the physical body
resonates most closely with the subtle body and the chakras responsible
for emotion.
A limitation of focusing, which it has in common with almost all
of Western psychotherapy, is its entire focus on the surface self and
body, its lack of understanding of the inner being and spiritual founda-
tion of consciousness. Further, it has only a cursory knowledge of the
transference and the realm of the unconscious mapped out by psycho-
analysis, and it tends to downplay the importance of verbalizing or left
hemisphere processing. Nevertheless, despite these limitations, it is
possible to utilize the key psychotherapeutic insights of focusing so that
these can be integrated into a meditative approach to psychotherapy
that includes both the surface self and the deeper psychic center or soul.
Integral psychotherapy highlights the currently unknown but secretly
overarching principle of psychological life—namely, that our life is an
expression of our deeper, evolving soul. The self or ego is what central-
izes consciousness for this outer body-heart-mind organism, but as we
saw in chapter 2, the self or ego is itself a surface reflection of the deeper
psychic center. The action of the self both hides the psychic center or
evolving soul as well as is an expression of it. To find our true center, we
must go within, using the self as a passageway toward our deeper being.
As feeling is the language of the soul, and the inner heart is its seat, open-
ing ourselves to the depths of feeling and centering ourselves in our deep-
est heart is the royal road to our soul and psychic center.
What I have discovered is that by centering consciousness deep in
the heart with an aspiration for the true consciousness, aspiration for
our deeper self, aspiration for the heart’s authentic guidance, it is pos-
sible to focus on the bodily felt sense from a deeper and wider perspec-
tive. This heart-centered focusing inclines consciousness toward its
deeper roots, and from there it can perceive the somatically experienced
emotional material more fully. Of course, not everyone can do this
immediately or perfectly, but over time this aspiration taps into the
yearning for authentic being that we all feel. For some clients there is a
156 Integral Psychotherapy

natural sensitivity to the inner heart’s wisdom. For other clients this
aspiration takes time to produce a result on the surface, though there
may well be an action going on behind the veil. For still other clients
this may stir an influence that is entirely unconscious, and the work
stays primarily in the realm of bodily sensed feelings and traditional
psychotherapy.
In centering in the heart and focusing on the bodily sensed emo-
tion, the client is able to verbalize inner experience in an increasingly
deep and perceptive way. This action engages both hemispheres of the
brain—the right hemisphere’s perception of primary emotion and body
sensing and the left hemisphere’s ability to weave a narrative that brings
a greater capacity to witness, to understand, and to inhabit emotional
reality. This integrates both sides of the brain as well as brings the soul
and its powers to bear on healing and awakening. Any area can be the
object of exploration: the client’s past, the present outside life and rela-
tionships, or the transference. Any technique can be employed to fur-
ther this exploration: imagery, body work, role-play, free association,
dream work, creative expression—as long as the technique is grounded
in and emerges out of the felt sense of the client.
To fully open the heart we must awaken and reinhabit the body,
which psychoanalysis has not fully understood, and we must work
through the deep and extensive wounds to the self and its relational
world, which humanistic and existential psychologies have not fully
understood, and we must open inwardly through aspiration and con-
centration the psychic center and evolving soul, which no Western psy-
chology has understood.
A key factor in all of this is the therapist’s consciousness. When the
therapist can be centered in his or her psychic center, or at least have
the aspiration for this, and when he or she has done a good deal of inner
work toward it, then a psychic field is created that more easily allows
the client to access these deeper levels. There is always the issue of the
client’s receptivity to the psychic influence, and of the particular chem-
istry between the client and therapist, for there are large variations in
each of these. But even when there is a seeming lack of receptivity on
the surface, there can be an influence working behind the conscious
awareness. The therapist creates a psychic field which, through reso-
nance, can help awaken and open the inner being of the client. This can
deepen the traditional psychotherapeutic work being done, and it also
 Designing Psychotherapy 157

can work toward the opening of the client’s psychic center. Though a
full opening may be rare in psychotherapy, a more realistic expectation
is for integral psychotherapy to provide another stepping-stone for the
client’s evolving soul and to evoke a greater capacity to listen to the
soul’s voice.

THE FOURFOLD PRACTICE OF

INTEGRAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
Integral psychology puts the process of developing our human poten-
tial into a cosmic context. Life is an evolutionary movement of divine
consciousness manifesting more and more capacities through a human
instrumentation. Life is good and meaningful, blissful in essence, a
growing expansion of consciousness in a creative dance of delight. Our
task is to align with this process, using life as a field for developing our-
selves in every way, on every plane—physically, emotionally, mentally,
and spiritually—to unfold our abilities to whatever degree we can.
An integral approach does not abandon the world to find spirit but
rather seeks to embody spirit in the world. In integral psychotherapy
this means a free and many-sided growth of our being, healing and
transforming every level as we progressively awaken the psychic light
and open to the soul’s guidance and influence. The division of our being
into body-heart-mind-spirit is extremely useful, for it provides an
organizing framework for the levels of our human consciousness and
allows us to focus our energy on developing each part, separately and
together. As human evolution proceeds, the means for developing our
outer being will progress as new advances are made. Psychotherapy has
so much more at its disposal now than it did even 50 years ago, and
there is no reason to think progress will stop anytime soon.

Awakening and Refining the Body

Any comprehensive psychology must take into account the immense

importance of the body in our emotional life. To fully open the heart
means to awaken the body. And an integral approach to the body must
take into account the subtle body, for the subtle body is the foundation
158 Integral Psychotherapy

of the outer, gross body. In bringing consciousness to the body, we nor-

mally think of consciousness as “in” the body. But in integral psychol-
ogy, it is the reverse, as the body is a manifestation of consciousness. See
note 2 for an extended discussion of processes to awaken the body.2

Opening and Purifying the Heart

Most of traditional psychotherapy centers on working with the emo-

tional level of the heart—on healing the emotional wounds, traumas,
and defensive maneuvers that so impair the average human being.
Whether approached through the mind, as in cognitive therapy,
through the body, as in somatic approaches, or through the emotions
directly, psychotherapy seeks to improve the emotional functioning of
the client. Integral psychotherapy makes use of all of the traditional
approaches of the various schools and strives for a higher level of func-
tioning than envisioned by conventional psychology. Not only the heal-
ing of old wounds and working through of defenses but a larger
opening and purification of the heart are essential in order to awaken
the psychic center with its inherent joy, love, peace, and the light of its
unerring guidance. As the soul or psychic center is deep within the
heart chakra, the heart has a position of premier importance in integral
psychotherapy, along with practices that help work through all of the
unconscious defenses and obscurations to this inner light.
Expanding the capacity to feel is the underlying process, whether
this takes the form of learning to tolerate greater ranges and intensities
of feeling or to better regulate and contain emotional experience and
not become overstimulated or understimulated. The ability to feel is so
damaged and shrunken for most people today. Repression and dis-
avowal are the norm, and the poverty of most relationships, the
endemic fear and shame that so restrict our aliveness and vitality, has
created a sick society and conflictful global culture that can only be
transformed through individual effort. Integral psychotherapy sees con-
sciousness work as the most radical form of social activism, for only
through the evolution and transformation of individuals can collective
consciousness rise.
The many techniques and practices of psychotherapy can be com-
bined into an integral working—active techniques, creative techniques,
verbal techniques, somatic techniques, imaginal techniques, cognitive
 Designing Psychotherapy 159

techniques, altered state techniques, dream work techniques—and as

psychology develops, new methods will be discovered and further inte-
grations will occur.
What is crucial is having a vision large enough to encompass all
dimensions of the heart, not restricted to the narrow view of a single
school or taking one level of the heart for the whole. This means not
only the lower emotional instinctual self, the central emotional rela-
tional self, and the higher emotional imaginal self but seeing how emo-
tion arises out of somatic experiencing and including the embodied self
as well as how thought is part of emotional experiencing in the mental
self. The largeness of the authentic self, then, has all of these dimen-
sions that have been fleshed out by traditional schools, but only in inte-
grating them into a comprehensive whole can the fullness and richness
of authenticity be appreciated.
As the authentic self comes progressively on-line, accompanied by
truly intimate and authentic relationships, meaningful work, creative
self-expression, greater coherence will become the dominant psycho-
logical experience, and a more powerfully intense and pure aspiration
for the Divine becomes possible. In working through the shame-laden
wounding, trauma, and defensive structures, aspiration becomes less
narcissistic and self-aggrandizing. The psychodynamics of humility
require a good deal of inner work with one’s own narcissism if these
energies are not to get hijacked by unconscious forces.3 Including the
bodily sensing and organismic power of primary feeling brings in a
stronger force, a greater intensity of feeling necessary for inner deepen-
ing. Together these allow a refined, purified, and powerful aspiration to
emerge. This aspiration for the psychic emergence and the true con-
sciousness, this longing of the evolving soul for the Divine, this call of
aspiration that rises from the depth of the soul—this is what lights the
flame in the heart and opens the inner doors to our psychic center.

Quieting and Expanding the Mind

The importance of the mind in human experience can hardly be over-

stated, for in the evolutionary steps of matter, life, and mind, only in
reaching mind does consciousness begin to know itself and achieve a
beginning mastery of itself and the world. The goal in an integral
160 Integral Psychotherapy

psychotherapy is for the mind to function as clearly, logically, and freely

as possible. Training the mind so that it can reach its highest potential
is an important priority, so both hemispheres of the mind need to be
developed. The aesthetic dimension of mind centered in right hemi-
sphere processing needs encouragement and stimulation through
beauty and creativity in all of its forms. The theoretic dimension of
mind centered in left hemisphere processing is heavily emphasized in
Western education, leading to clarity of thought and perception.
Learning to become lifelong learners is a key goal of education. Curios-
ity and the joy of learning are natural states of mind, evident in young
children before they are being subjected to the education factories of
conventional education.
Aside from developing the mind’s talents, an integral approach also
seeks to quiet the incessant noise of the mind and to expand into its
inner depths. There are many meditative methods for bringing more
tranquility to the mind, but perhaps the most efficient is mindfulness
practice. Simply bringing bare attention to our ongoing experience set-
tles the mind’s activities. Silent observation or witness consciousness is
the one activity that does not stir up more dust and noise but brings
silence through understanding and insight. As the mind calms down, it
is able to look within and perceive its deeper source. Although the mind
may be intelligent and well educated, in the earlier stages of evolution
it is outward and absorbed in surface appearances. As evolution pro-
ceeds, the mind becomes more inward as it starts to free itself from its
absorption in externalities and purely physical realities. Calming the
mind is a prerequisite to looking within. As this occurs, the mind
expands into its interior spaces.

Unveiling the Soul

Integral psychotherapy works to bring coherence to the authentic, sur-

face self and to awaken the psychic center. The psychic center’s self-
existent bliss, peace, light, and love gradually permeate the surface
nature. As the energy and influence of the psychic center infiltrate the
self, the surface nature refines and becomes more responsive to the
promptings of the inner soul. While the full unveiling of the soul and
its coming to the front is a very long process, its influence in daily life
is available to every sincere seeker.
 Designing Psychotherapy 161

In the initial stages its action is out of awareness. It is the influence

of the psychic center that first turns someone toward higher things:
meaning, beauty, love, truth, spirituality, and the inner world. Moving
in this direction further develops the psychic being, and the person is
brought into contact with people, teachings, and experiences that con-
tinue psychic development. As the psychic center matures, its influence
grows stronger. The person is increasingly able to tune into and sense
an inner source of guidance and wisdom. When the action is wrong or
would be a mistake, a feeling of unease comes, whereas in making the
correct choice there is a feeling in the heart of rightness and clarity.
Misreading the psychic center’s guidance is inevitable. The old nature
asserts itself, and such misreading can further sharpen the ability to dis-
cern the psychic discrimination from the vital desires and preferences
that rule the outer nature.
Opening of the heart and liberating the heart’s power are essential
to bring forth the psychic center. Traditional spiritual paths, ignorant of
the complexities and power of the unconscious forces and defensive
structures that have a firm grip on the surface self, have relied mainly
on suppressive techniques to harness the power of the heart. Although
liberative for a tiny few, this strategy has been psychologically crippling
for many, which includes most people in the East and West.
However, with the insights and knowledge of Western psychology,
we are now able to fashion a strategy that truly opens up, expands,
intensifies, and frees the heart and clears away many of the obstacles to
the heart’s inner center. Instead of chaining down passions and feelings,
bludgeoning them into submission, eradicating their beauty, and in the
process sentencing our feeling life to a barren bleakness, a crippled,
cold, constricted shadow of its true splendor and fullness, we can release
these energies into life, enrich our existence, and bring forth a more
psychologically and spiritually whole person. And as the heart’s life
comes under the influence of the soul, it transforms, uplifts, refines, and
channels our life energies in ways that further our alignment with the
Divine.
Mindfulness practice is the most direct route to the atman
(Buddha-nature) as well as a powerful method to bring peace to the
mind. It also is a very helpful preliminary practice for awakening the
psychic center as it quiets the surface mind and brings more con-
sciousness to the inner world. However, the main practices for open-
ing the psychic being focus on centering in the heart. In taking our
162 Integral Psychotherapy

station deep in the heart and tuning into the psychic aspiration that is
always present, this feeling grows and opens inward. Aspiration, or
love, bhakti, devotion, surrender—these feelings come from the soul
and lead to it in a call to the Divine for union. All spiritual methods
that strengthen the spiritual aspiration are helpful in this journey
toward our psychic center, for in the end everyone’s path is unique,
requiring each one to find his or her own way. However, the power of
aspiration brings the help we need and in time leads into the inner
chambers of the heart.

INTEGRAL PSYCHOTHERAPY
The question can now be asked: Is integral psychotherapy an organiz-
ing framework for all of psychology and psychotherapy, or is it a specific
school of psychotherapy? The answer: It is both. It is an integrating
framework for all therapeutic approaches and a unique therapeutic
approach in itself.
As a meta-theory or organizing structure, it integrates all of con-
ventional Western psychology within it as well as Eastern psychology
and the world’s spiritual systems. As a specific approach to psychother-
apy, it provides for a wide and inclusive system in which each therapist
can adopt the methods that resonate with his or her nature. Each ther-
apist is drawn to those schools and techniques that focus on the levels
of consciousness on which he or she is working in this particular life-
time. For example, a therapist working on developing the higher emo-
tional levels of consciousness will gravitate toward systems such as
Jungian psychology or psychosynthesis. A therapist who is working on
embodiment will be drawn to working with the humanistic-existential
therapies and body work. But what will unite all such therapeutic
strategies is centering consciousness in the heart, in the psychic center,
in the aspiration toward the Divine, or else resting in mindfulness and
the aspiration toward the atman or Buddha-nature.
Integral psychotherapy begins from wholeness and moves toward
ever-greater wholeness. It begins with the client’s aspiration for a better
life, for health, for authenticity, and for a truer, deeper self and con-
sciousness. This aspiration is a surface expression of the psychic center’s
aspiration for a Divine living and its seeking for Divine wholeness, for
spirit is wholeness itself.4
 Designing Psychotherapy 163

Ideally, an integral psychotherapist will be proficient and engaged

in all levels of consciousness—somatic, all three levels of the emotional,
cognitive—but this takes decades of training, and in practice people
tend to cluster along the lines they themselves are working out in this
life. The common ground lies in the goals: bringing coherence to the
client’s surface self and lighting the psychic fire in the heart, even
though it may never be spoken of in the therapy. In the therapist cen-
tering in the heart and aspiring to awaken and bring forward the psy-
chic center, a psychic field is generated that facilitates this process in the
client.
Finding an inner source of joy and peace, love and light, and true
guidance and discrimination profoundly changes the possibilities for
psychology. The contribution of Eastern psychology is to show that this
is not merely deluded fantasy; rather, it is the denial of this that is a
mental construction which takes surface appearances for ultimate real-
ity. The definition of mental health must include such psychic and spir-
itual qualities as wisdom, compassion, far less anxiety and greater peace,
inner knowing and discernment, inherent joy not dependent on outer
circumstances, gratitude and love, and the absence of loneliness—the
more so as the Divine presence is consciously experienced. Our life is
an evolutionary journey toward this, and our daily life and relationships
are a field of experience to help us grow into this consciousness.
All therapeutic methods and techniques can be infused with the
psychic aspiration. The psychic center aspires for the deeper truth of
being, for wholeness, for the Divine, for bliss and love and peace. Inte-
gral psychotherapy is a movement toward these, working to bring
greater coherence to the surface self so it can hold the power, love, and
joy that emanate from within. Every technique, every school of therapy,
can be integrated into the integral framework. Nothing is excluded.
Integral psychotherapy is a form of behavior change (or karma
yoga), a practice of mindfulness (or jnana yoga), and a process of open-
ing the heart (or bhakti yoga). It also is a form of body work (or hatha
yoga). Further, it can be a process of working with the subtle energies
of the body (kundalini yoga) as well as working with altered states of
consciousness and the beings and forces of the intermediate plane (a
form of shamanic work and/or guided imagery).
Integral psychotherpy can be summarized as being multi-
dimensional, multi-perspectival, embodied, relational, and transforma-
tional. It is multi-dimensional since human consciousness has many
164 Integral Psychotherapy

dimensions or levels—physical, emotional, mental, inner, psychic,

overhead, and spiritual planes of awareness. At this point in psychol-
ogy’s development, integral psychology is the only framework to ade-
quately account for all these dinemsions of consciousness. It is
multi-perspectival in its integration of contemporary academic and
behavioral psychologies, psychoanalytic approaches, humanistic and
existential psychologies, and Eastern and spiritual psychologies. It is
embodied and relational by paying exquisite attention to inner experi-
ence in an interpersonal context. The therapist is, as mindfully as pos-
sible, creating a psychic field through aspiration and centering within,
while attending to the client’s experience. The client is paying atten-
tion to the feelings and subtle body senses evoked in the relation-
ship—the relationship with the therapist, the relationship with his or
her body, the relationship with parents, and the relationships with
friends and lovers, as well as all outside relationships. It is a dyadic
meditation. In its two transformations—psychological and psychic—
integral psychotherapy brings about a better organization of the outer,
fromtal self or ego through a new coherence of the authentic self on
every level—mental, higher emotoinal, central emotional, lower
emotoinal, and somatic. The psychic transformation brings about a
refinement of this surface self so it is progressively psychicisized, spir-
itualized, guided and infused by the light of the soul within. At its far-
ther reaches, psychotherapy becomes psychic therapy. It is a seeking
for a greater consciousness, an aspiration to be united with our own
highest self, which, in truth, is a portion of the Divine. In this way,
integral psychotherapy is a form of prayer.
From an evolutionary perspective, the true and ultimate purpose of
psychotherapy, as opposed to its current practical and compensatory
purpose, is to help the emergence and growth of the psychic center
while bringing greater coherence to the surface self. As the self becomes
more integrated and stably coherent, an integral, soul-centered psy-
chotherapy can bring out the clarity and light, the peace and delight of
our true nature, so that it may suffuse our normal existence and gradu-
ally transform this life into a higher, nobler, more loving and joyous
living.
 Appendix A

The Philosophical Foundation

of Integral Psychology

Integral psychology emerges from the integral yoga and integral phi-
losophy of Sri Aurobindo. Aurobindo’s major philosophical writings are
contained primarily in his magnum opus The Life Divine as well as in
The Synthesis of Yoga and Essays on the Gita. They articulate a richly tex-
tured and widely inclusive spiritual philosophy that unites the major
streams of the world’s spiritual traditions within an evolutionary con-
text of Indian philosophy. The following is a very brief overview of inte-
gral philosophy.

The teaching of Sri Aurobindo starts from that of the ancient

sages of India that behind the appearances of the universe there
is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness, a Self of all things,
one and eternal. . . . [T]his One Being and Consciousness is
involved here in matter. Evolution is the method by which it
liberates itself. (Aurobindo, 1972b, p. 96)

Two fundamental approaches to the Divine have emerged over the

last several thousand years of humanity’s spiritual journey: the Personal
Divine tradition of theism and the Impersonal Divine tradition of non-
theism. The rich variety in the major world religions throughout the
world today can be seen as so many exquisite variations on these two
grand themes. Although some religious thinkers believe that each tra-
dition is unique, from a wider perspective a common vision can be
165
166 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

discerned in which each religious tradition brings out some unique

aspects of these themes and contributes some essential development to
the overall vision, even as it situates this within the language and sym-
bols of a particular cultural and historical period.
The nontheistic view of the Divine is of an infinite Impersonal
consciousness, of which the world, and everything in it, is a manifesta-
tion. Hinduism calls this infinite consciousness Brahman, Taoism calls
it the Tao, some forms of Buddhism refers to it as the Void. When this
impersonal consciousness is described negatively, it is called nirguna
Brahman in Hinduism, or Brahman without attributes or qualities. It
is “Neti, neti,” or, “Not this, not that,” for it is beyond all verbal descrip-
tions. Mahayana Buddhism calls it shunyata or emptiness. Taoism says,
“The Tao that can be described is not the Tao.”
When this ultimate spiritual reality is described positively, and
always with the proviso that it can never be captured verbally, Hin-
duism calls this saguna Brahman, or Brahman with qualities or attrib-
utes. Brahman has infinite qualities such as light, peace, knowledge,
power, love, and beauty, but the three overarching descriptors are sat,
chit, and ananda, or existence, consciousness, and bliss. Brahman is a
self-existent, infinite sea of pure consciousness that is eternally blissful.
Buddhism does not venture into metaphysical descriptions but explains
that the realization of Buddha-nature frees one from suffering and
opens into an infinitely spacious consciousness of immense peace. In
Taoism the Tao is without substance or form yet is the basis for all sub-
stance and form.
The goal of life in Shankara’s kevala advaita vedanta is to seek lib-
eration from the illusion of maya and to merge one’s consciousness into
the atman that is Brahman. Our spiritual nature is the atman or Self
that is one with Brahman, just as the atman of everyone and everything
else is equally the same Brahman, eternal and nonevolving. Enlighten-
ment brings liberation from the separate ego and a merging of con-
sciousness into the infinity of Brahman. Like a river flowing into the
sea, no longer is there duality or even multiplicity: there is only the one
Brahman.
In Buddhism the goal is similar, though put in different terms. The
nature of life in the normal deluded state of the ego is dukkha, or suf-
fering. Suffering arises from desire and attachment. In penetrating
deeply into the true nature of ego, one wakes up (Buddha means “awak-
ened one”) and realizes he or she had been living in a dreamlike state
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 167

of the separate self. The ego disappears into a vast, spacious emptiness
from which all things arise. There is an immense state of peace and
calm, and the mind’s chatter ceases in an eternal silence. Liberation
from the prison of ego brings not only a feeling of release and serenity
but wisdom, as the fetters of desire no longer blind one’s consciousness.
One’s true identity is revealed to be Buddha-nature, identity with the
formless emptiness of Pure Awareness that is the All.
All of these traditions of the Impersonal Divine utilize the path of
the mind, for mind reaches toward the impersonal. Mindfulness or
awareness practices in one form or another predominate in the medita-
tive approaches of nontheism, with heart-centered, devotion practices
serving as preliminary first steps of purification.
Theism presents a very different picture of ultimate reality. In this
view, the Divine is seen not only as pure Being but as a Being, with each
person an individual soul, a spark or portion of this Divine Being that
partakes of this divine reality. This personal Divine Being exists both
with and without form. Without form, it is experienced as the Presence
of an infinite Being.
When imaged with form, the many figures of God throughout the
world show the myriad ways this infinite Being presents itself to
humanity. In the West, this supreme Being has been imaged primarily
in masculine terms. Although India is well known for its nontheistic
tradition of kevala advaita vedanta, actually most of India is theistic,
and in Indian theism this infinite Being is imaged equally as masculine
and feminine. Many people mistakenly believe that India is polytheis-
tic with its numerous gods and goddesses. But Hinduism is thoroughly
nondual, viewing everything as expressions of the One, the gods and
goddesses so many masks or personalities of this One Being. Vishnu,
Shiva, and Brahma are three of the major masculine personalities.
Shakti, Kali, Saraswati, Sita, Parvati, Lakshmi, Uma, and Durga are
some of the feminine forms or powers of this supreme Divine Person.
What characterizes the theistic traditions is the reality of the indi-
vidual soul, which is immortal, transcends birth and death, and, in Hin-
duism, reincarnates. The soul is not separate from God but is an
expression and a portion of the Divine. But in growing up, each person
develops a separate ego that believes itself to be independent and has
no direct experience of God to show otherwise. The ordinary material
life brings the person out into the world where the ego becomes entan-
gled through the physical senses and desire with outer, sensory
168 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

pleasures. In identifying with the body-heart-mind complex of the

organism, the ego loses touch with its deeper soul identity and connec-
tion to the Divine. The result in Christian language is “fallenness,” or
in modern language, alienation, lack of meaning, an existential vacuum
that is soon filled by loneliness, anxiety, despair, dread, and the myriad
attempts to escape from these feelings.
The goal in theistic traditions is to reestablish our relationship to
the Divine. Spiritual practice in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the
theistic schools of Hinduism aims at bringing the soul back into con-
scious connection with the Divine, the source of all love, peace, and joy
(the Christian notion of “salvation”). Theistic traditions rely on the path
of the heart, for the heart strives toward personal connection and union.
The means are spiritual practices such as purification, prayer, bhakti,
devotion, love, service, and meditation, with mindfulness practices used
as steps along the way. But most people are so lost in their distractions
that they do not realize just how unhappy and lost they are. Hence, they
never seriously consider anything else. Spiritual practice is often viewed
as a giving up of the only worthwhile satisfactions that exist, which is
hardly an appealing prospect for most people.
When a person does experience some form of spiritual awakening
and begins to practice spiritual discipline, however, she or he gradually
becomes purified of the density and coarseness of outward, materialis-
tic living and becomes inwardly receptive to the Divine light, power,
and bliss that comprise the intrinsic nature of spirit. The soul calls on
the Divine, the Beloved, for union. When the soul begins to come into
greater contact with the Divine, an inner radiance begins to manifest.
As the soul emerges from the darkness and the Divine comes nearer,
the soul blazes forth with unsurpassed joy, light, love, and “the peace
that passeth all understanding.”

FORMS OF NONDUALISM
The nontheistic traditions of the Impersonal Divine often refer to
themselves as nondual traditions. However, this is misleading, for it
implies that theism is dualistic, which it is not, although it can assume
this form, especially in the popular mind. The highest spiritual experi-
ences inevitably converge in the nondual, and Indian theism, mystical
Christianity, mystical Judaism (Kabbalah), and mystical Islam (Sufism)
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 169

are all nondual traditions. In Hinduism, this nondual reality (Brahman)

is described as sat-chit-ananda. The central question is: What is the
nature of this nondual reality? Is sat-chit-ananda an infinite impersonal
consciousness or a supreme personal Being?
There has been on ongoing rivalry between these two profound
visions of the Divine. Each of these views of the Divine strives for
dominance, declaring itself the primary or higher truth and subordi-
nating the other tradition to a lesser or lower status. This is clearly seen
in mainstream Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and in the bhakti tra-
ditions of India, which admit the experience of the Impersonal Divine
but as a subsidiary or secondary spiritual reality. Similarly, Buddhism,
Taoism, and kevala advaita are just as adamant in elevating their view
of the Impersonal Divine to the highest level and dismissing the Per-
sonal Divine as secondary or even as illusory altogether.
One of the greatest achievements and most appealing features of
Aurobindo’s integral philosophy is his synthesis of these two views of
the Divine. His spiritual realizations, first of nirvana and the Imper-
sonal consciousness of nirguna Brahman and later of union with the
Personal Divine Being or saguna Brahman, progressively led him to the
experience of the Divine as both Personal and Impersonal equally.
Aurobindo, who freely alternated between the pronouns he, she, and it
when referring to the Divine, put it this way:

The mind tends to put the personal and the impersonal in the
face of each other as if they were two contraries, but the Super-
mind sees and realizes them as, at the lowest, complements and
mutually fulfilling powers of the single Reality and, more char-
acteristically, as interfused and inseparable and themselves that
single Reality. The Person has his aspect of impersonality
inseparable from himself without which he could not be what
he is or could not be his whole self: the Impersonal is in its
truth not a state of existence, a state of consciousness, a state of
bliss, but a Being self-existent, conscious of self, full of his own
self-existent bliss, bliss the very substance of his being—so, the
one single illimitable Person, Purusha. (Aurobindo, 1973a, p.
65)

Integral psychology rests upon the integral philosophy and integral

yoga of Aurobindo, who has been called India’s greatest philosopher-
170 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

sage. Integral philosophy is a vast synthesis of the many varieties of

spiritual experience charted by the world’s religious traditions and put
into the framework of Vedanta.

MAJOR SCHOOLS OF INDIAN SPIRITUALITY

After a thorough examination of the cultures of the East and the West,
it must be acknowledged that the West has excelled in its exploration
and development of the outer, material world. It is not that the East has
contributed nothing, but that its achievements pale in comparison to
Western science and technology. Looking at the other side of the
world’s achievements, the East, and India in particular, has excelled in
its exploration and development of the inner, spiritual world. Here
again, it is not that the West’s spiritual tradition amounts to nothing,
but that India has made a far more thorough and extensive exploration
of the inner science of consciousness than any other culture.
“India’s genius for liberation,” as Krishnamurti once characterized
this country’s vast spiritual power, has followed the spiritual impulse
down a thousand different pathways, has traced out and pursued more
lines of spiritual development, and has produced a greater abundance of
spiritual literature than any other culture in the world. The ancient
rishis who composed the Vedas, the Upanishads, and Hinduism’s other
sacred texts also had an enormous impact upon Indian culture, which
even today is steeped in the many religious currents that have streamed
forth from the Indian subcontinent.
This polarity between the Personal Divine and the Impersonal
Divine has been worked out exhaustively along a number of different
paths in Vedanta. Vedanta has been an extraordinarily dynamic and
fluid spiritual teaching that has undergone tremendous development
since its origins 1,000–3,000 years B.C.E. All of Vedanta is a spiritual
search for the unitive consciousness of sat-chit-ananda, the nondual
Brahman. The crux of the disagreements among the different schools
of Vedanta centers on two crucial points: first, their conceptions of the
nature of sat-chit-ananda and second, the relationship of sat-chit-
ananda with the diversity of this manifest universe. Each school has its
own conception of Brahman, and schools vary in their view of how real
the world is and the nature of Brahman’s relationship to it.
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 171

Kevala Advaita

In the ninth century C.E., during a period in India when Buddhism was
popular, Hindu sage Shankara put forth his philosophy of advaita
Vedanta (the Sanskrit dvaita means dual, and the prefix a means non,
hence advaita = nondual). This teaching began a renaissance of Vedanta
as it swept throughout India, almost eliminating Buddhism’s influence
and dominating Indian philosophy for several centuries afterward. So
well known has advaita Vedanta become today that for many people in
the West, advaita Vedanta is the Vedanta, even though it then became
a minority view in India and remains so today.
Technically known as kevala advaita Vedanta, or unqualified non-
dualism, Shankara propounded the view that only nirguna Brahman
exists, or Brahman without qualities. The world is an illusion, an
appearance that Shankara, in a much-quoted analogy, compared to
mistaking a coiled rope for a snake. Although the mind believes it sees
a snake, when it perceives more clearly it recognizes that the snake was
imaginary and that it actually was a rope. Furthermore, there never was
a snake; all that existed was the rope with an image of a snake super-
imposed upon it.
There are two tiers of reality in kevala advaita, the real and the
apparently real, also called the metaphysical reality and the pragmatic
reality. Only nirguna Brahman, the metaphysical reality, exists.
Although pragmatic reality appears real and is useful for getting around
in the world, in the final analysis, according to Shankara, it is illusory.
Pragmatic reality has a utility in that it serves as a kind of base camp for
those attempting to climb the Mount Everest of kevala advaita. Hence,
such things as belief in a personal god or religion accommodate the
needs of people who cannot scale the heights of Everest immediately
but need time to prepare at the base camp. But Shankara insists that to
ascend to the metaphysical level as soon as possible is necessary for the
true seeker, for the base camp of pragmatic reality is denied absolutely
in the end. The featureless, attributeless Brahman alone exists.
The appearance of the world of diversity is due to maya, the mind’s
power of illusion. Illusion manifests this false appearance of a world due
to the mind’s attachment and desire for sensory pleasures. Spiritual
practice serves to sever these attachments to the world and relation-
ships. Work, family, relationships, and service to the world, all are
172 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

distractions to be dispensed with as soon as possible. Knowledge, or

jnana, is the path, the mind’s discriminative power to pierce the illusion
of a diverse world. When this occurs, one is liberated into an unmodi-
fied, infinite consciousness that alone is the Ultimate Reality.
It is hard to overstate the impact of Shankara’s kevala advaita
Vedanta upon India. Not only did it displace Buddhism, which origi-
nated in India, but it went even farther in its world-denying philoso-
phy of mayavada. Mayavada, or illusionism, would have an
overpowering effect upon the spiritual and cultural life of India for the
next thousand years after Shankara. India’s intellectual sophistication
and refinement are hard to surpass, but many of India’s best minds over
the centuries became harnessed to the service of the inner spiritual life
to the neglect of the outer world. Seeing the world as an illusion hardly
inspires effort to improve it but, rather, to leave it behind. The ascetic
renunciation became the spiritual ideal, for if the world is illusory, then
the sooner one leaves this illusion the better. In later centuries other
spiritual movements that were less world negating would come onto
the Indian stage, but this fundamental push to escape from an illusory
world gained a powerful momentum and had an enormous influence
upon India’s development.

Visistadvaita

The first serious challenge to Shankara’s kevala advaita came from

Ramanuja, who lived in the 11th and 12th centuries. Ramanuja was the
first major spiritual teacher to provide a thorough and sophisticated
philosophical basis for Indian theism, founding his vision firmly on the
Vedic texts of the Upanishads, the Puranas, the Brahmanas, the Bha-
gavad Gita, and so on. Later theistic schools would borrow from
Ramanuja’s basic positions or modify them slightly, but it was he who
first laid them out with brilliant intellectual clarity and rigor.
Ramanuja’s doctrine of visistadvaita Vedanta, or qualified nondual-
ism, holds that the world is ultimately real, the soul is ultimately real,
God is ultimately real, and liberation is ultimately real. Instead of Brah-
man with no qualities, as in kevala advaita (unqualified nondualism),
visistadvaita views Brahman as imbued with infinite auspicious quali-
ties (hence, the term qualified nondualism or Brahman with qualities).
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 173

Brahman has countless qualities or attributes, including being the

supreme Divine Person (Narayana), Beauty, Truth, Love, Harmony,
and so on. It is a realistic theism that subordinates diversity to unity but
does not eliminate diversity as Shankara’s system does.
Ramanuja’s extensive philosophical writings brought respect once
again to Indian theism and the path of the heart, bhakti yoga. Before
Ramanuja the weight of philosophy was accorded to kevala advaita and
the spiritual path of jnana (the mind). Ramanuja provided a philosoph-
ical base upon which bhakti became the highest path and where jnana
was put in the service of bhakti and became a subset of it. Ramanuja was
a Vaishnavite, or devotee of Vishnu, in the form of Sri Krishna, an avatar
or a Divine incarnation here on earth. Devotion, love, and surrender are
the spiritual practices that bring the soul toward God (Vishnu, Naryana,
Krishna, and Hari are synonymous with God), and God’s grace finally
liberates the soul. In visistadvaita, the liberated state is not identical to
Brahman, as in kevala advaita, but the soul remains distinct, free from
bondage, ignorance, and imperfection, in eternally blissful union with
Brahman, a concept similar in many respects to Western theistic views
of heaven.

Dvaitadvaita

Shortly after Ramanuja, Sri Nimbarka developed the system of

dvaitadvaita, or duality in unity, also translated as dual nondualism. It
is a variation on Ramanuja’s qualified nondualism, in which the world
and the individual soul also are fundamental realities. Both dualism and
unity are real. As with all theistic traditions, devotion to a supreme per-
sonal God is the ideal. Dvaitadvaita also is a Vaishnava tradition uti-
lizing the bhakti path.

Suddhadvaita

The founder of this theistic school of Vedanta, Sri Vallabha, called his
school suddhadvaita, or pure nondualism. He criticized Shankara for
not being nondual enough, that is, for using maya as a way to explain
the world or the appearance of the world. Sri Vallabha argued that if
174 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

maya was the reason we see a world, then either maya is a power within
Brahman or it is outside of Brahman. If maya is a power of Brahman,
then this means it is an attribute, making Brahman a qualified entity
who is not without attributes. Attributeless impersonality will then
have to be given up, and kevala advaita becomes like other systems of
Vedanta. If maya is outside of Brahman, then dualism is the result,
much like the prakriti and purusha dualism in Samkhya. Sri Vallabha
argued that Shankara is “Samkhya in disguise.”
For Sri Vallabha Brahman, sat-chit-ananda is truth unalloyed.
There can be no touch of illusion or falsity in Brahman. Maya, there-
fore, is Brahman’s real power, producing real effects and not just false
appearances. The world is real, not an illusion. The world and indi-
vidual souls are real and part of Brahman, with bhakti the way to
liberation.

Advaya

Yet another variant of qualified nondualism is Sri Caitanya’s school,

which survives today as the International Krishna Consciousness
movement. For Sri Caitanya sat-chit-ananda is Krishna, the one
Supreme Reality. Krishna is the Absolute Person, as Krishna declares in
the Bhagavad Gita, “I am the support of Brahman.” The Divine Per-
sonality, clear and defined, is the core of Reality, with the impersonal
and unmodified Brahman (nirguna) secondary, his peripheral brilliance
or aura.

Dvaita

Sri Madhva, the founder of the Dvaita school of Vedanta, went the far-
thest in declaring the reality of the world. Ultimate Reality or Brahman
has two aspects, Independent and Dependent. Hari (Krishna) is the
Supreme Being in his Independent aspect. Individual souls, matter, and
everything else are Dependent aspects of sat-chit-ananda. For Sri
Madhva, the liberated state brings about eternal distinction from Hari,
with no possibility of unification but rather a relationship of ceaseless,
loving communion with Brahman, in knowledge and bliss. Here again
bhakti and self-surrender are the means of self-realization.
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 175

Shaivism

Just as Vishnu has inspired numerous bhakti schools of Vedanta, Shiva

is a favored figure of devotion and inspiration. Shaivism is popular in
both northern and southern India, and it has an equally sophisticated
philosophical basis on which to found the path of love and bhakti.
Shaivism has a split within it that corresponds to the Personal and
Impersonal schools of advaita. Northern Shaivism is similar to kevala
advaita in its elevation of the impersonal consciousness of Shiva to the
ultimate and an illusionist interpretation of the world. In southern
Shaivism, on the other hand, Shiva is the one reality, but liberation con-
sists of union with Shiva rather than dissolution. Existence is not
merely an illusion but a product of the power (shakti) Shiva puts forth.
In both cases, however, liberation comes through divine grace.

Tantra

Much of the West now knows of Tantra through the highly visible and
well-marketed images of sacred sex, but this is only a small part of
Tantric teachings. Tantra begins with the classic Indian idea of the One
Consciousness that begins the manifestation by becoming two, Shiva
and Shakti, two beings that in reality are one indivisible consciousness.
Shiva, the male, maintains the function of pure consciousness, while
Shakti, the female, is the executive power that manifests this world.
The boundaries between Tantra and Shaivism are fairly permeable, and
there is some degree of overlap and mutual influence as they share
common ideas, terms, and literature. They tend to blend into each
other, and in both, the supreme Divine Mother, Mahashakti, is the
source of all power and energy, the creatrix of the universe.
This divine energy is present in human beings, coiled up and asleep
as the kundalini shakti. When activated, it rises through the seven
chakras or energy centers of the subtle body to produce dramatic
changes in consciousness. Spiritual practice aims to awaken the kun-
dalini either through the traditional right-hand path of purification,
meditation, bhakti, visualization, yoga, and so on, or through the non-
traditional left-hand path, which often involves usually forbidden
behaviors such as drinking, eating meat, and sexual practices designed
to stimulate the kundalini force. Opening and surrender to the Divine
176 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

Mother, through bhakti, devotion, meditation, and so on is a central

feature of Tantra.

THE SYNTHESIS OF SRI AUROBINDO’S PURNADVAITA

The founders of these various Indian spiritual traditions all base their
truth claims upon the very same sacred texts. They each interpret these
texts differently according to their philosophies. In fact, the Vedas, the
Upanishads, the Brahmanas, the Puranas, and the other sacred texts of
India clearly uphold both a personal, theistic view of Brahman and an
impersonal, attributeless view of Brahman.1
Aurobindo’s integral philosophy and integral yoga comprehensively
synthesize the different schools of Vedanta and Tantra. Technically
called purnadvaita Vedanta (Chaudhuri, 1973), or integral nondualism,
Aurobindo’s own deepening spiritual realizations led him to a view of
the Divine as both Personal and Impersonal, with infinite qualities and
beyond all qualities, dynamic and static simultaneously. These are not
either/or dichotomies but both/and totalities. Spiritual consciousness
transcends dichotomous thinking and moves beyond to a widely inclu-
sive state of simultaneity and wholeness. Mental thought is exclusive,
and spiritual consciousness is inclusive.
Integral nondualism (or purnaadvaita Vedanta) posits Brahman as
an infinitely auspicious Being who is the source of all qualities and
powers and is multiplied infinitely in the world. All beings are reflec-
tions of this one Divine Person, and all creatures derive from this
supreme dynamic Creatrix. The highest Brahman also is a supreme
Impersonality, and the universal forces at work throughout nature
reflect this impersonal power of creation. All of the schools of Indian
(as well as Western) spirituality contain important truths. All have dis-
covered an essential truth of the Divine. Yet all are partial expressions
of this integral divine Truth.
Aurobindo’s purnadvaita Vedanta achieves a new integration of
the traditional systems of India. The philosophy of integral nondual-
ism endorses the truth of each of these schools and reconciles their
differences.

In a realistic Advaita there is no need to regard the Saguna as

a creation from the Nirguna or even secondary or subordinate
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 177

to it: both are equal aspects of one Reality, its position of silent
status and rest and its position of action and dynamic force; a
silence of eternal rest and peace supports an eternal action and
movement. The one Reality, the Divine Being, is bound by nei-
ther, since it is in no way limited; it posseses both. There is no
incompatibility between the two, as there is none between the
many and the one, the sameness and the difference.
(Aurobindo, 1971a, pp. 44–45)

From an integral perspective, the various systems of advaita are prob-

lematic due to their one-sidedness. Each system of advaita (and Tantra)
stresses on one side or the other the Personal or Impersonal, form or
emptiness, saguna or nirguna.
As the one Brahman multiplies itself endlessly to create this uni-
verse, duality first manifests, a duality, it should be noted, that is not
dualism. Reflecting the polarized nature of existence, this is a duality
that is always one, though two in appearance. Some examples of this
include:

Brahman Maya
Shiva Shakti
Impersonal Personal
Purusha Prakriti
Ishwara Shakti
Consciousness Force
Static Dynamic
Being Becoming

In Taoism, this One is called Tao, and it differentiates into Yin and
Yang, the two primordial principles of manifestation. As Hinduism and
Taoism discovered long ago, we live in a digital universe.
Another key aspect of integral philosophy is its integration of the
classical paths of yoga. Jnana yoga uses the process of mindfulness and
the mind’s power of discrimination as its lever to lift the person toward
the Impersonal Divine, as in kevala advaita and Buddhism. Bhakti yoga
uses the power of the heart through love, devotion, and surrender as its
lever to lift the soul godward toward union, as in the Personal Divine
traditions of Vaishnavism, Shaivism, and Tantrism, as well as Chris-
tianity. Karma yoga uses our will and physical being as its lever to seek
178 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

the Divine through consecrating all of our actions to God and renounc-
ing the fruit of the rewards of our actions so that we may align with the
Divine purpose or Tao or Allah’s will. In each of these specialized
yogas, one part of our being becomes the lever or focus of our concen-
tration. Body, heart, or mind is developed, and the rest of our being is
left aside. In integral yoga, all of these classical yogas are taken up and
integrated into a many-sided development of our entire being—body,
heart, and mind together—in the spiritual quest.
Finally, the special place of the Divine Mother in integral yoga
must be acknowledged. Integral yoga is both a comprehensive structure
that integrates the traditional Vedantic, Tantric, Buddhist, and Taoist
paths and its own spiritual tradition. Integral yoga is based on the yoga
of surrender, surrender to the Divine in whatever form the aspirant
chooses, but with particular reference to the Divine Mother. Aurobindo
himself experienced the Personal Divine in the form of Krishna, as well
as in the form of the Divine Mother.

When the Ananda comes into you, it is the Divine who comes
into you, just as when the Peace flows into you, it the Divine
who is invading you, or when you are flooded with Light, it is
the flood of the Divine himself that is around you. Of course,
the Divine is something much more, many other things
besides, and in them all a Presence, a Being, a Divine Person;
for the Divine is Krishna, is Shiva, is the Supreme Mother. But
through the Ananda you can perceive the Anandamaya
Krishna, for the Ananda is the subtle body and being of
Krishna; through the Peace you can perceive the Shantimaya
Shiva; in the Light, in the delivering Knowledge, the Love, the
fulfilling and uplifting Power you can meet the presence of the
Divine Mother. (Aurobindo, 1971a, p. 173)

Although integral yoga affirms the experience of the Personal Divine in

all forms and beyond form, the Tantric conception of Shiva and Shakti
holds an eminent place, Shiva as Pure, Radiant Consciousness, and
Shakti as the executive power creating and upholding the universe. Sur-
render to the Divine Mother through devotion (bhakti) and work
(karma) allows the seeker to open up to the transforming power of the
divine Force, which purifies and reveals the deeper spiritual reality
within.
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 179

AN INTEGRATING FRAMEWORK FOR THE

WORLD’S SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS
Western culture, which has grown out of the Judeo-Christian theistic
tradition, has recently become enamored with the Impersonal Divine
traditions of the East, especially Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism
are each remarkable systems for understanding the Personal and Imper-
sonal dimensions of the Divine, but what is lacking is a unifying frame-
work that can hold and honor each of these respective approaches to
spirituality. From one perspective, all the religions of the world need
each other to make a complete picture. Any single religion is incom-
plete, for it presents only a partial truth limited by certain cultural sym-
bols and images, generally confined to a particular historical period or
philosophical context. The larger picture presented by integration of all
the world’s religions is more complete than any religion standing alone.
The view of the Personal Divine from only Christianity or Islam or
Judaism or Indian theism is a smaller picture than seeing all of these
religions together as expressions of the One Divine Being. Similarly,
Buddhism, Taoism, and kevala advaita Vedanta all express certain
aspects of the impersonal truth. Taken together, they reveal a wider,
vaster field of consciousness than any one single religion. The view of
the Divine is greatly enriched by recognizing and integrating what each
religious tradition has discovered. Anything less diminishes the fullness
and integrality of the spiritual truth.2
The next phase of spiritual development throughout the world may
well be not the creation of new religions but the deepening of current
religions and their integration into a higher order and a more widely
comprehending whole. Each religion can be viewed as a subset of the
larger spiritual picture, and each tradition offers specialized methods of
spiritual practice. This may foreshadow a global spirituality that is
inclusive of the entire spectrum of the world’s religions. But what is
most crucial in putting them all together is an integrating framework.
Aurobindo’s purnadvaita provides such a comprehensive frame-
work. Integral nondualism can be a container and an integrating par-
adigm not only for the schools of Vedanta and Tantra but for the entire
range of world spiritual traditions, for it holds together even systems
that are usually thought of as mutually exclusive, such as Christianity
and Buddhism, Judaism and Taoism, and Islam and kevala advaita.
Although both sides of the Personal and Impersonal aspects of
180 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

spirituality are present in most of the world’s traditions, one side is

given prominence, while the other side is minimized. Integral nondu-
alism unites the central aspects of these systems into a comprehensive
whole, as it appreciates their unique discoveries without devaluing the
contributions of other traditions.

AN EVOLUTIONARY VISION
One of the most original contributions of Aurobindo is his synthesis of
the Western scientific discovery of evolution with the ancient Vedantic
quest for spiritual realization. Traditional Indian thought had neglected
the force of history in its cosmologies and philosophies. The present
age (kali yuga) was thought to be a relapse from a prior perfection, a
degeneration from a golden age of long ago. Aurobindo’s Western-
trained mind corrected this lack of developmental process and historic-
ity in Indian philosophy and put the spiritual journey into an
evolutionary context.
Aurobindo understood the tremendous implications of Western
science’s discovery of evolution, but he believed that Darwin’s momen-
tous discovery of the evolution of physical forms and species was only
the surface of a far deeper process that is unfolding: the evolution of
consciousness. It is this evolution of consciousness that is the most sig-
nificant aspect of the evolutionary story, even though it is not visible on
the surface to physical science. The universe is a vast manifestation of
consciousness that is slowly moving from deep unconsciousness
through partial consciousness toward full consciousness.
Brahman created this universe; indeed, this entire universe exists in
Brahman and as Brahman cast into form. First there is an involution,
in which the infinite, blissful consciousness that is Brahman manifests
this material cosmos as what appears to be its opposite: physical matter
that seems to be devoid of consciousness. But what looks to be inani-
mate, dead matter is in reality a dense form of consciousness in a deep
slumber, an unconsciousness.
Consciousness is involved, veiled, asleep in matter, though secretly
active. Over an immense duration of time, gradually this consciousness
manifests as Life, the vital principle, which signals the first emergence
of consciousness out of the unconscious slumber of matter. One-celled
organisms and plants evolve into the initial bodies of vital conscious-
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 181

ness. Then animals evolve as the next stage of evolution commences:

the gradual emergence of Mind. But for animals, mind is entirely
involved in the body and senses. Slowly, over hundreds of millions of
years, mind manifests more and more completely, culminating in
human beings, where mind at last emerges fully in its own right. Lan-
guage and abstract thought allow human beings to disengage from the
immersion in the senses to which animals are subjected and permit
them to open up to a far greater range of mental consciousness.
These three steps of cosmic evolution—Matter, Life, Mind—are
preparatory steps leading to a fourth, the full consciousness of Spirit,
which Aurobindo called the Supramental, a perfect, spiritualized con-
sciousness. In human beings, the level of mind has essentially been
reached, though much of humanity is still struggling to fully develop
the level of mind and to coordinate this with heart and body. Now that
these first three evolutionary steps of Matter, Life (the Vital), and
Mind have been established, the stage is set for the fourth, the Supra-
mental, to establish itself more fully than has been done before.3 The
human body, heart, and mind have evolved, so that Brahman, out of its
own plenitude of creative being, can manifest something new, a divine
living in a material form.
Life and mind are actually involved in matter from the beginning.
In nature, the process of evolution is unconscious and slow. But at a cer-
tain point evolution becomes conscious with the recognition of a
greater spiritual reality. As a person enters a spiritual path, evolution
becomes increasingly conscious and speeds up, moving straight toward
the goal rather than wandering slowly and unconsciously with no clue
as to life’s purpose.
From this integral perspective, all existence, life, and evolution are
fundamentally spiritual in nature, and the growth of consciousness is
the central purpose and meaning of life. If this is granted, then far-
reaching implications follow.

Implication 1: The Necessity of Reincarnation

The first implication is the need for a process by which consciousness

can progress step-by-step toward ever-increasing fullness. Conscious-
ness does not spring suddenly and fully into being or leap miraculously
from an insect to an enlightened sage. It undergoes a systematic
182 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

growth, a developmental process of ever-increasing power, amplitude,

depth, and capacity. Since a gradual, incremental development of con-
sciousness is occurring over great spans of time, this requires a number
of different physical forms within which to evolve. From an evolution-
ary perspective, the problem with single-lifetime belief systems (such as
current mainstream Christianity) is that the brief flicker of one lifetime
simply cannot begin to exhaust all of the possibilities of evolution or
provide enough raw material for the full development of consciousness.
Reincarnation is a widely held view of the afterlife, both today and
throughout history. Reincarnation has been a part of most other cul-
tures, including Western culture in previous historical epochs. When a
materialist view of life is dethroned and replaced with a spiritual lens
that sees a progressive unfolding of consciousness, reincarnation
becomes a logical and practical necessity with birth and death as inci-
dents or transitions in the soul’s growth.
However, the popular notions about reincarnation contain so many
myths that it is often hard to take seriously. The first myth that
Aurobindo critiqued was the whimsical belief that if we are not good in
this life then next lifetime we can be born as an ant or a cockroach.
Tales of people reincarnating as animals, insects, and even trees and
plants abound in traditional Hindu and Buddhist literature. But plac-
ing the growth of consciousness in the center of the picture rules out
such beliefs as simply flights of fancy. Over great expanses of time,
mind slowly emerges out of life. When the development of mind finally
reaches the human level, it is not possible to suddenly and magically
jump back to a prior level of consciousness such as a tree or a frog.
Another major myth relates to the understanding of karma. In
Vedantic thought, karma is the law of cause and effect, similar to the
Christian idea of what we sow we then reap. But in the popular imag-
ination karma has become an automatic process of doing bad things
and reaping bad results or doing good things and reaping good rewards.
Good karma has come to be equated with being born rich, beautiful,
healthy, and successful, whereas bad karma is equated to being sick,
poor, and a failure.
In Aurobindo’s view, however, karma is not a mechanical model
with the divine as some heavenly accountant rewarding so-called good
deeds with so much success and punishing so-called bad deeds with
equal amounts of failure and pain. The growth of consciousness is the
main issue, not merely the development of morality, especially the rel-
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 183

ative morality of a given culture or historical epoch. In the development

of consciousness, mere outward success or failure and material gain or
loss are but minor incidents in the soul’s growth. Pleasure and pain have
importance in consciousness evolution as an impetus for growth, for
most often growth results from some degree of optimal frustration. Too
much frustration, however, brings despair, but too little frustration
brings stagnation.
This raises one of the hardest facts of embodied life: the function
of suffering and pain. Indeed, suffering is the starting point for many
religions. Buddha’s First Noble Truth is “Life is suffering.” Christianity
affirms this life as, “a vale of tears.” From an integral view of cosmic
evolution, however, pain and suffering are a necessary part of the
cosmic manifestation. Pain has an essential role in the soul’s growth.
Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same sensational coin, both
essential parts of the polarized nature of human consciousness. Duality
and the opposites are facts of psychological experience. The spiritual
task before us is to move beyond the opposites to a unifying perception
of spirit within and behind everything. The divine leading is through
the corridor of opposites: to unity through division and separation, to
bliss through pain and pleasure, to love through fear and hate, to peace
and silence through stress and disturbance, to truth and knowledge
through falsehood and ignorance, to light out of darkness, to certitude
out of doubt, to eternal life out of birth and death, and to consciousness
out of the depths of unconsciousness.
The goal of life is growth, not pleasure. It is not that we should
deny ourselves pleasure, but the “good life” from this spiritual perspec-
tive is a terrestrial adventure, a continual discovery of new abilities and
powers, a development of consciousness and an expression of the soul’s
creative capacity to relate to the rest of creation in a play of love and
delight, a bliss beyond pleasure. The pursuit of pleasure is only a first,
crude approximation of this, and a single-minded focus on pleasure
inescapably brings pain and stagnation in its wake.
To be born rich, for example, is very often a curse, for one of the
main motivators to develop oneself is often lacking. More rare is the
soul who is wise enough to use money not merely for self-indulgence
but for self-development. It is not that pleasure is bad, for the capacity
to appreciate pleasure is necessary for a balanced life. But when we look
back on our own lives we can see how often our best moves came out
of circumstances that were difficult or challenging.
184 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

Similarly, being born rich, attractive, and successful easily lulls a

person to sleep through a lifetime, wasting the opportunities for growth
provided by such an incarnation. Many mature souls intentionally
incarnate into difficult, painful life circumstances for the purposes of
spiritual evolution. Pain and failure serve to activate parts of our self
and can bring forth great inner strength and potential. Even when it is
overwhelming and the cause of outward collapse, a growth is occurring
within that carries us through. Pain is a prod for growth. It opens up
new possibilities of being, opens the heart to new levels of love and
empathy, activates us to new levels of activity, and gives us feedback that
certain life directions may be unhelpful or wrong. For it is the deeper
soul that is evolving, though this growth may not be obvious on the sur-
face. Each new lifetime presents the developing soul with the freedom
to choose experiences that will support its growth or result in its
stagnation.

Implication 2: The Universe Is Real, Not an Illusion

The second implication of an evolutionary view is that there is a point

to creation. It is not just an illusion or a bad dream. Rather, this uni-
verse is a very real creation, a progressive spiritual manifestation lead-
ing to a greater divine life.
Mayavada, or the illusionist view of the world, has had an enor-
mous influence on the East, much of it detrimental, and it is becoming
more popular in the West as Eastern religion spreads. Is the universe
merely a hallucination, a psychotic nightmare for which the only solu-
tion is to wake up as soon as possible and escape this manifest exis-
tence? To see life as an illusion, a figment of our imagination or a bad
dream created by Brahman’s power of maya, makes this universe seem
like a stupendous waste of energy, thrown away on the creation of a
cosmos that is basically of no use. Is the final result of the supreme and
infinite wisdom of Brahman simply a gigantic waste of time, like some
bad cosmic joke? Does this universe really amount to nothing?4
The illusionist explanation of the world (mayavada) that exalts
escape from embodied existence is ultimately unsatisfactory from an
integral perspective, for it avoids the very problem human beings are
here to solve. Dismissing existence as a fantasy or dream cuts us off
from life, whereas the evolutionary force of which we are an expression
 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology 185

aims for a mastery of life. Instead, integral philosophy sees maya as the
creative power of Brahman, utterly real, infinitely creative, a power of
divine wisdom beyond the mind’s ability to fathom. Integral yoga
seeks not a release from life but a liberation into life, not a spiritual
escape away from physical nature but a spiritual victory within our
bodily existence.

Implication 3: Evolution Is Not Over

Evolution has not stopped. We human beings are not finished products
but transitional creatures. Once a certain degree of physical, emotional,
and mental development has occurred, we become ready for the spiri-
tual transformation, the emergence of the next evolutionary step.
Whereas the first long preparatory steps of evolution were to a large
extent outward, making ready an instrumental nature, the next spiritual
step is more inward.
If there is an ongoing destruction and creation of new bodies, new
selves, then the question that naturally presents itself is: What is evolv-
ing? What is continuous in this process to experience a physical-emo-
tional-mental-spiritual evolution? In integral yoga, it is the soul within
that evolves.
The soul at first is a spark of the Divine in the manifestation that
grows slowly into a flame. The soul extracts the spiritual essence of each
lifetime and makes a soul growth from this experience. Gradually,
through experience after experience, body after body, the soul develops
an individuality, a soul personality, which Aurobindo calls the psychic
being or psychic center. Because the language of “soul” is so contami-
nated by conflicting meanings, Aurobindo returned to the root mean-
ing of psyche as soul to denote our deeper spiritual individuality, our
true psychic center. The terms soul, psychic being, and psychic center refer
to our spiritual individuality, a spiritual essence that grows from lifetime
to lifetime, with each new cycle putting forth a new body-heart-mind
instrument by which it develops.
The beginning human lives are almost entirely lost in sheer out-
wardness and density. But as the psychic center develops, gradually a
greater light from within begins to guide the person. Instead of being
led entirely by the body, the emotions, or the mind, a new guidance
begins as the psychic center or soul illumines the way.
186 The Philosophical Foundation of Integral Psychology

As the soul or psychic center comes forward, a palpable sense of joy

and self-existent bliss becomes our normal experience. There comes a
deep inner peace along with an inner intimacy and a loving connection
to the world and the beings within it. We are led by a light within to
express our unique contribution to the world’s ongoing evolution. The
path of the soul’s terrestrial adventure becomes clear, the ego’s confu-
sions melt away, and we become increasingly conscious participants in
life’s great evolutionary adventure.

SUMMARY
Integral philosophy is a wide, integrative structure that holds within it
the major streams of world spirituality. It sees the Divine as equally
Personal and Impersonal and this universe as its creative expression.
The evolution of consciousness is the hidden meaning of this material
universe. It is a growth from unconsciousness to partial consciousness
(in plants and animals) to self-consciousness (in humans) toward full
consciousness.
The next evolutionary step is to fully embody spirit and bring a
Divine living into this world. To bring the Light, Love, Bliss, Knowl-
edge, and Peace of the Divine into this material plane is to transform
it, to reshape it into “a heaven on earth.” This means not abandoning
the body and physical existence but participating in its creative, blissful
unfolding, and for this the development of our spiritual individuality is
essential. As human beings develop, we come to realize our deeper spir-
itual identity as both the growing soul and the unevolving atman.
Awakening our psychic center or true soul and bringing it forward so
that it will be a luminous guide in the evolutionary adventure of our life
is the goal of integral yoga and integral psychology.
 Appendix B

An Integral Approach to
Spiritual Emergency

One of the most dramatic and fascinating ways that psychology and
spirituality come together is in the phenomenon of spiritual emergency.
This appendix brings the integral model to bear on the issue of spiritual
emergency in the hopes of bringing some theoretical order and clarity to
this puzzling experience.
For the vast majority of people, opening up to spiritual experience
is a welcome and an easily integrated process. However, for a small
minority, spiritual experience occurs so rapidly or forcefully that it
becomes destabilizing, producing a psycho-spiritual crisis. This is
where spiritual emergence becomes spiritual emergency.
All the world’s spiritual traditions warn about different dangers
along the way, the “perils of the path.” New and expanded states of con-
sciousness can overwhelm the ego. An infusion of powerful spiritual
energies can flood the body and mind, fragmenting the structures of the
self and temporarily incapacitating the person until they can be assim-
ilated. With kundalini awakening, for example, there is an inrush of
energies along the spine and throughout the body that can overwhelm
and incapacitate the ego and leave the person adrift in a sea of profound
consciousness changes at every level—physical, emotional, mental.
Spiritual systems have identified numerous types of spiritual crises in
which the ego’s usual coping mechanisms are overcome.

187
188 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

Transpersonal psychology has shown how these crises are a kind of

nonpathological developmental crisis that can have powerfully trans-
formative effects on a person’s life when supported and allowed to run
their course to completion (Grof & Grof, 1989; Lukoff, 1998; Cor-
tright, 1997; Perry, 1976). The idea of spiritual emergency has gained
prominence in the last decade. It includes phenomena ranging from the
opening up to psychic or paranormal abilities to the emergence of var-
ious kinds of altered states of consciousness.
Spiritual emergency was once dismissed by the psychiatric and psy-
chotherapeutic establishment as merely a form of mental illness, requir-
ing immediate medication and hospitalization in order to end it as soon
as possible. This misdiagnosis and mistreatment aborted an otherwise
growthful process of psycho-spiritual change. There have been numer-
ous reported cases of individuals having their process frozen through
medication and attendant psychiatric treatment. When the process
becomes suspended like this, the individual is unable to complete the
process and ends up feeling shamed and hurt by the misdiagnosis and
mishandling, sometimes feeling doomed to having a lifelong mental ill-
ness that is actually but an artifact of this iatrogenic mistreatment.
Spiritual emergency is one area where the field of transpersonal
psychology has had a significant impact on the larger field of psychol-
ogy and psychiatry. The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Sta-
tistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-IV),
with the guidance of several transpersonally oriented psychologists and
psychiatrists, now includes spiritual emergency as a diagnostic category
under the classification “Spiritual or Religious Problem,” a nonpatho-
logical V Code that may be a focus of treatment. This represents a con-
siderable change in attitudes in the mental health community toward
religion and spirituality.
However, despite this inclusion into the DSM-IV, there has been
little impact upon clinical practice in terms of how the mental health
field as a whole treats spiritual emergency. In part, this is due to the lack
of training and education about this process in the mental health field
and the confusion that exists about the phenomenon itself.
There are three major theoretical and clinical problems in this area.
The first is the number and types of spiritual emergency. The current
classificatory schemes are complex and cumbersome. The most widely
used classification of spiritual emergency originated with the Grofs’
book Spiritual Emergency (Grof & Grof, 1989), in which 10 categories
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 189

of spiritual emergency are listed, including: shamanic crisis, the awak-

ening of kundalini, episodes of unitive consciousness, psychological
renewal through return to center (a particular form of psychosis), the
crisis of psychic opening, past-life experiences, communications with
spirit guides and “channeling,” near-death experiences, encounters with
UFOs, and possession states. These categories are phenomenological
descriptions based on how people undergoing a spiritual emergency
describe them; no claims are made for their objective validity.
Lukoff, Lu, and Turner (1998) list 23 categories of spiritual emer-
gency, adding such things as loss of faith, joining or leaving a new
religious movement or cult, questioning of spiritual values, meditation-
related problems, and others that are concomitant with DSM-IV
mental disorders. Nelson (1990) also includes Washburn’s (1988) regres-
sion in the service of transcendence as another type, such as is often seen
during the midlife crisis. Additional categories have been reported by
others in the field. The Spiritual Emergence Network has identified
“guru attack,” the death and dying process, and addictions. The DSM-
IV scheme for identifying such problems that are concurrent with other
diagnostic categories makes for over 50 possible types.
These ways of organizing the field of spiritual emergency are clin-
ically confusing and theoretically inconsistent. As it now stands, the
category spiritual emergency is a jumble of dissimilar categories, rang-
ing from the deepest psychotic process to the highest states of mystical
realization. How can a clinically meaningful diagnostic classification
emerge from such widely different levels of functioning? Is it possible
to make sense of these very disparate phenomena? Is there a simpler
way to organize this field that reflects a deeper order to this process?
Can the whole phenomenon of spiritual emergency be organized into
a coherent whole? That is the first task of this appendix.
A second problem confronting the clinician who is dealing with
clients in various degrees of psycho-spiritual crisis is determining how
best to intervene. What interventions can most effectively facilitate this
process so it can develop optimally? For some types of spiritual emer-
gency, certain interventions are indicated, while for others, the exact
opposite is required. How can we best match intervention strategies
with appropriate differential diagnoses? Suggesting meaningful treat-
ment strategies is the second task.
A third problem is how to ascertain what is actually going on for a
client. Depth psychology gives us a great appreciation of the psyche’s
190 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

capacity for fantasy, imagination, and self-deception. For many people,

the self-diagnosis of a spiritual emergency is much more appealing than
that of, for example, paranoid schizophrenia. What portion of these
phenomena is a true spiritual infusion of higher energies and mystical
states, what portion consists of images and fantasies from the collective
unconscious, and what part is an eruption from the individual’s per-
sonal unconscious?

A NEW WAY OF VIEWING SPIRITUAL EMERGENCY

Taking a simplified version of an integral schema of the psyche, various
types of spiritual emergency can be viewed as being centered at a par-
ticular level of consciousness. This proves useful theoretically as a
framework for organizing the entire field of spiritual emergency. It also
proves clinically useful by providing a basis for assessment and devising
intervention strategies to assist the process toward resolution.
It is important to recognize that there are no hard-and-fast bound-
aries between these levels of consciousness. Each level includes all that
is above it but not below, and each level subtly shades into the next level
in a mutual interpenetration along the edges.
Level 1: Conscious-Existential Level: This is the most superficial
level of consciousness, our ordinary awareness of the self and the outer
world.
Level 2: Personal Unconscious Level: Following Freud, this is the
plane of consciousness that Western psychology has explored most
thoroughly. Though psychoanalysis has made the most detailed study
of this domain, the existential and humanistic psychology movements
also have charted significant areas, such as the importance of the
somatic domain, and have expanded our understanding of this level.
Level 3: Symbolic-Collective Unconscious Level: The unearthing of
the collective unconscious was Carl Jung’s great discovery. This level
operates in images and symbols, and it is a dimension of consciousness
shared by all human beings. It consists of the archetypes, universal
forms, or configurations of psychic potential that shape the psyche and
organize psychological experience. This level is a meeting ground
between the universal forces and the human psyche, a bridge that links
the cosmic with the personal, a realm where universal forces take
human form.
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 191

Level 4: Intermediate Level: This is the realm of the inner (subtle)

physical, inner vital, and inner mental planes that opens up to the larger,
cosmic dimensions of the universe, beyond the physical creation.
Philosopher Huston Smith (1976) notes in writing about the perennial
philosophy that this intermediate level is a part of every major religious
system in the world. It includes psychic phenomena such as ESP and
clairvoyance. It is the domain of the spirit world that contains good and
evil spirits (devas, or angels, and asuras, or demons), ghosts and recently
deceased souls, and fairies or nature spirits. This level encompasses dif-
ferent planes of nonphysical manifestation (or different bardos in
Tibetan), including blissful heaven realms (or lokas in Hinduism) and
painful hell realms. It includes the shamanic world, which has both
higher regions and lower regions into which the shaman journeys. The
intermediate level also involves the subtle body or astral body as well as
the energy of kundalini and the chakras or energy centers within the
human energy field (the aura).
Level 5: Soul or Spirit Level: The central being is the ground of con-
sciousness. Above it is atman or Buddha-nature, the eternal and
nonevolving spirit that is one with the Divine and that part of us that
is emphasized by the nontheistic systems such as Buddhism and kevela
advaita vedanta. Below, here in the manifestation, it is the evolving soul
or psychic center, our unique spiritual individuality, a spark of the
Divine, that is highlighted by the theistic traditions of the world such
as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

LEVELS OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND TYPES

OF SPIRITUAL EMERGENCY

Locating different forms of spiritual emergency within different levels

of consciousness yields a framework in which to organize the various
phenomena into more easily understandable categories. Further, by
gearing intervention strategies to specific levels of consciousness, this
gives us a key for both assessment and treatment.
The conscious-existential level includes such kinds of spiritual
emergency as a crisis of faith (either a loss of faith or a change of faith),
conversion experiences that can be temporarily destabilizing, such as
being “reborn,” a change in denomination that leads some people into
counseling, an existential crisis of meaning or questioning of values,
192 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

joining a new religious movement, coming out of a cult, and separating

from a spiritual teacher.

Robert had spent eight years as a disciple of a teacher who

emphasized surrender and obedience. After some time he had
become one of the guru’s attendants. During this time he loved
the teacher very much and felt privileged to serve him, feeling
that he was being transformed by his close proximity with such
a highly evolved being. His departure from the teacher’s spiri-
tual community came in the aftermath of allegations of finan-
cial and sexual misconduct.
Long before his departure, the guru had frequently embar-
rassed Robert publicly, humiliating him in front of large
classes, castigating him for incompetence, and, on several occa-
sions in private, beating him. Robert’s response had not been to
rebel, but to internalize his teacher’s criticisms and to come
back for more. He had held out the hope that by continuing to
remain under the teacher’s guidance he might yet win some
great praise, confirmation, or sponsorship from his “mentor”
that would enable him to advance spiritually. In the course of
therapy, Robert began slowly and painfully to recognize how
the abusiveness of this relationship was virtually a replica of his
relationship with his father—an angry alcoholic who had
humiliated and physically injured Robert, and whose approval
Robert had always doggedly and unsuccessfully sought.
(Bogart, 1992)

The personal unconscious level includes types of spiritual emer-

gency such as what Jung referred to as “ego inflation” (or narcissistic
grandiosity), dissociative experiences stemming from trauma or abuse,
birth experiences, and any kind of delusional system or psychotic
process that stays within the realm of the personal unconscious but that
also has spiritual content.

Tim had a long history of meditation, attempting to attain

higher states of consciousness. Along the way he had had a
number of spiritual experiences that led him to believe that he
had reached a more advanced state and that he had a role as a
teacher for the New Age. He was a remarkable individual in
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 193

many respects, highly intelligent, and he had gathered around

him students interested in his blend of psychology and spiritu-
ality. Yet he had done little personal psychological work.
Although not psychotic or delusional in his daily life, indeed,
his professional functioning was at a high level, nevertheless his
grandiose fantasies exposed his narcissistic character structure
and caused him to limit his social life only to others who truly
believed in him. He was able to maintain this stance for a
number of years before his world finally began to fall apart. Ini-
tially believing his misfortunes were the result of demonic
forces out to thwart his revelatory teachings, he soon was able
to recognize and work with his primitive grandiosity stemming
from his early wounding. (Cortright, private practice)

Types of spiritual emergency at the symbolic-collective uncon-

scious level include certain kinds of psychosis, specifically what has
been called by Jungian psychiatrist John Perry (1976) “renewal through
return to center,” involving an encounter with the archetypal forces of
the psyche in a dramatic healing crisis (see the following case for an
example). This also includes various nonpsychotic archetypal eruptions
where the psyche is flooded by symbolic material and images, such as
what Michael Washburn (1994) has referred to as regression in the
service of transcendence that may occur in the midlife crisis.

At age 19, after returning home from hitchhiking in Mexico,

Howard became convinced that he was on a “mental odyssey.”
To his family and friends, he began speaking in a highly
metaphorical language (of archetypal symbols). For example,
after returning from a simple afternoon hike, he announced to
his parents that, “I have been through the bowels of Hell,
climbed up and out, and wandered full circles in the wilderness.
I have ascended through the Portals of Heaven where I estab-
lished my rebirth in the earth itself and have now taken my
rightful place in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
The unusual actions and content of his speech led his
family to commit him to a psychiatric ward, where he was diag-
nosed with acute schizophrenia. . . . After 2 months . . . his psy-
chiatrist wanted to transfer him to a long-term facility for
further treatment, but he refused to go and was discharged. He
194 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

then immersed himself in archetypal symbols and literature as

part of his healing over the following years, changing the
course of his life dramatically. When interviewed 11 years after
the episode for a case study, he maintained, “I have gained
much from this experience. . . . From a state of existential
nausea, my soul now knows itself as part of the cosmos. Each
year brings an ever increasing sense of contentment. (Lukoff
and Everest, 1985, pp. 123–153)

The intermediate level of spiritual emergency contains most of

what is traditionally referred to in the transpersonal literature. It
includes psychic opening, shamanic crisis, past-life experiences, com-
munications with spirit guides and “channeling,” possession states,
UFO encounters, near-death experiences (NDEs), death experiences
(DEs) and the dying process, out-of-body experiences (OBEs), altered
states of consciousness, such as psychedelic work, guru attack, and the
awakening of kundalini (which is the most widely reported spiritual
emergency). All of these phenomena seem to originate from some por-
tion of the intermediate plane of consciousness.

Terry’s experience of kundalini energy was triggered by an

intensive weekend workshop involving emotional release work.
Several days after the workshop she experienced an explosion
of energy throughout her body that signaled the awakening of
kundalini. It moved throughout her body, up her spine and
through her limbs. Accompanying this energetic flow were
profound consciousness changes in which she felt opened up
and expanded, yet at times left her terrified and unable to func-
tion. Although she knew about the kundalini phenomenon,
this knowledge did not prevent her ego from being overpow-
ered by the intensity of consciousness changes within her.
She was able to take a leave from work for several months
and work with a therapist on an outpatient basis, and after
three months was able to begin working again part time. Diet,
energy work, modifying meditation practice, grounding exer-
cises, deep therapeutic work on the emotional issues activated
by the rising kundalini energies, journal writing, and mobiliz-
ing her support system were some of the things that helped in
her process. After nine months, most all of the experiences had
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 195

faded, but she had radically reoriented her life during this time
to be more fully aligned with her spiritual path. (Cortright, pri-
vate practice)

The soul or spirit level type of spiritual emergency entails episodes

of unitive consciousness. They may be of either the nontheistic or the-
istic variety. Although kundalini awakening may reach into this level
for brief periods, it is primarily centered in the intermediate level. The
experience of unity with soul or spirit may be overwhelming or shat-
tering to the structures of the self and prevent normal functioning for a
period of time.

George had been a Zen student for several years when at the
end of a month-long meditation retreat he had an experience
of what he called “falling into the void.” His separate ego
simply disappeared into a wide and vast consciousness. How-
ever, many of the reality functions of his ego were suspended as
well, leaving him unable to manage even ordinary activities
such as ordering a meal in a restaurant. Although for many
years he had been hoping for such an experience of “no mind,”
the reality of this great mental silence severely impaired his
functioning. The Zen teacheri at his retreat recommended
more intensive meditation practice, but this seemed only to
worsen his condition.
As he became more disorganized and unable to function,
he was evaluated by a psychiatrist at a local hospital, who rec-
ommended immediate hospitalization and medication. He
narrowly escaped being detained against his will and lived mar-
ginally for the next few months, avoiding contact with the out-
side world and spending much time alone. Slowly he returned
to more normal functioning, at which time he entered therapy
in an attempt to understand and assimilate his experience.
(Cortright, private practice)

GUIDELINES FOR TREATMENT

Some general treatment guidelines are common to all types of spiritual
emergency as well as more specific interventions geared to particular
196 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

types. The first and most important principle in the treatment of spir-
itual emergency is containment. Although establishing a container is
fundamental in any kind of therapy, in dealing with a spiritual emer-
gency it is even more crucial. Clients must be completely safe and feel
supported to experience and express whatever inner states or impulses
are flowing through them. At times this means providing an external
structure that supports their process in the temporary absence of inter-
nal structure. A retreat setting, a friend’s or family home, or even a hos-
pital inpatient ward may be required in order to safely contain what is
unfolding within, especially in the sometimes dramatic, early stages of
the process. Later on, as the process smooths out, more traditional out-
patient therapy can be resumed, although even here it may well be that
meeting several times a week, and for more than an hour, is necessary
for a period of time.
The second most important factor is the therapeutic alliance, estab-
lishing a human connection to the person in crisis. The therapist acts as
ground control, a stabilizing presence whose calmness and guidance
during this turbulent time can be profoundly reassuring. The con-
sciousness of the therapist is of paramount importance. The therapist
needs to be impeccably authentic, not feigning more knowledge or con-
fidence than is truly there, for in the heightened consciousness of the
person undergoing spiritual emergency, there is an enhanced energetic
and telepathic sensitivity that immediately picks up any falsity or
phoniness that can jeopardize the integrity of the relationship. The
therapist lets the person know that he or she is not alone, and this in
itself can be profoundly helpful. The therapist should be trained in spir-
itual emergency as well as in psychopathology and be able to tell the
difference between the two (as well as the gray areas where both are
occurring).
Often the most powerful intervention in treating clients undergo-
ing some form of spiritual emergency is education. Providing a psycho-
spiritual framework for understanding what the client is experiencing
gives the person and those around him or her a cognitive grasp of what
is happening. It also depathologizes the process and can greatly reduce
the fear and anxiety that accompany a misdiagnosis of psychosis. Edu-
cation allows the person to go with the experience, to flow with the
process and trust it rather than trying to resist or control it, which is the
instinctive tendency when the experience is interpreted as pathological.
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 197

The therapist must bring an unshakable trust in the process to

allow it to unfold optimally. Experiential therapy can be helpful in
moving through stuck areas, yet equally important is the need to mon-
itor how assimilable the experience is. The therapist must constantly
monitor the client’s ability to make use of what is occurring and main-
tain the delicate balance between opening and closing to ensure opti-
mal integration of the experience.
Additionally, specific treatment modalities are appropriate for a
given level of consciousness and the type of spiritual emergency.
For spiritual emergencies on the first level of the conscious-exis-
tential plane, therapy for crises of faith may consist of support for the
person and a therapeutic dialogue along the lines of existential therapy,
exploring the nature of meaning, values, and faith within the client’s
life. It is important not to reduce these existential conflicts to earlier
psychodynamic events from childhood, though they may resonate with
earlier developmental levels, but to engage the client at the level of
meaning and the feelings of loss, insecurity, and disruption when this
meaning is questioned. When the crisis stems from coming out of a cult
or separating from a spiritual teacher, saying good-by and grieving the
lost community is essential to moving on, as is establishing a new sup-
port system and finding new ways of meeting the selfobject needs that
have been disrupted, as a traditional approach to therapy would advo-
cate. Therapy with spiritual emergency at this level is similar to tradi-
tional psychotherapy and includes an existential and spiritual focus.
For spiritual emergencies at the second level of the personal uncon-
scious, traditional psychotherapeutic techniques are again important. It
may well be a genuine spiritual experience that has stimulated the
grandiosity of the person. It may even be that the person still has occa-
sional contact with a larger plane of spiritual experience that reinforces
this grandiosity. Nevertheless, the central psychological feature of the
presenting picture can still be organized at the level of the personal
unconscious. Medication may even be indicated. Levels 1 and 2 are the
levels for which traditional psychotherapy has been designed.
For spiritual emergencies at the third level of the symbolic-collective
unconscious, Jungian and psychosynthesis techniques for working with
symbols, imagery, and imagination are helpful. Artwork and expressive
arts techniques, active imagination, and imagery are particularly appro-
priate. If the crisis is renewal through return to center, this involves fully
198 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

letting go into the psyche’s destruction and rebirth process, working with
this process as outlined by John Perry’s (1953, 1976) work and R. D.
Laing’s (1965, 1967) work as closely as possible. The tremendous psychic
upheaval needs containment and support, which usually entails a well-
staffed retreat or hospital-like environment.
Because there is only one word for psychosis, all psychoses are gen-
erally treated alike by the mental health establishment: drugs and hos-
pitalization are used to end it as soon as possible. However, this view of
spiritual emergence demands a discrimination among the different
forms of psychotic process. There is a spectrum of psychoses, ranging
from regressive, malignant psychosis at one end that needs standard
treatment to temporary destabilizing crises such as bipolar disorders
that may open into genuine spiritual states, especially during the manic
part of the cycle, to genuine healing crises that need to be gone through
and supported in the manner of Perry and Laing. Bipolar disorders
should be ended as soon as possible through medication, for there is
little redeeming value in the crash and burn that follows mania, whereas
the psychotic healing crisis of return to center demands going with and
through the entire process from beginning to end in order for full inte-
gration to occur.
One reason for discriminating among the different types of psy-
chotic process is frequency. If this is the first or one of the first psy-
chotic breaks, then there is a much greater chance of a permanently
healthy outcome if handled skillfully. On the other hand, if this has
been a pattern over many years or decades, then the neural pathways
seem to become strengthened and reinforced, making a full recovery
much less likely.
Spiritual emergencies on the fourth level of the intermediate plane
require grounding, above all else, for crises at this plane of conscious-
ness almost always involve the client being disconnected or detached
from his or her body. Grounding is important at every level, but in
crises at the intermediate level the client may go farther from the body
into the subtle body or out of the body entirely, or consciousness may
move into realms that seem to have almost no connection to the body.
Grounding usually is used in two senses: first, achieving a more cohe-
sive, integrated presence that can act in a unified way, not fragmented
or flying apart in all directions but able to act in this earth plane at all
levels, physical, vital, mental, and spiritual; second, grounding means
coming back into the physical vehicle. Aurobindo’s spiritual collabora-
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 199

tor, the Mother, once wrote that the best protection against the hostile
forces of the intermediate plane is the body. There are many different
techniques for grounding, including such things as diet, exercise, body-
work, affirming boundaries, and even medication when used conserva-
tively (see the final section of this appendix and Cortright, 1997, for an
expanded discussion of grounding).
The treatment focus is on containing and modulating the intensity
of the experience so it can be assimilated by the person. Surrender to
the process is important but so is modulating the force and power of the
experience so it no longer overwhelms the person’s integrative capaci-
ties. Stopping, reducing, or at least changing meditation practice is
almost always advised at this level.
Crises at the fifth and deepest level of the soul or spirit, on the
other hand, involve surrender to the larger process. This allows the
person to be acted on directly by the spiritual power at work, which is
necessary for the internal adjustments to take place. This involves trust
in the higher power at work and a protection and caring for the indi-
vidual while this power is active. Ramana Maharshi had to be literally
fed by hand for several months before his process stabilized, and he
went on to become one of the greatest of all Hindu sages. The guidance
of an advanced spiritual teacher from the client’s tradition who can
work with the therapist is helpful, although oftentimes spiritual emer-
gency occurs outside of any tradition or may involve experiences not
explained within a given tradition. Generally consciousness needs time
to adapt to an expanded state, and outside support may be essential
during this period of transition.

PROBLEMS IN ASSESSMENT
With any inner experience it is difficult to ascertain what is truly going
on. When psychology was simply pure psychology, devoid of any spir-
itual content, the problem was much easier, because everything was
seen as a product of the person’s own mind. However, when transper-
sonal psychology opens the Pandora’s box of spiritual experience,
although it immeasurably enriches our view of the psyche, it also lets in
some complex and perplexing epistemological questions.
For example, according to this map, true possession states would be
considered level 4 or intermediate plane phenomena, but the experience
200 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

of possession may occur on more superficial levels as well. That is, there
may be personal unconscious level possession states that are simply a
product of the psychotic process, that is, the result of the patient’s own
personal unconscious, where she or he feels “possessed” but is simply
overcome by the forces of the personal unconscious, such as impulses
from the id. There also may be level 3, the symbolic-collective uncon-
scious plane, possession states that involve possession by a particular
archetypal form, such as we see in Perry’s “return to center.” This is fur-
ther complicated by the possibility that some possession states may
involve both a psychotic process and a genuine possessing entity from
the intermediate zone. It may well be the case that possession states do
not occur with psychologically healthy individuals and always involve a
person with a serious degree of psychological disturbance and loss of
boundaries, and this may be what allows the possessing entity access to
an unprotected mind. Possession that is the result of channeling is a dif-
ferent matter, however, for here the boundaries of the person are let
down voluntarily, and the entity is invited in.
UFO phenomena present the same difficulty. Although people
who experience UFO encounters view the experience as something that
occurred “outside” of them (that is, as something that could be video-
taped or seen by others), such experiences are here conceptualized as
inner experiences. If this is so, then UFO encounters may simply be an
opening into level 4, the intermediate plane of consciousness, inter-
preting such experiences in a more culturally recognized symbol
system, that is, as aliens. Alternately, the experience of aliens may be an
archetypal eruption from the level of the collective unconscious (level
3) or a delusion stemming from the level of the personal unconscious
(level 2).
What is “actually” going on? At present, we are unable to say. It
may vary from person to person, and even with the same person it may
vary over time. It may even be a mixture of something vaguely experi-
enced at one level (e.g., intermediate) and elaborated on by another
level (e.g., personal unconscious) and interpreted by still another level
(e.g., conscious-existential).
Another problematic area is the kundalini phenomenon. Kundalini
awakening is the most widely reported form of spiritual emergency.
However, the criteria for kundalini awakening are very broad and
include powerful energetic states of all kinds. Sometimes kundalini
awakening either becomes, or was all along, mania (bipolar disorder),
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 201

anxiety states, and panic states. Whether mania and other high arousal
states are fully or partly a result of kundalini awakening gone awry or
whether such states are conflated due to similarities between high
energy states remains an open question.
These difficulties in assessment have implications for treatment. In
calibrating treatments to specific levels, the effectiveness of a particular
treatment can help determine more accurately what is occurring and
from where it originates. However, treatment strategies at one level,
although usually most effective at that level, also may be effective for
other levels. For example, the use of anti-psychotic medication can
ground the psyche so powerfully that it effectively eliminates the expe-
rience of being “possessed,” whether this possession is a product of the
personal unconscious, the symbolic-collective unconscious, or the inter-
mediate plane. As we learn more about these phenomena, more focused
interventions may emerge that will help clarify what is occurring.
This integral approach to a depth map of consciousness greatly
enlarges the picture of psychology. In this view, human consciousness
extends to include cosmic, universal dimensions and opens inwardly to
reveal the roots of consciousness in an ultimately spiritual ground of
being. On this journey toward full self-knowledge, spiritual experiences
can emerge in ways that disturb the balance of the outer, egoic self. To
shut off this deeper knowing through medication and pathologizing is
to tragically cut off a process of self-discovery. But when spiritual emer-
gency can be turned into spiritual emergence, then this process can be
seen as a rite of passage into deeper being, a developmental crisis that
leaves both the person and the therapist with a deeper sense of the pos-
sibilities for healing, growth, and transformation.

AN INTEGRAL APPROACH TO INTEGRATION AND

GROUNDING
Treatment of spiritual emergency must monitor the intensity of the
experience to ensure that it matches the integrative capacities of the
client. The intensity can be increased or decreased.

1. Increase intensity. This is widely practiced and has been the

primary method reported in most of the spiritual emergency
literature. Experiential therapy, such as deep breathing
202 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

methods, is used to facilitate the energies of spiritual emer-

gency to move past their stuck areas and overwhelm the
blocks that impede the experience. This can help move the
process toward conclusion. When previous psychiatric treat-
ment has frozen the process through medication, a common
situation, this makes a good deal of sense. However, for many
people increasing the intensity is not helpful, in fact, it only
perpetuates or even exacerbates the crisis.
2. Decrease intensity. When the capacity of the client to assimi-
late the experience of spiritual emergency is being over-
whelmed, decreasing its intensity may be necessary. The goal
is to modulate the force of the psychic energies, to tame the
disruptive power so it is no longer shattering. Slowing it
down allows it to become integrated. Care must be taken not
to overdo this so much that it stops but, rather, to slow down
the process so it is gentler and less disorienting. This brings
the psyche’s natural integrative functions back into line so the
experience can move toward resolution. Toward this end, a
continuum of grounding strategies may be helpful.

An integral approach to grounding involves practices for the levels

of body, heart, mind, and spirit.
The Physical Level: The following practices are helpful for recon-
necting consciousness to the body:
Diet: Eat heavy foods, especially those high in protein and fat or
complex carbohydrates, for example, whole grains, beans, dairy, meat or
fish (if eaten), and cooked vegetables. It is best to avoid raw fruit and
vegetables, simple carbohydrates such as sugar and refined foods, and
stimulants like caffeine or chocolate. Think pizza.
Exercise: This is a very individual matter, for many people in the
throes of spiritual emergency are not ready to exercise. But if the person
is able to, she or he should be encouraged to engage in whatever phys-
ical movement feels right, including walking (in nature rather than on
busy streets), running, yoga, and any type of physical work, such as gar-
dening (all contact with the earth can help). Even such physical activi-
ties as sweeping, washing dishes, and raking leaves can be beneficial.
Sleep is very grounding and restorative. Generally the more sleep,
the better, particularly when the lack of sleep is a precipitating factor as
it often is.
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 203

Contact with nature in any form is encouraged. Nature walks,

cloud gazing, outdoor work, and fresh air are helpful.
Bodywork can be helpful, including light massage, acupressure, or
acupuncture.
Medication: Indications for medication are primarily a person’s
inability to sleep or the desire to take the edge off of a crisis state. It is
best to take a minimalist approach, for overmedicating is the biggest
danger in a genuine spiritual emergency. Many supplements and drugs
are available, ranging from very mild to very strong.

Calcium is a natural muscle relaxant. Taking an extra 1,000

mg in the morning and evening can provide a very mild, relax-
ing effect.
Bach Flower remedies and homeopathic remedies are
useful for anxiety and insomnia.
GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) is a nutritional sup-
plement that has a relaxing and sleep-promoting effect. Also
5–HTP, a precursor of serotonin, and the amino acid L-thea-
nine can produce relaxation without a drugged feeling.
Herbs such as spearmint and chamomile in tea form are
mildly relaxing. Somewhat stronger is passionflower (calming
without being sedating). Kava, hops, and skullcap are more
potent herbs. Stronger still is valerian, which promotes sleep
and can serve as a kind of tranquilizer.
Alcohol in the form of an occasional glass or two of wine
can provide needed relief to take the edge off. If the client has
a history of substance abuse, then this should be suggested cau-
tiously, for there can be a pull toward oblivion rather than
simply a slowing down of the process.
Tranquilizers such as Xanax, Ativan, Valium, Librium, and
Clonapin may be used. For tranquilizers and the following two
classes of medication, it is important to work with a physician
or psychiatrist to prescribe and monitor these medications:
1. Sedatives, such as barbiturates, can be used.
2. Major tranquilizers (such as Thorazine), mood stabiliz-
ers (such as lithuim, Tegnatol, Depacote), and anti-psy-
chotic medication (such as Risperdol and Zipexa), when
judiciously used, can sometimes help avoid hospitaliza-
tion.
204 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

The Emotional Level: Feeling connected to other people is emo-

tionally grounding. In states of distress, and especially in a spiritual
emergency, establishing contact with a therapist or guide is enormously
relieving. The importance of having someone who serves as ground
control and is a soothing, calm presence cannot be overstated. One of
the most difficult aspects of spiritual emergency can be feeling isolated
and alone. A therapeutic relationship helps counter this. Sharing the
experience with a caring, sensitive guide brings a level of concreteness
to the experience. It can be important to activate the support system of
the person undergoing spiritual emergency, though this needs to be
done carefully, educating friends and family so that they do not become
fearful. When done skillfully, mobilizing the selfobject matrix of the
person and reestablishing contact with important friends and family
will extend emotional grounding.
The Mental Level: Learning about the type of spiritual emergency
through reading is mentally grounding. Cognitively understanding
what is occurring helps one get a handle on the experience. Verbal
expression, through talking and writing, also is a way of giving form to
inner experiences. Verbalizing, whether in a journal or talking to others,
helps integrate the experience. However, it should be recognized that
talking too much should be avoided and can even dissipate the experi-
ence prematurely.
The Spiritual Level: Very often spiritual emergency occurs as a
result of stress, especially spiritual stress, which may happen during a
meditation retreat. Stopping, changing, or decreasing meditation is
almost always advised when the experience gets out of hand. Each
person needs to experiment to see what intensifies the experience and
what helps modulate it. Certain meditative practices can be helpful in
this regard.
Conventional wisdom in transpersonal circles has it that mindful-
ness practice opens up the person and should be avoided here, while
concentration practices are grounding and encouraged. However, clin-
ical experience proves this to be a facile distinction that may not be
helpful. This is such an individual affair and depends on the person, the
context, the background of the person, and other factors. In practice,
mindfulness practices may strengthen the inner being and help develop
a witness consciousness that helps navigate this experience. And in
concentrations, practices the person may pour his or her consciousness
 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency 205

into the object of concentration and actually intensify the overwhelm-

ing qualities of the experience. It is a far more complex matter than this
distinction implies. The following practices have been shown to be
helpful at times:

1. Prayer and focus on the Divine: This is useful especially if the

person is open to a theistic path. Even if the person is a Bud-
dhist, invoking the help of a Boddhisattva can be reassuring.
2. Breath meditation: By making the physical sensations of
breathing the object of meditative focus, Buddhist meditation
on the breath has the wonderful effect of bringing conscious-
ness into the body and also is profoundly relaxing and anxiety
reducing.
3. Mantra: A great deal of current research shows that the repe-
tition of a mantra produces calmness and physical relaxation
for most people. However, in the field of spiritual emergency,
there is less data on the effects of mantra. Mantra is a com-
plex phenomenon, and physical relaxation is only one of its
effects. Clinical experience demonstrates that many people
experience an opening to an inner plane that leaves them
feeling more spacey and less grounded in the body, and for
these people mantra may be contraindicated. For others, how-
ever, this a perfectly fine and helpful practice.
4. Concentration on an object: This practice, such as concentrat-
ing on a flower or candle or sound such as music, can steady
the consciousness and settle the mind.
5. Mindfulness practice: This is contraindicated if it opens up
the person too much, but it can be helpful for supporting the
observing portion of the person’s ego (or witness conscious-
ness). This also may involve a strengthening of the person’s
connection to her or his basic sanity and ground of aware-
ness. Except for those for whom mindfulness practice was a
precipitating factor, this may be a very helpful practice.

Again, all meditation practices should be monitored very closely,

and in many instances it is best to stop all meditation practices and
eliminate entirely this kind of stimulation or activation, at least for a
specific period of time.
206 An Integral Approach to Spiritual Emergency

SUMMARY
When spiritual emergency is supported and allowed to run its course,
it moves the person toward an increasingly spiritual orientation. From
an integral perspective, this can be part of a psychic shift in which the
evolving soul or psychic center becomes a stronger influence in a
person’s life. It is the soul in us, the psychic entity, that, from behind the
veil, shapes our life and draws us inexorably toward the inner depths
and spiritual ground. This is a long process, involving many lifetimes,
according to integral yoga, and sometimes the surface self needs a pow-
erful reminder about what is important.
Spiritual emergency, for all of its destabilizing effects and disor-
ganizing appearances, is a wake-up call. It is as if the inner being grabs
the person by both lapels and shakes him or her, demanding that the
surface self pay attention. To heal the fragmenting structures of the sur-
face self and to bring about greater integration and cohesion is one goal
of treatment. But for an integral psychotherapy, including this with a
more spiritualized living and orientation is the optimal outcome. If the
voice of the soul can be strengthened, if the impediments of the surface
self to this deeper voice can be even partially cleared away, then there is
a true resolution of spiritual emergency.
 Notes

CHAPTER 1
1. Sri Aurobindo describes several other planes above our normal mentality that
are superconscious and beyond current evolutionary awareness. These are the higher
mind (where the Self has its native home), the illumined mind (where cognition is no
longer of thought but of light), the intuitive mind (which approaches knowledge by
identity), the overmind (the realm of the gods), and the supramental level (or pure truth
consciousness).
Aurobindo describes the higher mind as “still very much on the mind level,
although highly spiritual in its essential substance; and its instrumentation is through
an elevated thought-power and comprehensive mental sight—not illumined by any of
the intenser upper lights but as if in a large strong and clear daylight” (1978, p. 49).
The illumined mind is described as “a mind no longer of higher thought, but of
spiritual light. Here the clarity of the spiritual intelligence, its tranquil daylight, gives
place or subordinates itself to an intense lustre, a splendour and illumination of the
Spirit: a play of lightnings of spiritual truth and power breaks from above into the con-
sciousness and adds to the calm and wide enlightenment and the vast descent of peace
which characterise or accompany the action of the larger conceptual-spiritual principle,
a fiery ardour of realisation and rapturous ecstasy of knowledge. A downpour of
inwardly visible light very usually envelopes this action” (1970, p. 944).
The higher mind and the illumined mind “enjoy their authority and can get their
own united completeness only by a reference to a third level; for it is from the higher
summits where dwells the intuitional being that they derive the knowledge which they
turn into thought or sight and bring down to us for the mind’s transmutation. Intuition
is a power of consciousness nearer and more intimate to the original knowledge by
identity; for it is always something that leaps out direct from a concealed identity. It is
when the consciousness of the subject meets with the consciousness of the object, pen-
etrates it and sees, feels or vibrates with the truth of what it contacts, that the intuition
leaps out like a spark or lightning-flash from the shock of the meeting; or when the
consciousness, even without any such meeting, looks into itself and feels directly and
intimately the truth or the truths that are there or so contacts the hidden forces behind
appearances, then also there is the outbreak of an intuitive light; . . . This close percep-
tion is more than sight, more than conception: it is the result of a penetrating and

207
208 Notes to Chapter 1

revealing touch which carries in it sight and conception as part of itself or as its natu-
ral consequence” (1970, pp. 946–947).
The Overmind is the last level before ascending to the supramental. “The con-
sciousness . . . is experienced as a consciousness of Light and Truth, a power, force,
action full of Light and Truth, an aesthesis and sensation of beauty and delight univer-
sal and multitudinous in detail, an illumination in the whole and in all things, in the
one movement and all movements, with a constant extension and play of possibilities
which is infinite. . . . All spiritual experiences are taken up and become normal to the
new nature; all essential experiences belonging to the mind, life, body are taken up and
spiritualized, transmuted and felt as forms of the consciousness, delight, power of the
infinite existence. Intuition, illumined sight and thought enlarge themselves; their sub-
stance assumes a greater substantiality, mass, energy, their movement is more compre-
hensive, global, many-faceted, more wide and potent in its truth-force: the whole
nature, knowledge, aesthesis, sympathy, feeling, dynamism become more catholic, all-
understanding, all-embracing, cosmic, infinite” (1970, p. 952).
The supramental is the highest human power that is now seeking to manifest on
earth. “Because its very nature is knowledge, it has not to acquire knowledge but pos-
sesses it in its own right; its steps are not from . . . ignorance to some imperfect light,
but from truth to greater truth, from right perception to deeper perception, from intu-
ition to intuition, from illumination to utter and boundless luminousness, from grow-
ing widenesses to the utter vasts and to very infinitude. . . . It starts from truth and light
and moves always in truth and light” (1978, p. 157).
Thus there is a horizontal dimension of depth to consciousness (outer being, inner
being, true being, psychic being) and a vertical dimension of height to consciousness
(body-heart-mind leading to the higher mind planes).
Aurobindo describes these two dimensions of consciousness in this way:
There are in fact two systems simultaneously active in the organisation of the
being and its parts: one is concentric, a series of rings or sheaths with the psy-
chic at the centre; another is vertical, an ascension and descent, like a flight
of steps, a series of superimposed planes with the supermind-overmind as the
crucial nodus of the transition beyond the human into the Divine. For this
transition, if it is to be at the same time a transformation, there is only one
way, one path. First, there must be a conversion inwards, a going within to
find the inmost psychic being and bring it out to the front, disclosing at the
same time the inner mind, inner vital, inner physical parts of the nature.
Next, there must be an ascension, a series of conversions upwards and a turn-
ing down to convert the lower parts. When one has made the inward con-
version, one psychicises the whole lower nature so as to make it ready for the
divine change. Going upwards, one passes beyond the human mind and at
each stage of the ascent, there is a new conversion into a new consciousness
into the whole of the nature. Thus rising beyond intellect through illumi-
nated higher mind to the intuitive consciousness, we begin to look at every-
thing not from the intellect range or through intellect as an instrument, but
from a greater intuitive height and through an intuitivised will, feeling, emo-
 Notes to Chapter 1 209

tion, sensation and physical contact. So, proceeding from Intuition to a

greater overmind height, there is a new conversion and we look at and expe-
rience everything from the overmind consciousness and through a mind,
heart, vital and body surcharged with the overmind thought, sight, will, feel-
ing, sensation, play of force and contact. But the last conversion is the supra-
mental, for once there—once the nature is supramentalised, we are beyond
the Ignorance and conversion of consciousness is no longer needed, though a
farther divine progression, even an infinite development is still possible.
(1978, p. 251)
2. The two most ambitious attempts to construct an inclusive, psycho-spiritual
model, by Wilber and Grof, have been good first efforts but are deficient in several
respects. Wilber’s model fails on two major counts, psychological and spiritual. First,
Wilber (1986, 2000) places different psychologies and psychotherapies in a develop-
mental line based on degree of integration. This betrays a fundamental misunderstand-
ing of psychotherapy systems. By linking psychoanalysis to clients with “prepersonal
level issues” (e.g., borderline, neurotic) and humanistic and existential therapies to
clients with more integrated, “personal” level issues, Wilber places different systems at
different levels of personality integration. But psychoanalysis and existential therapies
deal extensively with clients at all levels of personality integration. In fact, it was exis-
tential therapy that pioneered innovative approaches to psychosis (Laing, 1965, 1967).
Classifying schools of psychology according to degrees of personality integration is not
a workable scheme.
Second, the nontheistic, Impersonal Divine bias of Wilber’s model is an inade-
quate accounting of spiritual experience from an integral perspective. By denigrating
the Personal Divine dimension of the spiritual picture, it privileges the dimension of
the Impersonal Divine and unfortunately perpetuates Buddhist and kevela advaita
claims to superiority, even as it claims to reconcile the theistic dimension of spiritual
experience. Wilber’s misinterpretation of Sri Aurobindo’s integral philosophy would
have Sri Aurobindo saying the exact opposite of what, in fact, he does say about the
Personal and Impersonal Divine and, additionally, entirely distorts Sri Aurobindo’s map
of consciousness. (Parenthetically, the spiritual portion of Wilber’s model also is based
on several fictions about spiritual experience. Spiritual history demonstrates that spiri-
tual realization does not unfold in the order that Wilber predicts and can even unfold
in the opposite order that his model demands. As Aurobindo shows by personal exam-
ple, the realization of the Impersonal Divine can come first, followed by the Personal
Divine, followed by the intermediate zone or subtle plane realizations. This falsifies
Wilber’s claim to a universal order and developmental sequence.) Both the psycholog-
ical and the spiritual parts of this psycho-spiritual model are untenable.
Grof ’s model falls short on several fronts. Grof (1975, 2000) tries a modified and
more sophisticated version of Wilber’s strategy in his attempt to integrate systems of
psychotherapy. He places systems of psychology and psychotherapy in a linear hierar-
chy based on depth of consciousness. He places psychoanalysis on the most superficial
layer to explain biographical psychology, then gestalt and Reichian psychology, which
he believes represent deeper psychological experience, followed by his perinatal layers
210 Notes to Chapter 2

of birth trauma, followed by Jungian psychology in the deepest archetypal and transper-
sonal realms. This is unsatisfactory for several reasons. First, to say one type of depth
psychology is “deeper” than another is problematic. Psychoanalysis can be as deep or
deeper than gestalt, which also can be quite superficial depending as much upon the
therapist as the theory. Degree of depth (Grof ) is equally unworkable as degree of inte-
gration (Wilber).
Second, Grof does not account for contemporary psychoanalysis and intersubjec-
tivity, or their many variations and schools, only the classical roots of psychoanalysis
from a half century ago. This leaves out most of Western depth psychology. Third, peri-
natal material, Grof ’s biggest discovery, may have a far smaller impact upon develop-
ment and psychology than he proposes. Fourth, psychological discoveries derived from
work with altered states of consciousness, while intense and powerful at the time, have
questionable value when generalized to cover the entire psyche when it is not in an
altered state. The spiritual literature amply documents that a perspective that is true in
one state of consciousness may be irrelevant or untrue in another state of consciousness.
Clinical experience reinforces this view, for although some improvement of symptoms
may occur in altered states, a complete working through does not appear to happen
with his “nonordinary states” therapy (see Cortright, 1997, for a fuller discussion of
these issues).
3. In Tibetan Buddhism, the psychic center is called the tigl, though it is sub-
ordinated to Buddha-nature in this tradition.

CHAPTER 2
1. The Vedas, the most ancient sacred texts that form the basis of Vedanta, were
composed thousands of years ago for a much earlier mentality than that of the modern
world. Symbolism and poetic metaphor abound in these archaic texts, making them
difficult for the modern mind to penetrate, yet they contain a depth of spiritual wisdom
that forms the basis of Hinduism today. The Vedas contain a great number of hymns
devoted to Agni, the first of the Powers, first before all of the other gods. Sri Aurobindo
believed that the Vedic hymns to Agni represent hymns to the psychic center with its
force and light. Agni is variously imaged as the fire and flaming will of the Divine, as
a Truth-Conscious soul, a seer, as the priest of the sacrifice whose mission is to purify
and raise up the struggling aspirant to the light.
The Veda speaks of the divine Flame in a series of splendid and opulent
images. He is the rapturous priest of the sacrifice, the God-Will intoxicated
with its own delight, the young sage, the sleepless envoy, the ever-wakeful
flame in the house, the master of our gated dwelling-place, the beloved guest,
the lord in the creature, the seer of the flaming tresses, the divine child, the
pure and virgin God, the invincible warrior, the leader on the path who
marches in front of the human peoples, the immortal in mortals, the worker
established in man by the gods, the unobstructed in knowledge, the infinite
 Notes to Chapter 3 211

in being, the vast and flaming sun of the Truth, . . . the divine perception, the
light, the vision. . . . Throughout the Veda it is in the hymns which celebrate
this strong and brilliant deity that we find those which are the most splendid
in poetic colouring, profound in psychological suggestion and sublime in
their mystic intoxication. (Aurobindo, 1971b, p. 361)
Agni is interpreted by Aurobindo as the ancient symbol for the psychic center and
its power, for it is this light that each person must awaken so that it can illumine life’s
path. Agni also is a force for purification that burns away the dross of our dense nature
and purifies our outer being. Agni protects against the demons that try to wreak havoc
upon the world and humanity. The psychic center, Agni, is the leader of the evolution,
the guide that shows us the way, a portion of the Divine that has within it an inherent
truth sense and discernment.
For the sake of completeness it should be noted that there are many different
experiences of inner fire. There is the fire of tapas (spiritual discipline and will), the fire
of kundalini (the sleeping spiritual energy at the base of the spine), the fire and light
from the illumined mind, and the fire of sexual passion and energy. Each of these expe-
riences must be differentiated from the fire of Agni or the psychic fire. To light the psy-
chic fire in the heart is the goal of integral psychology.
Perhaps a more modern symbol than fire is the electric light. The growing light of
the psychic center can be imaged as a dimmer switch or rheostat in which the psychic
light is very faint to begin with but with aspiration, meditation, and surrender it
becomes brighter and brighter. Electric light is a more accurate image in some ways,
because it is a steady and continuous light that does not flicker and vary in its intensity
like a flame does. The psychic light is a steady light burning deep within the heart.
2. The reason the self disappears in enlightenment or transcendence is not
because it never existed and was always an illusion, as the Buddhists and advaitins have
argued, but because its utility is over. When the psychic center has developed far
enough, it can emerge fully and take its place as the individualized spiritual being that
is part of the central being—atman or Buddha-nature. The function of the ego is no
longer necessary, for there is a new organizing principle at work, a spiritual and no
longer strictly organismic principle, though the soul can fully use its organismic instru-
ments. The ego functions remain (e.g., memory, orientation in time and space, coordi-
nation, integration of sensory and emotional experience, planning, reality testing, etc.),
indeed, are necessary to function in the world. But the ego sense or separate “I” feeling
disappears when its usefulness ends. Individuality remains while the ego dissolves. This
individuality is the flowering of our long path of individuation, pursued through many
incarnations, many cultures, and many historical epochs.

CHAPTER 3
1. It should be noted that some psychological healing can come via meditation
and spiritual practice, but such healing tends to be haphazard and is not as compre-
hensive or thoroughgoing as is depth psychotherapy.
212 Notes to Chapter 3

2. It is difficult to know if the emotional wounding at other times in human his-

tory was similar to or different from what we experience now, because we can only infer
what the state of consciousness evolution was in earlier epochs. We do know, however,
that there has been a historical development in how children are viewed. Up until the
last century or two, children were viewed as small adults. The creation of child labor
laws signaled a change in society’s views of childhood.
When more empathic attention is given to children, a more fully developed self
emerges, which is an expression of the evolution of consciousness. With changing
family patterns and child-rearing practices, the development of the self changes as well.
Today’s core wounding occurs in the historical and cultural context of nuclear or
extended families where childhood, adolescence, and adulthood are seen as distinct
developmental phases. Attachment patterns to parents and siblings are crucial in con-
sidering wounding and the self ’s development.
3. The original meaning of the word “sin” is “to miss the mark,” to not shoot
straight or be off the mark. This is precisely the effect our defenses have on us. Because
of our neurotic distortions, we do not perceive clearly, nor do we respond truly. Our
defensive twists and contortions prevent us from shooting straight, and we end up
missing the mark, or “sinning.”
The Christian concept of “original sin” contends that every human being is born
into a state of sin, and that this inheres in the human condition. Feeling that we are
inherently bad, that something is intrinsically wrong with us, is this not the essence of
the narcissistic wound? We do not know what it is or what we did, but narcissistic
wounding casts a shadow over the self—feeling not okay, not all there, shameful, like
something is wrong in the very core of our being. The narcissistic wound from our
family of origin leaves an indelible imprint until healed. Would “original wound” be a
more accurate concept than “original sin” to describe this basic human experience? But
this would be to fall into the same reductionistic trap that psychology has fallen into all
along when attempting to understand spiritual experience. For all of this, while true,
does not entirely cover or explain “original sin.” From an integral perspective, original
sin began with the plunge into matter as spirit passed into a swoon of unconsciousness.
The separation from spirit is the source of our existential pain, just as being separated
from our soul and the Divine also causes us to miss the mark and “sin” as well. There is
a psychological as well as a spiritual dimension to these notions. A psychological per-
spective clarifies how what are usually considered purely spiritual concepts may often
be better described as psycho-spiritual.
4. Wounding is an extraordinarily complex phenomenon. It occurs many, many
times in the course of development, at all levels of intensity and depth. There are layers
and layers of defenses against this wounding that generally require years or even
decades of working through. This discussion considers wounding in a global way as it
affects all levels of the self. Each level has immense subtlety and complexity to it and
to the defensive structures around it.
Now that psychological wounding has been placed in the larger context of the
depth dimensions of the psyche, the following, four-level model of consciousness can
be tentatively advanced:
 Notes to Chapter 3 213

Conscious self (mix of authentic self with false self )

Outer Being Defenses and unconscious shielding
(frontal self; Impasse (existential void; hole; non-being)
body-heart-mind; Core wounding
organism) Authentic self ’s potential
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Collective unconscious
Inner Being Inner mind
Inner vital
Inner or subtle body (energy body; chakras)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
True eing True mind
True heart
True physical
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Psychic Being Psychic center (true soul)
(with atman and
overhead planes above)

Conventional Western psychology charts only the outer being, the frontal physi-
cal-emotional-mental organism with which the self identifiesh. Jungian psychology,
psychosynthesis, Ali’s diamond school, and other transpersonal approaches go beyond
traditional Western maps to include portions of inner being, but Eastern psychology
excels at precisely charting the three inner levels of being.
The conscious self is a mixture of the true self, primary and compensatory struc-
tures, on the one hand, and the false self, or defensive structures, on the other. What is
authentic and what is inauthentic can only be known retrospectively, after successful
psychotherapy allows the false self images and structures to fall away. Before that, inau-
thentic patterns created from the defensive structures below are designed to cover, hide,
and compensate for the loss of key energies and aspects of the self. For example,
wounding around early dependency may by patched over with a defensive covering of
independence and an outward denial of neediness, or it may result in dependent clingi-
ness. Similarly, failure in affirming the nascent authentic self can result in low self-
esteem and/or a covering of (false) grandiosity to hide the “bad” self.
Because of this amalgam of the authentic and inauthentic self, the conscious self
tends, on the one hand, to be highly role-bound, operating from repetitive patterns that
keep it safely away from threatening situations and feelings, using inauthentic ways of
relating that reinforce these defensive structures. As these patterns and neural networks
are reinforced and strengthened, real change becomes more difficult. On the other
hand, there are areas where the conscious self is creative and spontaneous. These rela-
tively conflict-free areas of the self are able to expand as the self becomes more inte-
grated and more fully connected to its depths.
Below the conscious self are many layers of defenses. The earlier simplified chart
does not reveal the many layers of defensive shielding that exist and slowly get worked
through in depth psychotherapy (“peeling the onion”). However, it should be noted that
214 Notes to Chapter 3

defenses such as disavowal, repression, and dissociation are themselves multilayered. As

the defenses gradually erode in psychotherapy, or at times of fragmentation and stress,
the impasse layer is revealed. Here the gestalt term impasse is used, called the hole in
Ali’s approach, or the void in existentialism, a state of deficiency or empty nothingness.
This is not the full, rich void of spiritual experience but an empty, deficient void of
insufficiency and isolation, a cover for the wounded self and a first move away from the
authentic self ’s potentials. It is like a scab that covers the wounded self but is itself a
kind of non-being. It is also multilayered, with first experiences of this state of defi-
ciency oftentimes resonating with more recent life experiences, for example of the 20s
or 30s, then, going deeper, revealing periods in the person’s teens of rejection, isolation,
and shame, leading to earlier layers of this experience in latency and early childhood.
This zone of empty deadness is difficult to tolerate, because it is a state of loss of the
authentic self, of its abilities and potentials, and it is generally avoided.
It also appears in states of fragmentation, when we experience failure in work or
relationships or blows to self-esteem. More often we try to escape from feeling this
through coping strategies and inauthentic ways of being designed to cover up such
shameful feelings. However, in tolerating and exploring this, it gradually melts away to
reveal the core wounding from earliest childhood and such shame-laden feelings as
badness, unworthiness, inadequacy, isolation, and alienation (literally feeling at times
“like an alien”), a depressed, depleted experience of self.
When deep, experiential exploration of this vulnerable, hurt self occurs, there can
be a healing of these early wounds and an emergence of the authentic self that lies
beneath these early wounds. That is, when the core wounding is fully felt, expressed,
worked through from first one side, then another, and then another, this wounding is
cleansed and healed, and it moves forward as it gives way to the energies and potentials
of the authentic self. This nucleus of possibilities, however, does not emerge fully grown
but undergoes a slow developmental period of growth and modification that requires
being welcomed and lovingly invited to come forth via nourishing, safe relationship(s).
The outermost layer of the inner being is the collective unconscious, discovered by
Jung, with the archetypes as universal organizing principles. Integral psychology differ-
entiates three aspects to the inner being—the inner mind, which is much larger and
more powerful than the surface mind, more open to the universal forces of the cosmic
mind; the inner heart or vital, which is aware of other forces, beings, and the universal
impulses and forces of the intermediate plane; and the inner or subtle physical, con-
sisting of the auric field, the chakras, and what is sometimes called the energy body.
The third level consists of the true being, the true mental, true emotional, true
physical being. This appears to be what Jung referred to as the Self and what Ali calls
“essence.” It is a source of non-egoic, spiritual qualities and represents the atman on
each plane. Because it relates to the atman, an exceedingly difficult realization, it is dif-
ficult to remain in the state of the true being for very long. These intervening layers of
the inner being and true being may or may not become conscious as the psychic center
awakens, or, more commonly, they may become conscious without the psychic center
awakening.
The fourth level is the psychic being, with the atman and overhead planes above.
The true soul or psychic center is the inmost core of our being, the secret foundation
of psychological life, as it puts forth a new outer being (svabhava) each lifetime that
 Notes to Chapter 7 215

expresses its authentic nature. A pure flame of aspiration and bhakti for the divine, the
psychic center is the evolutionary element within us, progressing ceaselessly until it
achieves union with the Divine. This radiant center of love and wisdom is our one infal-
lible source of guidance, a discriminating intelligence whose influence we need to cul-
tivate to discover our life path.

CHAPTER 4
1. Traditional evolutionary psychology considers only our animal past to under-
stand motivation. Integral evolutionary psychology also includes our spiritual future in
assessing the forces acting upon the psyche in its developmental trajectory.
2. Another casualty of postmodernism is the entire concept of authenticity. This
is a logical outcome of its denial of the depths. From postmodernism’s surface view, if
all positions and perspectives have validity, then authenticity itself becomes impossible,
for how can one part be more authentically me than any other part? However, when we
discover our depths, we find that some aspects of our experience are indeed more truly
and authentically who we are, while other, more surface feelings, behaviors, or images
are but masks designed to cover over certain feelings and are to that degree inauthen-
tic. Authenticity inheres in a psychology of the depths.
3. Aurobindo goes beyond to describe two further transformations: the spiritual
and the supramental. The spiritual transformation brings down the spirit’s power and
light from above, and the supramental transformation ends in a perfect spiritualized,
truth-consciousness that transforms the very cells of the body itself. These are far away
from most people, whereas the psychological and psychic transformations that are the
focus of this book are within reach of all sincere aspirants.

CHAPTER 7
1. Sri Ramanuja has seven types of practice for the development of bhakti.
These are:
1. Viveka—the practice of discrimination, being careful what we take into our
system through the senses. Particular attention is given to food, so that only
purity-generating and sattwic (peace-giving) food is eaten, prepared by
people and conditions that are pure.
2. Vimoka—resisting passions such as anger, sexuality, and jealousy.
3. Abhyasa—practices such as worship, devotional singing, and visiting holy
places on pilgrimages.
4. Kriya—the fivefold duties of life. These include duties toward divine spirits
and angels through rituals, duty to spiritual teachers through reading sacred
texts and literature, duty to ancestors, and duty to nature (an ecological
awareness that explicitly affirms that animals and plants as part of God’s
216 Notes to Chapter 7

creation and are not to be destroyed or exploited) through cultivating an

attitude of harmony.
5. Kalyana—practicing virtues such as truth (satya), kindness, straightforward-
ness, love of all beings, and non-harming (ahimsa).
6. Anavasada—keeping a cheerful and positive attitude, free from despair and
pessimism.
7. Anuddharsa—equality, not yielding to depression or excitement.
Other examples of bhakti yoga include the ninefold discipline from the Bhagavat
Purana. These are:
• hearing about God’s majesty
• singing His praise with others (devotional singing, chanting)
• mantra, or silent remembrance of God through repetition of his names
• worship of holy images
• saluting His presence in all beings
• cultivating an attitude of servantship
• service to God in His aspect of society
• entertaining intimacy with Him
• making a wholehearted and an unreserved offering to Him
From the stream of Sri Nimbarka’s tradition of dvaitadvaita (duality in unity) comes
the following six precepts:
1. Cherish love for all, for all beings constitute God’s body
2. Abstain from evil to all and hostility to Him
3. Faith, that God will protect the devotee
4. Choosing God as one’s shelter
5. Entrusting oneself to Him
6. Humbleness, absence of pride, readiness to accept misfortune, and failure as
the Divine will
Other examples could be given, but it becomes clear that all schools of bhakti yoga have
roughly similar principles and practices.
2. The psychological work of opening the heart is to allow the full force of emo-
tion to flow freely. Thus work with anger, for example, aims not just at completing
unfinished anger from the past but at letting anger flow without obstruction, in all
ranges and intensities, so it may organize our actions and complete its purpose. Our
skill at expressing anger increases with practice.
Anger is not bottomless, as many spiritual traditions assert, nor is it a meaningless
sign of sin or impurity. It has a meaning and an essential purpose in living. But to make
sense of its energy and action we must get to its roots. For this it is necessary to go all
the way, to encounter the full depths of violence, resentment, and rage that live in the
human psyche. Only in making the journey into the underworld and thoroughly
plumbing these depths can we find the redeeming light hidden in these dark recesses
and make it available for our life.
The cultural fear of anger is understandable, for repressed anger can erupt in
uncontrolled and destructive ways. Seeing rage-prone people and some borderline per-
 Notes to Chapter 8 217

sonality disorders who seem helpless in the grip of anger further reinforces this fear
(and living with such unrestrained, out-of-control anger also has serious health conse-
quences, such as high cholesterol, atherosclerosis, high incidence of heart attacks, etc.).
Yet the “rage-aholic” is hardly the model of skill at relating to anger, merely the dark,
flip side of our cultural aversion to it.
The research evidence on anger is confused and contradictory in how to best work
with anger. Since many researchers are not trained in depth psychology, the questions
asked and the measures used will oftentimes confound the results. Clearly some people
only get angrier in doing cathartic expression, but here the self structure of the person
must be considered. If the person is borderline or rage-prone, until the underlying per-
sonality structure becomes more cohesive and the real roots of rage-proneness are dis-
covered, then mere catharsis will be ineffective and will perpetuate poor impulse
control. On the other hand, catharsis can be very helpful for overly constrained, con-
stricted, neurotic clients who inhibit the expression of anger.
Working with and resolving excessive anger can take many forms depending upon
the personality organization of the person, the family history, emotional intelligence,
and resilience. For most people it is a matter of unflinchingly, courageously opening up
to these energies, fully feeling and exploring them so that rather than being controlled
by them they can truly master these powerful life energies.
As anger is owned and its guidance incorporated into daily life, and as the influ-
ence of the psychic center grows, working with anger can become a psycho-spiritual
practice. Expressing our anger authentically and compassionately becomes a way of
honoring anger’s wisdom and the soul’s love. Truth in the context of compassion is the
goal—neither suppressing nor denying anger out of a spiritual “should,” nor indulging
in anger in a destructive way. Speaking our truth in a loving way that is both clear and
direct as well as respectful and loving is a challenge that takes us to another level in
relating to anger (see Cortright, Kahn, and Hess, 2003, for a fuller discussion).

CHAPTER 8
1. While such stopgap measures may be useful for reducing stress in the short
run, by focusing on symptom removal rather than working with the underlying causes
this approach works well as a Band-Aid but does not address the larger, depth psycho-
logical issues that have created the problem in the first place. Further, it is not clear
which level of the heart is being referred to in these studies. While the physical heart
is what is being measured in most of this literature, from an integral perspective this is
just the most outward, material level of the heart. Some of what occurs in this research
may in fact be tapping into the heart chakra and the feelings from this deeper, subtle
heart within, but the published research seems to conflate the different levels of the
heart.
2. In awakening our body consciousness there are several points of approach.
Simple mindfulness is the most direct and powerful discipline for reinhabiting our
physical being. Becoming aware of our physicality and sensuality means really paying
218 Notes to Chapter 8

attention to the joy inherent in embodied living. Whether showering, walking along
the street, looking at the world, reaching for a book on a shelf, or talking to a friend,
our world abounds with sensory wonders. Charlotte Selver’s groundbreaking work with
“sensory awareness” stands as one of the great developments in the human potential
movement. Her work influenced a couple of generations of somatic and existential
therapists.
A second point of approach involves healing the emotional dissociation from the
body. This was Wilhelm Reich’s great insight into how defending against emotional
wounding involves a flight into the mind and out of the body. All of the humanistic,
existential, and somatic therapies derive from this fundamental understanding, and
focusing is perhaps the essential attentional skill needed to heal dissociation. All body-
oriented therapies, including gestalt, bioenergetics, Hakomi, breathwork, Reichian
therapy, core energetics, bodynamics, and existential therapy, bring consciousness back
into the body and attend to physical sensations and the breath, and all are useful in an
integral approach to psychotherapy, for all help bring the right hemisphere more fully
on-line.
A third point of approach is through improving physical health. This involves
many different disciplines. Although not a substitute for therapeutic working through,
physical exercise, when done consciously and with the aspiration for deepening somatic
awareness, is one of the best means for improving mental alertness, emotional well-
being, and physical health. The West has excelled in the development of physical exer-
cise for the outer body, from muscle fitness, strength, and endurance, to aerobic
training. The East has excelled in the development of subtle physical exercise that
draws the vital energy from the subtle physical body into the outer, physical body
through such disciplines as yoga, tai chi, qi gong, and aikido. Together, Western (yang
approaches) and Eastern (yin approaches), or physical and subtle physical, exercises
bring new vitality and aliveness to our physical being and bring out the energetic, subtle
substratum underlying our body.
Bodywork and subtle bodywork are further means to improve physical health.
Bodywork such as Rolfing, Feldenkrais, massage, osteopathy, cranial-sacral work, and,
of course, Western medicine offers immense new possibilities for improving health.
Subtle bodywork, such as acupuncture, homeopathy, Reiki, and energy work, can work
with the subtle physical or energy body and correct imbalances that can later result in
disease.
Diet is a significant factor in health, and an integral approach must take into
account a number of factors:
• the type of food a person eats (balance of protein, fat, carbohydrate; type of
fats; quality of protein and carbohydrate; how cooked, etc.)
• the supplements taken
• the drugs consumed in eating (caffeine, chocolate, theobromine)
• the amount of food eaten
• the consciousness put into the preparation (by cooks, etc.)
• the consciousness of eating itself
Eating too much reduces consciousness; eating overly stimulating foods or stimulants
or certain supplements can produce central nervous system stimulation that takes a
 Notes to Chapter 8 219

person away from the heart and into the mind; some foods and supplements stimulate
the outer consciousness and reduce awareness of the inner consciousness; eating for
emotional reasons becomes a way to regulate affect and diminish awareness; the act of
eating itself is generally fairly unconscious, as is the energy put into the food during
preparation. All of these factors figure into how food affects consciousness.
Strengthening the immune system occurs both through attending to the afore-
mentioned elements and working through the emotional wounding and defenses. The
testimony from a number of individuals who are sensitive to subtle energy fields is that
emotional difficulties have a significant impact upon the subtle body and the auric field
(Brennan, 1987, 1993; Myss, 1988, 1996). These distortions in the subtle body eventu-
ally cause disease or breakdown in the physical body. Improving emotional well-being,
on the other hand, not only positively affects the energy field, but it also directly
improves the immune system (Pert, 1997, 1998). Improving one’s immune system and
overall health and vitality has the side effect of enhancing mood, energy, and emotional
well-being.
Beyond these techniques and practices, it is the aspiration to awaken the body that
draws to us people, teachers, books, and experiences that aid in this process. As the
body awakens and consciousness deepens into the inner ranges of physical being, there
is a spontaneous opening up to these inner energies that will gradually refine the body.
Refinement brings a greater sensitivity and lightness to the body, a greater responsive-
ness to subtle physical, psychic, and spiritual forces. It is not that a refined body is
skinny and a dense body is fat; refinement implies nothing about the outer form or
shape of the body. Rather, refinement pertains to the quality of the substance of the
body. As the body awakens and refines, new levels of awareness develop, and the mir-
acle of embodiment reveals higher and deeper ranges of bliss, energy, vitality, light, and
harmony that become the new ground of our physical existence.
3. In discussing the psychic center or evolving soul, it is inevitable that some
will mistake their own limited experiences for the true thing. Already in the spiritual
marketplace there are self-proclaimed “spiritual teachers” who assert that they have
realized their psychic being and are helping their students do the same. However, to
one who has some degree of psychic realization, it is quite obvious through these teach-
ers’ words and actions that such assertions are the result of ego inflation and self-decep-
tion. The Mother counsels that if there is any doubt about whether an experience is the
psychic being, it is not. However, surety does not provide immunity from self-decep-
tion. The power of unconscious narcissism is great, and the lure of becoming a great
yogi or spiritual teacher is one of the first hazards encountered.
4. It has long been an article of faith in depth therapy (originally asserted by
Freud) that a client’s desire to get better is not sufficient motivation to fully engage
psychotherapy. Therefore, it is necessary to use the transference so the client will get
better in order to please the therapist. Integral psychotherapy challenges this assump-
tion and finds it an inadequate understanding of human motivation. It is an infan-
tilizing belief that derives from the psychoanalytic frame of reference and overlooks
the soul’s inherent drive for growth and fulfillment. Integral psychotherapy reverses
this so that pleasing the therapist is secondary, and the client’s aspiration for whole-
ness is primary.
220 Notes to Appendix A

APPENDIX A
1. Each of these different schools of Indian philosophy represents a certain spir-
itual experience, a certain status of consciousness. The experiences of the founders of
these schools became enthroned as the highest, and in the philosophical elaborations
that followed, all other spiritual realizations were then given a lower ranking. It is rare
to find a mature soul so well rounded and developed as to have extensive experience of
the full range of spiritual realizations. Sri Ramakrishna, a leading figure in the Indian
cultural renaissance in the late 19th century, was just such a master soul whose great
spiritual power helped galvanize Indian spirituality and sowed the seeds for an integra-
tion of the different wisdom traditions of the world. But Ramakrishna was not destined
to provide a philosophical basis or to give an intellectual expression to this depth of
spiritual realization. This was to be the task of Sri Aurobindo, a spiritual culminating
point in Indian philosophy.
2. Kevala advaita is right when it importantly stresses the reality of Brahman,
its formless, indeterminable, static aspect of nirguna and its impersonal nature. Yet it is
limited by admitting no other sides of Brahman into the picture. It errs in putting all
qualities, all differentiations of the universe, and the personal dimension of Brahman
into the category of illusion and dismissing them. This produces the unfortunate result
of world negation, where asceticism and self-denial are idealized as life and the mate-
rial plane is abandoned.
Visistadvaita and the related schools of suddhadvaita, dvaitadvaita, and advaya are
correct in pointing to the personal nature of the Divine, saguna Brahman, and the
bountiful qualities and attributes inherent in Brahman. They rightly stress the reality of
the world and the individual soul, but they limit themselves in relegating the imper-
sonal, static dimension of Brahman to a secondary status.
Dvaita importantly affirms the reality of the world and the reality of differentia-
tion. But its insistence upon the eternal relation of difference between souls and Brah-
man is a one-sided view of liberation, and it underemphasizes the spiritual possibility
of merging into the transcendent Ground.
Tantra goes farther in affirming the reality of existence, and its technique of a spir-
itual conquest of embodied life is preferable to a world-negating escape. Tantra’s chart-
ing of the subtle energy realm, the chakra system, and the kundalini process, along with
its focus on the Shakti or Divine Mother dimension, is essential to a complete spiritu-
ality. But even here the method leads to a liberation from material life and an eventual
escape from the round of birth and death. With its focus on physical and subtle phys-
ical energies in its practices it easily slips into a kind of subtle materialistic reduction-
ism that can ignore the central spiritual contributions of heart and mind by
concentrating instead on the energy body and the raising of kundalini energy up the
spine.
3. When the vital principle of Life manifested, it took up the physical level and
transformed it into something new: living cells that have different properties than inan-
imate matter. When Mind emerged out of Life, it further transformed matter: animal
 Notes to Appendix A 221

tissue is different from plant tissue. Each new level as it emerged turned its powers on
what came before it to produce an evolutionary shift in the previous levels.
In human beings, with the full emergence of mind, this process takes yet another
step forward. We see the results of this already, as mind now consciously turns its
powers on the evolutionary process. On the physical level, we have vastly improved
nutrition, medicine, and health care, better physical training and conditioning, result-
ing in better athletic performance, and longer life. We now stand on the threshold of
genetic manipulation that has the potential to further transform the physical level for
the better (though also the danger of harming our physical foundation if used prema-
turely). Mind improves the heart level through such methods as emotional healing and
psychotherapy, learning to relate to others more fully and lovingly, and more knowl-
edgeable and emotionally attuned child-rearing practices that result in less wounded,
more emotionally healthy adults. Mind improves its own level through better educa-
tion, new knowledge, new ways of learning, and neurally stimulating environments,
such as the Internet, computers, and cyberspace. As the spiritual transformation
unfolds, it in turn will effect a change in the mind, the emotional, and the body in order
to develop them even more fully and to better express the spiritual consciousness
within.
4. Most spiritual traditions seek a heaven away from the earth plane, a spiritual
beyond rather than a spiritualized existence here. The goal in the Impersonal paths is
to merge into the oceanic consciousness of Brahman (or Buddha-nature or Tao), extin-
guish the ego, and pass out of the manifest existence. Since life is seen as a mirage or a
pointless round of suffering, the best solution is to transcend it all and move into a
beyond. Mahayana Buddhism holds out the boddhisattva ideal, where compassionate
beings renounce enlightenment until all sentient beings achieve nirvana first. This is
much closer to an integral approach, but even here life is seen as something to get
beyond. To abandon the earth plane is still the goal, but compassion brings the helping
hand of the boddhisattva, who has the good grace to say, “After you.” Even most the-
istic conceptions see a heaven as the final salvation. Although most of the theistic tra-
ditions stress the reality of the world and the manifested universe, they also tend to
ascribe a lower reality to the material plane and to place a higher value on a heavenly
abode that is more perfect and eternal, the place of ultimate salvation.
This page intentionally left blank.
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 Index

acupuncture, 218 Buddhism, 33, 34, 52–54, 121, 122, 131,

affect regulation, 126, 227 176, 179, 181, 182, 187, 189, 201,
Aitareya Upanishad, 19 220, 231, 236,
aggression, 16, 60, 76, 79 Bugental, James, 107, 224
Agni, 145, 210, 211
Almaas, A. H., 22, 23, 223 central being, 13, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 37,
annamayakosha, 13 191, 211
antaratman, 4, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 45 central emotional, 16, 17, 18, 21, 26, 44,
anxiety, 14, 34, 56, 59, 64, 68, 83, 91, 94, 60, 67, 68, 76, 78, 134, 142, 159, 164
95, 117, 120, 129, 132, 141, 163, 168, Caitanya, Sri, 174
196, 201, 203, 205, 223 chaitya purusha, 23, 28, 30, 45
attachment patterns, 120, 129, 212 classical psychoanalysis, 16, 18, 21, 44
attachment theory, 129, 126, 129, 150, cognitive psychology, 14, 21
224 cognitive therapy, 14, 91, 105, 154, 158,
223
basic emotions, 127 collective unconscious, 22, 190, 193, 197,
Beck, Aaron, 14, 223 200, 201, 213, 214
behavior therapy, 14, 90, 91, 93, 96, 121 contemporary psychoanalysis, 16, 17, 18,
Bhagavad Gita, 92, 97, 100, 102, 138, 21, 56, 61, 210
172, 226 core energetics, 19, 218, 226
bhakti yoga, 6, 89, 90, 106, 110, 125, core wounding, 16, 53, 55–58, 59, 61,
138, 146, 163, 173, 177, 216 63, 65–69, 212–214
bioenergetics, 19, 99, 218, 226 Cornelisson, Matthijs, 12
bipolar disorders, 198, 200
bodhisattva, 221 de Chardin, Teilhard, 103, 104, 112
boundaries, 60, 61, 100, 175, 190, 199, depression, 14, 29, 56, 59, 64, 68, 91,
200 105, 115, 130, 131, 140, 216, 223
bodynamics, 218 detachment, 66, 68
Buddha-nature, 4, 5, 23, 24, 27, 28, 30, dialectical behavior therapy, 121
32, 106, 110, 111, 115, 161, 162, 166, disavowal, 61, 63, 64, 67, 68, 158, 214,
167, 191, 210, 211, 221 218

229
230 Index

dissociation, 19, 20, 55, 61–69, 214, 218 humanistic-existential, 19, 55, 56, 151,
Divine Mother, 138, 175, 178, 220 154, 162
DSM IV, 188, 189 humanistic psychology, 19, 21, 190, 226
dying process, 189, 194
id, 200
Eastern psychology, 3, 9–13, 22–29, 48, illumined mind, 24, 207, 211
51, 53, 72, 90, 96, 137, 162, 163, 213 illusionism, 4, 172
emotion research, 126, 127 imaginal realm18, 76
emotional brain, 13, 14 immune system, 219
emotional level, 15, 16, 21, 67, 158, 204 Impersonal Divine, 111, 138, 165,
energy body, 79, 80, 213, 214, 218, 220 168–170, 177, 179, 209
enlightenment, 24, 32, 42, 43, 166, 207, Indian psychology, 12, 97, 224
211, 221 inner body, 22
Epstein, Mark, 121, 224 inner mind, 22, 119, 208, 213, 214
Eros, 16 inner vital, 18, 22, 37, 119, 191, 208, 213
essential self, 28, 45, 104 intermediate plane, 22, 23, 108, 163,
evolution of consciousness, 4, 31, 33, 71, 191, 194, 198–201, 214
83, 180, 186, 212, internalization, 57, 213
existential psychotherapy, 19, 21, 115, intersubjectivity, 17, 21, 210
227 intuitive mind, 24, 207
experience vs. realization, 24 Ishwara, 27, 31, 37
Islam 25, 31, 138, 139, 168, 169, 179,
Fairbairn, W. R. D., 17, 40, 224 191
family systems, 17, 21
focusing, 19, 90, 100, 108, 112, 152–156, Jacobson, Edith, 40, 225
218, 224, 225 Joshi, Kireet, 12, 224
Freud, Sigmund, 2, 15–19, 40, 44, 59, jnana yoga, 6, 89, 90, 106, 110–113, 163,
69, 101, 102, 113, 123, 126, 146, 190, 177
219, 225 Judaism, 25, 31, 138, 139, 168, 169, 179,
191
Gebser, Jean, 103 Jung, Carl, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 27, 69,
Gendlin, Eugene, 19, 154, 155, 224, 225 125, 190, 192, 214, 225
Gerard, Robert, 5, 225 Jungian psychology, 21, 45, 119, 162,
gestalt therapy, 19, 27, 44, 116, 121, 226 210, 213
Grandcolas, Alain, 48, 225
Grof, Stanislav, 22, 188, 209, 210, 225 Kabbalah, 168
grounding, 20, 114, 194, 198–204 Kahn, Michael, 16, 217, 224, 225
karma yoga, 89–120, 139, 163, 177
Hakomi, 19, 121, 218 Kernberg, Otto, 40, 225
hatha yoga, 163 Klein, Melanie, 17, 40, 225
heart centered focusing, 154, 155 Kohut, Heinz, 17, 40, 44, 49, 56, 57, 225
heart chakra, 30, 143, 152, 153, 158, Krishnamurti, Jiddu, 111, 112, 121, 170,
217 225
higher mind, 24, 207, 208 kundalini, 163, 175, 187–201, 211, 220
holistic, 5, 13, 19, 61, 75 Kurtz, Ron, 19, 121, 225
homeopathy, 218 koshas, 13, 47, 90
 Index 231

Laing, R. D., 198, 209, 225 Pert, Candace, 66, 219, 226
left hemisphere, 150, 151, 155, 156, 160 phenomenology, 115
Linehan, Marsha, 121, 123, 226 Pierrakos, John, 19, 226
limbic system, 13, 14, 128 pranamayakosha, 13
Lowen, Alexander, 19, 226 primacy effect, 41
lower emotional, 16–21, 26, 44, 69, 76, psychic being, 23, 25, 29–51, 119, 141,
134, 144, 159 153, 154, 161, 185, 208, 213, 214,
Lukoff, David, 188, 189, 194, 226 219, 225
psychic transformation, 34, 38, 48, 72,
Madhva, Sri, 174 75, 77, 78, 80–84, 164, 215
Maharshi, Ramana, 111, 112, 199 psychoanalysis, 17–21, 40, 44, 45, 57,
manomayakosha, 13 60–62, 115, 126, 155, 156, 190, 209,
mayavada, 4, 172, 184 210, 224
meditation, 40, 107, 125, 128, 133, 147, psychodynamics, 159
174, 178, 185, 186, 199, 202, 204, psychological transformation, 69, 72, 74,
205, 209, 214, 215, 221, 234 75, 77, 80, 83, 84, 104
mindfulness, 55, 67, 78, 89, 111–124, psycho-spiritual crisis, 187, 189
160–163, 167, 168, 177, 204, 205, 217 psychosynthesis, 119, 162, 197, 213
Mother, the, 36, 44, 48, 56, 57, 59, 128, purnadvaita, 176, 179
129, 138, 199, 219
Murphy, Gardiner, 12, 226 qi gong, 79, 218

narcissism, 67, 68, 73, 159, 219, 225 Ramakrishna, 105, 138, 220
Nathanson, Donald, 58, 226 Ramanuja, 172, 173, 215
near-death experiences, 189, 194 refinement, 16, 28, 48, 50, 80, 81, 83,
neocortex, 13, 14 146, 164, 172, 219
neuroscience, 13, 76, 126, 128, 129, Reich, Wilhelm, 19, 61, 62, 209, 218
149–154 reincarnation, 4, 181, 182
Nimbarka, Sri, 173, 216 representational world, 40, 41
nirguna Brahman, 113, 166, 169, 171 repression, 16, 17, 61, 63, 66–69, 142,
nirvana, 4, 24, 68, 169, 171 143, 158, 214
nondualism, 168, 171–180 reptilian brain, 13, 14
nuclear self, 44, 45, 49 resonance, 77, 80–83, 156
reversal of consciousness, 48
object relations, 17, 21, 27, 40, 42–44, right hemisphere, 150, 151, 156, 160,
56, 101, 224, 225, 218
organizing principles, 60, 214 Rogers, Carl, 19, 145, 226
out-of-body experiences, 194
overmind, 24, 207–209 saguna Brahman, 113, 166, 169, 220
sat-chit-ananda, 4, 169, 170, 174
panic, 14, 201 Schore, Allan, 126, 227
Perls, Frederick, 19, 45, 65, 116, 226 Selver, Charlotte, 19, 218
Perry, John, 188, 193, 198, 200, 226 Sen, Indra, 5, 227
Personal Divine, 23, 31, 165, 167, 169, self psychology, 17, 21, 27, 40, 44, 56, 57
177–179, 209 self-regulation, 27, 66
personality disorders, 14, 122, 123 self structure, 41, 122, 217
232 Index

sex, 16 Taoism, 23, 24, 111, 121, 166, 169, 177,

sexuality, 26, 68, 70, 75, 76, 86, 89, 225 179
Shaivism, 175, 177 Thanatos, 16
Shakti, 37, 167, 175, 177, 178, 220 therapeutic orientation, 69
shamans, 23, 163, 189, 191, 220 Tomkins, Sylvan, 58, 59, 128, 227
Shankara, 111, 166, 171–174 transpersonal, 22, 188, 194, 199, 204,
Shiva, 5, 138, 167, 175, 177, 178 210, 213, 224, 226, 227
Shiva-Shakti, 177 tranquilizers, 91, 203
Siegal, Daniel, 81, 227 true being, 13, 22, 23, 43, 119, 208, 214
Skinner, B. F., 91
Smith, Houston, 3, 191, 227 Upanishads, 23, 24, 30, 45, 170, 172,
spiritual bypassing, 51, 68, 78, 85, 120 176, 227,
split-brain research, 150
St. John of the Cross, 139 Vallabha, Sri, 173, 174
St. Teresa of Avila, 138, 139 Vedas, 31, 145, 170, 176, 210
Stolorow, Robert, 60, 227 vibration, 18, 765, 77, 80–83
subtle body, 66, 79, 155, 157, 164, 175, vital level. See emotional level
191, 198, 213, 218, 219 visionary experience, 18, 78
Sufism, 168 visualization, 18, 142, 175
supermind, 24, 169, 208 Vivekananda, Swami, 3
supramental, 32, 181, 207–209, 215,
223 Washburn, Michael, 22, 189, 193, 227
svabhava, 27, 44, 45, 50, 75, 76, 93, 97, Wilber, Ken, 5, 22, 209, 210, 224, 227
98, 102, 104, 109, 119, 135, 214 Winnicott, D. W., 17, 40, 227
witness consciousness, 112, 115, 116,
tai chi, 79, 218 119, 121, 124, 133, 204, 205
Tantra, 79, 82, 175–179, 220
Tao, 5, 113, 166, 177, 178, 221 Yalom, Irvin, 19, 227
PSYCHOLOGY / RELIGIOUS STUDIES

Integral Psychology
Yoga, Growth, and Opening the Heart

Brant Cortright
Integral Psychology connects Eastern and Western approaches to psychology and healing.
Psychology in the East has focused on our inner being and spiritual foundation of the
psyche. Psychology in the West has focused on our outer being and the wounding of the
body-heart-mind and self. Each requires the other to complete it, and in bringing them
together an integral view of psychology comes into view.

The classical Indian yogas are used as a way to see psychotherapy: psychotherapy as
behavior change or karma yoga; psychotherapy as mindfulness practice or jnana yoga;
psychotherapy as opening the heart or bhakti yoga. Finally, an integral approach is
suggested that synthesizes traditional Western and Eastern practices for healing, growth,
and transformation.

“The discussion of how the three primary yogas—jnana, karma, and bhakti—can be
applied within Western psychotherapies is excellent. The account of mindfulness practice
is first-rate, as, too, is the discussion of bhakti practice and the opening of the heart.
The author has a great deal to contribute to an important area of inquiry.” — Michael
Washburn, author of Embodied Spirituality in a Sacred World

“Cortright’s synthesis of Eastern and Western spiritual and psychological perspectives

is insightful, well developed, and often profound. I have been stimulated to think about
psychotherapeutic problems from a larger perspective.” — John E. Nelson, M.D., author
of Healing the Split: Integrating Spirit Into Our Understanding of the Mentally Ill, Revised
Edition

At the California Institute of Integral Studies, Brant Cortright is Professor of Psychology

and Director of the Integral Counseling Psychology program. He is the author of
Psychotherapy and Spirit: Theory and Practice in Transpersonal Psychotherapy, also
published by SUNY Press.

A volume in the SUNY series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology

Richard D. Mann, editor

State University of New York Press

www.sunypress.edu