"SPIRITUALITY" AND OR AGAINST PSYCHOTHERAPY

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

“After many years of practice in Buddhist monasteries in Thailand, I could easily include hundreds of sentient beings in my loving-kindness meditation, but I had absolutely no idea how to communicate with other people.”

Jack Kornfield, American Buddhism teacher, psychotherapist, The Way with a Heart

Many paths lie before a man, man or woman, young or in years, who has made the decision to make his life different. Indeed, ANOTHER - not just from Monday, but who wants real changes in his life. For this intention to be successful, you need REAL DESIRE, COURAGE, DECISION TO ACT, AND ANOTHER PERSON. The other person is, of course, a collective image - there are many of them, others on the way to change. There is one more important, necessary thing that necessarily comes on the path “with a heart”. This is understanding or knowledge. This is knowledge about oneself, one's feelings, motives for actions, one's limitations and resources, one's taboos and permissions. This knowledge comes gradually with movement along the path - the more I know and accept myself, the more freedom and opportunity in my life, the more calmly and freely I accept other people.

What I have just written is a commonplace known hundreds of years before my birth and repeated many times. Why am I repeating myself? For several reasons - for me these are not just words, but something lived and accepted, not a declaration, but a life experience. The second reason - I want to write for a long time about other ways that, declaring similar things, create a snag, a tempting shiny shell with different inscriptions. And one more thing - in my life I definitely have the experience of "spiritual avoidance", and I feel that this topic is relevant for me.

While working with clients in my psychotherapeutic practice, I have repeatedly encountered those who underwent rebirthing, various bodily practices, and holotropic breathing. With great interest I listened to their stories about unusual experiences, images, visions. However, over time, I noticed that often the real life of these people did not change. When asked "what do these images and experiences mean to you?" My client shrugged eloquently - "it was cool." For me, the answer lies in the field of knowledge, that is, awareness, assimilation of the experience gained. In the absence of internalization of the knowledge gained in one way or another, it is impossible to use them. And the process of awareness presupposes a difficult and slow process, where the main “worker” is a person who desires changes, and the psychotherapist is not a shaman or a guru, but only a “helper”. True, a lot also depends on the professionalism and honesty of the "helper".

Meditation, reading mantras, yoga classes, various transcendental practices, reading spiritual books, a pilgrimage to the Pochaev Monastery, to the Pope or to the Dalai Lama, do not in themselves lead to changes. Repeated pronouncing of the word "halva" does not make your mouth sweet. Remember our “legitimate president” who visits the Athonite elders and who had “specifically at home” a gorgeous iconostasis, as well as his many “churched” associates. But God be with them, these are examples of "extreme cotton splitting" - so for brightness.

Interested in Nepal, I got a story about a trip to this country with a photo report. The report was excellent, the photos were great. One of the storytellers, leading the yoga studio, told with horror that some bad people eat yak meat. At the same time, she became more and more excited, repeating "meat, meat". By the end of this episode, I had a persistent feeling that she really wanted this very "meat" in real life.

While traveling in India, I spent some time in the company of yogis from Odessa. One of them not only did not eat meat, but also practiced abstinence from sex for several months. His anecdotes on this topic and views on passing ladies left no doubt about the artificiality of his own prohibition.

There are many such examples, I'm sure I'm not the only one. Often, choosing such a “spiritual” path looks like avoiding recognition and solving real problems, like running away from real choices and responsibility.

Being aware of yourself and your experience turns declarations into real value. My client (I quote the story with his permission), a sincere Christian believer, said the following at one of the meetings: “I understood the meaning of the commandment“Love your neighbor as yourself”! After all, first I need to learn to love myself, and only then can I love others."

I would like to continue with a quote from an interview with John Welwood, an expert in the study of the relationship between Western psychotherapy and Buddhist practice. (taken from www.derevo-peremen.kiev.ua/stati/psikhologiya/114-w)

“Spiritual avoidance is a term that I coined to describe the processes I observed in the Buddhist community where I stayed, as well as in myself. While most of us are genuinely trying to work on ourselves, I have noticed a widespread tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to bypass or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and milestones.

When we spiritually avoid something, we usually use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence - an attempt to rise above the raw and muddy side of our humanity before we fully embrace it and come to terms with it. with her. And then we tend to use absolute truth to belittle or deny relative human needs, feelings, psychological problems, relationship difficulties, and developmental defects."

Summing up the results of this article, I declare that I consider everyone's holy right to choose one way or another - regardless of my opinion, and I definitely do not claim to be the absolute truth in the last instance.

I want to say that I have met wonderful teachers, kind, simple and wise people in the practice of meditation, Hellinger constellations, psychotherapy seminars, in many other places. And there I saw people practicing "avoidance" - it doesn't matter with the help of what practices, prayers or actions. It sucks when people choose a teacher who cleverly manipulates the tinsel of declarations and plunges deeper into the quagmire of "illusory spirituality." You can also talk about choosing a teacher - perhaps in the next note.

I will be glad if what I have written will give impetus to new thoughts, ideas, opinions and actions.