Man's Need for the Spiritual Expansion of Psychology

After so many decades as a psychologist and psychotherapist, helping people deal with the issues they face in life and then guiding those who are both willing and committed along the path of Sufism, I feel it is time that the field of psychology wakes up to the real make-up of human beings to help them realise more of their own true real potential. It seems that the world is in great need of that. For this purpose after saying my piece here, I will be sending out articles from authors around the world who have also been writing about what the spiritual realisation of man in general, and Islamic and Sufi psychology in particular, can offer psychology, as well as what limitations they highlight in the field of psychology as it currently stands.

Western Psychology, in all its theories and applications, treats only one level of the human being. However varied and extensive this level seems theoretically and experientially, it is nonetheless one level which is the personhood called personality. There is not therefore, a coherent theory in psychology dealing with various levels of the human being, nor of course, is there a treatment based on such a view.

Consequently, psychology seems to remain a tool of problem-solving. Although this may not seem to be a problem, and is in fact useful when one has issues or difficulties in life, when we look at attempting to help society one person at a time, and from within the paradigm of a single level of personality, it is clear that this paradigm does not help the masses or society as a whole. We can see that as time has gone by, despite the fact that the number of psychologists is increasing every year the number of people suffering from various pathologies increases at a rate that exceeds the ever-growing number of psychologists.

It is important to open our eyes and take that into consideration and want to know 'what has been going wrong'. One important realisation is that when society throws God out of the picture of day to day life and people themselves have sat in the place of God, then all fields of endeavour, from the sciences and psychology to medicine and politics (to name just a few), are affected and are seen through the distorted view of that one-dimensional personality. Unfortunately religions have at times also unintentionally contributed to this problem.

Let us look at this problem in the field of psychology from another angle. God has created each and every human being, with various levels of being. The inability to recognise this reality creates a closed-in view of human beings which actually leads to the emergence of myriad forms of pathology, as we have seen manifesting as time has gone by. Further, in its ignorance of higher realities, psychology has confined itself to helping people adjust their experience of their identity within only a narrow band of self-awareness and problem solving whilst unknowingly preventing them from recognising the ontological substratum of their being. Adding to these negative consequences is that when psychology maintains this narrow view of human beings' make-up, it tends to keep people imprisoned in that narrow level.

Again, that is not the fault of individual psychologists, rather, it is the shortcoming and ignorance of the mainstream perspective of human reality defined and limited by the post-modern worldview which in turn overwhelmingly influences the university programs and teaching and training of psychologists.

Philosophy, by way of comparison, from the time of its early fathers Plato and Aristotle, has always tied itself to the development of the soul's virtues and the awareness of higher levels of man. Although philosophy has been deeply affected by modern western consciousness, there have been philosophers and others throughout the centuries, whose knowledge of philosophy did not end just in a mental appreciation of philosophy and instead it moved them internally to the realisation of spiritual reality. This is unfortunately not the case for psychology, with the exception of C.G. Jung and W.R. Bion only to some degree, as psychology has kept itself void of this expansion. Psychology, in its defence, also faces two very important obstacles in this shortcoming, its need to survive as a university based education, and the need to respond to external regulations, financial and otherwise.

Along these lines we might wonder what could have occurred in psychology if Freud had not been so anti-religion. Freud saw that humans are a symbolic creature, whose greater part is hidden from themselves, whose source of life, the Id, lives through them making them live out symbolic meanings that they are not aware of. In all these ways, and others, he was on the right track, but he did not extend his investigations beyond the personality due to his lack of knowledge of man's spirituality and his rejection of religion.

The fundamental point, overlooked by Freud and almost all of psychology since, which cannot be overemphasised, is that spirit is the reality. Despite how much the word 'spirituality' has been watered down and misused the spirit is nonetheless the reality of the person despite not being visible to the eye of the senses.

Western culture has a great need for a psychology that can address our problems of living as well as steer us toward the real reason for the journey of life. Humans need to be freed from their personalities, specifically the ego-mind of their personality which breeds self-orientation, since that would take people to the wrong direction and away from the reality of their essential being.

From a higher point of view, psychology would do well to open its theoretical eyes and open its arms to the recognition and realisation of human beings' real make-up - not devoid of its spirit and soul. If psychology and psychotherapy were grounded in spiritual awareness, it would be the best vehicle that I know of that could take man to the higher levels of his God given make-up equipping him to handle his problems differently and more meaningfully.

Although superficially at times Sufism appears to intersect with the domain of psychology, beyond the appearance of that intersection, there is a significant difference that exists between Sufism and psychology. All of man's issues and problems in life pull him in the direction of problem solving and psychology sees its role as assisting humans solve these problems. Sufism resists the temptation to merely assist in this way, instead recognising the real task of the human, it views these issues as both a reflection of man's spiritual disconnection and understanding, and as potential doorways towards higher levels of being. True Sufism maintains a deep awareness from its most basic level, to the purpose of man's journey of life in coming to this world; which is for transcending its lower self and realising its higher self and thereby discovering its connection to the Divine according to its metaphysical reality.

Sufism has always maintained that both Reality* and the human being contain various levels of being. The inner journey of man in this life should be increasingly towards the higher levels of the human being and the transcendence to Divine knowledge which would be possible only through the inner knowledge. This journey calls for the awareness and realisation of the many aspects and levels of the human being.

Maulana Rumi's famous lament captures this awareness and longing.

All days and all nights I am asking myself
     Why am I heedless of my states of being

Where did I come from, what was the purpose of my coming?
     Where am I going to? Won't you show me my homeland

I'm left deeply wondering, why did He make me?
     Or what was His purpose of my making

Until with certainty You don't show me my path and place
     I won't rest for a moment and be quiet

The journey to God is a universal truth, and Islam and Sufism has its own articulation of that truth.

I have practiced psychotherapy for over 50 years both in the United States and in Australia and I have been on my spiritual journey through Sufism for the last 30 years. In my work to bring Sufism into psychology I established the first Sufism and Psychology Interest Group in the Australian Psychological Society (the first Sufism and Psychology group in a major Psychological society in the world) after which I was the Inaugural Convenor of that Sufi Psychology Interest Group for a few years. Unfortunately, only a few years after I left the Sufi Psychology Interest Group, it came to an end.

Having gone through my own spiritual journey I have become aware of how void of the reality of the actual journey of life psychology has kept itself, and how it keeps one in the prison of the illusion of knowledge of one's personality.

With my familiarity and awareness of both fields I feel it is incumbent upon me to help others by familiarising people with this very important situation that has gone largely unrecognised, except by a few. That is the whole purpose of this article and the articles that will follow, as I recognise that unless there is a demand from enough people, things cannot and will not change.

Following this I will begin sending articles on Islamic and Sufi Psychology approximately every month to help raise awareness of this issue.

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