Non-Ordinary States, Crisis and Growth.

bija · June 18, 2008

Non – Ordinary States, Crisis and Growth.

This short document wishes to highlight several key experiences in research of spiritual emergence and crisis, as well as the final transition to fullness of being.

In the beginning I would like to posture some very important questions. Would a state of consciousness different to our material day to day consciousness, be considered pathology (illness) if the experience had some difficult content, but in outcome showed positive growth in the development of a well balanced psycho-spiritual being? Would such a crisis necessitate tranquilization and numbing of conscious experience? Or, warrant a healing support network, for the entity to experience the full transition into wellness and fullness of being? And finally, what quantifies a spiritual emergence and crisis?

The spiritual emergence has been given in various story forms over time and history, based on human experience. In the Christian doctrine Jesus tells Nicodemeus, ‘man must be born again’. The call of nature shows us the worm and butterfly, the tadpole and frog. The ancient Vedic Indian culture spoke of vidya, or higher knowledge. In an almost unspoken knowing mankind has intuitively perceived of the unfoldment of consciousness, even if not experienced in a profound way with psycho-spiritual growth. Such a profound encounter leaves long lasting impression upon the human psyche.

Why should such a profound human experience be considered pathology in need of medicine to tranquilize? Considering the implementation of holistic transpersonal treatment (and ancient ritual) may bring forth positive psycho-spiritual growth. Such methodology has been practiced by ancient cultures in various forms, throughout thousands of years of human encounter with being. Shamanism, yoga, dance, song, art and ritual are various transpersonal universal practices. At a later date we will discuss non-ordinary states of consciousness themselves. Often these profound encounters contain spiritual content, which gives rise to new vision and experience of being.

So what quantifies a spiritual emergence and spiritual emergence crisis? The human psyche contains realms of unconscious experience which can manifest in grosser awareness. A kind of deepening of one’s state of being. These non-ordinary states of consciousness can have powerful transformative healing potential. So spiritual emergence and crisis may be considered growth stages in subjective and objective evolution of human awareness and consciousness. Some have called this state of being God consciousness, some tribal shamans have called it the underworld, both definitions contain powerful transformative potential. The second birth some have called it.

Rather than using old models of treatment such as neuroleptic medicine (considering spiritual emergence as so-called ‘pathology’), there is great need of trained professionals with insight and self knowledge, and also great need for well developed caring centres. Surely treatment of this often rare but beautiful essence of human experience - spiritual emergence with crisis, should be conducted in a dignified healing ritual, as the key to a new vision of growth in human encounter and wholistic wellness. The crisis may infact be the ‘holy encounter’ and ‘sacred wound’ of higher consciousness and a new spiritual state of being. Surrender to the higher self.

y.s. bija

bija · June 21, 2008

New Perspectives (observations from modern consciousness research) - Stanislav Grof pdf book - click here

bija · June 21, 2008

To distinguish transpersonal experiences from imaginary products of individual fantasy, Jungian psychologosts refer to this domain as 'imaginal'. French scholar, philosopher, and mystic, Henry Corbin, who first used the term 'mundas imaginalis', was inspired in this regard by his study of Islamic mystical literature (Corbin 2000). Islamic theosophers call the imaginal world, where everything existing in the sensory world has its analogue, 'alam mithal', or 'the eighth climate', to distinguish it from the 'seven climates', regions of traditional Islamic geography. The imaginal world possesses extension and dimensions, forms and colors, but these are not perceptible to our senses as they would be when they are properties of physical objects. However, this realm is in every respect as fully ontologically real and susceptible to consensual validation by other people as the material world perceived.

Spiritual experiences appear in two different forms. The first of these, experiences of the 'immanent divine', is characterized subtly, but profoundly transformed perception of the everyday reality. A person having this form of spiritual experiences sees people, animals, plants, and inanimate objects in the environment as radiant manifestations of a unified field of cosmic energy. He or she has a direct perception of the immaterial nature of the physical world and realizes that the boundaries between objects are illusory and unreal. This type of experience of reality has distinctly numinous quality and corresponds to Spinoza's 'deus sive natura', or nature as God. Using the analogy with television, this experience could be likened to a situation where a black and white picture would suddenly change into one vivid, 'living color'. When that happens, much of the old perception of the world remains in place, but is radically redefined by the addition of a new dimension.

The second form of spiritual experience, that of the 'transcendent divine', involves manifestation of archtypal beings and realms of reality that are ordinarily transphenomenal, that is unavailable to perception in the every day state of consciousness. In this type of spiritual experience, entirely new elements seem to 'unfold' or 'explicate' - to borrow terms from David Bohm - from another level or order of reality. When we return to the analogy with the television, this would be like discovering to our surprise that there exists channels other than the one we have been previously watching, believing that our TV set had only one channel.

The issue of critical imporatnce is, of course, the ontological nature of the spiritual experiences described above. Can they be interpreted and dismissed as meaningless phantasmagoria produced by a pathalogical process affliciting the brain, yet to be discovered and identified by modern science, or do they reflect objectively existing dimensions of reality, which are not accesible in the ordinary state of consciousness. Careful systematic study of transpersonal shows that they are ontologically real and contain information about important, ordinarily hidden dimensions of existence, which can be consensually validated (Grof 1998, 2000). In a certain sense, the perception of the world in holotropic states is more acurrate than our everyday perception of it.