3 Factors That Impact Spiritual Evolution
The soul longs to be free. The nature of the mind is emptiness. Ego identity is formed around fear. The spiritual path is crowded with concepts, reifications, misunderstandings, resistance to change, bias, bigotry and blame.
The spiritual path is often referred to as:
- Expansion of Consciousness
- Inner Work
- Personal Development
- Spiritual Development
Whatever we call it, it is important to note a few of the primary issues that arise on the path.
The Inhibiting Role of the Inner Critic
The superego or inner critic is that little voice in our heads that damns us if we do or damns us if we don’t. Some people refer to the superego as the conscience, but this conscience is not objective. It is stuck in the past and rules our life and daily experience with a relentless tyranny.
The superego or inner critic is often referred to as the anti-libidinal soul as it functions to repress the life force not free it. Freud saw the superego’s role as one of controlling the subconscious forces in the psyche.
The superego is a necessary element in human psychological development, but it is not necessary for a psychologically healthy adult. A psychologically spiritually developed person can rely on their innate intelligence, logic and common sense to determine what is right or wrong in most situations. Normal human beings don’t need a coercive force constantly judging them.
Of course, what I refer to as normal is not the average Joe you meet on the street. Many people today lack the capacity to make sound decisions. Their decision making process is dominated by abberations in their psyche. They are, in effect, in a reactive mode most of their lives being dominated by unresolved issues from the past.
Work on the superego or inner critic is absolutely essential for spiritual Spiritual Development. Working on the superego helps to create the space for change, the space for us to have and learn from our experience in present time.
The Psychodynamic Power of Openness
When we have space for our experience, the soul unfolds. Space is the opposite of the contracted places in the mind that keep our lives running in circles. Most of us are familiar with the sense of endless repetition in our lives. The same old issues seem to keep surfacing in our lives.
The power of Space on the psyche is what allows the old to dissolve and fade away. What dissolves are old images about who and what we are. This dissolution can be quite frightening because who we think we are is dissolving. Our historical|familiar identity is what dissolves.
The resulting Space is where the new|deeper|fresh sense of self is revealed. Spiritual Development is more about losing what is false than getting something. The something we are seeking is what we already are. It is just hidden. So, spiritual growth is more about remembering than finding something new.
Being in the Now
If we have the Space to explore our experience, we will find ourselves moving more and more into the now. The soul is imprisoned in the past. Present experience for most is under the influence|tyranny of the past. Our experience is mostly the past being projected onto the present.
Many people became aware of the NOW through the recent book releases of Ekhart Tolle and A.H. Almaas.
Being in the now is not a mental state, a state of alertness or a matter of more focused attention. All of these factors can be more heightened when we experience the now, but in and of themselves, they do not define the now. The NOW supersedes time and space. When we experience the now, the familiar flow of events changes dramatically. Though events continue to happen with the flow of time, our experience becomes so immediate, that time loses significance except in terms of orienting things. Our experience is no longer dominated by the past or concerns with the future.