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The Relationshipof Psychotherapy to Sacred Traditions

The Relationshipof Psychotherapy to Sacred Traditions

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Features in Both Traditions ThatAre Similar

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Human’s Perception Is Cloudedand Distorted

• Samsara: Buddhist :false world ofappearances

• Shadows: Plato’s cave

• Defenses: psychoanalysis

• Veils: Islam & Sufism

• Blind and deaf: Christianity

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Humans Are Divided Inside

• Sub-personalities: psychotherapy

• Small ‘I’s’: Gurdjieff, the Fourth Way

• Story characters: Sufi teaching stories

• Fragmentation and the failure to takeresponsibility for oneself

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Self Knowledge Is the Key toBecoming Whole Again

• Finding lost parts of oneself

• Re-integrating the disowned elements, theshadow of one’s self

• Healing the division between the ‘I’ and the‘not-I’

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Accepting the Whole Self …

• Making the unconscious conscious is painful• Psychotherapy: a systematic exposure of self-

defeating ways of thinking-feeling-behaving;learning how to label-tolerate-express emotions

• Sacred: the confession of sins• Sacred: accepting WHATEVER arises in

meditation• Prayer: the inner voice of conscience

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Humans Possess InnerResources

• Psychology: advanced states offunctioning (thinking, feeling, behaving)

• Sacred traditions:– The essence

– Connecting with the Divine

– Capacities of perception

– Immortal life

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Much Human Suffering-pain IsUnnecessary

• Product of ignorance and blindness

• Confusions resulting from inner divisionsand the deceits attempting to appearcoherent (‘ego, intellectualization,persona’)

• Product of significant habitual behavior

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Teacher: Regular PersonalContact

• Teacher

• Priest

• Guide

• Guru

• Therapist

• Leader

• Similar experiences• Seen, understood,

accepted AT LEASTSOME aspects of self

• Escaped from somefragmentions, distortions

• Can perceive thesearcher objectively &help him/her to be moreobjective abouthim/herself

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Features in Sacred Tradition &Psychotherapy that are Different

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Sacred Traditions Begin FromThese Ideas…

• An ordered intelligent universe

• Hierarchy

• Levels are reciprocally dependent

• Humans are low down on the scale ofbeing

• Humans serve purposes beyondthemselves

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Sacred Traditions & Human’sPurpose

• There is Service to God– the Truth underlying appearances– an inner voice or conscience– awaken get free from blindness

• And there is…• Service to Caesar: the ordinary world of

appearances– natural appetites and desires– illusions of power and freedom– our fantasies re: selves & humankind

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Human Development

Sacred Tradition– Awaken

– Fulfill another task

– Submit to a differentinfluence

– Make connection withheaven - living on earth

– A higher energy sourcebecomes available

– Ordinary life is changedtoward Sacred service

Psychological Tradition– Humans are at the center

of things

– Ordinary desires taken atface value & basis foraction

– No concept of a secondpurpose

– Becomes an elaboration ofthe illusion itself

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How to Begin Developing

Sacred Tradition– By recognizing the role of

the sacred traditions

– From disillusionment withone’s ordinary life & self &knowledge

– Coming to disbelieve (anddisidentify) from ordinarythought and emotion

– Opening to a deeper partof oneself (essence)

Psychological Tradition– By recognizing the validity

of psychological practices– By recognizing the pain of

self-defeating behavior– By strengthening our

ordinary self– By improving the ordinary

self according to ideas ofthe ordinary self

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The Knowledge Comes From…

Sacred Tradition

– A manifestation of thehigher levels aboutwhich they tell us

– Transmitted by achain of individuals

– Have always existed

– Deteriorate as theyspread

Psychological Tradition– Progressive

development sinceMesmer, 19th centuryhypnotists, Janet,Freud, etc.

– The employment ofthe scientific methodregarding humanfunctioning

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Relationship: Student & Teacher

– Sacred Tradition• - Teacher is in

some part of hisbeing an actualmanifestation of ahigher level

• - The hierarchycontinues toteacher’s teacher,etc.

Psychological Tradition- Difference in authoritybetween self and client- The difference changesin the course of thetreatment- Transference isdissipated

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Views of Consciousness

– Sacred Tradition• - Our consciousness is

very fluctuating,illusory

• - Extraordinarypersistent effort isneeded to steady it, letalone increase it

• - Like bike light dynamo

Psychological Tradition- We already

possessconsciousness

- Some of our partsneed to be found

- The light is burningalready

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The Last Definitions

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Religion

…that which takes you toGod is religion -- whateverstands between you andGod is “the world”

• Sheikh Ibrahim Gazua-Ilah

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Worship? Law? Reality?

What is worship?

To realize Reality.

What is the sacred law?

To do no evil.

What is reality?

Selflessness.

• Sheikh Abdullah Answari

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Prayer

“Prayer consists,” he said,“in hearing the complaintsof the aggrieved andassisting them; in helpingthe needy and theoppressed; in feeding thepeople and setting freethe captives fromcaptivity.”– Gharib-Nawaz

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Love

The possible love relationship between human beingsmust now include, and even be principally constituted by,the help that one human being can give another toward the aim of inner self-development.

To love one’s neighbor is to regard him/her as a being containing the spark of divinity… who is, at the same time, inneed of help in order to actualize his/her possibility.

-- Joseph Needleman

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References

• Skynner, A. C. R. (1976). The relationshipof psychotherapy to sacred tradition. In. J.Needleman & D. Lewis, (Eds.) On the wayto self-knowledge. ( 204-241). New York,NY: Knopf.

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