"Spirituality" and unconsciousness

I have written a great deal about the ways in which the world in which we grow up ensures that we become (and then remain) unconscious. Perhaps much of what I have written is obvious, at least to people with a "left" or "radical" orientation. It may be equally obvious to anyone with a "spiritual" orientation, too. I would therefore like to say a few words about what I keep finding amongst people who practise various spiritual traditions and/or who operate within such a framework. This is what we wrote about it in the "Philosophy" page of our website (www.consciouslivingseminars.com ):

"Spirituality, the divine, God and religion

It may have become apparent by now that nothing has been written about the spiritual dimension, about higher states of consciousness, or the nature of religious experience, in spite of the role they have played in our (Harbans’s and Andrew’s) lives. There is a very good reason for this. Over the past few decades so many books have been written (or ancient ones republished) on these matters that it has become almost impossible to use spiritual concepts authentically and meaningfully. We believe that, as each of us becomes more aware or more conscious, we begin to have experiences for which terms like 'spiritual', 'religious' or 'divine' are appropriate. Both of us (Harbans and Andrew) have at times had such experiences. Both of us have occasionally experienced 'higher states of consciousness' such as what some have called 'Sixth state consciousness' or 'Love, illumination consciousness'. We believe that the time to talk about them - if, indeed we need to talk about them at all - is when we are in the experience or immediately following such an experience. Then, the words will be connected to the experience and this will be obvious to anyone listening to the person sharing such an experience. From such a space people will sometimes say things which, when heard with our normal consciousness, may sound bizarre, or uncaring or cruel. This is because these words, when connected to such experience, 'mean' something very different to the same words not so connected. As the Zen master said:

'Those who know do not speak.Those who speak do not know'.

If you have had such experiences you may 'connect' with various writings by different spiritual teachers. You may find that different concepts can equally adequately fit your experience. If you have not had such experiences you will simply confuse yourself or, worse, become one of the millions who 'talk the talk' but do not 'walk the walk'. We find it quite discomfiting to listen to such talk and do not wish to add fuel to this. So the emphasis, in all our groups, is on acknowledging, accepting and respecting your experience. That does not mean we have to agree with the intellectual content or that we have to condone actions that may flow from such experience. It simply means that whatever is going on for you at this moment is exactly what is going on for you at this moment, no more, no less. Our aim is to support people to grow to greater and greater levels of awareness, irrespective of the content of this awareness. This is conscious living".

Since writing the above (in mid-2002) I have become even more concerned at the misuse of spiritual language. If, for whatever reason, a person is unconscious, the nature of the protective mechanism used to conceal this unconsciousness makes little difference. But when someone uses spiritual concepts to hide such a state - and especially if they have been well trained and are articulate - it becomes both more difficult to spot and more difficult, therefore, to heal. The most dangerous situation of all, however, is when the level of "dissociation" is severe as a result of very painful or traumatic early-childhood (or later) experiences. Many spiritual traditions teach that these can be healed by positive thoughts or visualisations, by bathing them in "the light" and by various other similar techniques. This is not our experience. On the contrary, we have seen people have psychotic breakdowns as a result of the unresolved, unhealed wound beneath the veneer of a "spiritual" rationalisation. I will continue with this soon.