'Psychology and spirituality helps transformation'

World Congress 2008:

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Spirituality and psychology has made important advances that have brought us closer to understanding people's behaviour and thought processes and are today understood as very distinct approaches to life and knowledge.

Major spiritual texts of ancient India, China and Greece were explicitly psychological in nature but the modern discipline of psychology-developed in the context of a long-standing differentiation of the physical sciences from religion-took the side of "value-free," statistically-normative or "objective" science and founders of this new discipline, such as Wilhelm Wundt and William James, often included consciousness, mystical experiences and exemplary saintliness as significant topics.

But the emphasis on scientific quantitative methods led psychology to downplay or avoid such qualitative, value-laden and intrinsically subjective topics and in the mid-twentieth century behaviourist doctrines often went so far as to deny the existence of inner experience altogether.

The intersection of psychology and spirituality within previously overlooked depths of consciousness has come of age and deserves further exploration. To continue these efforts within the spiritual renaissance worldwide, the Association of Transpersonal Psychology and the Infinity Foundation have organised this East-West exchange.

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by Rosanne Koelmeyer Anderson

In an interview with Nirmalan Dhas, a professional counsellor, a delegate representing Sri Lanka at the World Congress 2008 in India on psychology and spirituality he spoke on the 'Role of spirituality in civilizational transformation', the topic presentation to be made by the delegation from Sri Lanka at the forthcoming Congress this week.

Over one hundred and fifty scholarly presentations based on conceptual analysis and clinical work will be presented. The delegate explained that the action-oriented international networking event aims to foster global collaboration, demonstrations projects and co-authorships among the representatives for future enhancement in the fields of spirituality and health care, sacred marriages, family life and aging, spirituality of grief and dying, women and spirituality and many other related topics.

'It appears, that the world is home to two very different types of people, the dominant perceptual paradigm and the emergent perceptual paradigm he explained. One type (as in the dominant perceptual paradigm) see themselves as autonomous entities within a world, that is a collection of discrete objects that have been created in time by a god or gods and which will come to an end in time as well and most people see the world in this way'.

'The other type(the emergent perceptual paradigm) sees themselves as being amongst an infinity of perceptual mechanisms being generated by an universal process that has neither beginning nor end and which proceeds along endless evolutionary pathways of its own perceptions. However, those who see the world this way constitute a very small extremely dynamic and seemingly increasing minority', he explained.

'This is however not a black and white situation. Though most people live in the dominant perceptual paradigm most of their lives some of them spend varying amounts of time in the emerging one.

Some are able to cross over and remain in the emerging perceptual paradigm for longer than others while some accidentally find themselves within the emerging perceptual paradigm. Others deliberately go there. Some are thrown there as a result of traumatic events they face in life.

A few cross over of their own choice and choose to remain there most of the time or there may even be some who are born into the emerging perceptual paradigm and who live there all their lives'.

'It is these few who spend all or most of their lives within the emerging perceptual paradigm who are fixing it, allowing it to emerge in their minds and consolidate itself through their lives.

They are the ones who are working on the design and construction of new infrastructure that can enable and support the new way of life that the emerging perceptual paradigm demands. They are busy building new organizational forms, new processes, new lives and a new world, made possible by this emerging perceptual paradigm. In short they are the ones who are building a new civilization based on this new vision of themselves and the world', he further explained.

'Interestingly, those who live in the dominant perceptual paradigm are said to have constructed the current global civilization. This global civilization is generated by a dynamic that consists of the obsessive generation of desires and the compulsive search for their satisfaction. This is all that the civilization constructed by the dominant perceptual paradigm has to offer'.

Q. What is the result of a civilization constructed by the dominant perceptual paradigm?

A. The result is rapid resource depletion, pollution and global warming. It has no objective as such and its final fruit can only be the wasting of resources that have taken eons of evolutionary time and energy to generate and position, the creation of conditions that cannot sustain life on earth, the destruction of the human species, and perhaps of life on Earth as well.

'The destruction of the human species may be no great calamity. Species have gone extinct before but life goes on. Life itself has been almost destroyed on earth before and has survived to flourish again. There is no reason why we should not be allowed to destroy ourselves.

There is no reason why life itself should not be allowed to be destroyed'. 'But unlike the human species, life is not about to commit suicide. Under pressure from the dominant perceptual paradigm, it is slowly adding weight to the emerging one.

This shift may be seen as an attempt to establish a new equilibrium. If one likes to attribute reason to the behaviour of the world one may say that the reason this effort is being made is because of the high level of autonomy that has successfully been evolved within the human species', he went on to explain.

'This autonomy is what makes the destructive dynamics of the dominant perceptual paradigm possible. It does so by enabling us to see ourselves as being independent of and unrelated to each other and to our universal environment. But it is also this same autonomy that allows the emergence of the emergent perceptual paradigm.

It does so by enabling us to objectively become aware of the ongoing universal process by which we have been generated as well'. 'The dynamic that generates the civilization supported by the emerging perceptual paradigm is the perception of potential, its realization through the projection and implementation of credible strategies and its sustenance through effective processes'.

Q. What will the outcome of this civilization be?

A. The outcome of this civilization will be the simplification of our way of living and the dedication of all available resources to this process which will probably lead to life's evolution beyond human being and its universal spread.

Q. What is the message you are trying to put across?

A. Today I wish to bring you this simple message that the dominant perceptual paradigm is being superseded by the emerging one. I do not envision a situation where one civilization is erased and replaced by another.

I do not envision a situation where there is a geographical division of the world as there has been in the past between opposing socio - economic formations but I do envision that those who have made the transition to the emerging perceptual paradigm link themselves together to form a global network.

'What I do envision is this network beginning to function as a species wide perceptual mechanism that enables us to perceive what we cannot perceive alone, to function as a strategic guidance mechanism that can guide the developmental process.

This guidance mechanism guiding the human species towards actions that will dampen the obsessive generation of desires and the compulsive search for their satisfaction.

What I do is the dampening of desire leading to a gradual winding down of the global economy, and a gradual reduction of the global human population until we are left with just enough people to support the objectives of the civilization generated by the emerging perceptual paradigm'.

Q. What is the Synthetist Vision?

A. It is the vision of ourselves as being amongst an infinity of perceptual mechanisms generated by a process that has neither beginning nor end and which proceeds along endless evolutionary pathways of its own perceptions.

Q. What is a Synthetist Mission?

A. It is the phenomenon of those who share this perceptual paradigm linking up to form a global network. Guiding this network to function as a perceptual mechanism and strategic guidance system - I call The Synthetist Goals.

Q. What exactly can be done to facilitate the emergence and consolidation of this global network.?

A. We have begun by searching the internet for those who appear to share this vision. We will soon begin corresponding with them on the question of how best we can link up in a manner that facilitates the sharing and free flow of perceptual and strategic content.

We may then initiate a cyclical series of exchanges where some of us go out to meet and spend time with people who form the nodes of this network. This may lead to convergences such as this congress where many of the nodes of the network may come together for specific purposes.

These interactions may lead to confluences where several nodes of the network act in unison in order to achieve particular objectives.

'All the while various nodes of the network will continue to initiate and sustain processes of teaching and training aimed at helping others to move out of the currently dominant perceptual paradigm and enter the emerging one. I hope that each of these persons will share The Synthetist Vision with all those whom you know' to link up with each other to form a global network,' he added.

rosanne@sundayobserver.lk