Pulse of Spirit

In last week’s Pulse of Spirit, I addressed The Intersection of Spirituality and Psychology. I described how all the facets of the human psyche are integrated when a person’s primary sense of self is from a place above the psyche. There are many names for this experience of selfhood: the Higher Self, the Wonderful One Within, the Ātman, the Angel, and many more.

If the human psyche had within itself the answers for a human life or for our world, you might think it would have shared them by now. But it doesn’t. So for anyone, the ability to experience life from a higher place and to see it from that perspective is pivotal. It brings the answers the world is looking for.

The root of the word transcend is from Latin, and it literally meant to climb (scandere) beyond (trans). Transcend is closely related to another word, ascend.

John Welwood, an American psychologist and Buddhist teacher, came up with the term spiritual bypassing in 1984 after noting that some people, by resorting to spirituality to avoid difficult or painful emotions or challenges, tended to suppress aspects of their identity and needs and stall their emotional development. Someone who is spiritually bypassing the issues of their psyche and the world is avoiding those issues. They are going around them or trying to jump over the issues without penetrating them. They are attempting to ascend out of them, never to return. This kind of escapism makes spirituality irrelevant to the person’s psyche or to their world. And with it, there is no intersection between spirituality and psychology.

But does this mean that a person shouldn’t have an elevated experience of themselves? That there should be no experience of self that transcends the human psyche?

One of the oldest writings available to humankind is the 24^th Psalm. It is attributed to King David, who lived almost 3,000 years ago. While he is usually given credit for writing the Psalm, it’s likely that he was the one who compiled it but not the original author. In any event, the 24^th Psalm is a profound spiritual message brought to people of the ancient world. And like many profound ancient truths, it is brought through poetry. This is from the third verse of the Psalm, in the King James translation of the original Hebrew.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? 

Here, the author addresses the issues of transcendence and identity with the poetic image of climbing a hill. Will you join me in a meditation on what this poetry might mean, especially in the context of the intersection of spirituality and human psychology?

The author asks who shall ascend to an experience of the Higher Self. Will it be a facet of a person’s psyche? A sub-personality? Will the part of a person who feels they have been victimized stand in the place of the Higher Self? Will the part of a person who aspires to be an expert in a certain field of human endeavor know transcendence? That’s often the attempt when a person is out of touch with the Higher Self. They put forward a facet of their human psyche for the job. As psychologists tell us, when a young person feels the void of a true parent figure in their life, parts of themselves become parentified, stepping in to play the part that seems to be missing.

Can you imagine a parentified dimension of the human psyche truly ascending the hill of the Higher Self and standing in the holy place of the Higher Self at the top of the hill? What would happen then? A meeting with the Higher Self? Somehow, it doesn’t seem that this is what the psalm is speaking of.

The truth is that the Higher Self has planted within every human soul the seed of its own blossoming and unfoldment. This is the very core and essence of who we are, however hidden or buried.

This essence of who we are ascends to the highest point of our human psyche when we turn to that highest place, to the place of the Higher Self. Opening to that highest place of consciousness, we are drawn to be there—to occupy it. We ascend the hill of the LORD.

Notice that the verse speaks of standing in his place. Or, if you are a woman, in her place. And that place is holy. Who is capable of standing in that holy place? Only the Higher Self. Only the Ātman. Only the Angel.

When our awareness of ourselves ascends, we don’t have a confab with our Higher Self. We stand in the place of the Higher Self—in its place—and know ourselves as that. We know ourselves as holy.

This is transcendence.

What then? A later verse tells us what happens when there is this kind of transcendence. The human psyche isn’t avoided. It is entered by the Higher Self.

Lift up your head, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.

Psalm 24:7

If you see these words from the perspective of a human psyche that is unaware of its spiritual origins, then the King of glory might be seen as coming from somewhere else, and as someone other than you. What if this King of glory or Queen of glory is you? You, knowing yourself as that, entering all the dimensions of your own psyche and your world? You, asking that all the entry points for you to come in be opened?

This is not spiritual bypassing. It is spiritual mastery and fulfillment. In the process, all the facets of the human psyche are set free without attempting to be parentalized versions of themselves. They don’t have to be because the King of glory, the Queen of glory is already present. The Higher Self is on the throne.

So will you join me in standing in the holy place of the Most High, and say this to our own human psyche and to our world?

Lift up your head, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory / the Queen of glory shall come in.

The Higher Self is the Creator, bringing the unfolding pattern of the world, and bringing the essence, purpose, and power of Creation, which is Love. Don’t you desire to know yourself as that? And share the realization of that experience with others? I do.

Let’s know this together and be Creators together, all because we ascend the hill of the Higher Self and know ourselves as that.