Sunday, July 13, 2014

Freud and Spirituality

The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the femine soul, is "What does a woman want."
(Sigmund Freud)

I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)

My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.

Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.

                            Tao                  ego


Tao                    Divine                Matrix

subconscious    Holy Now          Freud


In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.

The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.

By Zeitgeist

PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)

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