Is psychology helpful in the spiritual quest?

 Self-surrender is the same as Self-knowledge.

The ego submits only when it recognizes the Higher Power.

Ramana Maharshi

 

Sure, psychology is helpful in the spiritual quest. Inquiring into the pain body that slumbers within. Understanding how we are triggered and why. Seeing the wrenches we throw into the works when we go after realizing our dreams. All that is helpful in setting ourselves free from the conditioning of the past and awakening to the story of the “me, myself and I” we carry around. When I work with people they often had therapy or are in therapy and I welcome the additional perspective in the healing quest.

 

Still, Carl Jung famously stated “The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it.” Same with psychology: the next stage in the spiritual quest is realizing that there isn’t one. Every analysis of ego is performed by an illusionary entity. Insight is realizing the analyzer is the analyzed. Insight acts in Oneness. Body, mind and world beget the outcome as they are One. Perceiving, knowing, letting go are all gateways to Oneness. Psychology is helpful until it’s not.