The susceptibility of this power to suggestion, belief and expectation and whose energies can be awakened and harnessed through a variety of nonordinary states of consciousness.
Transpersonal psychology seeks to investigate those psychological processes that arouse the deepest levels of the psyche in a manner that encourages the unfolding of these profoundly creative aspects of our own being.
6. The Dynamic Ground of the transpersonal self. The Self, without the Self’s Source, would not last a moment (Roberts, 1979b). Drawing upon modern consciousness research and the wisdom literature of premodern spiritual traditions, transpersonal psychologists also examine those exceptional human experiences and behaviors that appear to represent our unconscious knowledge of some greater Source or supreme reality out of which our existence constantly springs and in which we are always couched, connected and rooted.
As the physical life of any individual rises from hidden dimensions beyond those easily accessible in physical terms, and as it draws its energy and power to act from unconscious sources, so does the present physical universe, as you know it rise from other dimensions. So does it have its source, and derive its energy from deeper realities. Reality is far more diverse, far richer and unutterable than you can presently suppose or comprehend. (Roberts, 1972, pp. 237-238)
The power of the Ground. This is no impersonal Source since its energy gives rise to you and me. In certain terms, it is the force that forms our flesh and our identities in that it is responsible for the energy that gives vitality to our unique personalities (Washburn, 1995). All of being is perceived to be continually upheld, supported, and maintained by this ever-expanding, ever-creative multidimensional energy that forms everything and of which the transpersonal self – your transpersonal self – is a part.
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The ontological status of the Ground. Transcending all dimensions of actuality, consciousness, and reality, while still being a part of each – a part of creation yet also more than what creation is in the same way that the whole is more than the sum of its parts – this inconceivable Source is reported both in the writings of the great yogis, saints, sages, and contemplatives (Hixon, 1989; Huxley, 1970; Otto, 1950; Schuon, 1985; H. Smith, 1991; Underhill, 1961; Wilber, 1977) and in the data from the research of nonordinary states of consciousness (Grof, 2000) to be the supreme Ground of Being that provides the creative ingredients from which we form the most intimate portions of our private reality. According to William James (1936, p. 507)
The unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality… But that which produces effects within another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world unreal… God is real since he produces real effects. (James, 1936, pp. 506-507)
The farther reaches of human nature. To find out more about the farther reaches of human nature at the levels of soul and spirit that exist as ever-present actualities and probable potentials that we have available to us right now, we must explore the hidden contours of our own consciousness. By an act of Being-cognition (Maslow, 1968, 1971) and vision-logic (Wilber, 2000a), and drawing upon the lessons of modern consciousness research (Grof, 2000), the transpersonal self can be experienced and understood to be a vital, conscious, individualized portion of that supreme multidimensional spirit, universal force, Dynamic Ground (or whatever term you use to describe nature’s source) that is directed and focused and residing within each individual and is more intimate than our breath.
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