Toward a Psychology of Being

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'These psychologies give promise of developing into the life-philosophy, the religion-surrogate, the value-system, the life-program that these people have been missing. Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic. We need something "bigger than we are" to be awed by and to commit ourselves to in a new, naturalistic, empirical, non-churchly sense, perhaps as Thoreau and Whitman, William James and John Dewey did.

I believe that another task which needs doing before we can have a good world is the development of a humanistic and transpersonal psychology of evil, one written out of compassion and love for human nature rather than out of disgust for it or out of hopelessness.

There are certainly good and strong and successful men in the world ... But it also remains true that there are so few of them even though there could be many more, and that they are often treated badly by their fellows.

... this fear of human goodness and greatness, this lack of knowledge of how to be good and strong, this fear of maturity and the godlikeness that comes with maturity, this fear of feeling virtuous, self-loving, love worthy, respect worthy.

Preface, p. iv
Abraham H Maslow, 'Toward a Psychology of Being'
Van Nostrard Reinhold NY 1968 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

The Law of Pure Potentiality

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'… we are, in our essential state, pure consciousness. Pure consciousness is pure potentiality; it is the field of all possibilities and infinite creativity … Being infinite and unbounded, it is also pure joy. Other attributes of consciousness are pure knowledge, infinite silence, perfect balance, invincibility, simplicity, and bliss. This is our essential nature.'

 

'The experience of the Self, or ‘self-referral’, means that our internal reference point is our own spirit, and not the objects of our experience. The opposite of self-referral is object-referral. In object-referral we are always influenced by objects outside the Self, which include situations, circumstances, people, and things. In object-referral we are constantly seeking the approval of others. Our thinking and our behaviour are always in anticipation of a response. It is therefore fear based.

 

In object-referral we also feel an intense need to control things. We feel an intense need for external power. The need for approval, the need to control things, and the need for external power are needs that are based on fear … When we experience the power of the Self, there is an absence of fear, there is no compulsion to control, and no struggle for approval or external power.'

Deepak Chopra, 1996, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, Bantam Press

David Bowie

'It's rather disturbing because when you're young you think so much is important including oneself. As you get older I think you find less and less is important apart from one of them,  being a love of one's fellow man and a care for their survival. A care for one's immediate family then friends then wider like ripples in water.'
 

David Bowie

 

'Check ignition and may God's love be with you'

'I think my spaceship knows which way to go.'