The nature of symbols

Here is the link to my latest article in an online magazine 
http://issuu.com/aneisdevida/docs/september_2016/66 

A new spin on the parable of the prodigal son

A new spin on the parable of the prodigal son

An old man once told me the story of a younger son who was dissatisfied with the life provided by his father and decided to leave home. After a long time of wandering, he had exhausted his resources and ended up in a cesspool of debauchery and humiliation in which he suffered greatly. However, his father, who was very wise and knowing of his suffering, sent his elder brother to fetch him and bring him home. The elder brother found the younger in a dark and filthy pit, wallowing in despair. After also entering into this thoroughly unpleasant place, the elder brother lifted up his younger brother, who had since forgotten where he had come from, and reminded him of his true home far away.  

When he again came to realise who he really was, the younger son wept both with tears both of regret and joy to discover that his father was calling him home. The eldest placed the youngest on the road and accompanied him home to their father. However, the journey was still long and not easy. Many dangers and obstacles still lay in their way. The world was full of shadows and many traps were set for the travellers. However, in his mind the younger son could now see his father waiting for him to complete his journey home and this gave him the strength to continue the battle with the shadows until they had all been overcome. .

His most powerful weapon was the realisation that he was, and had always been, a beloved son of the father and nothing could separate him from his father’s love. In fact, he now understood that it had been this, his misguided wish to separate himself from his father that had caused him to leave home and enter the world of suffering. He had been misled and had not realised that having knowledge of good and evil would involve having to experience both, as well as loneliness, pain and suffering.

Upon his return with his elder brother, he greeting his father and cried out aloud; ‘Thank you Father, that I can at last see the purpose of human drama and pain.’ ‘I now know that that which at first seemed so meaningless, is all part of the universal tapestry of the unfoldment of your Being.’

Jimmy Henderson (PhD) 

www.discoveringyourself.co.za

Re-writing your scripts

Here is the link to my latest article in the Anais de vida magazine http://issuu.com/aneisdevida/docs/august_2016/64

Working with imagery and visions

This is the link to my latest published article on visions

https://issuu.com/aneisdevida/docs/july_2016/71

Meditation for wisdom

Readers are invited to view my latest article on meditating for wisdom on the following link;

http://issuu.com/aneisdevida/docs/june_2016/69

A psychological perspective on religion and spirituality

A psychological perspective on religion and spirituality

Recently I saw an internet posting that compared perceived tenets of religion with those of spirituality. According to the table provided, religion views and treats people as weak, fallen and sinful, whereas in terms of spirituality they are seen as magical, unlimited and powerful. The arguments presented are certainly reasonable and persuasive, and I would agree with most of them. However, the author of this posting missed out one important factor, that of the stages of human development.

In one of my earlier books Multi-Dimensional Thinking (2003), I compared human moral and spiritual development to the process of growth as seen in some insects, beginning with a larval stage, during which they eat voraciously and are quite destructive, and ending with a later stage when the insect matures within a chrysalis and a more perfect form emerges.

This analogy suggests that, during the early stages of our own social development, we can be quite egocentric and self-destructive, as well as being inclined to hurt others, only interested in selfishly meeting our own basic needs. In other words, a period of inner growth is required for a human being to learn to master the fundamental basic urges which relate to bodily processes, to move through the entanglements of the mind and emerge as a more spiritual being. This process can take many decades and alas, in some cases, is never completed. 

To return to the issue of the validity of religion, I would suggest that, during the phase of early moral and spiritual development, we all require some external locus of control, a framework which imposes ideas, values and behaviour on those of us who have not come to a full understanding of the nature of reality and our true, authentic selves. This could be said to be the purpose of religion, to provide a prescriptive framework of beliefs and rules meant to introduce us to the most basic principles of spirituality. It is therefore, true that religion points out our inherent weaknesses (which do exist at this early stage), and demands conformity to the authority of a religious organisation. 

However, that is only the beginning of human moral and spiritual development. As a person matures intellectually and morally, a new consciousness and understanding should arise, one which can be explained in terms of emergence, a relatively recent concept used by psychologists to explain a process during which the interaction between inner systems leads to the appearance a new and totally different state able to manifest a potential that did not exist previously. In other words, the interaction between human self-reflection, value systems and lessons learnt through experience should eventually combine to bring about a new realisation of self, that which is termed in psychology the higher or authentic self.

Once in this new state of self-realisation, we are able to overcome, or at least manage, our basic instincts, urges and needs associated with the body, free ourselves from the entanglements of the mind by attaining a new understanding of our purpose and place in the world, and be able to fully acknowledge our true selves and unlimited potential. This new state of being is associated with an internal locus of control, in which our conscience alone is sufficient to align us with the highest spiritual principles and regulate our behaviour. In other words, this new state of self-realisation empowers us to stand on our own two feet without the direction of any religious institution. This ‘emergence’ of the authentic self is that which can be associated with spirituality and represents those attributes of man described by the author of the article as ‘magical, unlimited and powerful.’

To summarise, organised worship and religion should not be rejected outright, as they still play an important role in the formative stages of the moral and spiritual development of the human being, but become less important following the emergence of self-realisation, at which time the individual moves into a one-to-one relationship with a personal concept of Being, the universe or a Higher Reality.

In practice, a problem only arises in the situation in which the individual feels or knows that religion is no longer meeting his or her spiritual and developmental needs, but chooses to remain within this framework out of fear or convention.

Jimmy Henderson is a developmental specialist and metaphysician and the published author of a number of books on the power of the mind.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jimmy+henderson

The Shadow Realms of the Mind

My latest article in Anais de Vida magazine

Shadow Realms of the Mind