Douwe Nutterts 0101
Question: What does pyscho-spiritual work mean? And what does it involve?
Nutterts: In "psycho-spiritual work" there are three words: There’s "psycho-spiritual", which means that there is a relationship between the psychological part, and how you are as a person, and the spiritual part. It’s not only spiritual and it’s not only psychological, its about the relationship between the two. That’s always been my main interest.
So even when we look at more spiritual and transpersonal states, we always see how that is in relation to the personal. How do they relate to one another? In my view the transpersonal states and the more personal states always have a relationship.
When you work on a transpersonal issue, things in your personality will come up. If you work with a certain transpersonal state, all kinds of issues will arise that are related to it. The personal is an invitation to something that is real, which is the transpersonal. So if you work with a specific transpersonal state, all the issues that are related to that will come up. Things from your childhood will come up. So in that sense there is a relationship. Or sometimes, you can look at the personal issues, and from there move into the transpersonal. There’s a dialogue between the two.
So that’s why it’s called "psycho-spiritual". The two are in there. I think that often when you use only a spiritual term, people bypass all the personal issues and everything that’s in there, and they jump over it. And it’s not so much a jumping over the personal, it’s much more a way of working through it and in that sense it has a tantric dimension in it, in the sense that you use also the personal and you work through it: it’s not a transcendental path - you really work through things, and that’s the other point.
And the "work" is really about the fact that it’s a practice. It’s not a theoretical framework, it’s a practice. And the term "work" comes from the work of Gurdjieff: he also calls it work. It’s really about the practice. It’s a practicing. That’s why it’s called work.
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