Introduction to A Spiritual Journey

This was my first book on spirituality and focuses on a few main themes that are applicable to all spiritual seekers, whatever religion or tradition they follow. This book represents my views on spirituality up to 2020. From then onwards I began jhana riding, and my views on that adventure is in my book Landmarks of Spirituality.

In today’s modern world, ideas about spirituality and New Age topics are gradually spreading. However, many people are realising that traditional religions no longer relate to the new needs, new opportunities and new challenges that are arising in Western societies. Many modern problems – within areas such as medical ethics, bringing up children, and dysfunctional relationships – are complex and do not have simple answers. Ways to approach such dilemmas require ideas that are not found within the teachings of conventional Western religious doctrines. We are more likely to understand our problems by turning to new ideas that are outside of mainstream religion.

Spirituality is not an easy option for anyone. The initial encounter with a source of spirituality may be joyful and exhilarating, but when the novelty wears off then the person finds that to continue with spirituality is hard work. Why do we find it so hard to live a morally-good life? When we attempt to live a good life within society we often find that our difficulties become magnified. We become more sensitive to the disharmonies that a social life challenges us with. Life is not easy when we try to live what we believe. One reason is that the emotional aspects of our difficulties are coming to the fore and cannot be ignored (as they used to be in the past). The high stresses of modern life have the effect of adding intensity to our usual emotional responses, both the positive and the negative ones. So we need to explore new ways of handling emotions, especially the negative ones.

In this book I look at some of the emotional influences that shape our view of life. Understanding these influences will change our ideas about what spirituality means. The first chapter gives a short résumé of my ideas on emotion and the process of abreaction. Full details on these topics will be found in my book The Nature of Emotion on the Home page. Additionally, my ideas on psycho-analysis will be described in my book Self-Analysis for the 21st Century (to be put on-line later).

The assumption that I have used in this book is that all spiritual problems have answers. Even if a problem cannot be answered today, it will be capable of being answered in the future when we know more about the nature of spirituality. So there is no need to believe that spirituality is something that will always baffle us and be beyond our understanding. Most of the ideas here are based on my personal experiences of the spiritual journey, some of which are briefly mentioned throughout this book.

Each person’s spiritual journey is really a journey into the beliefs about spirituality that he or she adheres to. I examine various kinds of traditional beliefs and describe some of their limitations. I then offer better ways of understanding reality, using new ideas from my personal mixture of psychology, mystical idealism and philosophy. I have a degree in physics, so I can straddle both science and religion without any difficulty.

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Ian Heath
London, UK

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