Nervous Disorders in Spiritual Growth

I discovered Roberto Assagioli’s article “Nervous disorders in spiritual growth” at the darkest moment of my life, about seven years ago. I was experiencing severe depression; I thought I was going nuts. This article clarified what I was going through and validated my sanity or should I say my super sanity? (smile)

After many years of contemplating on my life, realizing the true motives that manifested unsatisfied, anxious self, the old values I had lived by were gone and the void was created. I was lost, my self was crashed and I wanted to go away, literally die. There was mo meaning whatsoever in anything; I could not find the reason that would keep me alive.

Now, looking back I understand that it was a partial death of my "self", the self had to be reconditioned in order to survive. Reconditioning is a long process, almost endless, but the foundation for the new values had to be in place in order for the self to function properly. Assagioli, one of the few, helped my "self" to create that foundation. I'll explain this some other time.

The awakening happens to most people gradually, just few go through the rapid change (10 to 20 years is a short period of time for such transformation), and now I know why. It is very scary and could be damaging to a human psyche, so one has to posses a very strong mind to be able to go through this “execution”.

My “self” is still going through transformation (specifically in physical and emotional domains), but now I have something that I didn’t have before: something permanent, unshakable, eternal, something I can lean on: realization that "self" is transitory, changeable, and an endless representation of who I really am.

The experience of ‘I’ is still vague in order to describe it or announce it as the final one, but it is strong enough to support my ‘self’ in transformation, and it is obviously strong enough to share my experience with other “selfs”.

I have never asked for this, it just happened to me. I was always asking the opposite question, why me? I was the only one among all the people I’d ever known, who was so drawn to the philosophy of life. It was not fun to be an outcast. I still am, but now I am having fun. :-)

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find Assagioli’s article in English, so I’ll try to translate some excerpts from an article that is available in Russian, later on.

Russian readers can find it here

For now, I have translated the introduction to this article.

“In this article, a famous Italian doctor and philosopher refers to the inevitable byproduct of spiritual growth - all sorts of nervous disorders that accompany this process. Spiritual human development - a lengthy process, a journey that is full of beautiful experiences, rich not only in amazing events, but also in the obstacles, dangers.

It relates to the process of profound moral purification, complete transformation, the awakening of many abilities previously not used or known, the growth of consciousness to the level that before was unthinkable, its expansion within the inner world. It is therefore not surprising that these important changes go through various critical stages, which often involve nervous, emotional and mental disorders.”

“Roberto Assagioli introduces the middle and higher consciousness, the last the repository of the Self. The journey to wholeness encompasses all three spheres, through the process of going within, uprooting all the complexes and suppressed memories before raising yourself to the level of super-normalcy.”

You can find articles by Assigioli here

The following is an interesting article that sheds the light on possible integration of spirituality and psychotherapy.

Gopi Krishna, the man who introduced the word kundalini to modern vocabulary through his books, experienced his first awakening after 17 years of meditation. For the next two years, he endured overwhelming psychological and physical problems. Says he: "The old self was yielding place to a new personality endowed with a brighter and perceptive equipment, developed from the original one by a strange power of cellular and organic transformation."