Treatment

TREATMENT OF THE SPIRIT

The information from Diagnosis of the Spirit can be used to treat issues affecting your spiritual development. How much you want to treat your spirit depends both on your degree of Spiritual Stress (Question #4 on the Questionnaire) and your desire to move forward spiritually (Question #7). Map of the Spirit can’t guarantee spiritual progress, but it does greatly increase the chance of this happening by guiding you through the spiritual terrain ahead and showing you the best tools to use along the way.

What's Ahead

Once you know your current Stage(s) of Spiritual Development, you also know the next stage and what's needed to get there. For example, to progress from the Pre-awareness to the Awareness Stage, you need to acquire some awareness of your spiritual beliefs. To progress from the Awareness to the Commitment Stage, you must internally commit to following your spirituality, and to move from the Commitment to the Union Stage, you must manifest or live out your prior internal spiritual commitment. Knowing the task you face allows you to more clearly focus and direct your energies towards achieving it.

It's also often helpful to know where you are within your current Stage(s) of Spiritual Development. In general, the main spiritual task early in each Stage of Spiritual Development is to consolidate and integrate the recent transition to the current stage. Late in the stage, on the other hand, the spiritual task shifts to preparing for the possible transition to the next stage. So, for example, late in the Awareness Stage, the main spiritual task shifts from constructing your spiritual beliefs to preparing yourself for the possibility of internally committing to your spirituality and making the transition to the Commitment Stage. Once you’ve made this transition, however, and are at the early Commitment Stage, the main spiritual task shifts to addressing any Resistance that is challenging or threatening to undermine the internal spiritual commitment you’ve just made.

Tools for the Journey

In Map of the Spirit, anything that increases Seeking relative to Resistance increases the likelihood of your spiritual progress. This leaves you with three main ways to facilitate your spiritual development:

Increase Seeking (Option #1 – below)
Decrease Resistance (Option #2 – below)
Use Altered Reality (AR)

Treatment

Increasing Seeking (Option #1) means devoting more time, attention, and resources to spiritual pursuits. Consider spending more time on your current spiritual practices and/or exploring new ones that appeal to you and seem appropriate for your spiritual beliefs. Also, consider spending more time in settings where you feel especially close to your spirituality. Anything that increases the priority of spirituality in your life increases your Seeking.

Decreasing Resistance (Option #2) means addressing your sources of both External and Internal Resistance. Externally, how do your friends and family help facilitate your spiritual development? What about your work or school? Do you need to change your schedule to work more from home or part time or even change careers to facilitate your spiritual growth? How much are time and financial constraints getting in the way of your spirituality? Internally, what psychological patterns or tendencies do you have that make it harder for you to construct and live out your spiritual beliefs? Sometimes you can address your sources of Resistance on your own or with help from family and friends and sometimes you need professional assistance to overcome these obstacles to your spiritual growth.

Use of Altered Reality In Map of the Spirit, Altered Reality (AR) represents a time when Resistance is temporarily lowered so that your Seeking and spiritual development can progress (like a temporary Option #2). Some individuals use AR frequently in the course of their spiritual development, some use it only occasionally or not at all. Some use only one type of AR, some use many types. Altered Reality can either be self-induced or induced by factors beyond your control. Your particular spiritual beliefs can also influence your choice of AR. For instance, meditation is the main type of AR used by most Non-dualists. And, while prayer is the main type of AR used by Deists, it would be completely useless for Existentialists. How and how much you to use AR is a personal and exciting part of your spiritual development.

Map of the Spirit shows you the terrain ahead and which tools to use during your spiritual journey, both of which help you to focus your efforts to treat your spirituality, but, as Alfred Korybski said, “The map is not the territory.” While Map of the Spirit helps to inform and equip you for your spiritual journey, it doesn’t substitute for or diminish the excitement of what lies ahead.