4 8 S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 8 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 2 2 found within the DSM or ICD, these wide-ranging affective reactions should not be pathologized. Rather, they are a natural response to the destruction of our human habitat and ought to be looked at as an opportunity to deepen our sacred connection to the planet. The attempt to outline an ecologically informed psychology – without referencing the spiritual domain as its foundation and center – is misguided. This is the crux of modern psychology’s quandary. While comprehensive ecological knowledge is sorely needed in mainstream psychology, this does not mean that we have to reinvent the wheel, even if this were possible. The dualism of modern science, and its psychology, was never part of the ecological knowledge found in traditional religions. The natural environment was not perceived as separate from the human realm or the domain of Spirit. Likewise, the human psyche has been viewed as inseparable from the ecosystem, and it is this vital relationship that bridges the natural world with the human soul. Schuon (1990, 13) illuminates the consequences of the human psyche’s severance from the Sacred: This dethronement of Nature, or this scission between man and the earth – a reflection of the scission between man and Heaven – has borne such bitter fruits that it should not be difficult to admit that, in these days, the timeless message of Nature constitutes a spiritual viaticum of the first importance… It is not a question of projecting a supersaturated and disillusioned individualism into a desecrated Nature – this would be a worldliness like any other – but, on the contrary, of rediscovering in Nature, on the basis of the traditional outlook, the divine substance which is inherent in it; in other words, to ‘see God everywhere’. Psychological health and well-being – even sanity itself – are dependent on the harmony of the environment and the human psyche. But what is often overlooked is that the soul, of which the natural world is an extension, relies on the spiritual domain for wholeness and healing. A central tenet of perennial psychology is affirmed by the Sufi Abū Nasr as-Sarrāj (d. 378/988): “The outward cannot get by independent of the inward” (quoted in Renard 2004, 83). It is through the transpersonal order that human beings can obtain a lasting equilibrium because body and soul are contingent on what surpasses them. For this reason, only what transcends the psycho-physical order can bring balance to the physical body and its human soul. The web of life consists of both the cosmos and the human microcosm, consisting of a tripartite structure made up of Spirit, soul, and body. If we fail to grasp these truths, a full comprehension of the sacred dimension that unifies us with our environment and, at the same time, with what transcends the psycho-physical domain, will be obscured (Griffin 2011, 79): Regardless of this profound ‘psychology’, and to suit the particular purposes of environmentalism, deep ecology is apparently advocating the expansion of the sense of individual selfhood, a very different thing. Isolated from a metaphysical framework that describes and guides the process of transformation, this might well be a prescription for either delusion or disaster. Identification becomes very much like the attempt to swallow the sea rather than be part of it. In a ‘this-worldly’ expansion of self, it is hard not to see an expansion rather than diminishment of the ego. 8 The Need for Metaphysics It is by realigning all forms of knowledge back to the transcendent that we can redress the shortcomings of present-day science. As Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has observed: “The logic that led to the destruction of the environment is precisely the same logic now as that concerning the protection of the environment” (2012, 66). Modern science continues looking for answers to the ecological crisis in the corporeal realm. Yet this problem cannot be understood in ways that are limited to the empirical order. This is because we are confronted by consequences that have their genesis in a spiritual (not environmental) crisis, and these are to be found in our very own psyche. Resolving the ecological crisis is going to take nothing short of a fundamental transformation of consciousness or metanoia. What needs to occur is a far-reaching re-examination of ourselves in light of the sacred patrimony of humanity. According to Guénon: “The true causes of everything that happens to a being are in the final analysis always the possibilities inherent in the very nature of that being” (2004a, 83). It is through such a transformation that a corrective process can occur at the deepest levels. This will require mindfulness of the distinction between needs and wants so that our limitless desires can be curbed. Through the example of humanity’s saints and sages, we can learn how to live a balanced life marked by simplicity, ethical conduct, and right livelihood. For it has been said: “As we have food and clothing, let them suffice to us” (1 Timothy
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