Tag Archives: psychology

5 Reasons to Read “Creating Harmony in Life”

For those of you who have already purchased Roberto Assagioli’s Creating Harmony in Life, below you will find a detailed General Index and Name Index to the book, which were omitted from the final publication. In addition, I have included Assagioli’s “Preface,” my “Introduction” and the Table of Contents.

index-creating-harmony-in-life-by-roberto-assagioli-with-intro

For those of you who haven’t yet purchased the book, just take a look at the Indices to see how much you are missing! If that doesn’t convince you, then here are 5 reasons to read Creating Harmony in Life.

1. You’ll hear Assagioli’s voice.
Since Creating Harmony in Life is a collection of Assagioli’s lectures, it is very different from his other published works. Accessible and very readable, this book beautifully captures Assagioli’s tone, humor, and perspectives in a genuine and intimate way.

2. You will discover hidden gems.
The book is full of reflections to ponder and scholars to meet. From Arthur Eddington’s observations of the solar chromosphere to the Buddhist story of Krishnagautami, to reasons why you should pay your taxes, every page of Creating Harmony in Life holds the promise of a special surprise.

3. It’s a book for everyone.
For anyone practicing psychosynthesis, Creating Harmony in Life is a great gift for anyone who has ever asked you, “Psychosyn…What? Assa…Who?” The Italian version of the book is actually used throughout Italy by people new to psychosynthesis. Besides having Assagioli’s superb summary about aspects of psychosynthesis in Appendix I, the entire book is an excellent introduction to psychosynthesis. Nevertheless, anyone already familiar with psychosynthesis will appreciate having Assagioli reaffirm their understanding.

4. It includes a brief biography of Assagioli.
Appendix II (written by myself) is a brief biography of Assagioli’s life from the perspective of synthesis. I must admit that when my editors’ read it, they exclaimed, “It’s like reading a novel!”

5. You will be supporting the Istituto di Psicosintesi and Gruppo alle Fonti.
This book is published by the Psychosynthesis Institute in Florence and realized by Gruppo alle Fonti, the volunteers who have lovingly curated Assagioli’s Archives over the years. When you buy the book, you are sending your financial support to Casa Assagioli, Assagioli’s Archives, and all its volunteers.

Creating Harmony in Life: A Psychosynthesis Approach
by Roberto Assagioli

Published by the Istituto di Psicosintesi, Florence
Available from Amazon
ISBN 979-12-21402-74-2

Crossing Over

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This is Holy Week for many Christians who are anticipating the celebration of Easter next Sunday. Below is an article of mine that was published ten years ago in the AAP Psychosynthesis Quarterly. I describe a meeting with one of my clients that happened on Good Friday, which also that year coincided with Passover.

During this meeting, so many things started to converge and cross over that I was nearly overtaken by them. This story revolves around the converging life paths of my client and myself, and how we both ended up traveling long distances to witness and help guide our grandmothers towards their imminent death.

“It’s been a week of Passion,” Paula’s voice quivered as she dropped down into the chair in front of me. She had already emailed to say that her grandmother was dying and she couldn’t decide whether to go home. Paula had a long history of not being able to decide. We had been meeting for nearly 2-1/2 years, I as her psychosynthesis guide and she as my client. Together, we had explored her feelings of never being good enough and her consequent control of and search for illusive perfection in everything from shoes to menu items to true love. We had attempted to unravel and unbind her never-ending endings. And we had spent hours peeling away Paula’s habitual lateness to discover the face of cold fear of having to wait for the other and relive a surge of emotions around abandonment.

Her week of Passion was literal and figurative. It had been Holy Week and the day we met in 2011 was not only Good Friday, but also Jewish Passover. The word Pasque for Easter actually comes from the Hebrew word which means to “go through.” This week of ‘crossing over’, of leaving slavery for freedom, of moving from this world to the next, from death to everlasting life, seemed to reflect Paula’s own inner and outer struggle.

Since our last meeting, Paula had been confronted with death, an encounter that cannot be controlled or perfected or tricked into arriving before you or never at all. Her grandmother was dying of cancer and was finally surrendering to its call. Paula’s Nonna, an Italian as well as a private icon, no longer held the energy to sustain the Milanese family as she had for all of Paula’s 30 years.

Nonna had been the family pillar, the Corinthian column of strength and integrity around whom Christmas and birthdays and Holy Communions had been celebrated. This grandmother had finally decided to crumble, leaving everyone else to deal with their feelings of loss and painful loneliness. Grandmother, lucid and detached, was quietly slipping away. Her husband was angry that she had given up and stopped fighting, her family felt in many ways that she was already dead.

Three days earlier, Paula’s mother had called to prepare her daughter for the worst. While insisting that Paula not travel home from the Netherlands to Italy, her mother had wanted Paula to prepare for the imminent funeral. “Don’t come,” said Paula’s mother crying into the phone. “It’s better you remember her as she was. Your brother and sister go in to hug her and she does nothing. Nonna doesn’t care anymore. She doesn’t care if you are there are not. You are lucky not to see her this way. Besides, you will only have to fly back for the funeral. Get ready for that instead. It’s better this way.”

Paula recounted all this in tears. Throughout her childhood, her mother’s mother had been the one to comfort Paula, the one to take care of her while Paula’s mother fretted over Paula’s sickly younger brother, cooed over his comical antics.

Nonna had always told Paula that she was her favorite grandchild, and Paula wanted to go home and see her. But she struggled with her own mother’s wishes along with the fact that another ending was looming in front of her—her PhD thesis which was already late and had to be finished in less than three weeks. Logic and reason, Paula’s major accomplices throughout most of her lifetime, told her not to go home, and yet her heart was telling her otherwise…

You can continue reading this story below. Happy Easter!

CALombard – Crossing Over Download

Countess, Grandmother and Psychosynthesis Feminist

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Contessa Gabriella Spalletti Rasponi, in the early 1900s

For this International Women’s Day, l’d like to introduce you to the first President of the Institute of Psychosynthesis in Rome, which in 1926 was initially called the Istituto di Cultura e di Terapia Psichica (Institute of Culture and Psychic Therapy). Yes, that’s right! She was a woman…the Contessa Gabriella Spalletti Rasponi (1853-1931), whom Assagioli greatly admired both as an international leader as well as a devoted grandmother and someone he felt “exhibited a happy combination of the gifts of the various ages.”

To this day, Rasponi remains little known even in Italy. She was born in Ravenna into an aristocratic family (her grandmother was Napoleon’s sister Carolina) and was privately educated. Married at the age of 17 to Count Venceslao Spalletti Trivelli, she had five children, two of whom died in infancy. In 1874, the couple moved to Rome where her husband became a Senator to the Kingdom. Rasponi was widowed in 1899 when she was 46 years old.

Working for Women’s Social, Political and Labor Rights

In addition to her fundamental role in the history of psychosynthesis, in 1903, Rasponi became the Founder and President of the National Council of Italian Women (Consiglio Nazionale Donne Italiane; CNDI), an organization that promoted women’s labor equality and justice in terms of legal, social, familial rights and occupational safety. They also believed in women’s suffrage.

The CNDI organized its first congress on the theme of family education in Rome in 1908. The second was held in 1920 and entitled “La donna per l’Italia nuova” (“The woman for the new Italy”). The third congress on family education took place in Rome from 3-8 May 1923. Rasponi was the CNDI President until 1931, and the organization is still active in Rome today (in Italian, see https://www.cndi.it/).

George Davis Herron, an American clergyman, lecturer, and writer from Indiana, visited Italy in 1922 and wrote the following about Rasponi and her work in his book The Revival of Italy:

Gabriela Spalletti Rasponi is indeed a superior woman, who combines genuine religious fervor with clear intellectual insight and practical efficiency and adaptability. Under her wise leadership, the Italian feminist movements have avoided the excesses of militant feminism of other countries; and this while working vigorously for all the rights of women as citizens and for their education and preparation for public activity and position.

Turning Her Villa into a Women’s Cooperative

Villa Conti Spelletti where Rasponi started teaching the local women to crochet.

Prior to founding the CNDI, while on holiday at their villa in Tuscany, Rasponi was deeply moved by the poverty she saw around her. Consequently, she decided to open a school where women could learn the traditional art of embroidery and crochet. In 1887, she began teaching five women in her villa and by 1904, 400 women had formed a cooperative, were supporting their families through these artesian crafts, and receiving international awards for their work. The CNDI was soon afterwards created to help promote and organize similar successful campaigns throughout the nation.

Assuntina Pretelli, one of the students at the Contessa’s Scuola di Modano in Lucciano, Quarrata, Italy

During the 1908 earthquake in Messina and Reggio Calabria, through the CNDI, Rasponi was able to organize and support many of the victims, especially its orphans. Her tireless work received recognition from Italy’s Queen Elena who, by Royal Decree, granted Rasponi the title of “the first woman to be invested as a protector of children.”

The ‘Rebel’ President

Assagioli described Rasponi as a woman who “with youthful enthusiasm, pursued every new current of thought with regard to education, culture, and spirituality. The Institute of Psychosynthesis … is particularly indebted to her moral and material support of its Constitution.” The theme of the first conference she held for the newly founded Institute was “How to Educate the Will.” During her lifetime, she acknowledged her own strong will, even calling herself “a Rebel”.

Invitation to the Istituto di Cultura e di Terapia Psichica inaugural address by Assagioli signed by the President Gabriela Spalletti Rasponi.

At her private villa in Rome (now a 5-star hotel), Rasponi often hosted and promoted many new thinkers. Every Thursday afternoon, influential political and cultural figures frequented the villa’s drawing rooms – from Émile Coué (1857-1926), the French psychologist, to Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the 1913 Nobel Prize winner in Literature and Hermann von Keyserling (1880-1946), whom Assagioli described as “a brilliant thinker, a fine architect of the word, and a fervid man of action.”

In 1937, Jiddu Krishnamurti visited Rome for three months and held his conferences at Rasponi’s villa. Despite the fact that Krishnamurti was under surveillance by the the fascist regime’s political police, he was allowed to give his philosophical talks in part because of Rasponi’s high standing and her assurance that his discourses were “absolutely and only philosophical.”

As a Devoted Grandmother

With regard to Rasponi’s devotion as a grandmother, Assagioli wrote:

“The Contessa’s house resembled a government ministry, but that did not prevent her, while in her 70s and in ill health, from being such a conscientious grandmother that she resumed the study of Latin and Greek in order to help her young grandson further develop himself.”

Her Revolutionary Initiatives

Rasponi throughout her lifetime founded, organized and implemented revolutionary initiatives – including the vision of psychosynthesis. She established travelling libraries for teachers, secretariats for the protection of women and orphaned children, and maternity help for needy mothers. She always promoted women’s education as an integration of practical activity and intellectual stimulation.

References

Assagioli, Roberto, (1973). “The Conflict between Generations and Psychosynthesis of the Ages”, Psychosynthesis Research Foundation, Issue No. 31.

Assagioli, Roberto. (2008). Il mondo interiore, W. Esposito (Ed.). Vicenza, Italy: Edizioni Teosofiche Italiane, pp. 183-191.

Assagioli, Roberto (1971). Psicosintesi: Armonia della vita. Roma: Edizioni Mediterranee, pp. 69-70.

Bartoloni, Stefania, (2016). “Rasponi Spelletti, Gabriela,” in the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani – Volume 86 (2016) Retrieved 3 March 2018 from http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/gabriella-rasponi-spalletti_(Dizionario-Biografico)

Giovetti, P. (1995). Roberto Assagioli: La vita e l’opera del fondatore della Psicosintesi. Rome: Edizioni Mediterrane, pp. 45-46.

“La Contessa che amava ‘tramare’” blog post on Opportunità di Genere Women’s Studies. Posted on 11 April 2014 and retrieved 3 March 2018 from http://opportunitadigenere.blogspot.it/2014/04/la-contessa-che-amava-tramare.html

“Merletto a Filet di Lucciano.” Retrieved 3 March 2018 from http://www.fioretombolo.net/luccianofilet.htm

“Quarrata: Le produzioni tipiche” Retrieved 3 March 2018 from http://www.comunequarrata.it/flex/cm/pages/ServeBLOB.php/L/IT/IDPagina/2338

“Villa Spelletti Trivelli, The History”. Retrieved 3 March 2018 from https://villaspalletti.it/en/our-hotel.html

Birthday Gifts from Roberto Assagioli

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Today is Assagioli’s birthday (he would have been 135 years young today). So why not buy yourself an Assagioli birthday gift — one or both of his newly published books!

I’m particularly happy to have been part of these two publications. Creating Harmony in Life: A Psychosynthesis Approach is a collection of Assagioli’s lectures from the 1930s and 1960s, published for the first time in English. I had the privilege of introducing, translating and annotating this book.

Psychosynthesis of the Couple is collection of lectures that Assagioli gave on the topic (mostly in Italian). Jan Kuniholm has synthesized these lectures into a highly readable composite essay. I was also able to contribute to the translations from the Italian.

Creating Harmony in Life: A Psychosynthesis Approach

Published by the Istituto di Psicosintesi, Florence
Available from Amazon
ISBN 979-12-21402-74-2

Originally published in Italian in 1966 as Psicosintesi: Per l’armonia della vita, this book provides a fundamental overview of psychosynthesis by bringing together the early lectures of Roberto Assagioli. These lectures explore what psychosynthesis is and how it can be applied towards the practice of personal and spiritual self-development.

A great book for anyone new to psychosynthesis, Creating Harmony in Life is also a treasure trove for experienced psychosynthesis practitioners, with Assagioli’s nuggets of wisdom waiting to be discovered, contemplated, and put into practice.

Introduction to Creating Harmony in Life

creating-harmony-in-life-introduction-excerpt-1 Download

Psychosynthesis of the Couple

Edited with an Introduction by Jan Kuniholm
Available from Amazon

Jan Kuniholm presents this book, Psychosynthesis of the Couple a synthetic essay that gathers the teachings of Roberto Assagioli, MD, concerning marriage, couples, relationships, and “inter-individual” psychosynthesis, many of which have been translated to English for the first time. The title is edited with notes and an introductory essay by Jan Kuniholm, with a reminiscence by Piero Ferrucci.

Of particular interest are the many diagrams that Assagioli drew to symbolically represent his concepts regarding, for example, communication between couples, stages of union, and various types of man-woman relationships.

ψς of the Couple/ Mutual Integration/Self-realization / through the other/ The Couple as an Entity (Note by Assagioli)

Love for the Being

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We talk a lot about romantic love around Valentine’s Day. When romantic love devours us, we can find ourselves joyfully lost, frightened, and overpowered by intense feelings of belonging. And when this romantic love-bubble bursts, we seem to deflate into a mess of hurt, broken, and overshadowed feelings of failure and unworthiness.

It seems that love, from our human perspective, is inherently limited. The love we feel for another, as partners, family and friends, seems to come with all kinds of conditions. Some of these conditions may seem quite reasonable. For example, you might feel perfectly justified to say to your spouse: “I love you, but not if you have an affair/physically harm me/gamble away all our money.” Other conditions may be more dubious: “I love you, but only if you agree with me/let me have my own way/have enough money, beauty, fame/share my beliefs/keep me from being lonely…” This list can go on and on, depending on the deep inner needs that are unmet in the individual lover.

Love conditions can change in time throughout a relationship. They are restrictions on who or when we are willing to love and how much. Its polar opposite is unconditional love. Unconditional love occurs when we love people freely, fully and openly, with no expectations, demands or restrictions. Unconditional love is a constant stream of acceptance. It is not turned on or off, like conditional love. Unconditional love is full of mercy for the limitations manifested in the one who is loved.

Unconditional love Copyright Simon Carey

But is it possible to love in this way? Perhaps unconditional love can only be fully expressed by the Higher Self or God. Nevertheless, it is an ideal that the world desperately needs, and something worth acting upon and experimenting with. We might first start with receiving unconditional love from our Higher Self. To know that we are fully worthy, accepted, and loved for who we are, in all our messy brokenness, failure, and even acts of irresponsible choice or worse.

In the ancient Syriac Christian tradition, there is no Hell. The 4^th century poet Ephrem and later Isaac the Syrian wrote of God’s irresistible Love. They believed that God’s unconditional love is eternal, ceaseless in its desire for us to embrace it and all that is good. No one can reject God’s love forever, no matter how long they turn aside, try to outmaneuver or outlast His or Her Loving gaze. Unconditional Love is irresistible!

This makes me think of times when I become frustrated or angry with my husband. I shut down and want to run away. But he knows and loves me well enough to always come closer at these times. He typically grabs ahold of me before I flee the room and tenderly embraces me. I may be acting childish and unreasonable, but I cannot resist his act of unconditional love!

Assagioli’s notes on Love: Love: It’s different aspects. “Needing” or deficiency love. And unneeding, unselfish love. Love for the Being of another person. Maslow, Towards the Psychology of Being, p. 39 …

Our story is just one small example of unconditional love in action. But more profound examples occur when we forgive and continue to love those who have deeply hurt us. Perhaps the failure of a partner to meet a vital condition for our love is a call for help. If he or she cheats on you, can you still forgive them and wish them well (over time?) even if you ultimately decide to end the relationship?

Unconditional love brings freedom. We are free to be ourselves in all our human frailty and know we are still loved. We are free to love others without expectations, demands or emotional turmoil. In turn, the love is also free to flow and transform all that is around us.

We cannot expect to reach perfect unconditional love – that is perhaps only for God, but we can continually step closer to it and learn to find the right balance between the two. We can start by realizing our unmet inner needs and start to see how we try to fulfil them in our relationships. What conditions do we place on the ones we love (including ourselves)? And how do we ascertain our loved ones’ compliance?

Then try, step-by-step, to meet our inner needs ourselves. To gently move beyond our love conditions, first for ourselves, and then for others. As we open up to more love, the Higher Self can sneak through all our messy insecurities and help us to realize a broader, constant, consistent, and radiant Love. A Love full of mercy. An Irresistible Love!

Oh! And by the way…Happy Valentine’s Day!

Writing the Apology You Long to Hear

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Apology - Street Art January is already half gone. Most of us are in full swing again, our busy lives moving rapidly towards spring. Any resolutions are probably either forgotten or put on the back burner. But the start of a new year is also a good time to reflect and forgive — yourself or someone else — and to extend an apology to someone else for forgiveness.

I have written about the process of forgiveness and how much time it can take. But I learned another approach to forgiveness through an interview of the playwright and author Eve Ensler about her book The Apology. Throughout her childhood, Ensler had been physically and sexually abused by her father. Decades after his death, she decided to write an apology for him – the apology that she had yearned to hear all her life. The book is written entirely from his perspective. In its “Introduction”, she talks about using her imagination to create the words she needed to hear her father say:

“My father is long dead. He will never say the words to me. He will not make the apology. So it must be imagined. For it is in our imagination that we can dream across boundaries, deepen the narrative, and design alternative outcomes.”

As Ensler points out, the first step towards forgiving or making an apology or even hearing an apology can begin with our own imagination. Assagioli said that our imagination has the great power to produce something that never existed before. By using our creative imagination, we help to externally manifest that which we visualize. In other words, by just imagining ourselves forgiving someone or apologizing to someone or having our perpetrator apology to us, we begin to engage in that very act.

Will and Imagination / Imagination is needed in “seeing” the goals and aims. (Note from Assagioli’s Archives)

Now, like most psychosynthesis techniques, using our creative imagination is not so easy! We can’t just say ‘I’m sorry’ and Poof! Magically all is forgiven and forgotten. The imagination must be fully engaged in creative play. We must physically feel the apologize. We would do well to write it down with pen and paper, say it out loud, imagine the injured or injurer sitting before us. We then need to chew on all of our feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations. Allow the apology to sink in our stomach. Perhaps cry and even scream our response. Breathe and imagine again…

I have many examples from my counseling practice of how the imagination can work in this way. Here is just one. During our second session together, Clair talked about her longing to reconcile her relationship with her father, which had ruptured fifteen years earlier. When Clair was 11 years old, her father decided to stop talking to the family, made this announcement to her mother and marked it by shaving his head. He only engaged with the family in angry outbreaks, otherwise he was completely silent. Towards the end of Clair’s detailed description of what had happened, she was sobbing. Five days after Clair shared her longing for reconciliation, she received a letter from her father – completely unprompted by her – requesting that they arrange to talk about what happened when she was 11 years old.

Will / Dynamic imagination – / It evokes, directs, focuses the drives and determines the execution, the action – (Note from Assagioli’s Archives)

Both acts, whether we forgive someone or apologize to another, brings freedom. Freedom from the visceral memory of the wounds received in body, soul and psyche. Freedom from the inner emptiness left by the harm we may have inflicted on another. By holding tight to this goal of freedom, a higher transpersonal quality, we can endure the wretchedness we might be feeling as we relive painful experiences. Ultimately, as we move towards reconciliation, inner freedom is awakened and nurtured, activating an inner opening within our heart in which peace can move in and take residence.

To help with this process, one reader recently sent me Forgiveness Phrases by Larry Yang – Awakening Together. In this four-part meditation, you are first invited to ask yourself for forgiveness. Then you imagine yourself asking forgiveness for some act you have consciously or unconsciously inflicted on another. Thirdly, you ask that you may forgive someone else. Finally, you ask for the freedom forgiveness can bring.

Goldilocks_apology_letter To move more deeply towards birthing forgiveness or an apology requires self-evaluation and reflection. Both forgiving and apologizing are a remembering. Both are humbling. Both victim and perpetrator become equal, fallible, human beings. Both abdicate power. Both become vulnerable.

An apology means examining the details of what you have done. Forgiveness means reliving the details of what has been done to you. Because God is in the details. Freedom is in the details.

This freedom – for both the forgiver and forgiven – is a spiritual release. Ultimately, you will feel a wave of energy move through your body. Your knees might shake and your chest rattle with sobs. In the end, you will breathe again and see the world differently. You will be more connected to all around you.

I leave the final words to Ensler:

“Find a clergy, a person, a counselor. Start to work on your apology. It’s a process. It’s a journey. It’s a practice. It takes time. And to those who can’t get an apology, write yourself one from your perpetrator. Work with somebody to support it. Write a thorough letter to yourself from the person who harmed you. The impact on me was profound. I feel free in a way I have never felt in my life.”

Many thanks to Clair (not her real name) for letting me share her story.

A Child is Born

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And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.

And the angel said unto them, “Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

Chiesa di Maria Assunta in Cielo, Pieve di Compresseto, Italy on Christmas Eve (photo by Gabriele Bazzucchi)

Have a wonderful Holiday and a safe and Happy New Year!
Many blessings to you in 2023.

Please enjoy these past Christmas posts:

Changing Judgments to Christmas Blessings

A Different Kind of Christmas List

An Ordinary Extraordinary Christmas

Christmas Desires

Balancing Silent Night with the Roar of Nightly News

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In northern Europe the days are growing shorter. Except for the oak trees with their withered sienna-brown leaves, most of the trees are bare against a bleak landscape and gray skies laden with cold, damp winds. The Dutch have a saying for this time of year: De donkere dagen voor Kerstmis. The dark days before Christmas. Indeed, every day is shorter and the nights seem to stretch out like a long, endless dream.

We are in the season of Advent, which mark the days before Christmas. Advent comes from the Latin word adventus meaning arrival. We freely use the word advent to simply mean “to come into being.” This is the time of year that we await the arrival of light when the Earth will once again begin to tilt towards our sun. The days can then slowly “come into being,” promising their full splendor of sunshine and warmth at the summer solstice. For Christians, this is the time during which they await the birth of Jesus, when the Divine comes into being.

Darkness Inside

For most of us, these days are more than just physically dark. We can also become lost and overwhelmed in all the expectations of the season. The shopping, planning, cooking, baking, wrapping, cards, music, school plays, church concerts. The running and stress, travel and traffic, not to mention all the money worries.

Typically, we are expected to spend time with our families, with the idea that everyone should be happily singing songs around a piano or opening perfect presents or eating gourmet meals. But our reality may actually lead us to feeling only more lonely and unsatisfied. Under pressure by the media and our own unreal expectations, many of us become depressed this time of year and some of us may even feel suicidal.

Assagioli’s notes on polarities.

Darker still are the constant reminders, between the tinsel and flashing lights, of the pain and suffering in the world. Not to mention, of course, our own pain and suffering. How can we possibly feel Joy? The entire season can feel like a sham. Bah Humbug! Where is the Higher Self in all this tragic mess?

Balancing Darkness with Light

Simon and Garfunkel once recorded a song called “7:00 News/Silent Night,” in which the familiar carol is quietly and beautiful sung. At first dimly, then more clearly and loudly, we simultaneously hear the voice of a newscaster dispassionately announcing the kind of violent and terrible news we are all too familiar with. Even though, at the end, the voice of the announcer seems to overwhelm the song, the tender voices unceasingly sing – they are not even faintly shaken.

One could experience this song as another symbol of despair – the submergence once again of peace and joy in the harsh violence of our day. But when listened to in its wholeness, the song expresses the reality that light does shine in the darkness. If we tune into the song of peace, we will be able to hear its still small voice singing clearly under the din of the crowd.

Light and dark. Joy and hatred. These are two of the many polarities that exist in the world. Our job is to learn to live with their tension in order to transform and synthesize their energies into a higher reality. Assagioli says that this process is analogous to a chemical combination when two elements are absorbed into a higher unity endowed with qualities different from what each individual element has.

Transforming Opposites into a Synthesis

The idea is to balance these opposites, hold their creative tension, and give space for a completely new and higher entity to be born. You do this by first being with the violent darkness but not identify with it. Then be with the joyful light and not identify with it either. Finally, we need to be with all that is and hold an objective understanding of the tensions between them in order to creatively seek wholeness.

Assagioli insisted that the mid-way point between two opposites is not static inside us, but rather in “a state of continuous oscillation.” We can actually experience this oscillation between Darkness and Light when we listen to the song “7:00 News/Silent Night.”

Once we can hold onto this mid-way point, then psychosynthesis can occur. It is a wise person who can play with opposites and watch with awe as they awaken and manifest into a complete formed higher quality.

So during these dark days before Christmas, practice hanging on and letting go. Hang onto the dark, and then let it go. Then hang onto the light, and let it go. Try to stand in the mid-way point by expressing Human Affection during this season. Then wait quietly and patiently for the advent of Spiritual Love that is quietly, calming, and ceaselessly singing in the world’s chaos.

Spiritual Lessons of Money (or the Lack of)

Can Money and Spirituality Mix?

Many people familiar with the life of St. Francis may like to think of him as a peace-loving eccentric who preached to the birds and wrote poems to Brother Sun and Sister Moon. But Francis was really a frightening radical! If he were alive today, I believe he would make us all feel quite uncomfortable.

Renunciation_of_Wordly_Goods — Francis renounces all worldly possessions, as painted by Giotto.

At the age of 25, Francis renounced a vast inherited wealth from his father by symbolically stripping naked in front of Bishop Guido and a great crowd in Assisi, forever devoting himself to ‘Lady Poverty.’ The painter Giotto depicts this scene complete with small boys throwing stones at the naked Francis.

Francis’ initial followers were not permitted to own any possessions. They lived in straw huts and preached and begged in the streets. In fact, Assagioli often referred to Francis as the “Poor Man of Assisi,” and he specifically mentions the saint in his article “Money and the Spiritual Life.”[1]

Figure 4. Francis from Archives — A hand drawn depiction of Francis with (left to right) Brother Masseo, Saint Clair, and Francis preaching to the birds. This is from Assagioli’s Archives, ID# 14609.

Assagioli states that living as Francis did is infeasible in our present age, pointing out that just decades after Francis’ death, the Franciscan Communities realized that “it was almost impossible to do without money and some form of buildings and land … Franciscans now use every means the modern world provides.”[2]

Assagioli continues by assuring us:

“If this is what the sons of Saint Francis do, how can any more be expected of us … caught up in the very fabric of economic, family, and social life?”

He then explains that spiritual transformation does not come from outside ourselves (where money might dominate), but from within.[3] However, Assagioli is then quick to qualify this statement by noting his intention is not:

“… to criticize or distract from the sublime act of Saint Francis, which was indeed heroic and had an incalculable positive effect as an example to others, providing us with a practical lesson in detachment … Our intention was only to show that this way cannot provide us with a generally applicable solution to our everyday lives.”[4]

In other words, money is a necessity for living our lives, but it is our attitude and actions towards money that determine its true worth. What matters most is how detached (or how identified) we are with the money and all that it can buy.

Assagioli’s Test with Money

007922 FIJ An Incident and a Test — Assagioli’s note from *Freedom in Jail*.

In his prison diary Freedom in Jail, we see firsthand Assagioli’s personal and spiritual struggle with money.[5] He writes about how he went through a psychological test and experience when he was told that the money his wife had deposited to pay for his extra privileges in jail was running out. This meant that he would have to leave his private “special” cell and move into a cell with others and eat the normal prison fare. He wrote that:

“A kind of physical instinctual panic surged which tended to create an emotional preoccupation. I fought it through clear reasoning: the food which I would get was quite sufficient… I roused myself a sense of shame for my selfish preoccupation. I realized the human value of sharing the experience with others of this “poverty.”

As soon as Assagioli had arrived at a deeper acceptance of his financial dilemma and was spiritually ready to share a cell with others, his was notified that his money had arrived, and that things would go on as before. He candidly writes:

“When the news was given to me, I distinctly registered two opposite inner reactions at the same time: an instinctual sense of relief and a feeling of disappointment for being deprived of the new experience and of the opportunity of helping my fellowmen.”

Personally, I have often found this to be the case whenever I spiritually feel conflicted and confused over the deeper meaning and use of money (usually around not having enough!). Whenever I finally manage to transmute my fears into a deeper awareness, the money finally arrives … and this always seems to happen at the very last minute!

Reflect on your attitude towards money

You might take some time to reflect on your own attitude towards money, especially as Europeans face energy bills that are doubling in price and the world sees the rising cost of food and other everyday products. Some questions to ask yourself are:

How identified am I with money? Do I gain recognition and acknowledgment from my money and possessions?
Am I generous with what I own?
How do I spiritually deal with any conflicts or confusion I experience over money (or the lack of it).
Like Assagioli, have you ever experienced “physical instinctual panic” when you face a financial challenge? Are you able to use your skillful will to detach from money and consequently find a higher solution to that challenge?

Final Words

Assagioli and St. Francis both called us to establish peace in every aspect of our lives. To celebrate this day joyfully, I end with a quote from Saint Francis written in Assagioli’s beautiful hand (in Italian) :[6]

Lighthearted Joy

What else are the servants of
God if not his minstrels
destined to raise up
the heart of the people
and to bring them
to the Joy of the Spirit.

S. Francesco

[1] Roberto Assagioli, Transpersonal Development, The Dimension Beyond Psychosynthesis, The Aquarian Press, London, 1993, pp. 213-233.

[2] Ibid., p. 217.

[3] Ibid., p. 218.

[4] Ibid., Footnote on pp 220-221.

[5] Roberto Assagioli, Freedom in Jail. Edited by Catherine Ann Lombard. Istituto di Psicosintesi, Florence, Italy. 2016, pp. 25-27, 35-36.

[6] Roberto Assagioli, N.D. ID #8405. Retrieved November 11, 2016 from archivioassagioli.org. This translation is mine. The original Italian text is: “Letizia – Che altro sono i servi di Dio se non i giullari di Lui, destinati a rialzare il cuore degli uomini e portarli alla gioia dello spirito? S. Francesco.”

Exploring Assagioli’s Archives – Sept. 16/17

Love and Will

A psychosynthesis approach to living

Tag Archives: psychology

5 Reasons to Read “Creating Harmony in Life”

Crossing Over

Countess, Grandmother and Psychosynthesis Feminist

Working for Women’s Social, Political and Labor Rights

Turning Her Villa into a Women’s Cooperative

The ‘Rebel’ President

As a Devoted Grandmother