«The veil of oblivion, of the sleep of the soul, is what temporarily separates every man or woman on the way towards their own self-realization», thus opens her chapter Alessandra Chiarini, co-author of the book “Psychosophy. A bridge between psychology and spirituality” which proposes a renewed vision in the knowledge of human beings by integrating ancient Eastern and Western traditions with new scientific discoveries.
In the space of this chapter, Dr. Chiarini offers a profound extract of the methods and practices of accompanying souls, integrated in her psychosophical work. What she highlights of the psychosophical attitude is «starting from respecting and accepting one’s limits, through the art of true, receptive and compassionate listening» to transcend one’s limits.
«Taking up the Buddhist tradition and Mindful Compassion (Gilbert et al., 2013) we can get closer to the other by integrating four types of contemplation: loving kindness, empathetic joy, serenity and compassion (karuṇā), that is, the desire that everyone beings are freed from suffering and its causes – explains Chiarini – The compassionate approach towards the travel companion consists in favoring the conscious acceptance of what is present, including pain, to bring out “the witness”, that internal more stable part that contemplates the flow of perceptual, emotional changes, of thoughts without identifying with them».
«Thanks to visualization practices and bodily and emotional perception we can accompany the other to an increasingly compassionate feeling – testifies Dr. Chiarini – Thus it is possible to develop the compassionate self until it becomes a stable point of consciousness, able to welcome lovingly his own suffering and that of others. Where we can embrace suffering we can grasp the beauty and joy of living. The crisis during the course of life becomes for the soul/personality/mask a precious opportunity for awakening and making more conscious and less reactive choices with respect to the conditioning of thought-forms. In moments of crisis it can happen that the soul experiences flashes of awakening, as if it received an unexpected and very intense jolt that breaks the mold. The awakening consists of a series of crises which progressively expand the soul-personality, bringing it closer to a truer, freer and more stable part of us, which we can call “spirit” and which is not conditioned by earthly attachments, contemplates the flow of denser and entangled soul and acts as a beacon that illuminates the way».
Dr. Chiarini takes up the vision of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, deepened by the doctor Angelo Antonio Fierro, in relation to the crises along the biographical spiral marked by a seven-year rhythm in order to reconnect to the spiritual component. To the process of self-observation and to that of compassionate reading of the biographical spiral, Chiarini combines a work of rooting in her own physical body and of this to the Earth, mother and welcoming, generous nurse of all living beings. This process that goes from “thinking” to “feeling” stimulates the synchronic integration of vital energy, emotions/feelings and thoughts, bringing a coherence that allows you to perceive a more stable center within yourself.
«The breath and the flow of vital energy as a tool of perception and integration is a space dedicated to the exploration of the breath as a vehicle of vital energy, explored both by the Bioenergetics discipline of Alexander Lowen (1990), and by the more ancient oriental disciplines including the non-dual tantric yoga of Kashmir. Prāṇāyāma becomes the art of governing the Vital energy to bring us back to the sense of fusion with the Source. Dr. Chiarini resumes, through her yoga teacher Clemi Tedeschi, a pupil of Eric Baret, the ability to listen to the body and the breath, passing from feeling the thickest and coarsest part to perceiving the thinnest, most spacious, energetic part »he explains Chiarini.
Thus the body is perceived as a natural extension of the breath followed by a feeling of Union. «The body begins to be perceived as a sacred temple that houses the personal conscience, a luminous ray emanating, like the sun, from the universal Consciousness. Recognizing personal and universal consciousness as identical can be an enlightening discovery. According to Baret (2005), listening to the body in the breath, and the breath in space, leads effortlessly to the dissolution of the self-will of the personality, towards the true perception of Unity».
Bibliography
- Baret, E. (2005). Yoga, bodies of vibration, bodies of silence. Paris: Almora.
- Fierro, A., A. (2018). Leafing through the petals of life: the biographical work between climbs and descents. Bologna: Om editions.
- Gilbert, P., Choden, K. (2013). Mindful Compassion. How the science of compassion can help you understand your emotions, live in the present, and connect deeply with others. London: Constable & Robinson Ltd
- Lowen, A. (1990). The spirituality of the body bioenergetics for grace and harmony. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company.
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