This essay by Roberto Assagioli discusses the concept of spiritual understanding, emphasizing its importance in fostering connections among individuals, groups, and nations.
By Roberto Assagioli, Doc. #22963-22964, Assagioli Archives, Florence. Original Title in German: “Spirituelles Verständnis”. Translated and edited with notes by Jan Kuniholm
Abstract: This essay by Roberto Assagioli discusses the concept of spiritual understanding, emphasizing its importance in fostering connections among individuals, groups, and nations. Assagioli highlights that true understanding involves recognizing the divine aspects of love-wisdom and intelligent activity, which together enable spiritual creativity. He critiques the reductionist approach of modern philosophy and science, advocating for a purposive comprehension of life that considers the interconnectedness of experiences. Understanding is portrayed as a dual process: revealing purpose and recognizing the properties and effects of beings and actions. Assagioli outlines three means of understanding others—through inference, vital identification, and intuition—and stresses that understanding liberates individuals from judgment and criticism. He concludes by urging aspirants to be active, understanding observers in the world, promoting the transformative power of love and wisdom.
This subject, spiritual understanding, is tremendously vast, inexhaustible in its depth and in its applications.
In the Treatise on the Seven Rays we are told that loving understanding will be the keynote, the outstanding quality and the significant contribution of the coming sixth race of men. According to the Law of Correspondences, it may well be assumed that loving understanding, to a certain extent, will also be expressed by the next sub-race of our present fifth race of men — the sixth. If we consider an even shorter period of time, the Aquarian cycle that is now beginning, we can assume that loving understanding will also manifest itself in it, and that it will do so from the more advanced part of humanity, and that this will be one of the most precious contributions of the new science of spiritual psychology.
There is no doubt that at the present critical moment in human life, there is an urgent need for true spiritual understanding. We need it to build bridges across the gulfs and chasms that separate individuals, groups and nations. Understanding is a prerequisite for intelligent, lasting and effective goodwill.
The first thing that is needed, of course, is to understand what understanding really is. To do this, it is necessary to be aware of the teaching that the three main divine aspects are expressed in humanity. The third aspect, intelligent activity, awakens man’s creative power. The second aspect, love-wisdom, expresses itself as loving understanding. This can be considered the first effect of divine wisdom in human consciousness. The first aspect of the divine expresses itself as spiritual will and purpose.
Just as the second aspect occupies a central position in this solar system and is of paramount importance, it can be said that loving understanding occupies a central position and is the primary concern in the human being who is spiritually awakened and integrated.
Keyserling[1]emphasizes again and again that understanding is creative. Without doubt, spiritual understanding has a creative effect; in other words, the activity of the third aspect is only creative when it is inspired by and united with the second aspect. To put it even more simply, the personality becomes spiritually creative only when it begins to express the love-wisdom of the soul.
No less necessary and vital is the relationship between understanding and the first aspect. Only when we have the necessary understanding can we formulate a plan that suits our purposes and can be carried out under given conditions. Through understanding, a psychological channel is formed through which the spiritual will of the person can flow in a way that makes it effective and safe.
The right order for a person is therefore this: understand first, then want, then plan, and then create. A little reflection makes it clear how many mistakes, how much failure and how many harmful actions can be traced back to the fact that this order has been neglected or reversed.
Understanding is also essential within the second aspect, so that love is wise; that is, truly helpful in the spiritual sense. Indeed, even more is achieved: understanding is the source of love, as the French philosopher Guyau[2] so beautifully put it: “To understand everything in order to love everything.”
It is therefore clear that understanding must occupy a central position in the spiritual life of the human being, and that it is to be considered a main point, a meeting point of harmony and synthesis of all the aspects of the spirituality expressed (as far as man is concerned).
Understanding has two fundamental aspects: it reveals the true purpose and corresponding function of a being or a given fact, and its specific characteristic.
- Revelation of purpose.
Until a few years ago the great mistake made by modern philosophy and science was to explain life and all human functions exclusively by applying analysis; that is, by breaking down the manifestations into their component parts and finding their material origin. In these lower and primitive aspects, it was believed that the true nature of things could be discovered.
Thus, for example, it was assumed that spiritual love could be explained from the sexual point of view, genius on the basis of physiology and pathology, and the wonder of music by the generation of physical vibrations caused by rubbing cat guts and horse hair together.
Today, however, as a deeper and truly philosophical point of view is emerging, it is becoming clear that the true essence of a fact can only be grasped if it is considered in its fundamental connections with other facts with which it forms a whole. Only when one comprehends the reason for its existence — i.e. the purpose which this fact serves, the function it has to fulfill in the great process of life; in short, its essential meaning — does true understanding begin. This is purposive comprehension, as opposed to the concept of chance.
From this standpoint of purposive awareness, two facts or actions that appear to be the same may in reality prove to be fundamentally different. For example, we see two men walking, one with the purpose of doing a good deed, the other to commit murder. On the surface, they are both doing the same thing, but the meaning and consequences of their actions are profoundly different. An old Latin saying expresses this: “Si duo faciunt idem, non est idem.” (When two men do the same thing, it is not the same thing).
- The knowledge of properties and the awareness of their effects.
This is difficult to express in words and is best illustrated through aesthetic experiences. Every color and every sound, as well as their groupings and combinations, has a fundamental quality and makes a particular impression on us, which we must experience individually in order to know it. No one can explain to a person who has been blind since birth what the colors red or green are. But all those who can see and know these colors through experience know what is being talked about. They are also aware that the first has a stimulating effect and the second a calming one. The same applies to psychological states: to different feelings, to intellectual processes and the will, and then above all to the different types of spiritual consciousness.
Based on the foregoing, one might assume that it is impossible to know what is going on in other people and that we therefore cannot understand them. However, this is not the case. We have three means by which we can understand others:
- Inference based on related and familiar expressions (such as facial expressions, gestures, words) that indicate related inner experiences.
- Vital identification. We have a good example of this in Wagner’s opera Parsifal. In the last scene of the first act, we see Parsifal, almost like a child, fascinated by the dramatic scene in which King Amfortas is seized by anguish of soul as he tries to reveal the Grail. With his thinking Parsifal does not grasp the cause of Amfortas’ agony, but he feels it intensely. When Kundry later tries to give him the seductive kiss, Parsifal recoils from her in horror, remembering what he experienced as a result of his identification with Amfortas.
- True direct intuition. Conclusions are the least reliable because the correlation between inner conditions and outer manifestation is by no means fixed and the same for everyone, but varies greatly depending on the psychological type, the rays, etc. In contrast, the other two means, especially the last one, enable real insight. These means, however, only afford full understanding if they are consciously applied, interpreted in an intelligent way by the mind and connected with prior knowledge — in other words, they must have been thoroughly assimilated. This is nothing less than the synthesis of intellect and intuition, which represents the next step for humanity, especially for its more advanced representatives. It should be the immediate goal of aspirants and disciples.
Understanding is urgently needed by those who are engaged in the spiritual field; that is, by all those who have the difficult responsibility of helping others in their spiritual development. Only with great wisdom and loving understanding can we be harmless and truly helpful.
There is one side to understanding that may not have been given enough attention: Understanding is not only a blessing for those who are lovingly understood, but also for those who possess this understanding. It is a powerful liberator. It eliminates all judgment and criticism. It promotes harmlessness, impersonality, decentralization, a proper sense of fact and inner detachment.
However, it must be made clear that being non-critical does not mean that we should be blind to the limitations, faults and delusions in ourselves and others. It means that the person who understands does not react emotionally to these conditions, but sees them objectively and in their true light as more or less necessary stages and temporary experiences.
Who would think of criticizing a child for being childish and immature, or a savage for not being “civilized,” or an artist for not being a businessman? We would endeavor to find the best ways to help the child in his inner growth, and to help the primitive man to absorb the benefits of civilization without acquiring its dark sides (which is indeed quite difficult!). We would try to show the artist how to become more practical and adaptable. But for all this, there is no need for criticism or a superior attitude, but loving understanding.
We must not, however, believe that understanding for the weaknesses of the personality is always something sweet and pleasant. Sometimes this understanding may appear severe, for instance, when it shatters cherished illusions, superficial complacency, foolish pride, and narrow mental prejudices. But even though it may temporarily hurt and cause sorrow, in reality it never wounds or harms. I would like to mention one more point in conclusion: It has been said that aspirants should become “detached observers.” We should be clear about the true meaning of these words. Certainly they do not mean that we should be passive spectators in the world drama, like comfortably placed theater-goers during a performance. This invitation means that we should become understanding observers, truly understanding. To observe and understand spiritually is a highly active process that, on the one hand, requires control of all personal reactions — both emotional and mental — and, on the other hand, the development and application of our highest psycho-spiritual abilities.
May the light of understanding dissolve the darkness of illusion and hostility, and bring the healing, unifying influence of divine love and wisdom to humanity.
[1] Baltic German philosopher Hermann Keyserling (1880-1946).
[2] Jean-Marie Guyau (1854-1888), French philosopher and poet.
