SF101:
Secrets of Human Transformation
OVERVIEW: The
impulse to change springs out of dissatisfaction and unhappiness.
Entire fields of human endeavor (e.g., the large body of "self-improvement"
literature and workshops) have this impulse as their starting point.
But what change is actually possible? And what bearing do approaches
for change actually have on
our happiness? This course
examines a variety of approaches to transformation, from Sigmund
Freud’s psychotherapy, to Stephen Covey’s “7 Habits”, to the self-transcending
God-Realization of the great Spiritual Masters. We will see how
how such approaches vary in their presumptions about:
- the full
depth of the human being (from animal-like to Divine);
- the faculties
available to a human being (including “higher” faculties);
- the natural
(or Divine) laws or principles with which human beings must
be aligned;
- how the
heat that arises in the friction between old and new habits
is managed or endured; and
- what agents
of transformation are available to assist in the process of
transformation (from therapists to Spiritual Masters).
We will conclude
that True Happiness is a matter of transcending the sense of being
a separate self, and being restored first to Communion with, and
ultimately Identification with God. This is a Spiritual and ultimately
Divine matter that requires the unrelenting transmission of Divine
Grace only provided by the Spiritual Master.
 REQUIRED
READINGS:
OPTIONAL
READINGS:
- Dale Carnegie,
How
To Win Friends and Influence People, Pocket Books, 1990.
- Sigmund
Freud, Joan Riviere (translator), and James Strachey (editor),
The
Ego and the Id, Norton & Company, 1990.
- Stephen
Covey, The
7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Schuster,
1990.
- James Hillman,
The
Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling, Warner
Books, 1997.
- Avatar
Adi Da Samraj, The
Secret Of How To Change (online), 1985.
- Avatar
Adi Da Samraj, The
Method Of The Siddhas, The Dawn Horse Press, 1996.
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