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There appear to be two schools. Maslow spoke of his self-actualisation, as the pinnacle of achievement, yet he could not see that not wanting to achieve is the true pinnacle, and the want for more things and money is the most base level of experience, i.e. scraping the bottom of the barrel. In fact, his hierarchy of needs is a lie because it is incomplete. I've taken the liberty of drawing up a new version for your psychology books, below. Maslow's pyramid doesn't allow for enlightenment. His self-actualisation is diametrically opposed to self-realisation and demands that you work, work, work to achieve the position of not having to worry any more about the things life may throw at you because you deal with it with wealth. Self-actualisation is the epitome of greed and selfishness, while self-realisation is the death of the psychological object which wishes for such greed and ownership.
The Davis-Maslowian Hierarchy of Needs
Which psychological/psychoanalytical/philosophical literary heavy-weights have dared take on the process of individuation? Gustave Le Bon with Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche with "Beyond Good and Evil", not to mention the whole shelf the rest of his works cover. Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung with practically everything they wrote. Soren Kierkegaard with "The Crowd is Untruth". Buddhism, Hinduism and Gnostics with Enlightenment. There are many, many more. But why are so many ignorant? Why do so many show the ignorance called spiritual death?
Each author was inevitably interested in the human condition from different angles of approach but nonetheless made it their journey to understand the human condition. What is most revealing about these personalities is that they used external sources of experience and knowledge to come to their conclusions.
There is nothing like seeing something with your own eyes, or should I say through them. Nothing trumps personal experience and let's face it, life is an entirely psychological event so how can you learn as much from someone else as you can from yourself? You are your own test-bed, your own living example and your own judge and jury.
Every recommendation, no matter whether it was written by saints, prophets, scientists or philosophers alike, suggests isolation, kerbing desires, avoiding systems and above all, no harm to others or yourself. Why would they suggest this, and why do the authors play with concepts like life and death in the same breath as asking people to be nice to each other? What bearing could all this have on life and death?!
Did you know there are two types of death? The physical one we are all aware of, but there is also a death before you die. Your identity is made up of the continuation of the 'you' idea which is first spawned at a very young age. We nurture this idea of identity from those early years as a continuously tweaked and altered state. But this identity has been brought up to define itself by what everyone else thinks or expects of it due to mass education and collectivism.
You can tell when a system has made a mistake because those modes of peace have just been added to education, when those practices should have been education itself. When I was told success is important it almost seemed to grate against something in me. When I was told to mingle or get involved, it felt contradictory and wrong. I'd like to go back and tell you how wrong you were to copy everyone else. Getting everyone else back out of you is much easier said than done.
I can help you knock at the door described in the Bible.
