The high teachings reside at the core of personality, and at the core of all religions as well.

I have long been a psychoanalytic psychiatrist. In recent years, I have noticed that as people are released from the bonds and constrictions, the ballast and inhibitions, of earlier training (of societal training as well), there is a natural buoyancy of the soul ­- a rising, if you will, to higher levels of personality.

Translated, this means (as I observe it) that as we become released from neurotic and learned inhibitions, we do not become more selfish, more power-seeking, more hedonistic or self-absorbed -- but quite the opposite. They become more giving, less adherent to body pleasures, less self-occupied, less selfish -- and more and more invested in the joy of giving.

This is especially noticeable in group formation. For example, in group therapy, as the treatment goes on, its members draw together, become a family. And each shows such a desire to share, to help, to give ­- sometimes at great personal expense. This is one of the great strengths of group therapy, and indeed of groups altogether. This is the power of bonding and binding and melting together in mutual identification. The community shares, helps, feels helped and feels safe and surrounded by the mutual bond. This indeed is the hope for our world.

This has been quite a lesson to me, but all the more so since it is joined with the great teachings of the East. Madame Helena Blavatsky established Theosophy, a philosophy from the East, at the behest of great Himalayan masters.

Theosophy taught, in fact demanded, that we invest ourselves in creating a universal brotherhood of man/woman. These masters turned away a very prominent Englishman, A.P. Sinnett, who published the Anglo-Indian newspaper at a time when British Imperial power was at its height. Why did they turn him away? Because of his insistence on making the teachings exclusive to the British aristocracy. This was anathema to their message. Failing to change his mind, they gave him up altogether. Such was the integrity of their desire for a universal brotherhood of humanity. These same masters had powers which we would consider magical. Their powers allowed them to project their presence so that they could be in two places at the same time; to create something out of apparent thin air; to project a letter across time and space so that, without writing with pen, the words became inscribed on paper or parchment at some distance. They did not consider these powers magical, but rather attributed them to their greater understanding of the laws of Nature.

Being inspired and excited by the Theosophical message, I was all the more so when I read Sri Aurobindo's writings. He taught that it was not enough to retreat to some mountaintop or to raise one's level of consciousness for one's sake alone . . . rather, it was important to bring the "Supermind" down from high levels to its manifestation on earth. By this he meant to create a heaven on earth ­- and to achieve the Supermind through acts of kindness and goodness, help and love -- for all of humanity.

This is a wonderfully fulfilling message. It is more than a message; it is a promise, for it is true that as we become more giving and less self-absorbed, we achieve powers. We also become more sensitive to the energies around us. As an example, now that I have been on this journey for more than twenty years, my intuition has become fine-tuned, so to speak. I can almost hear what one of my patient's will say before it is said. This is not unique to me. It is latent within all of us, and ready at hand as we learn and refine our perception of the subtle realms which surround us. Such perception comes when we are progressively less self-occupied and increasingly other-absorbed. Such powers come when we are less frenetically busy, and progressively quiet inside. When we achieve that quiet, we can hear the silence, and the message it contains!

And so, personal growth leads to spiritual development, and spiritual development leads to personal growth.

There are so many examples of this in my practice. It is so very clear that people are ready for the spiritual message, and have often been frozen by their fear that they will be ridiculed if they express their own spiritual experience. Worse, that they will be thought strange or even psychotic by their psychiatrist or psychologist. But more and more these spiritual experiences are being recognized, spoken of and taught. Now the time has come when we can and should make it a part of our personal development

Here is a case of personality constriction by the very nature of a "privileged" upbringing: Paula was a remarkable woman but only in retrospect. Her inner beauty, poetry, channeling insights and heights of soul-reach became evident only after three years of psychotherapy and intensive challenge. The "ugly duckling" finally turned into a swan, showing that under the surface lay an essential sweetness, beauty and spirituality.

Paula had searched the world for a cure for her "environmental allergy," and help for a shame-producing problem of muscular distortions. She was fifty-eight years old when she came to see me, elegantly attractive despite her disfigurement, queenly in her bearing. At the same time, she was boring. Her social etiquette was finely tuned, but it consumed her personality in such a way that the authentic inner person was concealed. In the beginning of her treatment, she related her story emotionlessly and colorlessly. It was not surprising, therefore, that when I asked her what she was feeling, she had to ask me to tell her about emotions and what they were!

Paula was born into a well-to-do and aristocratic family. She had been raised largely by the household maid who functioned as a governess because her mother, a high socialite, was out of the house much of the time. Notwithstanding, Paula remembers all the times she excitedly attended the opening of the schoolroom door, sure that it was her mother, only to find that it was the maid who would be taking care of her after school. When the patient was sick and ran to the toilet to vomit, it was the maid who took care of her. Yet she had to make the best of things, and adopted an approach to people, both beloved and less loved, which was adaptive, pleasant, superficially friendly -- and empty. This reflected the emptiness of her life. Paula married a man who was very successful financially and also from a "good family." Together the two lived a life devoted to their children that, by all appearances, was almost the ideal American family. The four children were very obedient and well bred. No one in this highly cultivated and controlled family -- no one ever rebelled.

In 1975 Paula's symptoms of spasms and environmental allergy began. Although she thought she wasn't very smart, she showed her highly developed intelligence by learning almost everything there was to know about environmental energy, Candidiasis and dystonias (spasms), demonstrating courage and tenacity as she pursued one cure after another after another in her determination to become normal. Unbeknownst to her at the time, becoming normal meant becoming herself. Paula did indeed become herself. In fact she became much more than her former self. Instead of the overly correct, somewhat boring and emotionally inexpressive self, there emerged a soul who was full of love, exceedingly devoted and generous, and reaching to the high heaven for more and more spiritual knowledge and fulfillment.

It is really a wonderful assignment that has been given to me, to work as a translator of the high teachings that reside at the core of personality, and at the core of all religion. It is a wonderful assignment to see them at work in my patents, to help my patients to see them at work within themselves. And this is true of not only my patients, but also of all of us.

(Some of this material is extracted from Enter the SuperMind, published by Sterling House of Pittsburgh, and due for release in September, 1999.)

Dr. Pressman is Emeritus Chairman of Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Temple University Health Sciences Center. He is Medical Director at the Center for Psychiatric Wellness, clinics that operate in Philadelphia and Haddonfield, N.J. These clinics bridge traditional and spiritual psychotherapy. Dr. Pressman can be reached at 200 Locust Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106; telephone 215-922-0204; fax 215-922-3008; e-mail mauriedavid@earthlink.net: