Spiritual Development and the Polarities of Type

Kartik SubbaraoAuthor of Enlightening Technical Leadership

subbarao@computer.org

Stages of Development

You know, it is sometimes an ideal not to have any kind of convictions or feelings that are not based upon reality. One must even educate people...that their emotions ought to have a real basis, that they cannot swear hell and damnation at somebody on a mere assumption, and that there are absolute reasons why they are not justified in doing such a thing. They really have to learn that their feelings should be based on facts.

But to [develop further] one should unlearn all that. One should even admit that all one's psychical facts have nothing to do with material facts. For instance, the anger which you feel for somebody or something, no matter how justified it is, is not caused by those external things. It is a phenomenon all by itself. That is what we call taking a thing on its subjective level.

If you have reached that stage...you have succeeded in dissolving the absolute union of material external facts with internal or psychical facts. You begin to consider the game of the world as your game, the people that appear outside as exponents of your psychical condition. Whatever befalls you, whatever experience or adventure you have in the external world, is your own experience.

Carl Jung in The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

Meditation

● Creates mental space within which opposites can be more fully experienced

● Neuroscience Research– Reduces cortisol, amygdala activation– Increases telomerase, cortical thickness

● Focused Attention● Open Monitoring

The Opposing Function

● Connects the dominant function across a continuum that spans subject and object

● A gateway to broader awareness of polarities● Narrow claim:

– Developing Ni can facilitate post-conventional growth for ENPs● Possible broader implication:

– Developing the opposing function with sufficient mental space can profoundly influence spiritual development

Extraverted and Introverted Intuition

● Carl Jung, Psychological Types:– “Just as the extraverted intuitive is continually scenting out new [external]

possibilities...so the introverted intuitive moves from image to image, chasing after every possibility in the teeming womb of the unconscious”

– “Introverted intuition perceives all the background processes of consciousness with almost the same distinction as extraverted sensation registers external objects”

● Lenore Thomson, Personality Type: An Owner's Manual:– “Extraverted intuition [moves] us to unify our sense impressions with their larger

context, thereby creating new options for meaning and response”– “Introverted intuition [prompts] us to liberate our sense impressions from their

larger context, thereby creating new options for perception itself”● Gary Hartzler and Margaret Hartzler, Functions of Type:

– “[Extraverted intuition] is constantly perceiving a wide variety of possibilities in almost every situation”

– “[Introverted intuition] often sees ideas simultaneously from several perspectives”

Extraverted and Introverted Intuition

● Extraverted Adaptation/Synthesis is contrasted withIntroverted Deconstruction/Reconstruction

● Expanding mental space expands awareness along the continuum

● Recognition of the dominant/opposing polarity as a continuum sets a precedent for the recognition of other polarities

NeNi Possibilities ofPerception Processes

Possibilities ofPerception Objects

Face Recognition

Face Recognition

Necker Cube

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Necker_cube

Kanizsa Square

Jung: “[Extraverted intuition] is represented in consciousness by an attitude of expectancy...”

Kanizsa Square

“...but only from the subsequent result can it be established how much of what was 'seen' was actually in the object, and how much was 'read into' it.”

Shadow Projections

● Shadow Projection: disparaging/idealizing less-acknowledged aspects of ourselves in others:– “That person is so wrong, I could never be that way”

=> Negative Projection– “That person is so right, I only wish I could be that way”

=> Positive Projection– Mental space and type knowledge can help withdraw projections

● Archetypes can be richly insightful in understanding projection, but caution is in order:– Watch for the brain's negativity bias when applying the function-

archetype model– Watch for value-laden attachments/aversions to archetypes – e.g.

hero and demon

From Projections to Polarities

● To treat a pair of opposites as a polarity, we need to see both poles in value-neutral or positive terms

● Beena Sharma and Susanne Cook-Greuter: “When both poles within a pair of opposites have a positive or neutral value, we call it a polarity”

● Barry Johnson: “A Polarity is an interdependent pair of two poles that are both desirable and required over time for a sustainable self and system”

● The language of psychological type is well-suited for identifying polarities

Types of Typological Polarities

● Attitude: Ne/Ni, Se/Si, Te/Ti, Fe/Fi● Function: Ne/Se, Ni/Si, Te/Fe, Ti/Fi● Function+Attitude: Ne/Si, Ni/Se, Te/Fi, Ti/Fe● Strategies

– Generalized, expanded zig-zag model– Reaching out to specific functions in polarities

● Does not impose an equal balance on every polarity for every person in every situation

Takeaways to Consider

● Meditation● Extend awareness towards the opposing

function, and see what that process unlocks● Enlist psychological type as an ally in

recognizing how others can serve as “exponents of our own psychical condition”