Page 39 - NAMAH-Apr-2023

Namah An Integral Psychology Perspective on Bipolar Disorder

perspective and posit that the individual was is the attempt to reject or subjugate the
making a great effort to progress, then we opposition without a true synthesis. In
have to bring in the subliminal or spiritual Nature’s evolution, there is a process of
factors providing that impulsion to progress. ascent and integration; the results of the past
This impulsion from the subliminal or the evolution are not rejected and thrown away
spiritual is beyond the surface cognitions of but synthesised and integrated into the new
the individual’s surface being even when the order, the new level of the being.
individual responds to this impulsion and “A compromise is a bargain, a transaction of
does the necessary effort to progress. It is this interests between two conflicting powers; it is
secret influence that propels the individual not a true reconciliation. True reconciliation
to progress and this journey is opposed by proceeds always by a mutual comprehension
the forces from below, which have already leading to some sort of intimate oneness (6).”
been established by the evolutionary past.
This triggers the vital imbalance, causing At an individual level, the tendency of the
inflation or the deflation of the vital ego and surface personality to deny or reject the
its manifesting bipolar disorder. formations of the past sustains the shadow
parts of our being below the threshold of
surface awareness. However, in the process
of individualisation, in the process of making
evolutionary progress, these submerged
parts resurface and the individual becomes
a battleground and bipolar disorder is one
of the forms of its manifestation. In this
battle, the surface personality by itself is not
powerful or wise enough to know or manage
the process. It may strive and struggle to put
the submerged sub-personalities under tight
control but they do break out and create havoc
Polarity and Integration in the life of the individual, especially when the
individual is on the threshold of making great
When an individual or a group is striving to progress. A greater light and power than the
progress beyond the established norms, the surface ego personality is required.
emergence of polarisation and the swing or
conflict between the extremes is predictable. The Mother writes, in the context of vital
In fact, they are inevitable consequences. education:
This general truth is symbolically narrated
in Indian mythology as the churning of the “… a fundamental change of character
ocean, a churning done by devas and asuras, demands an almost complete mastery over
the beings of light and the beings of darkness, the subconscient and a very rigorous disci-
a universal theme across ancient cultures. plining of whatever comes up from the
inconscient, which, in ordinary natures,
However, a fundamental error we make expresses itself as the effects of atavism and of

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