Psychology Was a Field Biased to Favor the West - Essay Example

Upon enrolment for this I presumed that psychology was a field biased to favor the West. I thought that it would be on theories on spirituality in psychology. However, after the semester, I appreciated the uniqueness of this course because of its coverage of some elements from the East as well. The class adopted an open approach to learning. The most interesting part of this course was the invitation of numerous guest speakers and spiritual educators to our classes. Attending their lectures proved quite inspiring and enlightening. For example, I remember the lecture on “Spirituality and Education” held on November 6 by several educators. In this lecture, a student asked about the relationship between spirituality and real life, a question that had bothered me for some time. Diverse answers were given with others arguing for no connection and others arguing for connection between the two aspects. However, from educators in our classes, supported by works of numerous writers, it became apparent to me that spirituality and our real life are strongly connected because we achieve strength and power from spirituality for our real life. Thus, the lectures were useful in answering our questions. Furthermore, I draw inspiration from my uncle. Our family, including my late uncle, is mostly Buddhist. My uncle was a close confidant to my father, and the two were always together until my uncle passed away. He was diagnosed with liver cancer. Normally, Asian families would panic and even become desperate when one of their own becomes sick, and more so, if the sickness is untreatable as is the case with cancer. Likewise, the patient would be frightened and panic. However, my family was different considering the case of my uncle. Perhaps, they took solace in what he said when he was diagnosed with the cancer, words that I still vividly remember: “No one in the world can stay forever, so do those doctors. This is the end of all of us. Actually, living for thirty years is no different from living for three hundreds years. The value of life is never dependent on the length. Instead, it depends on whether you live with respect and meaningfulness. And most importantly, live with a peaceful mind.” I could have been too young to understand what my uncle meant then, but now, considering that he did not have any college education, I believe his passing away was divine. In fact, just 10 days to his death, he said to his wife: “everything and everyone has its own destiny. We come and go. Do not cry for me and do not worry about me any longer.” Such words from my uncle made the family not to cry and panic but rather face death rationally and in peace. I even remember his conversation with my father on life and spirituality before his death. The “true meaning of life” that they talked about becomes more appreciable as I learn more from this course. People come to this world with nothing and they leave with nothing. However, people fight for their living, even hurting others for their selfish gains. They would seem to be earning everything, but in essence, they earn nothing. Their lives would be full of confusion. Therefore, to have a meaningful life, people need spiritual minds and beliefs to nurture their souls. Our belief, no matter Christianity, Buddhism or any other, is greater than any individual, providing the compass for our lives. Whereas it could fail to provide a detailed map to lead us to the end, it gives us direction so that we do not get lost. Otherwise, the world would be like an obese person, looking all so strong but suffers from heart complication. It is just like a cancer patient who looks so healthy from the outside but is dying from the inside. This reminds me of the speech by Marianne Williamson, that what we receive is what we give. This is called karma in Buddhism. I think people need to search themselves. We have become so obsessed with physical science in the recent decades, even denying the existence of spirituality. This is a dangerous approach to life as it weakens morality. We witness more genetically modified organisms being developed. Technology has become abused thus isolating people and weakening abilities that people were naturally born with. For instance, with navigation technologies, people lost the sense of direction. Even more recent, the invention of designer babies made it possible to create babies from selected pool of “ideal genes” of say scientists, Nobel Prize winners and the likes. People have become so self-centered and exaggerate issues. We forget that when our happiness and desires are exaggerated, so do our sadness and loss. I am not a typical Buddhist, but I am influenced a lot by my families. In fact, the earth in this universe is very small. We humans are even much smaller. Earthquake, tsunami, and flood, even Ebola, can make us panic and worry. So, powerful human is only relative. The smallness, fragility and temporariness of our lives are absolute. I recall the video, “Every Moments of Our Life” which made me feel at peace and grateful. In that clip, people wake up, catch the bus, work, smile, cry, face death everyday. This made realize that life is both ordinary and extraordinary. It is ordinary because everyone experiences it, including peaks and valleys. It is extraordinary because it is liquid and you never know what happens next. Even though one could feel so lost and sad at the moment, things change all the time, which gives us hope that at least sadness is not special and extraordinary. Spiritual minds want us to believe before seeing anything really happening. On the contrary, people want the truth shown before believing in real life. People believe to be so powerful and the invented science to be even more powerful. We are used to believing as long as we see it. Such empirical ways of thinking kill the perceptive and inductive ability that we as animals were born with. The ideas that we need to fight for fortune and fame are actually very limited and utilitarian. Science would never discover, the wholeness of being created and creating. It is like a machine; it will never know why it is made and who made it. The only bad thing is lack of believing. People might say they never commit any crimes, including theft, gambling, robbing and so on. However, they forget that not believing is the maiden crime. All kinds of harmful behaviors start with not believing. Lying, being jealous, murders and rape are all crimes, which if we think of deeply, are all but symptoms and not reasons for being sick. If we truly believe what we receive is what we give, no one should choose to hurt others. Read More