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POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER - A Spiritual Perspective
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There are questions that many have concerning the increasing number of individuals returning from war zones who suffer from what has been called ‘post-traumatic stress disorder.’ This diagnosis is not new, even though it has a new name. Yet, its origins have been with humankind for as long as wars have been fought and people have had to act against their true nature.
In earlier times, when less spiritual light was present on Earth and within human consciousness, this inner nature was more hidden and the protective mechanisms of the ego-self which gave rise to war appeared to be the only way to insure one’s sense of survival and protect what one loved. Concern for the ‘casualties of war’ was replaced by a greater concern for the ‘necessity of war’ and the ‘rightness’ of war to defend one’s own.
It is only today, for the last fifty years or so, that in the presence of expanding light, an increased incidence of ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ has arisen in those situations in which the ‘casualties of war’ could no longer be given less importance than the ‘necessity’ of war. In such situations, the cost to the inner being, to the sense of soul which defines one’s deeper sense of rightness or right action became more prominent in awareness. Having greater access to the sensibility of one’s soul nature in the presence of greater light meant, for those committed to actions that violated this sensibility, a resultant internal conflict that could not be resolved because, for most, only the human aspect of the conflict based in the ego-self was actually known to consciousness. The soul-nature of the one experiencing the ‘casualties’ or horrors of war was hidden from ordinary awareness, yet nevertheless had a significant effect on the inner stability of the entire psycho-physical organism that is the human being. Conflict between the moral necessity of war felt by the ego-self and the rising current of a different motivation by the soul-self which could not witness the human cost of war without knowing that it was wrong, could not be sustained within the body or deeper heart, nor could the mind resolve a conflict whose spiritual underpinnings were not known. It would be as if one were in a state of moral shock without knowing that one was in it. As a result, the interplay of psyche and body began to create symptomatic effects of the conflict reflecting its lack of resolution, with an obsessive need to resolve the conflict through replaying it over and over again in everyday life, long after the actual physical context in which it originated had disappeared. Contributing factors to the development of post-traumatic symptoms having to do with injuries of an intense or sustained nature to the nervous system cannot be separated from the causal factors described here. For these more subtle causal factors arising in the deeper layers of consciousness made those nervous systems more sensitive or reactive to the stimuli that created the sense of internal ‘shock.’
Out of this endless recycling of memories arising from the original traumatic situation came a whole host of symptoms which came to be known as ‘post-traumatic stress disorder.’ Since the emotional and physical consequences of the psycho-physical trauma were quite apparent and occurred for so many, it was given the label of a psychological manifestation or disorder, and many kinds of therapies have been instituted with the aim of fostering healing at this level.
What has not been healed, however, and what cannot be healed until the soul-self is more widely recognized within everyday consciousness, is that one cannot depart from one’s inner nature no matter what the outer justification for doing so, without great cost to oneself. The occurrence of this inner departure through actions that are inconsistent with what the soul-self deems to be acceptable will continue to not only be problematic, but go to deeper levels of symptomatology as light on the Earth expands and the presence of the soul becomes more active in waking consciousness. This, however, can and will be changed and the ‘disorder’ itself eventually disappear when human beings who are awakening spiritually are no longer asked by themselves or others to act in ways that are dissociated from the calling of their inner being, or in non combat related examples of this disorder, to receive or witness the actions of others that are similarly dissociated from the principles that are foundational to the soul. Then, ‘post-traumatic stress disorder’ will become a thing of the past.
For the present, though, ‘post traumatic stress disorder’ is a grave and serious consequence of the separation from one’s own true humanity, one’s inner being, due to the conflict experienced between the requirements of the inner and the outer selves. Situations of war can bring this conflict about with great intensity, as can other situations in which violent action seems inescapable. As a society, and for each individual, it can only be responsibly countered by a willingness to release all holding onto ways that require such dissociation, and to foster ways of being that allow for a unity of wholeness within all. Such a shift can be undertaken by society and must be undertaken by individuals who, today, wish to seek the deepest possible healing of this painful inner state.
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