Enlightenment. Personal Development. Spiritual Growth. Self Realization. What Does it All Mean?

Finally, here’s a glossary

There used to be a magazine called “What is Enlightenment?”. I subscribed to it and devoured each monthly edition from cover to cover. Searching for the answer to that elusive question. But I didn’t get it. How could I really?

From the words in a magazine.

People who are enlightened or claim to be enlightened or remain silent when others say they are enlightened; they often say: It’s nothing special.

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water

And, further, according to Eckhart Tolle — it is nothing that can be achieved:

As far as inner transformation is concerned, there is nothing you can do about it. You cannot transform yourself, and you certainly cannot transform your partner or anybody else. All you can do is create a space for transformation to happen, for grace and love to enter.

I loved the word enlightenment when I was younger. For the young me, it was the ticket out of this human life of suffering. The ticket to freedom. I would be calm and clear and would glide through life feeling supremely happy and saying wise things. I embarked on a journey of spiritual growth. I loved that term too. I used it a lot. It made me feel special. I — yes I — was on a spiritual path.

Enlightenment. Inner transformation. Spiritual growth. What do these terms mean? What about personal growth? Personal development? Self improvement? What about awakening? Is that the same as enlightenment? And what are self-actualization and self-realization? And we might as well throw in shadow work — what’s that?

After a lifetime of all this, I think I can have a go at answering these questions and offering some definitions. A glossary of terms if you like.

But before getting to the glossary, we need a developmental framework on which we can hang some of the definitions. We need to believe that it is possible for a human to develop — beyond the typical infant to adult. And we need to map that out into some kind of structure.

Integral Philosopher Ken Wilber talks about stages of consciousness:

Stages of consciousness represent a measure of our growth and maturity. Stages have been studied in the West by developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Abraham Maslow, and Jean Gebser, all of whom have created sophisticated models of development that can be generically summarized as moving from ego-centric stages, to ethno-centric stages, to world-centric stages, and beyond. These stages are experienced in succession — that is, you have to move through stage 3 of psychological development before you can hit stage 4.

There are many more developmental models including: Eric Ericsson’s stages of psychosocial development, Jane Loevinger’s stages of ego development, Clare Graves’ emergent cyclical theory aspects of which evolved into Don Beck and Christopher Cowan’s Spiral Dynamics, and Ken Wilber’s Developmental Stages of Consciousness. Wilber’s work is particularly noteworthy as he also includes insights from the East such as from the Vedas (a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India) and Buddhism (which has a strong focus on human psychology).

And I wouldn’t want to exclude the Indian Sage Sri Aurobindo’s Theory of Spiritual Evolution and Teilhard de Chardin’s philosophical theories on the development of humans and their continuing evolutionary development of the noosphere.

So it seems human development is a thing. As I had hoped as a young person captivated by the possibility of following in the footsteps of the Buddha and achieving spiritual enlightenment.

Let’s break it down a bit.

First, there is a natural developmental journey as we go from being an infant to being an adult. According to Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, the stages are Sensorimotor (0–2 years), Preoperational (2–6 years), Concrete operational (6–12 years), and Formal operational (12-adult). Most, but not all adults develop to Formal operational.

Beyond this natural development, there is the possibility to develop further (according to the researchers mentioned above and more ). To consciously work on yourself in order to grow. In Ken Wilber’s Developmental Stages of Consciousness, there are 9 stages of human development. In earlier versions of his work, Wilber breaks the 9 stages into: pre-personal, personal, and transpersonal.

Pre-personal tends to correspond to traditional developmental thinkers such as Piaget and Ericsson. Include Freud in this category too. Personal corresponds to the work of ego psychologists such as Loevinger and humanistic psychologists such as Maslow. Jung and Assagioli would belong here too. And transpersonal (going beyond the personal) typically corresponds to the developmental insights of Eastern mystic traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism.

So after all that — we are now ready for the glossary.

Personal development and personal growth

These are the same I say. And they correspond to the wider developmental maps, that is, the ones that go beyond natural human development.

Spiritual growth

Personally, I don’t use this term. For me, it is just human development. Why bring the word spiritual into it? However, if you want to use the term spiritual growth, I would say this corresponds to Ken Wilber’s transpersonal stages.

Self-actualization

This is at the top of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. In Wilber’s map, I would see it as the top of the personal category. Maslow defined self-actualization as becoming “everything that one is capable of becoming”. It is interesting to note that in his later years, Maslow saw the fullest realization as going beyond self-realization to something beyond oneself — in other words transpersonal.

Self-realization

This term is sometimes used interchangeably with self-actualization. But I see them as quite different. The term is used in both Western Psychology and Eastern traditions.

In Western Psychology, it is the outcome of what the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung called the individuation process, which is the process of integrating one’s total personality. Another psychoanalyst Roberto Assagioli who founded the psychological movement, Psychosynthesis, also used the term.

Both Jung’s and Assagioli’s work I see as ranging from the upper part of the personal category to the lower part of the transpersonal category.

In Eastern traditions, self-realization is much more all-encompassing and refers to realization of Self with an uppercase S. So here we are talking full-on liberation (enlightenment, awakening).

Enlightenment and awakening

Which brings us on to these. What follows are not official definitions. I don’t think there are any official definitions. Here’s how I see it.

Enlightenment is a more traditional term and, for me, is about transcending the limited human ego and ending all forms of mental and emotional suffering. Stepping off the wheel of birth, life, and death. Reaching Nirvana. It has a sense of finality. Here is a very well-written piece on enlightenment: Spiritual Enlightenment — Truths and Paths. Nowadays, I don’t use the term much.

Awakening I see as a better term. It has more of a sense of being a process. Awakening is being fully awake and alive to whatever is occurring in the here and now. It is total honesty and intimacy with life as it is. It is seeing and accepting of this moment — just as it is. It is a process. An ongoing process. Moment to moment.

Self improvement

Okay so what about self improvement? Where does that fit in?

It is often said about self improvement that it is moving the furniture around, rather than moving up to the next floor. So, by this view, you can self improve or become a better version of yourself without developing/growing (using the above definitions of growth). For example, you could learn a new language or musical instrument or become a kinder person — without actually developing.

But I must admit that I am not sure about this. For me, we are one body/mind organism and whatever we do in this life has the potential to help us evolve.

Shadow work

The shadow is the part of our inner being that we choose to reject and repress. For example, we might be somebody who often gets jealous but we have taken on the belief that jealousy is not an acceptable feeling so we bury it. Feelings of jealousy then become part of our shadow.

The term was coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung:

The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.

So shadow work is a process that you go through — typically in the form of therapy but not necessarily — to know and accept the full contents of your psyche. To shine a light on all aspects of yourself.

That’s it then — some commonly used terms within the spiritual community and their definitions. I just realised that in this story, I haven’t much mentioned consciousness. I talk about that in this story: