Spiritual Dynamics from Spirit to Body to Mind
We often think of spirituality as transcendent, detached from the body and mind, but spiritual principles are mirrored in the very fabric of our biology. What if our instincts—those raw, primal urges that seem purely survival-driven—echo deeper spiritual dynamics? And what happens when these spiritual truths filter through our biology, becoming embedded in the psychology of our daily lives?
The interplay between these levels—spiritual, biological, and psychological—creates a rich and intricate tapestry where our instincts become signposts for more profound truths. In the Diamond Approach®, instincts are viewed as fundamental biological drives originating in survival mechanisms and deeper spiritual movements.
All our powerful needs and instinctual drives can become a force that completely eclipses the love of truth… unless the instinctual drives in the animal soul are confronted, they will confine—and ultimately control—the human soul and heart.
A. H. Almaas, Spacecruiser Inquiry
These drives are explored through inquiry into how they express themselves through the body, psyche, and soul. For instance, the survival instinct, often tied to physical preservation, reflects the soul’s yearning to experience its unchanging, eternal nature.
Spiritual Dynamics as the Ground of Being
At the core of all spiritual traditions lies the understanding that we are not separate from the divine or the larger fabric of existence. Concepts such as unity, eternalness, and transformation point toward universal truths that transcend individual identity. However, these truths don’t remain in some abstract, ethereal realm—they permeate our existence, including our biology. The Diamond Approach highlights that unity is not just a spiritual abstraction but is reflected in how our instincts guide us toward recognizing the interconnectedness of all beings. This inherent dual unity reflects both our individual and collective existence.
Biology as a Manifestation of Spirit
Our bodies, with their complex systems and instincts, are not separate from these spiritual dynamics. Instead, they reflect and manifest them. The instincts that arise from our biological wiring are expressions of spiritual principles translated into the language of survival, reproduction, and connection. The Diamond Approach offers a nuanced view of instincts, describing them as biological necessities and reflections of our inner dynamism. This dynamism refers to how these instincts are infused with the movement of Being, manifesting in different layers of experience—biological, psychological, and spiritual.
Embodying Unity: The Social Instinct
Our drive toward community and relationships is often seen as purely evolutionary—an adaptation for survival. But at a spiritual level, this instinct reflects the principle of unity, the fundamental interconnectedness of all beings. Our biology pushes us to seek connection because, at a deeper level, we know that separation is an illusion. In seeking community, our bodies reflect a spiritual truth—the oneness of existence. In the Diamond Approach, unity of being refers to the realization that all existence is a singular, interconnected whole.
The mistaken view of reality is the belief that we are separate individuals,
when in fact, everything is interconnected in a non-dual way.
The non-dual view of realization sees everything as interconnected and aware,
highlighting the belief that separateness and discreteness are illusions created by the mind.
A. H, Almaas, The Quantum View of Realization
The social instinct becomes more than just a drive for survival or acceptance—it is a biological reflection of the soul’s movement toward realizing the unity inherent in all beings. This also resonates with the concept of union in spiritual practice, where individual experiences of connection mirror a movement toward spiritual union with the divine.
Grounding in Eternalness: The Survival Instinct
On the surface, the survival instinct is about self-preservation, ensuring that the organism continues to live. But if we look deeper, this biological drive mirrors a spiritual dynamic—the eternal, indestructible nature of Being. The body’s urge to survive can be seen as a biological reflection of the soul’s connection with its timeless essence. Working tirelessly to maintain life, the body’s biological systems reflect the spiritual truth that true nature is beyond time and death. The Diamond Approach explores this in-depth, particularly in its teachings on the eternal nature of Being.
Eternity is outside of time and perceives it.
Now arises a freedom from time. In the totality,
it is all now, and time and space pass within you.
Eternity is not contradictory to time but includes it.
A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Five: Inexhaustible Mystery
The survival instinct, often linked with fear and self-preservation, is understood not only as a biological mechanism but also as a reflection of our desire to connect with the timelessness of existence. This teaching invites us to explore the survival instinct not simply as a fear-based drive but as a potential doorway to experience the eternal essence of our Being.
Creative Union and Transformation: The Sexual Instinct
Sexuality, often reduced to the mechanics of reproduction, also holds a spiritual significance. This instinct drives physical creation and mirrors the spiritual movement toward union and transformation. The act of merging with another in intimacy reflects the soul’s drive to merge with the divine or experience the wholeness of existence. With its intense creative energy, this biological instinct is a physical embodiment of the spiritual principle of transformation—the energy that fuels awakening and deepens our connection to the essential truth of existence.
Complete sexuality… is part of our basic nature. It is the true acceptance and integration of our bodies and genitals; it is free and unconflicted presence in the pelvis. It is the experience of ourselves as pleasure, as delight, as beauty, as value.
A. H. Almaas, The Void
From the Diamond Approach perspective, the sexual instinct is a powerful reflection of the soul’s innate dynamism, the creative force within us that seeks to transform and evolve. This drive toward union, whether in relationships or spiritual realization, mirrors the more significant movement of Being toward wholeness. The energy of sexuality is not just about reproduction or physical intimacy—it represents the dynamic force that fuels the soul’s realization of its more profound truth.
Laying Instincts onto the Mind
Once these spiritual principles have expressed themselves through our biology, they are laid onto our psychology, creating the foundation for much of our human experience. Our psychology often interprets these instincts through the lens of the ego, which can distort or amplify them based on past experiences, trauma, or unconscious drives. The Diamond Approach explains that psychodynamic issues arise from these instinctual drives that often shape the ego’s interpretation of spiritual principles. Depending on how they are integrated into our psyche, these drives can either support or obstruct our movement toward realization.
All psychodynamic issues ultimately are based on concepts,
and so finally reduce to phenomenological considerations,
which ultimately reduce to the question of the conceptual mind.
These issues—personal patterns—are based upon images, memories,
and events, but each is rooted in words or concepts.
A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Four: Indestructible Innocence
Seeking Belonging or Avoiding Isolation? (The Social Instinct)
In psychological terms, the social instinct often manifests as a need for belonging, acceptance, or validation. While the instinct’s deeper spiritual truth is unity, the psychological ego can distort this drive, creating a fear of isolation or rejection. Instead of recognizing our inherent interconnectedness, we might seek connection out of insecurity or a need to bolster the ego’s sense of self-worth.
John Bowlby’s attachment theory supports this, revealing that early relationships shape our social instincts. Bowlby showed that when attachment needs are unmet in childhood, individuals may seek connection out of fear rather than love. In this sense, understanding the social instinct through psychology reveals its roots in spiritual and biological dynamics.
The propensity to make strong emotional bonds to particular individuals
[is] a basic component of human nature.
John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss, Volume 1
Fear-Based Control (The Survival Instinct)
Psychologically, the survival instinct often manifests as fear—fear of loss, death, or vulnerability. While the biological survival drive reflects the spiritual principle of eternalness, the ego interprets this through the lens of fear and control. Instead of tapping into the truth of Being’s indestructibility, we become fixated on controlling our environment, our bodies, and even others in a desperate attempt to preserve what is, by nature, temporary.
This fear-based control can be seen in object relations theory, particularly in Melanie Klein’s work. Klein explained how early experiences of dependence and vulnerability shape the psyche, often leading to anxiety and control mechanisms as defenses against perceived threats to survival. This psychological insight aligns with the survival instinct’s distortion and highlights how these biological drives become overlaid with the ego’s fears.
The infant’s world was threatened from the beginning by intolerable anxieties…
Through these primitive defenses—projection, denial, splitting,
withdrawal, and ‘omnipotent control’—the infant put threatening,
‘bad’ objects outside herself and preserved the ‘good’ objects.
Melanie Klein, Object Relations Theory
Power and Desire (The Sexual Instinct)
The sexual instinct, when laid onto psychology, can become entangled with issues of power, desire, and identity. The drive for creative union and transformation, when distorted by the ego, can lead to seeking fulfillment or validation through sexual relationships. Through intimate connection, the spiritual impulse for transformation becomes caught in the psychological need for power, control, or identity reinforcement. Sigmund Freud explored the role of libido in shaping our personalities, showing how sexual energy can be both creative and destructive when filtered through the ego.
Wilhelm Reich later took this further, suggesting that sexual energy is deeply tied to spiritual vitality and that blocking this energy leads to neuroses. The ego’s distortion of the sexual instinct reflects its spiritual potential for union and transformation, highlighting how biology and psychology are intertwined with spiritual dynamics.
The energy source of the neurosis is created by the difference between the accumulation and discharge of sexual energy. The ungratified sexual excitation…
distinguishes it from the healthy psychic apparatus.
Wilhelm Reich, The Function of the Orgasm
Unraveling the Layers: Inquiry into Instincts
Understanding these instincts as reflections of spiritual dynamics, filtered through our biology and onto our psychology, invites us to engage in inquiry. Rather than being controlled by these drives, we can explore their more profound significance.
- How is my drive for connection rooted in a spiritual truth about unity?
- Can I experience the survival instinct not as fear but as a reflection of eternalness?
- What does my desire for intimacy reveal about my yearning for transformation?
By engaging with these questions, we can begin to untangle how our spiritual, biological, and psychological selves intersect and influence one another. This inquiry reveals how instinctual drives are not merely obstacles to spiritual realization but reflections of deeper truths that, when understood, can lead us toward a more integrated and whole way of being.
Instincts as Gateways to Deeper Understanding
Rather than viewing instincts as biological or psychological forces to be controlled or transcended, we can see them as gateways to deeper spiritual truths. When we look beyond the surface of these drives, we find that they are reflections of spiritual dynamics woven into our very biology. By exploring how these instincts are enmeshed into our psychology, we gain insight into how the ego shapes our relationship to these deeper forces. Through inquiry and awareness, we can transform our relationship with our instincts, allowing them to guide us toward a more integrated understanding of our true nature. In this synthesis of biology, psychology, and spirituality, we find that instincts are not merely survival mechanisms but reflections of profound spiritual principles.
The works of E.O. Wilson, John Bowlby, Giacomo Rizzolatti, Helen Fisher, Carl Jung, Freud, and others reinforce that human instincts are doorways to a deeper understanding of ourselves, our connection to others, and our spiritual essence. When recognized for what they are—manifestations of spiritual truths expressed through biology and psychology—they can guide us toward deeper integration and realizing our true nature.
The instincts themselves are easily understood and are
related in human evolution terms to survival.
Warwick Lydiate, Understanding Human Instincts
By recognizing that instincts are not obstacles to transcend but are, in fact, deeply embedded gateways to greater spiritual understanding, we open ourselves to a more holistic approach to life. When examined through the lenses of psychology and spirituality, our biological urges reveal a pathway to deeper insight, allowing us to integrate mind, body, and soul. This integration dissolves the boundaries between what we perceive as instinctual or survival-based and what we consider spiritual or transcendent.
In doing so, we honor the truth that our instincts are not separate from our spiritual path but are integral aspects of our movement toward realization. Rather than viewing them as purely animalistic, we can see them as expressions of the dynamic force of life, guiding us back to our true nature. Through continued inquiry and reflection, we can deepen our understanding of how these instincts bridge our biological reality and spiritual potential.
Ultimately, the more we engage with our instincts in this way, the more we experience, the more profound truth that our very existence—down to our most basic drives—mirrors the profound interconnectedness and unity of all life. In recognizing this, we become more attuned to the wisdom of the body, the mind, and the soul, allowing each to inform the other as we walk the path of self-realization.
This approach invites us to be curious, compassionate, and open toward the instincts we might otherwise dismiss or suppress. When we see them for what they are—reflections of deeper spiritual truths—we can transform our relationship with them. This transformation is critical to living more fully and authentically, allowing us to embrace our humanity while awakening to the timeless essence in our hearts.
Insights for Reflection:
- Instincts as Spiritual Gateways: Instincts are not mere biological urges but expressions of deeper spiritual movements. They guide us toward unity, eternalness, and transformation when understood properly.
- Integration of Mind, Body, and Spirit: Our instincts connect the physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions of our existence, enabling us to live in greater alignment with our true nature.
- Inquiry and Reflection: Through ongoing, open-ended inquiry, we can unravel the deeper truths behind our drives for connection, survival, and transformation, leading to a more holistic and authentic way of being.
- Curiosity and Compassion: Developing an attitude of curiosity and compassion toward our instincts allows us to move beyond fear-based reactions and embrace the deeper spiritual lessons they offer.
- Transforming Instincts: By transforming our relationship to instincts, we can live more authentically, embracing our humanity and spiritual essence.
The journey toward integrating our spiritual understanding with our biological drives leads to a more connected way of being. Rather than seeing our instincts as forces to be controlled or overcome, we can view them as profound guides on self-realization. This approach honors our humanity and opens the door to living with greater spiritual awareness, unity, and inner peace.