Psychoanalysis and the Gaining of Spiritual Enlightenment in Hinduism and Buddhism.
For the past century, the search for the true meaning of spiritual enlightenment has been on ongoing struggle for the whole population of the world, no matter what their religion may be. Throughout analyzing world religions and their differences, one can come to see that the religions of the east have more aspects of spiritual enlightenment than any others. Two religions in particular are Hinduism and Buddhism. Even though the two are somewhat similar in basic beliefs, they differ greatly in the core thoughts of spirituality. According to Freud, the same collective unconscious lies in all of humankind. Everyone on this planet strives to be a rational autonomous self. We all have unconscious carnal forces that we are not aware of. It is these forces that reside in us that stops us from being completely self directed and self willed. This then brings up the question if life is only a series of transitional objects through the stages of individual development. This is where the religions differ. They both have their own set of ideals of the various stages of the individual self. Along with the questions of the various stages in life, there are also questions about how ones individual self changes as the environment as a whole around them changes. For instance, can a baby be a baby without a mother? Another aspect is Takeo Doi's idea of the dual self structure. In short, it shows how people have a public and private self, or a otoma and ura. People who practice this believe that there is one side of the individual that is highly private and only shown in the household. The public side is the side that all of society sees. this duality of the self runs deeply as a part of life in all of Asian cultures, it plays into their religions. No matter what the religion though, everyone is seeking atonement.