"Ruskan has achieved a challenging
and difficult task, clarifying the
interface between Eastern spiritual tradition and Western psychology."
Dr. Harville Hendrix, author of Getting The Love You Want
Throughout my years of involvement in the East West
spiritual healing communities, I have noticed something that has prompted
the writing of Emotional Clearing : Many people who are earnest seekers
after spiritual growth tend to be unfamiliar with the methods or the importance
of working with the emotional component of the psyche.
They – as well as myself for a long while in
the past – approach inner growth by concentrating only on the “higher”
idealistic aspects that they hope to develop, such as love, and ignore the
more unpleasant emotional aspects of the self. Often there is a tremendous
gap in awareness about the emotional self and even the assumption that the
emotions are not really important. At the same time, those involved in psychological
therapy, where emotional healing is the main concern, often cannot see how
to combine spiritual arts with inner work.
The premise of Emotional Clearing is that no real
growth into higher consciousness can occur unless working with the emotions
becomes a central part of inner work. Moreover, I hope to show that working
with emotion as well as feeling in general can become a most vital and even
primary path to self-realization, enabling us to release the inner forces
that keep us blocked and from our full potential.
This book is the product of the merging of two cultural,
intellectual, and spiritual traditions. As I have worked, I have felt these
two lines of tradition meeting in my thoughts and then converging into the
writing, like a prism in reverse. Like female and male, mother and father,
yin and yang, each element has been necessary to fully actualize the other.
In the broadest terms, the East has represented the mother – the mystical,
nurturing connection to the inner source of spiritual replenishment, healing,
and growth. The West has represented the father – the rational intellect,
the organizing, pragmatic principle that gives form and structure to the
healing force.
What has resulted is not a comparison or analysis
of these two ways but a synthesis. It has been my intention to show how
both paths may be unified into a single approach that will provide a system
of self-work that can be followed intellectually and will lead to an opening
of the Heart. I feel that this approach can be vital for us of the West
in our quest for spiritual wholeness and resolution of the ever-present
pain of existence.
