Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.
Clinical and research psychologist and the bestselling author
Mary C. Commerford, Ph.D.
Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst
An Objective Look at Meditation Methods and Enlightenment
For this event, clinical and research psychologist Elaine Aron, Ph.D., author of the international bestseller The Highly Sensitive Person, will discuss her new book Spirituality Through a Highly Sensitive Lens: An Objective Look at Meditation Methods and Enlightenment. In it she offers the first ever objective overview of meditation methods and paths to enlightenment.
Why spirituality through a “Highly Sensitive Lens”? This is not a book or a talk just for highly sensitive people (HSP), though Aron is one. She reflected on meditation and enlightenment for years and saw a huge need for objective, complete information on all the many kinds of meditation and on all views of enlightenment. There were no books that fully described all forms of meditation and that provided the necessary information to make an informed choice.
Further, most people do not realize that every form of meditation began with the purpose that you, the meditator, would reach nirvana. God Realization. Enlightenment. Awakening. Yet meditation teachers often do not talk much about it. They are apprehensive that students will see view it as unattainable or will aim for it and be disappointed.
Aron wants meditation and enlightenment discussed together, as they were meant to be. She maintains that a spiritual supernova exploded in the Sixties, but like a distant supernova, its light has only now reached us. Many people began meditating back then, and while many stopped, some continued for fifty or more years. Suddenly more people, both meditators and others, are “waking up” to a state of profound inner peace, unshakeable calm, and clearer focus. There are hundreds of books and websites about this person’s enlightenment and that person’s method of getting there, but no overview of this chaos or the actual research on it.
But what about all those unethical spiritual teachers you hear about? Aron is very interested in this issue, explaining that one can “wake up” and still need to “clean up” your complexes. She addresses both in every chapter, and how to avoid being a casualty, whether due to tendencies in a teacher or in yourself.
Aron will be in conversation with Mary Commerford, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, psychoanalyst, and instructor at an analytic training institute in NYC. She was for 21 years the director of the counseling center at Barnard College. Before switching to clinical psychology, trained in ministry at Yale University Divinity School, working subsequently as a chaplain. She has been a member of a meditation community for over 40 years.
This event is suitable for youth ages 12 and up. It will be recorded and available on FAN’s website and YouTube channel.
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An Objective Look at Meditation Methods and Enlightenment
Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.
Clinical and research psychologist and the bestselling author
Mary C. Commerford, Ph.D.
Clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst
ON ZOOM