Diploma in Consciousness Studies and Transpersonal Development
- using a Whole Person Learning approach to experience, skills, practice and theory
This is the fourth advanced diploma in transpersonal development offered by The Oasis School of Human Relations. Each takes a slightly different focus of interest according to:
- And in response to the emerging issues of the times in which we live.
The programme outlined here is based on three inter-related elements:
How the elements connect:
Those interested in their own inner development, spiritual practice or the transpersonal dimensions to experience are very likely to have some relationship to the idea of ‘practice’ as a daily routine or regular moments of connection with their particular form of attending to the sacred in everyday life.
Such ‘lived practice’ is a theme that runs throughout daily life and the ups and downs of the personal journey is part of the experience individuals bring to the programme.
Part of learning together is to explore ways to develop, deepen or extend that practice to encompass more of the transpersonal within the dimensions of the daily life.
The transpersonal is a limitless realm. Deciding which areas of exploration we shall undertake together and what kind of rigour we need to bring to our exploration in order to test out our understanding, deepen our meaning and promote our sense of things is an important element to the programme. It underpins the element of lived inquiry (see above) and connects strongly to cooperative inquiry (see below).
Mapping the transpersonal – delineating what we each mean and understand by the term; how it lives and influences us (or has done); how we recognise transpersonal dimensions to experience - are all important building blocks in working together in such a way that we honour the varied dimensions of experience and the particular ways they can be expressed authentically.
Cooperative Inquiry (CI) is a contemporary research method that involves those engaged in exploring their experience together to design, experiment and evaluate the work they do in a rigorous way and then express is it in suitable living forms. As a method of personal and collaborative development it is particularly suitable for exploring transpersonal and spiritual experiences – though it is a method that has much wider application.
Who for?
This programme brings together people who are engaged in following their inner development to experience, practice and explore relevant theory in order to deepen and expand their transpersonal development.
Benefits
Provides a framework within which individuals can develop their own learning priorities to explore their interests in the transpersonal.
- Offers a developmental approach that extends beyond the psychological
- Relates individual transpersonal experiences and biography to the major transpersonal approaches
- Offers opportunities to explore transpersonal practices from a range of different sources
- It introduces those involved into the workings of a method for exploring the transpersonal and other forms of experiential research
- Deepens individuals autonomy and choice from within a collaborative decision making framework
Programme Themes
We are living in challenging times and the question of values and meaning is never far from the surface of our decisions and our living. At the same time, there are any number of answers offered that appeal to the fundamentalist in all of us.
Any transpersonal journey of exploration and discovery must have a connection to the ‘felt texture of day to day life’ – it must be embedded in daily experience and practice and it must also be embodied by the practitioner – it must be capable of being demonstrated in how it influences and affects the individual.
At the same time, a Whole Person Learning approach to transpersonal development encourages a willingness to demonstrate accountability and rigour in testing out understanding and suggesting new areas of exploration and consideration. This means managing the conflicting tensions between honouring the authentic expression of individual experience and at the same validating the importance of holding a willingness to ‘make sense’ in communicable ways to others. Too much emphasis upon the individual’s ‘eccentricities’ and we lose touch with shared understanding; too insistent upon working only with what we know, we risk colluding with established norms or rejecting them uncritically. John Heron talks of the need for us to work in a participatory way with spirituality that develops our critical subjectivity – this is something the programme strongly endorses.
The programme covers the work of a range of important contributors to the field of transpersonal study including: Heron already mentioned; Le Shan, Ferrer, Wilber Ingerman, Vaughan and others.
The programme offers a Whole Person Learning approach to transpersonal development: one based upon experience and where personal theory arises out of practice and skills are developed out of those experiences.
The Oasis approach
- Participants are introduced into the peer learning model and the simple ground rules of respecting one another's differences whilst being open to the value of challenge and the need for rigorous efforts to express one’s current understanding.
- A developmental view of: the person; persons in relation and their shared exploration into some of the mysteries and complexities of human experience that are encompassed by the term transpersonal
- Out of the shared interests and the oasis framework each group identifies its priorities enabling individuals to develop their own pathway through the modules to ensure they deepen their own authentic approach to the transpersonal and enhance their personal autonomy about choice and collaboration together.
- The five day residential element is the place where the group designs and ‘enacts’ some major area of interest in a live experiential way without the usual constraints of the working day and the usual demands of home life to restrict the opportunity.
More on Bryce...
Bryce Taylor has had a strong interest in transpersonal development (not only transpersonal psychology) for over two decades.
He has worked and studied with representatives of the great traditions as well as with major figures in the world of personal development before embarking on offering the transpersonal diploma.
He takes a developmental approach (that includes other aspects of experience than the psychological) and relates the transpersonal to the everyday world of living and working with others.
He has a firm commitment to the peer approach – wherever they might abide.
He has prepared many of the materials offered through the programme and The Transpersonal Conversation is a course handbook
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