On Advantages of the Clear Mind: Spiritual Practices in the Training of a Phenomenological Researcher

The article describes the training of the mind of the researcher in the process of preparation for phenomenological psychological research. Training opens the direct intuition of the interior architecture and meaning contents of the lived embodied self, thus helping students to ground phenomenological concepts in their own lived experience. Training is based on the comparative analysis of the approaches to knowledge in phenomenology and in spiritual systems such as Hesychasm, Vedanta, Shakta-Vedanta and Sufism. Husserl's method and spiritual systems share epistemological ground in the emphasis on the "knowledge by presence" and the use of direct intuition. Spiritual systems posit that the mind of the knower should be specially trained to have faculties such as discernment, healthy character structure, and self-awareness, which enhance the capacity of knowledge. This training, designed on the basis of meditation methods adapted for academic purposes, causes positive shifts in self-awareness, sense of identity and self-attitudes. The method has potential applications as a mnemonic technique in higher education and as an ego-strengthening intervention in cases of depersonalization or spiritual emergence in therapy.