THE CONTRIBUTION OF INTEGRAL TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY APPROACH TO RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY Pier Luigi Lattuada Integral Transpersonal Institute Ubiquity University Milan, Italy djirendra@gmail.com Abstract: We will explore the different conceptions of religion and spirituality from both secular and religious, confessional and philosophical perspectives. We will compare the new visions of post-modernity with the psychological view before investigating the contribution that the different currents of the transpersonal and integral approach can provide in a dialogical perspective of transcendence and inclusion of the different positions. Keywords - religion, spirituality, integral transpersonal psychology, participatory dialogue, circuit of experience, transe-cognition. I. INTRODUCTION To relate religion to spirituality and psychology is to enter into an extraordinarily complex world, rich in a vast literature that offers often contrasting points of view. I will choose to identify the most significant aspects concerning the relationship between spirituality, religion and psychology. I will add some innovative ideas linked to the integral transpersonal vision ITV which, in my opinion, can provide important contributions for an approach to the sacred in the age of postmodernity. A famous cartoon depicts the sea in which a glass vase is immersed, and a goldfish, looking through the glass, meets the gaze of another fish looking out at it. The fish inside the vase is identified with religion while the one outside is identified with spirituality. But, delving into the literature on the subject, things do not appear so simple. II. WHAT IS RELIGION? A. Definitions THE Oxford Dictionary derives the word religion from Latin religare, to bind, to refer to all aspect of the human which re- connect with the Divine, the transcendent, that which is greater than us, “the source and goal of all human life and value” (Meissner, 1987, p. 119) But in De Natura Deorum, Cicero derives religio from relegere, as meaning to go through or aver again: “Qui omnia quae ad cultum deorum pertinerent diligenter pertractarent, et tamquam relegerent, sunt dicti religiosi ex relegendo, ut elegant's ex eligendo”. (Cicero, 2014, 2, 28, 72,). On the one hand, therefore, religion seems to indicate the link between the human and the divine, the recognition of a higher power, and on the other hand to emphasise the aspect of caring. The religiens the one who takes care as opposed to the negligens. In this second hypothesis Religious means observant, conscientious, strict. More recently, scholars have started to understand religion as a way of life which: “has to do not only with the transcendent as it is “out there” but also as it is immanent in our bodily life, daily experiences, and practices” (Nelson 2009 p.4). Ninian Smart (1998, p. 26) expressed this concept in perhaps the broadest way up to the present-day identifying religion as a human activity including the following dimensions: 1. practical and ritual, including prayer, worship, and meditation 2. experiential and emotional 3. narrative or mythic 4. doctrinal and philosophical 5. ethical and legal