Transpersonal Emotions as a Subcategory of Emotions: Exploring Their Inter-Relatedness and Relatedness With Nondual Awareness

Abstract

This study hypothesized a correlation between so-called nondual awareness and “transpersonal emotions,” a newly proposed theoretical category, that are often reported as concomitants, antecedents, or consequents of nondual states. A literature review addressed the concept of nonduality in relationship to six studied emotions seen as having transpersonal aspects: joy, compassion, gratitude, forgiveness, humility, and awe. The review included the tenets of relevant spiritual and philosophical traditions, psychological theories, nomological networks, developmental and therapeutic processes, neurocognitive findings, and recent research for each concept. A mixed-method approach was used that consisted of three phases. The first phase was a basic heuristic inquiry with the researcher’s experiences as a starting point. The second phase consisted of statistical data analysis based on the scores of eight questionnaires collected from 213 participants who had some form of ongoing psychospiritual practice. The third phase included six case studies for each studied emotion, presented in a vignette form. After the data collection, the results from all three sources were compared, analyzed, and synthesized via triangulation into a combined report. In addition to the initially hypothesized, six more explorative hypotheses were added. Several significant correlations, such as among transpersonal emotions, between each transpersonal and nondual concept, between each of prominent psychospiritual practices (meditation, yoga, breathwork, and creative arts), gender, culture, dysfunctional aspects of nonduality, and bliss, and many of transpersonal emotions were found. An explorative factor analysis was also conducted, generally supporting the validity of transpersonal emotionality as a viable construct. Finally, the implications of the findings, with their future applicability to theory, research, therapy, personal development, and well-being, were briefly outlined.