The interaction with others contributes to development and harmonisation at all stages of personal development:

• At the physical stage, others contribute to physiological homeostasis (through providing food, shelter and protection) as well as psychological (through hugs, cuddles, and other forms of physical connection). This is essential, particularly in infancy. Others also play a role in early development through encouraging and supporting bodily self-regulation (e.g. toilet training, learning to walk), as well as through exposure to a variety of stimuli, which incentivises learning and experience.
• At the conventional stage, others contribute to development through enabling language acquisition, and through the induction to various cultural mores (including art, religion, narratives, customs and so on). They contribute to harmonisation too, through the process of socialisation and role assignments. This enforces a sense of belonging and affirms newly formed constructs of the world and oneself.
• At the individual stage, others also play a role, albeit a more subtle one. Young people start developing individuality through bouncing their own ideas and choices against others – some resistance is needed to move on (we can walk only if the ground we walk on provides sufficient resistance – psychology is not very different). At the same time, others are used as a mirror, to confirm one’s existence and study the quite unstable and fragile newly-formed ego. So paradoxically, individuality often ends up in conformity to a group – albeit a group of one’s own choice.

The Method

All four methods described in the first part (phenomenological, inductive-deductive, transpersonal and reasoning) can contribute to this topic:

• Relevant materials from various traditions (e.g. The Tibetan Book of the Dead) can be a valuable source. However, they are inevitably embedded in their particular cultural frameworks, so the phenomenological method is used to draw out that what can be of a more general significance. This can be assisted by discerning commonalities from different backgrounds. We should be aware though that some commonalities may be a result of cross-cultural fertilisation, rather than being arrived at independently.
• Research on Near Death Experiences (NDE) can also make an invaluable contribution, but it too has some limitations: it can account only for the first stages of life after death and relies on untrained subjects (although some aspects of their reports can be verified).
• Transpersonal experiences can provide some valuable insights in this area, but they can be easily misinterpreted (i.e. they may relate to something else rather than life after death).
• Reasoning is limited in its generating role, but it can help putting things together and exclude elements that are inconsistent, incongruent with the available facts, and superfluous.

Each of these methods is clearly insufficient on its own, so what follows is an attempt to combine them to various degrees.

In the diagram below, these dimensions are represented by lines and the stages by dots:

Each dimension has four dots, signifying the four stages: (1) physical, (2) conventional, (3) individual and (4) transcendent[1]. This is, of course, an idealised schema – there are transition periods of various length between them as well as huge variations within them. Also, they are not inevitable; the rate of change and the final stage reached differ widely from person to person. However, despite individual differences, some commonalities can be discerned for each stage in all three dimensions. Before we do that though, we need to make some general observations.

One important point is that the subsequent stages may modify but they don’t replace the previous ones. The other is that quantitative development (developing various capacities) within each stage can continue throughout one’s life. This implies that a person on a further stage of development is not necessarily better or superior to those who are not yet there

Here are some examples of competences we have in mind (this list may not be exhaustive and not all of them are always present):

• Dynamism (e.g. curiosity, interest, exposure to experiences)
• Complexity (of skills, knowledge or experience)
• Differentiation and integration (analytic and synthetic abilities)
• Pattern recognition
• Creativity, a capacity to generate something new (e.g. a new sentence)
• Sensitivity (to nuances, details or subtle points)
• Focus regulation (an ability to narrow or widen the focus)
• Diversity and versatility (of skills, knowledge and experiences)
• Internal locus of control
• Efficiency (in utilising one’s potentials and energy)
• Persistence and flexibility
• Perspective (e.g. taking into account long term consequences)
• The scope of the moral sense (its inclusiveness)

The development of particular skills always involves some of the above. For example, the better we are at playing the violin, the more complex and diverse pieces of music we are able to play. But this is not all. These capacities