Interesting article on spiritual maturity versus emotional maturity out of the University of Haifa. I tried to track down the actual research but could not find it. The general implication is people can be spiritually mature without being emotionally mature.
I find this discussion fascinating since I am very curious about maturity on the whole. What do we really mean by human development? Can someone seem to be mature and at the same time be immature in some ways. Intuitively I would say this is absolutely true. I think there is also strong evidence for this in communities of spiritual practice where some practitioners reach very high levels of spiritual maturity in a tradition, but tend to act out in all sorts of ways usually involving sex, power or money.
An interesting take on this was offered in the New York times article from last year about a severely depressed Zen Monk.
I want to make a distinction that I am not talking about ethics, but rather about maturity. I think some people can be extremely mature, considerate, thoughtful and developed in the way they see the world and consider others – while acting from very impulsive, unregulated places in other parts of their lives.
