Ravanshenasi & Din

The purpose of this research is to identify the components of psychological development based on Transcendent Theosophy (Hikmat al-Muta'aliyah) and to explain the interrelations among them. The present study employed a qualitative method of content analysis. Data were collected and classified through studying and note-taking from books, articles, and electronic libraries. According to the research findings, the nature of psychological development is the gradual actualization of the potential faculties of the human being, the ultimate goal of which is proximity to the Perfect Being (God, Almighty). What undergoes change in the process of psychological transformation can be divided into three categories: cognitive, including objective perception, semi-abstract perception, and universal perception; conative (inclinational), including appetitive desire (shawqiyyah) and will (irādah); and behavioral (actional), including play-centeredness, good-and-evil-centeredness, and expediency-centeredness. From Mulla Sadra's perspective, cognition gives rise to inclination, and inclination gives rise to action in the human being. This order also exists in reverse; that is, action gives rise to inclination, and inclination leads to another cognition in the soul. Therefore, each of cognition and action has a role in the realization of the other. However, cognition is like the soul, which is the principal dimension of the human being, and action is like the body, which is considered the instrument. Consequently, the subsistence of action depends on knowledge just as the subsistence of the body depends on the soul, but the condition for the continuity and increase of cognition is the careful guarding of actions.