Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga

Self-awareness: In Psychology And Sri Aurobindo's Yoga

The well-known present-day physicist, Fritjof Capra, has pointed out the emerging concurrence between modern physics and the ancient spiritual wisdom in their views regarding the nature of the universe.¹ In the field of modern psychology, too, especially in one of its latest schools - Transpersonal Psychology - one can discern the beginnings of a concurrence, though as yet quite rudimentary, between scientific psychology and spirituality, not only in their theoretical views regarding the nature of the human being but also in their practical approaches for the attainment of growth and well-being. The present essay is an attempt to study from the perspective of Sri Aurobindo's Yoga one of the pivotal topics which serves to bring out parallels as well as differences between modern psychology and yoga.

At a symposium on "Consciousness" held in 1977 at the California Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, one of the speakers observed that there has been in the United States a growing cult of "awareness", even though most people who use the slogan of awareness do not quite seem to know what they want to become aware of.

Some of the earliest beginnings of the wide interest presently prevailing in the West in the development of awareness may be traced to the movement of psychoanalysis which, until relatively recently, held most sway in the field of mental health. According to psychoanalysis, human behaviour, especially in its more abnormal and pathological forms, is predominantly determined by ele-

Page 49

merits of personality of which the individual is unconscious. The principal aim of the psychoanalytic procedure, therefore, is to impart insight into the unconscious dynamics of one's behaviour. According to the psychoanalytic theory, such insight into the unconscious origins and motivations of one's behaviour brings about therapeutic changes by enthroning the rational and more conscious part of the personality, namely, the Ego, in place of the irrational, unconscious, instinctive drives of the Id, and the equally unconscious parental introjections of the Super-ego. Thus what is called insight in psychoanalysis is an awareness of the unconscious psychodynamics underlying one's personality make-up and behaviour.

Carl Jung, who broke away from psychoanalysis, held that besides the personal unconscious which is specific to each individual, there is another greater layer of the unconscious - the collective unconscious - which is common to the human race as a whole. The collective unconscious, according to Jung, contains what he calls archetypes or universal "complexes of experience" which are at the basis of all behaviour, both instinctive and acquired, and which play a far greater role in moulding an individual's life than the personal unconscious which psychoanalysis deals with. Jung cites the example of a person whose neurosis persisted even after gaining insight into his personal unconscious through years of psychoanalysis; it was only after acquiring insight into the specific archetype underlying his neurotic behaviour that he was able to overcome his neurosis. As long as one is unconscious of the archetype governing a certain form of behaviour, one does not act as an individual but as a blind tool of a collective force. The aim of Jungian analysis is to

Page 50

bring about individuation by making one conscious of the archetypes governing one's life and freeing one from bondage to their dictates. Thus Jung's Analytical Psychology concerns itself essentially with the development of awareness pertaining to the collective unconscious and its archetypes in their influence on one's behaviour.

Alfred Adler, who, too, abandoned psychoanalysis, believed that neurotic behaviour can be explained more satisfactorily in terms of an urge for power rather than the drive for pleasure as postulated by Freud. According to Adler, neurosis is due to an inferiority complex arising out of a real or imagined inferiority in respect of one or more characteristics pertaining to one's physique, intelligence, psychological traits, socio-economic status, ethnicity, etc. The neurotic person unconsciously "arranges" his symptoms so as to compensate for the feelings of inferiority. As a result, different kinds of neurotic behaviour ensue, such as displaying a sense of superiority, a compulsive need to compete and win against others, an inordinate aggressiveness, etc. or their very opposites, namely, a feeling of inferiority, a fear of competition and achievement, passivity, etc. As a reaction to the Freudian over-emphasis on the analysis of the unconscious, Adlerian psychotherapy adopts an educational approach which focuses on helping the neurotic individual to learn healthy and constructive ways of overcoming the inferiority complex. Thus the aim in Adler's approach is education rather than insight. However, in interpreting the patient's symptoms in terms of an unconscious inferiority complex, and explaining his behaviour as an unconscious attempt to compensate for the feeling of inferiority so as to attain a fictitious sense of power, Adlerian psychotherapy does lead the patient to a

Page 51

greater awareness of himself by giving him an insight into the unconscious underpinnings of his personality and behaviour.

Gestalt Therapy, also an outgrowth of psychoanalysis, avowedly regards the development of awareness as the very essence of the therapeutic process. For, according to Gestalt Therapy, the neurotic individual characteristically suffers from a lack of adequate awareness, especially of his feelings and of the here and now. Thus the neurotic person may be angry at someone and may express his anger indirectly through behaviour without being aware of his feelings of anger. Again, when going through an experience, the neurotic has an inadequate emotional and cognitive contact with what is transpiring in the here and now, and therefore lacks an adequate awareness of what he is experiencing at any given moment. The fundamental process of Gestalt Therapy, therefore, consists in the training of awareness by means of various exercises, experiments and other techniques.

Transactional Analysis, originated by Eric Berne, one of Freud's pupils, views the human personality as consisting of three basic aspects - Child, Adult and Parent, corresponding to Freud's Id, Ego and Super-ego. Berne maintains that the Freudian concepts just mentioned are hypothetical constructs for interpreting human behaviour, whereas Child, Adult and Parent are "phenomenological realities", that is, actual psychological states which can be observed through a person's speech, tone of voice, body gestures and facial expressions. However, though the three psychological states are observable, not many have an insight into their psychological states or the ways in which a particular psychological state influences and is

Page 52

expressed through their behaviour at any given moment. Transactional Analysis seeks to impart such an insight through an analysis of an individual's "transactions" or social interactions. Thus the aim of Transactional Analysis is to bring about therapeutic or growth-inducing changes in the personality by promoting the individual's self-understanding and self-awareness pertaining to the psychological states of Child, Adult and Parent as they determine behaviour; the goal is to have, in Berne's words, "the adult ego maintain hegemony over the impulsive child". Besides the awareness of the three basic psychological states, Transactional Analysis also seeks to inculcate an awareness of the various "scripts" or ingrained patterns of behaviour which develop in childhood and continue inappropriately in adulthood.

It will be seen from what has been stated thus far that though systems of psychotherapy which were developed subsequent to the depth psychologies of Freud and Jung abandoned the concept of the unconscious, and shifted the emphasis from inculcation of insight to change of behaviour, they nevertheless involve, in some measure, the development of insight and the enhancement of awareness pertaining to aspects of personality and behaviour of which the individual is more or less unconscious.

Such a trend is exemplified also in the non-analytical system of Rational-Emotive Therapy (RET) formulated by Albert Ellis. According to RET, psychological disturbances are generally the result of certain fallacies implicit in an individual's beliefs and attitudes. Ellis explains what he calls the A-B-C-D theory of RET as follows. An Activating event of experience (A) seems to cause a certain psychologically disturbing Consequence (C) in an indi-

Page 53

vidual. But on closer examination, it will be found that A does not in fact cause C. What causes C is a certain Belief (B) of the individual. For instance, when a person is emotionally upset because someone does not like him or is critical of him, the real cause of the person's emotional disturbance, according to Ellis, lies in his implicit fallacious belief and attitude that we must be liked by everyone and that everyone must approve of everything we do. Ellis, who has identified twelve of the most prevalent fallacious beliefs and attitudes underlying emotional disturbances, maintains that the solution to the problem lies in successfully learning to Dispute (D) one's irrational beliefs. As he states: "RET vigorously helps people to confront and attack their disturbance-creating beliefs. It clearly brings their magical (Illogical and/or self-defeating) philosophies to their attention, explains how these cause emotional upset, attacks them on logico-empirical grounds, and teaches people how to change disordered thinking."² Though the major part of the RET process consists in teaching people how to "dispute" their false beliefs, the first step, as implied in Ellis's statements, is to bring their fallacious beliefs "to their attention", that is, to increase their awareness of the beliefs and attitudes underlying their emotional reactions.

Quite unlike the aforementioned systems of therapy is Robert Assagioli's system of Psychosynthesis. The focus of Psychosynthesis, as its name implies, is, not analysis, but a synthesis of the various conflicting parts of the personality - called sub-personalities - by bringing them to function more and more in harmony with one another and in subordination to what is regarded as the core of the personality, namely, the Self. Though Psychosynthesis is

Page 54

avowedly anti-analytical, its methods, like those of the analytical and non-analytical systems, lead to a greater awareness of aspects of personality of which an individual is largely unconscious. Thus by means of various techniques, such as visualisation, guided imagery, etc., Psychosynthesis seeks to make a person aware of the multiple parts which make up the personality with a view to enabling the person to synthesize and harmonize them.

The preceding brief survey of some of the chief systems of therapy and personal growth is meant to show that despite differences in their theories regarding the structure of personality, the dynamics of behaviour and the methods for bringing about positive psychological changes, they share in common one fundamental element, namely, the inculcation of a greater awareness of aspects of personality and behaviour of which an individual is more or less unaware.

*

Those who are well familiar with Sri Aurobindo's Yoga cannot fail to be impressed with the parallels between some of the above-stated views of psychotherapy and the teachings of his Integral Yoga regarding the fact that there are many parts or aspects of oneself of which the individual is largely unaware and of which one needs to be conscious for achieving inner harmony. The basic teachings of Integral Yoga in this regard are expressed in the following two quotations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother respectively:

"Men do not know themselves and have not learned to

Page 55

distinguish the different parts of their being; for these are usually lumped together by them as mind, because it is through a mentalised perception and understanding that they know or feel them; therefore they do not understand their own states and actions, or, if at all, then only on the surface. It is part of the foundation of yoga to become conscious of the great complexity of our nature, see the different forces that move it and get over it a control of directing knowledge."³

"To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action."⁴

It has been found, especially in psychoanalysis, that sometimes a genuine insight into the unconscious dynamics of one's psychological disturbance has in itself a powerful therapeutic effect. Such a finding, too, has its parallel in yoga. As Sri Aurobindo states:

"... knowledge, when it goes to the root of our troubles, has in itself a marvellous healing-power as it were. As soon as you touch the quick of the trouble, as soon as you, diving down and down, get at what really ails you, the pain disappears as though by a miracle."⁵

But perhaps the most significant parallelism which

Page 56

seems to be emerging between psychology and yoga lies in the concept of consciousness. During the early phase of its development as a science, psychology was defined as the science of consciousness, and, a little later, as the science of the mind. But the concepts of consciousness and mind were subsequently abandoned as vague and unscientific, and are eschewed by the great majority of present-day psychologists who define psychology as the science of behaviour. However, various developments in the field of psychology have in recent years revived an interest in the study of consciousness. These developments include the contributions made by the depth psychologies of Freud and Jung, the discovery of what have been called altered states of consciousness experienced and reported by many people (especially those who have used hallucinogenic drugs or have practised meditation), the influence of Eastern thought on a growing number of Western psychologists, etc. A leading figure among such psychologists, strongly influenced by Eastern thought, is Robert Ornstein who has resuscitated the early definition of psychology as the science of consciousness.⁶

When the early psychologists defined psychology as a science of consciousness, their view of consciousness was limited by the chief method which was then employed in psychology, namely, introspection. Consciousness was therefore conceived almost exclusively in terms of what was observable through mental introspection, which excluded all that lay outside mental awareness.

Recent years have witnessed not only the revival of interest in the study of consciousness but also in the deepening of the concept of consciousness. Ken Wilber, a noted present-day psychologist and a leading writer on the

Page 57

psychology of consciousness, has formulated such a deeper view of consciousness in his model of the "spectrum of consciousness". This model views the human being as a multi-levelled expression of a single consciousness, each level having its own characteristic sense of identity, ranging from the all-embracing infinite identity of cosmic consciousness to the exclusive, narrow identity of ego-consciousness. The innermost consciousness of the human being, states Wilber, "is identical to the absolute and ultimate reality of the universe" which is "spaceless and therefore infinite, timeless and therefore eternal, outside of which nothing exists".⁷ Compare this concept of consciousness with the erstwhile and still widely current view which, as Sri Aurobindo puts it, "sees consciousness only as a phenomenon that emerges out of inconscient Matter and consists of certain reactions of the system to outward things".⁸ Wilber's concept echoes the yogic view of consciousness as "the Reality which is the very essence of existence"⁹ about which Sri Aurobindo states:

"Consciousness is a fundamental thing, the fundamental thing in existence - it is the energy, the motion, the movement of consciousness that creates the universe and all that is in it - not only the macrocosm but the microcosm is nothing but consciousness arranging itself. For instance, when consciousness in its movement or rather a certain stress of movement forgets itself in the action it becomes an apparently 'unconscious' energy; when it forgets itself in the form it becomes the electron, the atom, the material object. In reality it is still consciousness that works in the energy and determines the form and the evolution of form.

Page 58

When it wants to liberate itself, slowly, evolutionarily, out of Matter, but still in the form, it emerges as life, as animal, as man and it can go on evolving itself still farther out of its involution and become something more than mere man."'¹⁰

What has been stated above regarding the yogic view of the nature of consciousness is meant to lead up to the yogic view of the nature of awareness. For, according to the psychology of yoga, awareness is an inherent element of consciousness. As Sri Aurobindo states: "Consciousness is made up of two elements, awareness of self and things and forces, and conscious-power."11 Since, from the viewpoint of yoga, consciousness is the Reality, the very essence of existence and being, and since awareness is an element inherent in consciousness, to attain the fullness of existence and being is to be fully aware of one's being. This axiomatic truth is stated by Sri Aurobindo as follows:

"To be and to be fully is Nature's aim in us; but to be fully is to be wholly conscious of one's being: unconsciousness, half consciousness or deficient consciousness is a state of being not in possession of itself; it is existence, but not fullness of being. To be aware wholly and integrally of oneself and of all the truth of one's being is the necessary condition of true possession of existence. This self-awareness is what is meant by spiritual knowledge....."¹²

As pointed out previously, the enhancement of awareness of oneself is a striking parallel between several systems of modern psychology and psychotherapy on the

Page 59

one hand and yoga on the other. However, from what has just been quoted from Sri Aurobindo, it should be evident that the self-awareness spoken of and aimed at in yoga has a much more profound connotation, it being regarded as spiritual knowledge or knowledge of the essential truth of existence. For, from the viewpoint of yoga, Self and Existence are identical. In Sri Aurobindo's words:

"Our supreme Self and the supreme Existence which has become the universe are one spirit, one self and one existence. The individual is in nature one expression of the universal Being, in spirit an emanation of the Transcendence. For if he finds his self, he finds too that his own true self is not this natural personality, this created individuality, but is a universal being in its relations with others and with Nature and in its upward term a portion or the living front of a supreme transcendental Spirit.""

The inextricable relationship that exists between what, from the viewpoint of modern psychology, appear to be disparate concepts, namely, consciousness, awareness and self, is expressed by Sri Aurobindo thus:

"...the essence of consciousness is the power to be aware of itself and its objects.... Its true nature is to be wholly aware of its objects, and of these objects the first is self, the being which is evolving its consciousness here, and the rest is what we see as not-self,- but if existence is indivisible, that too must in reality be self: the destiny of evolving consciousness must be, then, to become perfect in its awareness, entirely aware of self and all-aware."¹⁴

Page 60

One fundamental difference between the awareness aimed at in yoga and the insight fostered by analytical and other psychotherapeutic methods consists in the effective power for change which the awareness brings. It is a well-recognised fact in psychotherapy in general and in psychoanalysis in particular that most often mere insight in itself does not have an adequate impact for bringing about the needed changes in an individual's attitudes and behaviour. As it is said in psychoanalysis, in order to carry an effective power for bringing about a change, insight must be more than a mere intellectual perception; it must be an emotionally charged "corrective experience". And even after one has been led through psychoanalysis to such a genuine experience of one's unconscious psycho-dynamics, a more or less long process of "working through" is needed in order to translate the insight into behaviour. From the viewpoint of yoga, the explanation for the ineffectiveness of intellectual insight is to be found in what has been stated by Sri Aurobindo in a previous quotation regarding the fact that consciousness is made up of two elements - awareness and conscious-power or will-force. Each level of consciousness has its own characteristic type of awareness and degree of will-force. Intellectual awareness, which belongs to mental consciousness, is relatively ineffective because of the relative impotence of the will-force - the mental will-power - associated with it. As Sri Aurobindo observes:

"Those who live in the mind and the vital are not so well able to do this [call in the Force to make the change]; they are obliged to use mostly their personal effort and as the awareness and will and force of the mind and vital are divided and imperfect, the work

Page 61

done is imperfect and not definitive. It is only in the supermind* that Awareness, Will, Force are always one movement and automatically effective."¹⁵

In Yoga, on the other hand, the aim is to attain a progressively more evolved state of being than that of mental consciousness, thereby attaining a progressively greater force of one's being. To attain fullness of being, therefore, is not only, as previously stated by Sri Aurobindo, to be fully aware of one's being, but also to possess its full force. So Sri Aurobindo further states:

"But also, since consciousness carries in itself the force of existence, to be fully is to have the intrinsic and integral force of one's being; it is to come into possession of all one's force of self and of all its use. To be merely, without possessing the force of one's being or with a half-force or deficient force of it, is a mutilated or diminished existence; it is to exist, but it is not fullness of being."¹⁶

There is yet another essential characteristic of the self-awareness sought in yoga which distinguishes it from the kind of awareness of oneself obtained through psychotherapy. The ultimate aim of all psychotherapy is to lead to psychological well-being. However, in most cases, the awareness gained through psychotherapy does not in itself

* Sri Aurobindo uses the term "Supermind" to designate the principle superior to Mind; Supermind is the Truth-Consciousness which "exists, acts and proceeds in the fundamental truth and unity of things and not like the mind in their appearances and phenomenal divisions" (The Life Divine, SABCL. Vol. 18, p. 143).

Page 62

bring about the state of total well-being. In yoga, on the other hand, the essence of Being is conceived of as Sachchidananda, a trinity of Existence (sat), Consciousness (cit) and Delight or Bliss (ānanda). Therefore, to attain fullness of being and existence is to attain not only the full awareness and the full force of one's being, but also its full delight, which is the highest consummation of psychological well-being. To quote Sri Aurobindo:

"Lastly, to be fully is to have the full delight of being. Being without delight of being, without an entire delight of itself and all things is something neutral or diminished; it is existence, but it is not fullness of being ....All undelight, all pain and suffering are a sign of imperfection, of incompleteness; they arise from a division of being, an incompleteness of consciousness of being, an incompleteness of the force of being. To become complete in being, in consciousness of being, in force of being, in delight of being and to live in this integrated completeness is the divine living."¹⁷

REFERENCES

1. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics. Boston & London: New Science Library, Shambhala, 1983.

2. "Rational-Emotive Therapy" in Virginia Binder, Arnold Binder & Bernard Rimland (Eds.) Modem Therapies. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976, pp. 22-23.

3. Letters on Yoga, Sri Aurobindo Birth Centenary Library (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1970-73), Vol. 22, p. 233.

4. Collected Works of the Mother, Vol . 12 (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1978), p. 3.

Page 63

5. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 24), p. 1394.

6. Ornstein, R. The Psychology of Consciousness. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1972.

7. Wilber, K. "Psychologia Perennis: The Spectrum of Consciousness" in John Welwood (Ed.), The Meeting of the Ways. New York: Schocken Books, 1979, pp. 8-9.

8. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 22), p. 238.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid., pp. 236-37.

11. Ibid., p. 238.

12. The Life Divine (SABCL. Vol. 19), pp. 1023-24.

13. The Synthesis of Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 20), p. 282.

14. The Life Divine (SABCL. Vol. 19). p. 1017.

15. Letters on Yoga (SABCL, Vol. 22). p. 238.

16. The Life Divine (SABCL, Vol. 19), p. 1024.

17. Ibid., pp. 1024-25.

Page 64