Yoga is experiencing renewed interest in the West, but the philosophy accompanying the actual techniques appears to be derived more from the Vedāntic interpretation of the original Yoga texts, rather than that of the Sāṃkhyā metaphysic. According to Hindu scholars from Surendranath Dasgupta and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to Heinrich Zimmer, James Houghton Woods, and others, Sāṃkhyā was Patañjali's original choice for a conceptual framework to help the adept understand the nature of states of consciousness experienced. But does it really matter which philosophy it is?

This paper compares the metaphysics of Sāṃkhyā and Vedānta with respect to their differing interpretations of Patañjali's Yoga-Sūtras in order to estimate the dependence of Yoga psychology on the Sāṃkhyā metaphysic. The authors argue that the Vedāntic interpretation leads to a monistic conception of consciousness compatible with Western monotheism, hence its missionary value. Meanwhile, the Sāṃkhyā reflects the eventual consequence or fruit of the state of samādhi as kaivalya, or isolation of pure consciousness from lifeless inert matter. Described as a more indigenous aspect of Yoga psychology, kaivalya, and much of the Sāṃkhyā, still remain largely incomprehensible to most Westerners.

Yoga is properly understood as one of the six orthodox philosophical systems as well as a practise for transforming personal consciousness. As such, it is possibly the single most important contribution of Hindu culture to world mental health. Its efficacy is accepted by virtually all the other orthodox Hindu schools, it pervades both Buddhism and Jainism, it is the hallmark of the tantra, and through the proliferation of such strands, an indigenous Chinese Yoga of Taoist origin notwithstanding, its influence has spread to every corner of Asian culture.

The purpose of this essay is to present a case study illustrating the attainment of self-realization in the life of a modern sage, Sri Ramaṇa Maharshi (1879–1950). To that end, the author shall briefly sketch the life history and teachings of Sri Ramaṇa Maharshi, whose approach is widely recognized as very closely following the Advaitic model of Self-realization in Śaṅkara's tradition. Insofar as the principles of Advaita are described in Paranjpe and Rao's chapter titled Psychology in the Advaita Vedānta in this Handbook, this chapter is expected to complement it by providing a concrete instance of how those principles may manifest in real life. It is hoped that the discussion here will show how Advaita Vedānta is not simply an abstract system of philosophy involving idle speculation, but a practical philosophy of life, involving a form of applied psychology that can effectively guide a person's self-realization.

I would like to clarify at the outset that the approach to case study adopted here is inspired by Erik Erikson's (1962; 1969) psycho-historical studies of the biographies of Martin Luther and Mahatma Gandhi, but with a difference. The main difference is that, while Erikson uses his extension of the Freudian model to examine life histories portrayed in biographical sources, I have tried to examine the life history of Sri Ramaṇa primarily, although not exclusively, in light of his own teachings. Given the background of the Eriksonian approach that inspired this study, the relevance of Erikson's theory of identity formation is crucial here. For, as I have tried to show elsewhere (Paranjpe, 1998), there is a good deal of complementarity between Eriksonian view of the search for identity and the Advaitc view of self-realization.

The Bhagavad-Gītā is a major Indian text, originally a part of the Mahābhārata, and included in the Prasthanatreya, the three foundations of classical Indian thought. The Gītā presents an elaborate analysis of the human mind from the context of a foundational philosophy of active living. The context in which an integral philosophy of life and transformation is told in the Bhagavad-Gītā is the battlefield of Kurukṣetra. The scene presents a division of the kith and kin, friends and well-wishers of one great family dynasty arrayed in opposite sides to fight.

The narrative of the Gītā is of significance as the figurative and metaphorical meanings of the physical war-field lead us to the mental war-field fuelled by conflicting emotions, unexpressed fears and the lack of a stable sense of identity. The mental conflict that humans face, since ancient times, between ‘what is right’ (dharma, dharmakṣetra) and ‘what is duty’ (kartavya, kurukṣetra) is poignantly presented in the opening lines of the Gītā. The representation of Arjuna carries a global flag of mental crisis that is pan-cultural. Arjuna with his loud cries, shrouded fears and hypocritical desire for renunciation, presents a contemporary personality who is successful and efficient but with fragile and conflicting sense of identity and values.

The Gītā narrative is not a telltale story of Arjuna's depression and his predicament. What makes the Gītā narrative a transpersonal process and psychology is the continuity given with the intervention of the friend-relative and teacher-God Sri Kṛṣṇa. The teases, consolations, questionings, threats, love and revelations that Kṛṣṇa showers on Arjuna are not limited to any particular mode of psychological counselling.

Freud shocked the Western world just over a hundred years ago with his audacious assertion that our actions, thoughts and feelings are largely determined by processes occurring outside our conscious awareness. We have accommodated ourselves to this “dethroning” of the rational ego, but the sting still remains: our experience is inescapably shaped by cognitive structures and processes we neither clearly control nor even fully discern. We are not, it seems certain, truly in charge. Although this same basic message is currently couched in the unquestioned voice of science, rather than the questioned voice of psychoanalysis, this irrevocable loss of our autonomous self, like the sudden death of a close friend, haunts us still.

This was not what happened in India some fifteen centuries ago when Buddhist and Hindu yogis and philosophers systematically examined and analysed how unconscious processes determine the shape of our experiences and delimit the autonomy of our actions. But since these observations arose out of traditions that had long before deconstructed any autonomous ego, the idea of unconscious mental processes upheld, rather than undermined, their overall moral vision. Paradoxically, the loss of an autonomous self proved a gain in understanding of self.

This essay aims to explain how this came about within Buddhist traditions, how and why an explicit notion of unconscious mental processes, called ālaya-vijñāna, developed within classical Indian Yogācāra Buddhism. We shall note in passing parallels found in modern psychology or cognitive science.

Briefly, we will trace the development of this distinctively Buddhist concept of unconscious mind back to the early texts of the Pāli Canon.

Profile of J. Krishnamurti

J. Krishnamurti was born to Sanjeevamma and Jiddu Narinaiah in Madanapalli in Andhra Pradesh, South India. He was “discovered” in his boyhood (1909) by Bishop Leadbeater and brought up by Mrs Annie Besant, the leader of the Theosophical Society, who proclaimed that he was the world teacher that the theosophists were waiting for. Krishnamurti had certain mystical experiences, which led to his transformation and a new vision of life. He dissociated himself from all organized religions, giving a new meaning and content to religion. From the 1920's until 1986, he traveled around the world giving talks, writing, holding dialogues, or sitting silently when people sought his compassionate and healing presence. Many regard him as one who has had a profound impact on human consciousness in modern times. His teachings are universal as they relate to everyday life, to the depths and heights of human mind and the timeless. They inspire a quest for truth and for the sacred in modern man.

Introduction

Krishnamurti finds the significance of life in living with the understanding of its wider and deeper issues. To him the most significant in such understanding, but yet missing, is selfknowing. To him, the ignorant man is not the illiterate man, but one who is not self-knowing. His whole concern is in directing humanity towards such understanding. He takes us into an inward journey into ourselves. He feels that the actual righteous foundation must be laid in daily living by finding how we behave, think, feel, and act in our relationships. He touches upon the contents of consciousness both at the conscious and unconscious levels.

Indian psychology has a rich history of meditative and related practises. In fact, most of the contemporary interest in the psychology of meditative practice in the West can be traced back to Hindu-based mantra meditations or to the multitude of Buddhist meditative practises, which have many of their roots in India (Goleman, 1988). Common elements of meditative practice, such as cultivating focused attention and detached awareness, appear to contribute to psychological well-being and spiritual experience across traditions. Indian traditions of yoga and meditation have had an impact on psychological theory and approaches to psychotherapy beginning from the earliest development of contemporary psychology, influencing William James in the US, and Carl Jung in Germany. Interest in meditation influenced the development of humanistic psychology in the United States in the middle of the twentieth century, psychodynamic theory in the 1950s (Fromm, Suzuki and DeMartino, 1960), transpersonal psychology in the 1960s (Naranjo and Ornstein, 1971; Tart, 1969), and cognitive behavioural therapy in the 1970s (Benson, 1975; Carrington, 1977, 1998).

Meditation practices first entered Western psychology via India, initially through Europe, influencing both the transcendentalists and early models of hypnosis. Carl Jung was fascinated by meditation, although he viewed them as practices more appropriate for the “oriental mind” (Clarke, 1994). In Europe, Schultz (1934) drew explicitly on yogic meditative traditions to develop autogenic training, one of the earliest relaxation interventions still widely used to treat anxiety and stress symptoms. Progressive muscle relaxation (Jacobson, 1971) bears strong resemblance to certain yogic practises that cultivate mindful awareness of the experiences associated with alternating tensing and relaxing in the muscles throughout the body.

Buddhism is classed among the world's major religions. The teachings of Buddhism can be traced back to its founder, Gotama Buddha, who proclaimed after a laborious search for the nature of good life that he became enlightened regarding a certain reality that was not known to the existing authoritative traditions of his time. The essence of the Buddha's enlightenment experience was formulated in the first sermon of the Buddha in the form of Four Noble Truths. In presenting the Four Noble Truths the Buddha insisted that these truths were not among the holy teachings handed down in previous authoritative traditions and claimed that vision, knowledge, insight and illumination regarding them dawned on him (Saṃyutta Nikāya, vol. V, p. 425). What the Buddha realized was described by him as profound, difficult to see, difficult to understand, but yet appeasing, pleasant, not obtainable by speculation, subtle and knowable by the wise (Vinaya Piṭaka, vol. I, p. 4). His insight into reality was also presented as a penetration into the “dependent arising” nature of things (idappaccayatā paṭ iccasamuppādo). It was around this core of the Buddha's articulation of his enlightenment experience that Buddhism has evolved over the last two thousand five hundred and fifty years of its history, developing sometimes in widely divergent directions and taking multifarious religious and philosophical forms. The attempt in this enquiry is not to focus attention on all the numerous subsequent developments of the tradition based on how imaginative teachers of the tradition under different historical and cultural contexts understood the original message and interpreted it, but to focus attention on the significance of the Buddhist claim to a specific kind of knowledge.

Values act as the guiding force for human behaviour. They are abstract, cognitive entities with moral-ethical or religious connotations. Essentially, values indicate what matters or things individuals consider more, or less significant with regard to specific activities or experiences (Roubiczek, 1969). Simply expressed, values show what one considers most important in life, and contain “ought” or “should”, “right-wrong”, “good-bad”, and “desirable-undesirable” components. Furthermore, values provide possibly the best explanation for why people differ so widely in their preferred pursuits in life. While some persons spend their lives working for the welfare of others, others devote their lives in the quest for the meaning of life in science, literature, the arts and religion. Yet others find it is more meaningful to spend their time and effort earning wealth and fame.

Although the study of values has been undertaken in both philosophy and contemporary psychology, there is a visible distinction in the method adopted in the two disciplines. A positivistic empirical approach is favoured by psychologists, who have underlined the belief aspect and the “desirable/undesirable” features of values (Rokeach, 1973). In addition, it has been pointed out that values reflect end-states or behaviours, are arranged in terms of importance, and are relatively invariant across situations (Schwartz, 1992).

This chapter treats the Patañjali Yoga-Sūtras and their relevance to contemporary theory and research in parapsychology. A constant feature of this chapter is its description of ways in which Indian psychophysical practises and principles, as illustrated in the Patañjali Yoga-;Sūtras, both inform and are supported by psi (parapsychological) research and theory. Like the Yoga- Sūtras themselves, the chapter has four major sections. These sections will address the context, principles, and practises of the Yoga-Sūtras; the nature, methods, and findings of current parapsychological research; the interrelationships of the Yoga-Sūtras, the siddhis, and psi research; and additional and alternative considerations of Yoga principles and practices.

Patañjali Yoga-Sūtras: Principles and Practices

The Patañjali Yoga-Sūtras is the basic text of Yoga, one of the six great orthodox schools or systems (darśana, views) of Indian philosophy/psychology. These six systems of thought – grouped as three pairs that share metaphysical similarities – are Vaiśeṣika and Nyāya, Sāṃkhya and Yoga, and Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta.

In the sixth century BCE the Buddha presented an eightfold path a person is to follow in order to become liberated from suffering in saṃsāra. This eightfold path involves the use of wisdom (prajñā) and skillful means (upāya) to prepare oneself to acquire the wisdom needed to achieve liberation. Included in the skillful means part of the path are the practise of yogic meditation, of the sort explained in Patañjali's Yoga-Sūtras, and the practise of spiritual discipline (śīla), which consists primarily of the performance of skillful action (karma) that enables persons to be reborn in the human realm and creates the other conditions favourable to the acquisition of wisdom. Some of the Buddha's later followers claimed that he had taught only a path to the goal of individual liberation from suffering and others claimed that he had also taught a path to the goal of universal liberation. Those who practise the first are now called the Therāvādins and those who practise the second are the Mahāyānists. The practise of wisdom itself includes the acquisition of meditative knowledge of both the workings of the mind and the ultimate nature of its objects, which include the mind itself. Over time different schools of wisdom were formed by the Buddha's followers, each claiming that it alone correctly represents his teachings. Four basic schools, each with a number of different subschools, emerged by the ninth century CE. Indian Buddhist theories of persons were formulated in the wisdom schools in the context of explaining why a person suffers in saṃsāra and how he can become free from this suffering.

The various Indian schools of thought such as Nyāya, Vaiśeṣika, Sāṃkhyā, Yoga, Mīmāṁsā, Vedānta, Buddhism, Jainism, Sūfi, etc. are a treasury of very rich analysis of psychological processes of mind-body interaction. They offer methodology for controlling mind, attention, memory, emotion and ways to attain self-realization. They encompass the whole spectrum of human life, and bring out a systematic analysis of different aspects of reality. The text of the Upaniṣads, Brāhamaṇās, Āranyakās, Mahākāvyas and Purāṇas along with folk literature from different parts of India offer a repertoire of wisdom and insights. In short, the Indian world view and its assumptions and methods about human reality do have potential to contribute significantly, not only to the world's reservoir of knowledge but also to the domain of practise and applications for solving personal, social and educational problems.

Indian psychology finds its roots in Indian philosophy, with its belief in the vast potential inherent in the human being. It has the “know-how” to raise the consciousness of a human being which is a focal point from any perspective for human well being. The Indian schools of thought give profound theoretical insights into the human condition. They also provide practical methods to find love, joy and peace, which they claim are within the individual. These qualities are considered to be aspects of one's true self, of pure consciousness. In Indian thought, a person is not a separate fragment, but on a deeper level, is one with all.

Classical Indian thought has been extraordinary in the sense that it has treated human personality as a subject, with emphasis on self-consciousness, free-will and self-determination.

Ancient Indian psychology maintains that analysis of actions provides clues to the individual's motives, and the knowledge of motives, in turn, makes it possible to forecast his behaviour under different circumstances. By motives were implied three relatively independent types of psychological phenomena, closely interrelated, but not completely identical. They represent, firstly, motives as inducements to activity directed towards satisfaction of an individual's needs that indicate to the source of the individual's activeness in general and the needs stirring him to activity in particular. Secondly, motives point to the objects of activeness and explain the individual's preference for a particular type of behaviour. In this sense motives coincide with reasons for a particular line of behaviour chosen by the subject and, in the aggregate, constitute what is known in psychology as personality orientation. Thirdly, motives emerge as means of the individual's self-regulation i.e., as an instrument of control by the individual of his own behaviour and activity.

The volitional act (action) represents a unity of all the three types or aspects of its motivation: the source of activeness, its directionality and means of self-regulation. Motives arising from needs cause the individual to perform some actions and abstain from others. Depending on the degree to which the individual is aware of his motives, they can be divided into drives and desires. A drive or an instinctive impulse is a motive for activity which represents an undifferentiated need the subject is not fully aware of. For example, an attraction towards a certain person causes an individual to experience pleasure at the sight or sound of that person and ‘drives’ him to seek, often involuntarily, meetings with the person.

This chapter provides a Western psychological interpretation of the fundamentals of Buddhist thought with special attention to integration with cognitive science, behaviour modification, psychoanalysis, and transpersonal psychology (Mikulas, 2007). To help, a few conceptualizations are drawn from the author's integrated psychology, called Conjunctive Psychology (Mikulas, 2002). The expression “essential Buddhism” is used to mean the fundamental principles of Buddhist thought that are traditionally attributed to the historical Buddha and are recognised as basic to all major schools of Buddhism. Insightful understanding of essential Buddhism has been continually stressed from the Buddha through to the current Dalai Lama. Essential Buddhism deals with many psychological topics, such as sensation, perception, emotion, motivation, cognition, mind, and consciousness.

Levine (2000) suggests a number of commonalities between Buddhism and Western psychology. Both are concerned with alleviating human suffering and focus on the human condition and interpret it in natural rather than religious terms. Both see humans as caught in a matrix of forces, including cravings and drives, based in biology and beliefs. Both teach the appropriateness of compassion, concern, and unconditional positive regard toward all beings. Besides this both share the ideal of maturing and growth. And both acknowledge that the mind functions at a superficial and deep level.

Basic Constructs

There are some crucial concepts that may be considered the basic constructs of essential Buddhism. These were all first introduced in the Buddha's classic discourse about the Four Noble Truths, which includes the Eightfold Path (Rahula, 1974). Although the discussion here is from a Western psychological perspective and different from what is found in the traditional Buddhist literature, everything we believe is totally compatible with essential Buddhism.

Āyurveda, the “science of life” has emerged out of the philosophies of ancient India. Western philosophy and contemporary psychology have promoted Cartesian dualism of the mind and body, and scientific parsimony and specialization as hallmarks of scientific advancement. Āyurveda is anchored in Sāṃkhyā philosophy, which has anticipated the most advanced concepts of contemporary science. As there is no compartmentalization of the various disciplines, the medical system of Āyurveda follows the Sāṃkhyā tradition in its scientific approach. The major āyurvedic treatises are the compilations of works of Caraka, Suśruta, Vāgbhaṭas, the younger and the elder, and Kaśyapa, especially for children's diseases. Āyurvedic practises incorporate bio-psycho-social domains of human existence. Exemplifying the holistic approach, it has the following components:

1. Scientific methodology (Sāṃkhyā system)

2. Sociological observations (gṛahaśāstras)

3. Cultural practices (gṛahaśāstras, vedic rites and folk practices)

Āyurveda has eight branches:

1. Internal medicine (kāyāchikitsā)

2. Surgery, general and special (salya tantra)

3. Otto-rhino-laryngeology and ophthalmology (salakya tantra)

4. Women's diseases and pediatrics (stṛīroga and kaumāra bhratya)

5. Geriatrics and immunology (jarachikitsā/rasāyāna)

6. Eugenics and aphrodisiacs (vajikaraṇa)

7. Toxicology (damśachikitsā)

8. Psychological medicine (bhūta vidyā)

It is only in the recent times that foray into general systems and chaos theories, gene research and nano-technology has led to the broadening of scientific perspectives to accommodate the complex nature of man and his universe. In the field of psychology, health psychology has moved beyond the strict boundaries that had been laid down. The strength of health psychology lies in its holistic approach and its emphasis on empirical validation.

The Nyāya system and the Vaiśeṣika system of Indian Philosophy were two independent systems in the beginning i.e., during the second and third century bce; but in course of time, by the tenth century ce, they merged into one system, popularly known as Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika system of Indian Philosophy.

The basic text of the Nyāya system is the Nyāyasūtra of Akṣapāda Gautama on which Vātsyāyana wrote his elaborate commentary called Bhāṣya which was commented upon by Udyotakara. His commentary is called Vārttika. This Vārttika was commented upon by Vācaspati Miśra. His commentary is known by the name Tātparya on which Udayanācārya wrote a commentary called Pariśuddhi. From Vātsyāyana to Udayanācārya the development of the Nyāya system has been in the form of a dialogue. It was mainly the Buddhists who kept on asking questions on each commentary and the next commentary was the answer to those objections. This added depth to the structure of Indian philosophical thoughts. That is why, this period of over one thousand years is called the golden period in the intellectual history of India. This entire development had taken place in the eastern part of India called Mithila at that time. This phase of development of Nyāya system is called Prācina Nyāya or Old system of logic and epistemology. Thereafter begins the development of the next phase of Nyāya system called Navya Nyāya or Neo-logic and epistemology. While the Prācīna Nyāya concentrated on the fundamental philosophical issues, the Navya Nyāya kept on developing ambiguity-free medium of discourse to deal with basic epistemological issues.

Psychology as a scientific discipline has a short history of hundred and odd years but it has a long past as a subject of human inquiry. In all cultures we find some psychological concepts and theories employed by people. Different labels like naïve psychology, commonsense psychology, ethnopsychology, everyday psychology, and the psychology of the populace are used to refer to them (Thomas, 2001). The agenda of modern scientific psychology is to move from these naïve and commonsense notions towards a universally applicable set of concepts, principles and theories. In the jargon of cross-cultural psychology, the attempt is to move from “emic” to “etic” or from “culture specific” to “culture free” knowledge. Unfortunately, however, the scientific psychology that emerged in the West has itself turned out to be another version of emic or culture-specific or ethnopsychology, being heavily influenced by the cultural values and outlook of the Western world (Tart, 1975a; Kim and Berry, 1993; Much, 1995). Its claim of universality is being viewed as “imposed etic” rather than “derived etic” (Kim and Berry, 1993). Modern scientific psychology fails to account for all the variations of human behaviour across cultures and it is also limited in its scope and leaves out all those aspects of human nature and experience that do not fit the framework of scientific approach. It is in this scenario that psychologists all over the world have felt the need to examine the “indigenous psychologies” (Kim and Berry, 1993; Kim and Park, 2005) for their contemporary relevance to account for behaviour, locally and globally, wherever they have the potential utility.