SRI AUROBINDO AND THE CONCEPT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IN PSYCHOLOGY "We are not only what we know of ourselves but an immense more which we do not know; our momentary personality is only a bubble on the ocean of our existence. "' SRI AUROBINDO "Our mind and ego are like the crown and dome of a temple jutting out from the waves while the great body of the building is submerged under the surface of the waters."2 SRI AUROBINDO As a metaphysical concept, the unconscious had been spoken of by several European thinkers, including the eminent philosophers Leibnitz and Kant. The first elaborate metaph

-005_Self-Awareness- In Psychology and Sri Aurobindo^s Yoga.htm 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

THE HEALING POWER OF PEACE "For everything - to live the spiritual life, heal sickness - for everything, one must be calm,"1 The Mother There has been a growing recognition of the role of stress in producing physical illness as well as psychiatric disturbances. According to conservative estimates, about fifty to seventy per cent of all physical illnesses and a substantial percentage of psychiatric disturbances are related to stress. As a result, a number of therapeutic approaches for stress reduction and for the treatment of stress-related disorders have come into vogue during the past few decades. Some of the chief techniques used today

-007_Psychological Disturbances- A Model Based on Sri Aurobindo^s Yoga.htm Part Two MENTAL HEALTH AND YOGA "There is a psychological health just as there is a physical health." The Mother "It is only by a change - not a mere readjustment - of man's present nature that it can be developed, and such a change is not possible except by yoga." SRI AUROBINDO PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTURBANCES A MODEL BASED ON SRI AUROBINDO'S YOGA "...nor a single person is normal, because to be normal is to be divine."1 THE MOTHER Since, as Sri Aurobindo has stated, "Yoga is nothing but practical psychology",2 resolving the psychological problems

PREFACE The essays brought together in this book appeared at first in the annual numbers of Sri Aurobindo Circle between 1983 and 1990. Since the essays were written as independent articles published at long intervals rather than as a connected and closely-knit series, several ideas and references to literature, including quotations, were repeated. In the present collection of the essays undue repetitions have been removed wherever this could be done wihout major revisions. Since the birth of modern psychology a little over a hundred years ago, views regarding the nature of the human being have followed a certain progressive trend which may be conceived as a dimensional

MASTERY, MENTAL HEALTH AND YOGA During the past few decades, the state of mental health has come to be conceived more and more in positive terms, as denoting the presence of certain attributes associated with psychological well-being, rather than the mere absence of a diagnosable disturbance. One such positive view of mental health conceives it as a state of mastery. Perhaps the most prominent among those who have put forth such a view is the psychiatrist, Karl Menninger, who has described human response to life's challenges as consisting of five stages: Panic, Inertia, Striving, Coping, Mastery.* Some of the chief psychological characteristics associate

PSYCHOLOGY, MENTAL HEALTH AND YOGA Psychology, Mental Health and Yoga Essays on SRI AUROBINDO'S PSYCHOLOGICAL THOUGHT IMPLICATIONS OF YOGA FOR MENTAL HEALTH A. S. DALAL First Edition: 1991 ISBN 81-7058-231-8 © Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 1991 Published by Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press Printed at Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press. Pondicherry PRINTED IN INDIA

THE NATURE OF IDENTIFICATION Identification is regarded by many psychologists as an important concept for understanding both the early development of personality and its later growth. However, from the viewpoint of yoga psychology, identification is a much more pervasive and deeper phenomenon, of which only some limited and superficial aspects are recognised in modern psychology. This essay aims at explicating the deeper nature of identification as viewed in Integral Yoga psychology. As a psychological concept, identification has several different though related meanings and implications. These various meanings and implications of the term may be un

5 Sri Aurobindo on the Self as Experienced in Yoga The self contains the universe.1 — Sri Aurobindo But this knowledge is valueless for Yoga if it is only an intellectual and metaphysical notion void of life and barren of consequence; a mental realisation alone cannot be sufficient for the seeker. For what Yoga searches after is not truth of thought alone or truth of mind alone, but the dynamic truth of a living and revealing spiritual experience.2 —Sri Aurobindo "Whatever I may be thinking of, I am always at the same time more or less aware of myself, of my personal existence."3 In these words

2 The Manifold Being Self-knowledge is impossible unless we go behind our surface existence, which is a mere result of selective outer experiences, an imperfect sounding-board or a hasty, incompetent and fragmentary translation of a little out of the much that we are, — unless we go behind this and send down our plummet into the subconscient and open ourself to the superconscient so as to know their relation to our surface being. For between these three things our existence moves and finds in them its totality. The Life Divine, p.223 ...he [man] is aware only of a small part of his own being: his surface mentality, his surface life, his