Learning from the Indian knowledge systems

Matthijs Cornelissen
last revision: 13 December 2024

One can distinguish four major contributions which the Indian civilization can make to psychology and the science of the inner domain:
 

1. A comprehensive background philosophy
   The Indian civilization has developed a deep and well-worked out philosophical understanding of reality which is as suitable for the psychological as for the physical domain. Its earliest formulations can be found in some of the oldest Indian texts like the Ṛg Veda, the early Upaniṣads and the Bhagavad Gītā. The "Vedic paradigm" given in these texts functions as a loving grandmother to the enormous variety of spiritual, philosophical, religious and cultural schools which India later brought forth. Outside India, it has been mainly these later traditions that have made an impact. One can think for example of Buddhist thought, which spread throughout Asia and more recently through Europe and the Americas. Another example is Patanjali's Yoga Sutras which has become popular amongst American practitioners of hatha-yoga. There is an extensive body of research about them, and there can be no reasonable doubt about their value for self-development and therapy.

   The older, more integral tradition is interesting for a different reason. It is its ability to support and nurture in an impartial — and often surprisingly modern — manner, the entire range of human efforts at understanding and improving the world and ourselves, whether religious, cultural, spiritual, or scientific. As science and technology are removing the distances that used to keep people and cultures apart, it is hard to exaggerate how much humanity needs such an integral framework for understanding all aspects of reality, and all the different ways in which different people deal with them.

   In modern times, Sri Aurobindo is the main exponent of the integral Indian tradition, and we will make use of Sri Aurobindo's work throughout this text.
    

2. Methods to arrive at reliable knowledge in the inner domain
   The Indian civilization has also developed sophisticated and effective methods for the rigorous, in-depth study of consciousness and other aspects of reality that cannot be studied effectively with the research methods of the hard sciences or those that mainstream psychology developed for the study of behavior.

   With this we have arrived at what may well be one of the most important contributions the Indian civilization can make to modern science. While decontextualised forms of yoga and mindfulness are used on a large scale for well-being, the potential of the Indian knowledge systems for providing detailed and reliable knowledge and know-how in the inner domain has hardly been touched. This is remarkable — and tragic — since in the culture of origin, yoga was taken up not only for happiness, but also, and often primarily, for the sake of knowledge and wisdom.
    

3. A rich repertoire of psychology-related theories
   One of the neat outcomes of the Indian approach is that it has produced a logically coherent map of human nature in all its complexity, as well as an understanding of our psychological functioning and possibilities for further development that goes way beyond the furthest ranges known to modern psychology.
    
4. A wide range of effective practices to achieve happiness and a higher consciousness
   As mentioned earlier, decontextualised versions of hathayoga and mindfulness, are already adopted by mainstream psychology on a large scale, and more comprehensive implementations are part of a variety of subcultures. But while all this is great for those who use them, it is not sufficient to take psychology further as a science. For that we need to understand the ontology, the epistemology, the research methodologies, and the theoretical framework that gave rise to these practices.
    

Super-specializations, and the need for a synthesis

It is a major theme of this text that the Indian understanding of the basic nature of reality and knowledge, together with its practical methodology for the study of the inner domain could revolutionise psychology and its applications in education, self-development, counselling, therapy, management, governance, etc. Studying the psychological aspects of the various Indian knowledge systems is, however, not that simple. The Indian civilization is extremely complex and so, if one wants to go beyond the usual platitudes, one must choose between a selection and a synthesis. For one's own individual growth, a selection may well be the most efficient way to proceed, since any one of these different paths can take the seeker to the experience and realization of the divine Absolute. All that an individual needs to do is to find the path that works best given his or her unique background and nature. But if our aim is to develop a comprehensive framework for the whole of psychology, we need a synthesis, since each of these traditions has specialised in a different aspect of the Divine and of human nature.

Instead of attempting to make my own synthesis, for which I am ill-equipped, I've used the synthesis Sri Aurobindo made in the first half of the last century.1 This synthesis is special for several reasons. The first is simply the sheer quality of his work, which I hope will come across even from the short quotations from his writings I've included in this text. The second is that it is the outcome of a rigorous effort at going back in his own experience to the underlying reality that gave rise to the different terminologies and schemata developed by the major Indian and Western knowledge systems. As a result of this deeper, more inward effort, Sri Aurobindo's synthesis is clearly not based only on a scholarly study of texts; it appears rather like a remarkably comprehensive and coherent expression (in poetry as well as in prose) of what he discovered in his own experience about the realities that gave rise to the sometimes radically opposite ideas one finds in the various Indian and Western schools of thought. The third is that he used that inner knowledge not only to have a fresh look at the Indian systems for individual spiritual development, but also at the Greek ideals of beauty, at Darwin's idea of biological evolution and at the later European ideal of collective, social progress, all of which he knew well from his early education in London and Cambridge. Together these Indian and European influences allowed him to create an exceptionally comprehensive perspective on life that is centred around two complementary ideas. The first is the Vedic conception of an involution of consciousness creating the physical world which science has studied. The second is the idea of a — still ongoing — evolution of consciousness within that physical world, which the spiritual knowledge systems have studied.
 

The integration of Indian methods of inquiry with those of science

As we discussed in the Introduction, the central purpose of this text is to explore ways to make science more balanced, so that humanity can begin to develop the wisdom that is needed to use the powers provided by the hard sciences in a manner that is in harmony with the rest of nature as well as with the essence of our own being. Unfortunately, this is more complicated than it looks at first sight. The core of the problem is that the study of the inner domain requires not only different methods of inquiry, but also a different understanding of the basic stuff, structure and functioning of reality as a whole. Since the Indian knowledge systems are wider, more complex, and in certain respects more sophisticated than those of mainstream science, incorporating them as a small niche within the existing framework of science does not work. Still, without a basic grasp of their consciousness-centred understanding of reality, we cannot understand their methods for making knowledge of the inner, subjective domain more reliable, precise and cumulative. And perhaps even more importantly, we cannot develop these methods further, which, as we will see, is crucial if humanity is to take the next step in the still ongoing evolution.2

Considering all this, the first thing we will now look at is the concept of integrality in the extended sense of the Sanskrit word purna, the idea that the ultimate Whole is responsible for the existence and the functioning of the parts. Integrality deserves to be a central theme in psychology, since our human lives go well to the extent that we live and act in harmony with the ultimate Whole of which we and everything else are parts. After that, we'll have a look at different concepts of consciousness, since a too limited understanding of consciousness has been one of the main stumbling blocks standing in the way of progress in psychology, and a more comprehensive understanding of it will be crucial to take psychology further. The third thing we'll look at is the way Sri Aurobindo reconceptualised the Vedic idea of an involution of consciousness preceding the —still ongoing — evolution of consciousness. He saw this involution and evolotion of consciousness as the "secret ingredient" that made Darwin's biological evolution possible. One of the reasons to bring this in, is that it provides a relatively simple, logical and coherent answer to a wide variety of existential questions that have mystified humanity for as long as we know. It also provides a deeply inspiring vision of where humanity is going and what we can do to expedite this journey. Once these ontological and axiological foundations have been laid, we'll come back to the epistemological question how to develop appropriate and efficient research methods for the subjective and inner domains.

We'll look at the concept of integrality in two very different ways. The first describes the allegorical image that has given rise to the title of this text. The second offers a more prosaic explanation of integrality. If the first version is too poetic for your taste, you can jump straight to the second one.