Advanced Psychology — I

Matthijs Cornelissen
last revision: 13 December 2024

introduction

In the introductory chapter on the history of psychology as an academic discipline, we discussed that the research methods mainstream science has used with such magnificent success for the physical domain, have worked much less well for the inner domain, with as result that the inner domain is increasingly seen as consisting only of the purely subjective correlates of what is happening inside our physical, skin-encapsulated brains.

We also saw that this is a much more dangerous development than those who could do something about it seem to realise. Collectively, we have developed tremendous powers over the physical domain, but not the wisdom to use these powers well, and we have reached a stage where the many existential threats humanity is facing are almost all self-inflicted, and, ultimately, psychological in nature.

In the next group of chapters I've tried to show that the Indian knowledge systems developed a technology of consciousness and powerful "inner instruments of knowledge" capable of studying the inner domain with a similar sophistication, precision and reliability as the physical instruments mainstream science developed for the outer domain, and in the previous two chapters I've tried to indicate in very broad lines how these techniques work and how they could be integrated with the knowledge system of mainstream academics.

In the present chapter I'll give two examples of the type of material such inner studies can produce. The first is a simplified, generic map of the inner domain, a "topography of consciousness" if that term is not too self-contradictory for an aspect of reality that goes at least at its peaks way beyond space and time. If we would compare psychology to geography, and our human consciousness to a mountainous landscape, then we could look at this chapter as an attempt at describing the basic elements, mountains consist of: slopes, valleys, footpaths, one or more peaks, and if the mountains are high enough, forests at the bottom, rocks and grasslands in the middle, snow on the top, etc. The end result is unavoidably over-systematised: in the physical world there are hardly a handful of mountains that actually look like the archetypal upside-down cone. Real mountains tend to be ragged, have several smaller tops around the highest one, crevices, snow filled valleys descending far below the tree-line, single trees standing out far above it. And yet, there is a place for a generic description of the various elements mountains tend to consist of, for a systematic study of how they are related to each other, and of how they can be named and classified.

The second text is an example of how this topography and its corresponding nomenclature can be used to describe the different forces that influence our character, our personality, and how our lives unfold.

The fact that over time different people have made different distinctions and descriptions of the inner domain doesn't prove it is all purely subjective or culturally determined: In the physical world too, different regions have different types of mountains and the ways by which these mountains are described are bound to differ according to the aims and objectives of those who describe them. But more than that, in the end, and with a bit of goodwill, it is not hard to find, in one's experience, the single reality of which all these different descriptions stress different, and complementary, aspects. As communications improve, we can expect these different descriptions to convergence around a common core of well-defined terms while still respecting the wealth of genuine differences and exceptions that nature shows in everything it does.

In order to facilitate comparison of the terms used here with those of other systems, I've presented them in the form of a rather dry lists of terms, accompanied by a few diagrams and tables to indicate how the realties these terms refer to are related to each other. I hope that the result still conveys something of the beauty, the love and the deep meaning and intrinsic harmony that are so typical for the inner worlds and that are so much more easily discernible in the deeper layers than in the pain and conflict that mar our lives on the surface. I also hope that the schemata presented here will encourage those who know as yet only part of the inner territory from their own direct experience, to continue their quest till they also recognise the most sublime infinities to which some of these descriptions point as the core of their very own existence. For in the end, absolutely everything and everybody is still That, that absolute, infinite Love, Joy, Beauty, Power and Truth.