Yogic Psychology

Western psychology is still a relatively young science, and it necessarily does not have the complete picture of all the complex interactions that take place within our being. By starting to look inwards, and starting to deal with the powers of mind, will, emotion, nervous impulses and sensations and the impacts of the physical body on the psychology, Western psychology has been making steady strides toward a more complete understanding of how we function as human beings in a complex world filled with impressions, impulsions, conflicting ideas and emotions, exercises of will and physical limitations.

The spiritual science of India, encapsulated in the wide field known under the general name of ‘yoga’ has a long history of study of human psychology, necessary to the attempt to gain understanding, control and mastery over the impulses, the activities of mind, will and heart, and the powers that represent our ability to experience and perceive, and our ability to act within and upon the world in various ways.

Yogic psychology holds that our perceptions, reactions and responses are not based purely on a sensation reaching the mind, and the mind making a decision and carrying it out. It also recognises that not all interactions are mental in nature. Thus, yogic psychology sees that there is a mental being, with various powers and levels of development, a vital being, also with various levels and powers, and a physical being, plus various statuses that are either superconscient, or subconscient, to our primary range of experience.

Yogic psychology also attributes action to the movement of what are called the three Gunas, or qualities of nature. Sattwa, or light and balance; Rajas, or force of action; and Tamas, or darkness or a state of rest or non-movement. These three are always interacting and, depending on the balance they strike at any point in time within an individual, they dictate the manner of response. The various levels of the being, mental, vital and physical each have their own responsiveness and, while normally one could say that sattwa would tend to reside primarily in the mental being, and rajas in the vital being and tamas in the physical being, yogic psychology recognises that these expected predominant traits get modified at every moment by the individual, his development, and the pressures to which he is subjected. Thus, a mind may become clouded by tamas or rajas and thus, overpower any sattwic tendency that might naturally be expected there.

The power of reflection, the power of taking the stance as an observer of the Nature, is a powerful tool of yogic psychology that helps the individual gain a deeper understanding of his own actions and motivations and the forces that impel him into action. Cultivating this inner attitude of detachment from the action of the external nature of the mind, life and body, is an important milestone in gaining control, and eventually mastery of, the external nature and the expression of personality. This shift to the inner stance of the observer helps create the ‘reversal of consciousness’ that leads practitioners to say that day for the ordinary person living the ordinary external life in the world is night to the yogin; while night for the ordinary individual is day for the yogin.

Dr. Dalal writes: “The psychology of yoga throws further light on the nature of attitudes. Unlike modern psychology which lumps all psychological functions into what is called ‘mind’ — if at all any subjective construct is utilised to explain what the majority of psychologists today prefer to describe simply as ‘behaviour’ — the psychology of yoga looks upon the human being as a composite of distinct though intermixed and interacting parts of the being, each with its own characteristic consciousness. Different attitudes are related to different parts of the being or different types of consciousness. One’s predominant attitudes depend on the part of the being and its characteristic type of consciousness which is dominant in one’s nature. Broadly speaking, there are two divisions in the human being — the outer being, which constitutes the personality (from the Latin persona, ‘mask’), and the inner being, the true being or the Person who uses the outer mask of the personality. [In the Sankhya school of Indian philosophy, the outer and the inner divisions of the being are called Prakriti (Nature) and Purusha (Person) respectively.] The outer being is only an instrument as a means of expression; it is not one’s real self. However, ordinarily we are identified with the outer being and regard it as our self. Therefore it is the outer being that usually expresses itself in our attitudes and actions.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Looking from Within, Introduction by Dr. Dalal, pp. v-vi