Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal.A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”

Buddha quotes (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.)

In the philosophical literature of the Hindus we find an elaborate account of the sense-organs in the treatment of the problems of perception. The different schools of philosophers had different views as to the nature, origin, and functions of the sense-organs.  Their views were based mostly on their systems of philosophy, though they advanced certain facts of experience in support of their views. The Buddhist accounts of the sense-organs are widely different from those of Western physiology, because they arc based more on metaphysical speculation than on scientific observation and experiment.

It is essential to know the nature, origin, and functions of the sense-organs without comprehension of which there cannot be an adequate conception of some important problems of the Buddhist psychology of perception.

The Nature of the Sense-organs

The philosophy of  Buddhism  recognize six varieties of consciousness ; visual auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and purely mental. Corresponding to these there are six bases (asraya] : the organs of vision, audition, smelling, tasting, touch, and consciousness itself  and there are six objects (visaya) : colours, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles, and ideas. 1 The preceding moment of consciousness is the basic element of the next moment of consciousness. 2 Thus there are six sense-organs including consciousness. Consciousness is the faculty of intellect which apprehends non-sensuous objects. 3 It is called the mind. It is immaterial and invisible. 4

Leaving out the mind, there are five sense-organs. They are the end-organs (golaka). They are the eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, and the skin. They are made up of a kind of translucent subtle matter. The five sense-organs are made up of five different kinds of atoms. 5 Thus the sense-organs are material but invisible. They are divided into two classes, viz. prapyakari and aprapyakari sense-organs. The former apprehend their objects when they come in direct contact with them. The latter apprehend their objects without coming in contact with them. The organs of smell, taste, and touch are prapyakari ; they must be in immediate contact with their objects. The organs of vision and audition are aprapyakari 5

they apprehend their objects at a distance. 6 The Buddhists do not hold with the Nyaya-Vaisesika that the sense-organs are different from the peripheral organs, and the visual organ and the auditory organ come in contact with their objects in order to apprehend them. 7

Buddhist believes that  the visual organ is the eyeball or the pupil of the eye (golaka) and it can apprehend its object without coming in direct contact with it, because the eyeball can never go out of its socket to the object existing at a distance. According to the Nyaya-Vaisesika, on the other hand, all the sense-organs are prapyakari , they can apprehend their objects only when they come in direct contact with them. Thus the visual organ cannot apprehend its object without coming in direct contact with it. The Nyaya- Vais’esika holds that the visual organ is not the eyeball or the pupil of the eye ; it is the seat (golaka or adhisthana) of the visual organ which is of the nature of light (tejas) ; and this ray of light goes out of the pupil to the object at a distance and comes in direct contact with it.

The philosophy of Buddhism  responds to the  criticism of the Nyaya- Vais’esika doctrine of prapyakarita as follows :

(1) Firstly, the sense-organs are nothing but end-organs (golaka) which are within the range of perception. They are not mysterious entities behind these peripheral organs. So the visual organ is nothing but the pupil of the eye through which we see visible objects. And the pupil can never go out of the eye to the object, and come in direct contact with it.

(2) Secondly, the visual organ cannot come in direct contact with its object in order to apprehend it, for in that case it would not be able to apprehend an object bigger than itself. But, as a matter of fact, the visual organ can apprehend vast objects like mountains and the like.

(3) Thirdly, the visual organ apprehends the branches of a tree and the moon at the same time ; it takes the same length of time to apprehend these objects though they are at different distances. If the eye goes out to its object in order to apprehend it, then it must take less time to apprehend a near object, and more time to apprehend a distant object. But, in fact, the eye apprehends the branches of a tree and the moon at the same time 5 it does not take more time to apprehend the moon than to apprehend the branches ; just on opening our eyes we see both the objects at the same time.

(4) Fourthly, the eye cannot go out to its object ; for if it could go out to its object of apprehension, it would never be able to apprehend objects hidden behind glass, mica, etc., as it would be obstructed by them. 8

This way the Buddhist concludes that the visual organ can never go out to its object to apprehend it. It apprehends its object from a distance without getting at it.

The Perception of Time

According to Buddhist philosophy hold  the three elements are not simultaneous; but they are discrete and detached from one another j there is no relation among them; there can be no relation between the knower and the known. They hold that at first there is a particularized presentation (sakara-jnana) of ” I ” (aham), then that of ” this ” (idam)) and then that of ” knowing ” (janami). Thus these discrete and momentary impressions flow in succession. But when the first impression of ” I ” vanishes, it leaves a residuum (vasana) which colours and modifies the second impression of ” this ” ; and when the second impression vanishes, it leaves a residuum which colours and modifies the third impression.

Thus though these three  impressions are discrete and isolated from one another, there is a cumulative presentation of these momentary impressions owing to the transference of residua from the preceding impressions to the succeeding ones (vasana-samkrama] and the residua of the former colouring or modifying the latter (upaplava}. Thus the Buddhists have invented the hypotheses of residua (vasana}) transference of residua (vasanasamkrama), and modification of impressions by residua (upaplava} to explain away the fact of continuity or the consciousness of transition ; a succession of presentations is certainly not the consciousness of succession. The Buddhists do not explain, but explain away the fact of unity and continuity of consciousness. 9

The Buddhists examine the perceptive process and show that perception cannot apprehend the ” specious present “. A perception is nothing but a presentation ; and a presentation is the presentation of a single moment ; it cannot apprehend the past and the future. If there is a series of presentations,  etc., is it the antecedent presentation b (uttaravljnana}, or is it the succeeding presentation b that takes hold of the preceding presentation by the hind part, as it were ? The Buddhists answer that b can neither take hold of c, nor can it take hold of a. The past as past is not present j and the future as future is not present. Hence the present presentation can neither apprehend the past nor the future presentation, and consequently, there can be no direct apprehension or perception of the past and future.10

Contrarily the Buddhists hold that the past enters into the present at the time of passing away, and the future also enters into the present, though it is not yet come, so that the present presentation is an echo of the immediate past and a foretaste of the immediate future. 11

Thus the Buddhists surreptitiously introduce an element of linking or transition between the past and the present, and between the present and the future to explain our consciousness of the continuity of time. But though they admit that the past and the future enter into the present, they insist that it is only the present that is perceived and not the past or the future which enters into the present. Such is the nature of our experience that it unfolds successively one presentation appearing and then disappearing. And in this series of presentations an antecedent state (purvadasa) cannot come in contact with a subsequent state (aparadala) and a subsequent state cannot come in contact with an antecedent state. All sense-presentations apprehend the present alone which is instantaneous or momentary, 12

The Naiyayikas hold that sometimes the present is perceived as extended or with a certain duration, for instance, when we perceive a continuous action, e.g. cooking, reading, etc. 13 The sensible present is not momentary, but has a certain length of duration (vartamanaksan dtrghah) ; it is not made up of a single moment, but composed of a number of moments (ndndksanaganatmaka).

The Buddhists urge that time cannot be a composite whole made up of parts ; it cannot be a cluster of simultaneous presentations because there is no simultaneity among presentations. Time is not bi-dimensional, as some Naiyayikas hold, but it is one dimensional. There is no simultaneity, but only succession among our presentations. It is foolish to hold that perception apprehends an extended present with a certain duration. 14

The Naiyayika and the Vedantist hold that a continuous and uniform impression bears clear testimony to the unbroken and uninterrupted existence of its object ; and consequently, it apprehends an extended present with a certain duration. The Buddhists object that there is no uniform impression (avicchinna-drstt). Every impression is momentary ; there cannot be a continuous impression. When there is a rapid succession of momentary impressions, they appear to be continuous, though they are not really so. And because there is no continuous impression, there can be no perception of the ” specious present ” with a certain duration.  Even if there were a continuous impression, it would not be able to apprehend the ” specious present “ , because an object must be presented to consciousness in order that we may have a presentative knowledge of the object, and the object cannot be presented to consciousness for more than one moment, since all objects are momentary.  But, as a matter of fact, there can be no continuous and uniform impression ; consciousness must always apprehend itself as momentary j and not only consciousness is momentary., but also the consciousness of the momentariness of consciousness is momentary. Here the Buddhists differ from the Nco-Hegelians, Green, and others, who suppose that the consciousness of the relation, of impressions must be enduring ; momentary impressions are apprehended as momentary by a consciousness which must be permanent. Thus, according to the Buddhists, all presentations are momentary, and as such they can apprehend only the present which has not a length of duration, but is constituted by a single moment ; the sensible present, therefore, is instantaneous or momentary.  The Buddhists recognize only one aspect of time, viz. succession. They try to explain away the other aspect of time, viz. duration.

Super-Normal Perception

Dharmaklrti, the author of Nyayabindu  believe  that the intuitive perception of a yogin is produced by constant contemplation of the ultimate truths when it reaches the highest limit of perfection. Dharmottara clearly explains the nature of yogic intuition in Nyaya-Knduttka. There are four ultimate truths according to the Buddhists :

(i)          all is momentary,

(ii)         (ii) all is void,

(iii)        (iii) all is pain, and

(iv)        (iv) every- thing is like itself.

By constant contemplation of these four truths the yogin gradually attains a more and more distinct vision of them ; and when he attains the highest and most perfect stage of contemplation, he acquires the most distinct vision or intuition of the ultimate truths. Until the yogin reaches the highest limit of distinct vision born of constant contemplation, he perceives the objects of contemplation as slightly indistinct, as if hidden behind mica. But when he reaches the highest limit of distinct vision by constant contemplation of the ultimate truths, he perceives the objects of contemplation most distinctly, as if they were within his own grasp. And because he has the most distinct vision of the ultimate truths at the highest stage of contemplation., his intuitive perception is indeterminate.

According to the Buddhists, indeterminate perception alone is distinct and vivid ; and the so-called determinate perception is not in itself distinct and vivid, but it acquires distinctness and vividness from its contact with indeterminate perception which is its immediate antecedent. 15

Anuruddha, the author of jhhidhammatthasangaha  describes the different levels of consciousness. He divides consciousness into two orders, viz. subliminal consciousness or subconsciousness below the threshold of consciousness (manodvara\ and supra-liminal consciousness or consciousness above the threshold of consciousness (manodvara]. He divides supra-liminal consciousness, again, into two orders, viz. normal consciousness and super-normal consciousness. Normal consciousness is called Kama-citta as it is generally confined to the Kama-loka or the plane of existence in which kama or desire prevails. Super-normal consciousness is called Mahaggatacitta or sublime or exalted consciousness. And this super-normal consciousness, again, is subdivided into Rupa-citta, which is generally found in the Rupa-loka or the sphere of visible forms which are not altogether immaterial, and Arupa-citta, which is concerned with Arupaloka or the sphere of the invisible or formless, and Lokuttaracitta or transcendental consciousness which is above the three worlds, viz. Kama-loka, Rupa-loka, and Arupa-loka. 16

In order to pass from the Kama-citta or normal consciousness to the Rupa-citta or the lowest order of super-normal consciousness a severe discipline and concentration of the mind are necessary. A monk (bhikkhu) must inhibit all physical and mental activity and concentrate his mind on a single selected object or sensation without changing the object of thought. After some time the sensuous mark or symbol is replaced by the corresponding image. This concentration of the mind on a bare sensation or its image is called ” preliminary concentration ” (parikamma-samadht). Then by more intense concentration of the mind the image is divested of its concrete, sensuous, or imaginal form, and is converted into an abstract conceptualized image, though not completely deindividualized. The concentration of the mind on this conceptualized image during the period of transition from normal consciousness to super-normal consciousness is still known as ” access concentration ” (upacara-samadhi). 17 At this stage there intervenes the lowest order of super-normal consciousness known as the first Rupa-jhana.

The Pali word jhana corresponds to the Sanskrit word dhyana  which means ” concentrative meditation “, or ” ecstatic musing “. There are five Rupa-jhanas 5 which consist in the gradual elimination of the factors of consciousness and attainment of an ” intensified inward vision ” and on absolute equanimity or hedonic indifference.

The first jhanic consciousness of the Rupa-loka has five factors :

(i)               Vitakka or initial attention by which sloth-and-torpor (thma-middha) is inhibited

(ii)               Vicara or sustained attention by which doubt (vuikiccha) is inhibited ;

(iii)             Plti or pleasurable interest or zest by which aversion (byapada) is inhibited ;

(iv)              Sukha or pleasure or happiness by which distraction and worry (uddhacca kukkucca) are inhibited ;

(v) Ekaggata or one-pointedness of consciousness or individualization which develops into ecstatic concentration (appana-samadhi) and inhibits all sensuous desire (kdmachanda).

In the second Rupa-jhana, initial attention (vitakka) is eliminated  and it occurs together with sustained attention pleasurable interest or zest , pleasure (sukha) and individualization (ekaggata).

In the third Rupa-jhana, both initial attention (vitakka) and sustained attention (uuara) are got rid of ; and it occurs together with pleasurable interest or zest (piti)^ pleasure (sukha) y and individualization (ekaggata),

In the fourth Rupa-jhana, pleasurable interest (piti) also is eliminated ; and it occurs together with pleasure (sukha) and individualization (ekaggata).

In the fifth Rupa-jhana^ pleasure or happiness (sukha) is eliminated  and it occurs together with neutral feeling or hedonic indifference (upekkha) and individualization (ekaggata). Sometimes the fourth Jhana and the fifth Jhana are combined into one and only four Rupa-jhanas are spoken of. 18

The higher stages of samadhi in the yoga system are attained by concentrating the mind on subtler and subtler objects. But the higher stages of Jhana in the Buddhist system are attained by eliminating the factors of consciousness gradually. ” Here we have,” says Mrs. Rhys Davids, ” a gradual composure and collectedness of consciousness gradually brought about by the deliberate elimination of :

(i)          the restless, discursive work of intellect, seeking likenesses and differences, establishing relations, forming conclusions ;

(ii)          the expansive suffusion of zest, keen interest, creative joy

(iii)         all hedonistic consciousness.

The residual content of consciousness is admitted to be

(a) a sort of sublimated or clarified satiy an intensified inward vision or intuition, such as a god or spirit might conceivably be capable of.

(b] indifference or equanimity, also god-like.” 19

Above the level of the Rupa-citta there is the Arupa-citta which is concerned with Arupa-loka or the world of the invisible or formless. The Arupa-loka is entirely non-spatial. And the experience of this world can never be sensuous. In the highest stage of the Rupa- citta, which is attained by the gradual elimination of the factors of consciousness, there is the abnormal clarity of inward vision or intuition together with hedonic indifference or equanimity. Above this stage there is no longer any elimination of factors of conscious-ness, but of all consciousness of distinctions or limitations.

Just as there are four stages of Rupa-jhana, so there are four stages of Arupa-jhana.

At the first stage of Arupa-jhana, the mind transcends the consciousness of matter and form, distinctions and limitations, and being concentrated on the concept of infinite space, acquires ” the blissful consciousness, subtle yet actual, of an infinite sensation of space “. 20 This may be compared to Kant’s pure intuition of space as distinguished from his empirical intuition of space.

At the second stage of Arupa-jhana, the mind transcends the sensation of infinite space, and being concentrated on the concept of infinite consciousness ” becomes conscious only of a concept, subtle yet actual, of consciousness as infinite “. 21

At the third stage of Arupa-jhana, the mind wholly transcends the conceptual sphere of consciousness as infinite, and being concentrated on the concept of nothingness ” becomes conscious only of a concept, subtle yet actual, of infinite nothingness “. 22

At the fourth stage of Arupa-jhana, the mind wholly  transcends the sphere of nothingness and attains the stage of an all but complete hypnosis or quasi-unconsciousness which may be described as ” neither percipience nor non-percipience “. 23

When the mind transcends all these different stages of super- normal consciousness concerned with the Rupa-loka and the Arupa-loka, it attains the highest stage of super-normal consciousness which is called transcendental or supra-mundane consciousness (Lokuttara-citta). Jhana-consciousness is mystic consciousness. It is brought about by auto-suggestion. It consists in intensifying or concentrating consciousness on a single object. The object is first of all a percept, then an image, then a concept. So far the mind is in the preparatory stage. Then gradually the contents of consciousness are eliminated in the different stages of Rupa-jhana till the mind at last acquires super-normal clarity of vision and hedonic indifference. So long the mind is in the plane of visible forms (Rupa-loka). It is conscious of the ethereal but not of the immaterial or non-spatial. Then the mind comes in touch with the entirely immaterial world of the invisible or formless by gradually eliminating all consciousness of distinctions and limitations. The mind is, at first, concentrated on infinite space, then on infinite consciousness, then on infinite nothingness, and last of all attains the stage of complete trance or quasi-unconsciousness which may be described as neither consciousness nor unconsciousness. This is the highest stage of Jhanaconsciousness, but not the highest plane of consciousness. When the mind completely transcends even the plane of the invisible or formless (Arupa-loka), it attains the stage of transcendental or supra-  mundane consciousness (Lokuttara-citta).

According to William James, ineffability, noetic quality, transiency, and passivity are the characteristics of mystical consciousness. As to transiency and ineffability, Mrs. Rhys Davids says, “the former is markedly true concerning the momentary ecstasy of attainment or appana  as also concerning the realization of great spiritual elevation generally. Touching the  Fruit ‘ of each ‘ Path ‘ of spiritual progress appears to have been a momentary (khanika) flash of insight. As to the latter, ineffability, it is also true that we find no attempts by brethren who were expert at Jhana to enter in detail into their abnormal experiences. . . . Language is everywhere too much the creature and product of our five-fold world of sense, with a varying coefficient of motor consciousness, to be of much use in describing consciousness that has apparently got beyond the range of sense and local movement. 20

As to the noetic quality, Jhana-consciousness is strongly characterized by it It gives us insight into depths of truth unfathomed by the discursive intellect ; it brings the mind into touch with higher and higher planes of existence. The chief intellectual result of the different stages of Jhana-consciousness is a super-normal clarity of inward vision or intuition ” untroubled by either discursive intellection or hedonistic affection “. The Jhana-process gives us the following powers :

(i) Hyperaesthesia of vision or clairvoyance (dibbacakkhu- alwnna) e.g. the super-normal vision of the past and the future history of a particular individual.

(ii) Hyperaesthesia of hearing or clairaudience (dibbasota) e.g. super-normal hearing of sounds and voices, both human and celestial, the distant becoming near.

(iii) Thought-reading and thought-transference or telepathy (cetopariya-nana or paradtta-vijanana).

(iv) Hypermnesia (pubbenivasanussati) or reminiscence of the past history of former lives. 21

According to William James, mystical consciousness has got another characteristic, viz. passivity. ” When mystical conscious- ness has once set in,” says James, ” the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power.” 22 This characteristic of passivity, however, is lacking in Jhana-consciousness and differentiates it from other kinds of mystical consciousness. It differentiates it from the eucharistic consciousness or the mystic sense of union with the divine one, and also from the Vedantic sense of identity of the individual soul with the world-soul. ” There was, of course, this deep cleavage,” says Mrs. Rhys Davids, ” between it and the eucharistic consciousness, that the self was banished, and no sense of union with the divine One, , or any One, aimed at or felt. Herein, too, the Buddhist differs from the Vedantist, who sought to realize identity with Atman, that is, the identity of the world-soul and his own self or atman ” Tat tvam asi ” (That are thou).” 23

But why is Jhana-consciousness wanting in passivity ? Mrs. Rhys Davids offers a reason for it. She says,  it has the essential noetic  quality too strongly to permit of passivity as a constant. Intellect and volition, for Buddhist thought, are hardly distinguishable, and the jhayin seems to be always master of himself and self-possessed, even in ecstasy, even to the deliberate falling into and emerging from trance. There is a synergy about this Jhana, combined with an absence of any reference whatever to a merging or melting into something greater, that for many may reveal defect, but which is certainly a most interesting and significant difference.”

REFERANCES

1 Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 58.

2 Ibid., p. 58.

3 Ibidi> pp< 96

4 Keith, Buddhist Philosophy, p. 102.

5 The Central Conception of Buddhism, pp. 12-13.

6 The Central Conception of Buddhism, p. 60.

7  Vivaranaprameyasarngralia of Madhavacarya Vidyaranya  p. 187;.

8    Kiranavall of Udayana (Benares, 1885 and 1887). , p. 74,

9   Vivaranaprameyasarngralia of Madhavacarya Vidyaranya , p. 75.

10  Nylyamanjari of Jayanta. (V.S.S., Benares, 1895)., p. 4.50.

11 VartamanSnupravdena bhutabhlvinoh kslayoli grahanarru Ibid., p. 450.

12  Nylyamanjari of Jayanta. (V.S.S., Benares, 1895)., p. 450. ^ ^ 13 ibid., p^ 45<x

13  Nylyamanjari of Jayanta., p. 451. “Psychologically considered, there is no such thing as a ‘ mathematical point of time ‘no time that is not enduring time.” Ladd : Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 311.

14  Nylyamanjari of Jayanta. (V.S.S., Benares, 1895)., p. 451- 452.

15  Nyayabindutlka of Dharmottara (Benares, 1924). , pp. 20-1.

16 Aung, Compendium of Philosophy, introduction, pp. 10 and 12.

17 Buddhist Psychology, p. 109.

18 Compendium of Philosophy , Introduction, p. 56.

19 Buddhist Psychology, p. 117-18  (1914).

20 Buddhist Psychology, pp. 115-16.

21 Compendium of Philosophy, Introduction, pp. 63-4.

22 The Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 381.

23 Buddhist Psychology, p. 114.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Meditation is all about the pursuit of nothingness. It’s like the ultimate rest. It’s better than the best sleep you’ve ever had. It’s a quieting of the mind. It sharpens everything, especially your appreciation of your surroundings. It keeps life fresh.
Hugh Jackman

Meditation is the practice of turning your attention to a single point of reference. It can involve focusing on the breath, on bodily sensations, or on a word known as a mantra. In other words, meditation means turning your attention away from distracting thoughts and focusing on the present moment. Meditation originally was meant to help deepen understanding of the sacred and mystical forces of life. These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction.

Meditation has been practiced since antiquity as a component of numerous religious traditions and beliefs.  There are many types of meditation, most of which originated in ancient religious and spiritual traditions.

The term meditation refers to a group of techniques: ( 1) -Guided meditation.  With this method of meditation you form mental images of places or situations you find relaxing. You try to use as many senses as possible. (2) -Mantra meditation. In this type of meditation, you silently repeat a calming word, thought or phrase to prevent distracting thoughts .(3) -Mindfulness meditation. This type of meditation is based on being mindful, or having an increased awareness and acceptance of living in the present moment. (4) -Qi gong. This practice generally combines meditation, relaxation, physical movement and breathing exercises to restore and maintain balance.(5) -Tai chi. In tai chi (TIE-chee), you perform a self-paced series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful manner while practicing deep breathing.(6) -Transcendental meditation. You use a mantra, such as a word, sound or phrase repeatedly silently, to narrow your conscious awareness and eliminate all thoughts from your mind. (7) -Yoga. You perform a series of postures and controlled breathing exercises to promote a more flexible body and a calm mind.

Most meditative techniques started in Eastern religious or spiritual traditions. These techniques have been used by many different cultures throughout the world for thousands of years. Today, many people use meditation outside of its traditional religious or cultural settings, for health and well-being. Generally, a person who is meditating uses certain techniques, such as a specific posture, focused attention, and an open attitude toward distractions. Meditation may be practiced for many reasons, such as to increase calmness and physical relaxation, to improve psychological balance, to cope with illness, or to enhance overall health and well-being. This Backgrounder provides a general introduction to meditation and suggests some resources for more information.

Meditation can give you a sense of calm, peace and balance that benefits both your emotional well-being and your overall health. And these benefits don’t end when your meditation session ends. Meditation can help carry you more calmly through your day and can even improve certain medical conditions. On the emotional front meditation helps in building  skills to manage your stress by focusing on the present. It reduces negative emotions through increasing self-awareness and helps in gaining a new perspective on stressful situations.

It is true that a higher philosophy of life is absolutely necessary for satisfactory living as it teaches us that all aspirations, hopes, and desires must be subordinated to the supreme goal of life, as previously explained. Effective understanding of a higher philosophy of life makes us see the necessity of regulating our inordinate affections and ambitions. On the other hand, the practice of relaxation and concentration is also absolutely essential. We may have philosophy; we may have theology; we may have religious principles; but they have to be applied in life individually through discipline, training, and exercises. History proves that philosophy does not become operative unless we apply it practically in our everyday life.. The practice of concentration brings out the initiative of the mind so that we can make our philosophy dynamic. Every child knows that it is wrong to lie; every child knows that it is wrong to be angry; every man knows that it is vicious and harmful to be hateful or jealous; and every man knows that suspicion destroys him and his peace; yet no one can overcome these lower emotions ,if he has not the will power to apply the principles of religion and philosophy to his emotional reactions. The practice of concentration unifies the mind, strengthens the will, and enables one to apply these principles in his human behaviour then his social contacts become harmonious, pleasant, and satisfactory. Suffice it to say that no person can have real spiritual knowledge or immediate awareness of God without being established in the methods of meditation. Mystics and spiritual aspirants may vary in their use of distinctive methods, yet they are all convinced of their utility.

Apart from the religious values of the practice of concentration, there is a great deal of advantage in it so far as the psychological problems of modern man are concerned. Hindu psychologists classify mental states into five groups: (1) extreme restlessness, (2) partial restlessness, (3) dullness, (4)concentrated state, and (5) absolute concentration.

All the modern psychologists fully realize that real satisfaction and happiness cannot be attained by a man unless he has overcome extreme restlessness. As a result, physicians and also psycho-therapeutists greatly appreciate the need for mental stability in their patients.

Practicing meditation has been shown to induce some changes in the body. By learning more about what goes on in the body during meditation, researchers hope to be able to identify diseases or conditions for which meditation might be useful. In many areas of research, scientists are using sophisticated tools to determine whether meditation is associated with significant changes in brain function. A number of researchers believe that these changes account for many of meditation’s effects.

Some types of meditation might work by affecting the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system. This system regulates many organs and muscles, controlling functions such as heartbeat, sweating, breathing, and digestion. It is thought that some types of meditation might work by reducing activity in the sympathetic nervous system which helps in mobilizing the body for action and increasing activity in the parasympathetic nervous system causes the heart rate and breathing rate to slow down, the blood vessels to dilate improving blood flow, and the flow of digestive juices increases.

Meditation is not a luxury like a reflexology foot massage. It’s a way to disconnect from everyday stresses, if only for a few minutes a day. You deserve to feel good, to have the energy you want to enjoy life, to be healthy and happy. Start living the life you were meant to live. Meditation has a calming effect and directs awareness inward until pure awareness is achieved, described as “being awake inside without being aware of anything except awareness itself.

Meditation is usually practiced in a quiet location with as few distractions as possible.  Depending on the type being practiced, meditation can be done while sitting, lying down, standing, walking, or in other positions. Focusing one’s attention is usually a part of meditation. The person may focus on a mantra , an object, or the sensations of the breath. Some forms of meditation involve paying attention to whatever is the dominant content of consciousness. When the attention goes to distracting or wandering thoughts, they are not suppressed; instead, the person gently brings attention back to the focus. In some types of meditation, the person learns to “observe” thoughts and emotions while meditating.

These days, meditation is commonly used for relaxation and stress reduction. It  carries different meanings in different contexts.  Meditation often involves an internal effort to self-regulate the mind in some way that includes techniques designed to promote relaxation, build internal energy or life force and develop compassion, love, patience, generosity and forgiveness.

Sometimes it is argued that this practice of meditation for a few minutes in the morning and evening would not stabilize d man’s life, but experlence proves that the steady practice of concentration for months and years does gradually stabilize the mind and creates a satisfaction which is the objective of psychotherapeutists. We cannot understand how the mere knowledge of conflicting emotions and of the causes of frustration can stabilize the mind. On the contrary, we find that people often get discouraged and disturbed over the very causes of their conflicts, so it is imperative that their minds be trained. to achieve at least partial concentration. This method also clarifies the higher values of life. It is observed that restlessness of the mind, due to conflict and frustration or any other such difficiency, creates serious physical disorders. We have observed that when a man practices concentration and meditation, he gradually overcomes extreme mental restlessness and spontaneously strengthens the nervous system, resulting in the proper functioning’” of the organs.

There are critics of the practice of concentration and meditation among the religious groups as well as among those who are outside the field of religion. Some of the religious people seem to think that it makes one passive and negative. They are almost afraid of even the name of meditation, thinking that it will take initiative away from their minds and make them vague or negative. They, no doubt, advocate doing good to others through social service and philanthropic work; yet in a peculiar way, they are critical of and antagonistic to the practice of meditation. There have been rare reports that meditation could cause or worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems, but this question has not been fully researched.  We often hear it said that Occidental people should not follow the so- called Oriental practice of meditation because it will make them other-worldly and passive. The implication is that they are aggressive, dynamic, and intellectual and, therefore, not suited to habits of contemplation. Some persons even go to the extent of saying that the Occidental mind is fitted only for scientific methods of observation and experiment, or, in other ,words, that the people of the West are best suited to the study of the objective world in an objective sense.

Professor Jung ‘was appreciative of the effect of the practice of concentration and meditation in Oriental countries like India and China, yet it was his opinion that the methods adopted in the Oriental countries could not be adapted to Occidental types of mind. He seemed to feel that Occidental people should develop a technique of their own. It is also implied by him that the minds of the Occidental people are different from those of the Orientals. On critical examination, we fully understand that the minds of Occidentals and Orientals are not different. There is no such thing as an Occidental mind and an Oriental mind. Psychological study , reveal that the actions and reactions of both groups are similar. A mother loves her child as intensely in the Orient as she does in the Occident. Hatred, jealousy, and envy are not the exclusive qualities of anyone group. Intellectual achievements are also not to be found in one group alone. Above all, the spiritual experiences of man are the same in the Eastern countries as In the western countries because of the similarity in menta! attitudes and emotional expressions. The emotional devotees of Oriental countries, like Tulsidas and Mirabai, are similar west’s Anthony and St. Teresa. The intellectual type of spiritual realizations of Yajhavalkya, Sankara, and Swami Vivekananda is similar to that of St. Dionysius, St. Bernard. The differences in the type or form of spiritual achievements and realizations are due to the nature of the mind itself rather than to Oriental or Occidental habitation.

Such an  opinion cannot be justified by the study of the lives and teachings of Oriental and Occidental mystics. St. Teresa of Avila says: If you had asked me about meditation, I could have instructed you and advise anyone to practice it even though they do not possess the virtues, for this is the first step to obtain them all; it is for all Christians to begin this practice.   We do not find any fundamental differences between their systems of practice and those advocated b the Hindu teachers. What difference we find is between devotional and intellectual types of mentality rather than between Oriental and Occidental minds. This difference is observed even within the same group, either Oriental or Occidental, where there are various mental types.

There is a question in the minds of some of the experimental psychologists as to whether or not religious zeal and overemphasis on a religious ideal creates a fear complex and serious conflict. The real religious attitude cannot create any fear and conflict in the mind. On the contrary, a proper understanding of the values of religion removes the causes of fear and conflict. A sound philosophy helps  in overcoming the extreme restless and also the dull states of the mind. The practice of concentration creates interest in an aspect of God and so gradually helps to overcome restlessness.

Spiritual decline has also occurred in the Eastern and Western civilizations, and great spiritual personalities have arisen in both parts of the world to revitalize the people. Buddha, Lao-tze , Lord Krishna, Sri Ramakrishna, and others again and again spiritualized the life of the Oriental countries and saved the people from utter materialism. Similarly, Christ, St. Francis, St. Bonaventure, and other great mystics saved the West from complete disintegration. It may be true that Western scientific and objective methods gave man the power to remove some of the onslaughts of nature and make him comfortable, but that does not prove at all that man’s inner nature has been changed by scientific discoveries and achievements, or that the mind of a Westerner needs less meditation and religious exercises for the attainment of spiritual realizations than does the mind of an Oriental.

A man of meditation who has direct realization of God can successfully serve humanity. We have seen time and again  that men often start social service work with good  intentions; yet in the course of actual performance they lose  their high ideals and get mixed up with ambition, name.  fame, and power. The history of religious and welfare organizations substantiates this observation. On the other hand, the people who conduct social service activities and at the same time practice concentration, meditation, and other devotional exercises can maintain the spirit of service and worship in and through their work. Some of the greatest men of meditation were the greatest servants of humanity, such as St. Francis of Assisi of Christian tradition and Swami Vevekananda of Hindu tradition. Buddha and his were the people who flooded the ancient world with social service and unselfish work.

To the rationalistic thinkers we say that they should not come to any hasty conclusion about the effect of meditation without critical observation of the technique and its effect on the human mind. Apart from its religious value, the practice of meditation has a tremendous influence in building up the total personality of man. We again maintain that it really brings out the dynamic power of the mind with all its latent possibilities.

The critics among the nonreligious groups naturally disregard the practice of meditation, not because they know anything about its technique and its real effect) but because in their eyes it is a kind of mysterious habit as it is practiced by Oriental people. The tendency to regard meditation as mystifying is, we are afraid, coloured by the achievements of Western science and its application to everyday life. The objective study of nature, as advocated by Grecian thinkers and adopted later by European minds, has given man a great deal of power over the nature and made him successful in the attainment of pleasure. Without knowing the technique and value of concentration, these Occidental groups are often afraid even to think of it lest they lose their initiative and aggressiveness. Being, therefore, ignorant on this subject, they naturally fear,what they do not understand.

There is also an erroneous idea that because Orientals generally practice concentration and meditation  have not attained worldly success. On the other hand, it is the  prevailing impresslon that Occidental people, by their objective study of science and material progress, are comparatively more successful. It is true that the Occidental countries, with the help of scientific achievements, have done a great deal for the. betterment of the everyday life of man. Yet in the West, because of the restlessness, unhappiness, and dissatisfaction of the mind, there are constant conflicts and frustrations resulting in extreme forms of mental disorders, nerve trouble, and functional ailments. This shows that the modern ways of life, based on scientific discoveries and their uses, have not solved the psychological problems of the West. On the other hand the problems are becoming more and more frightening. So the West must find a way out of this dangerous situation.

It is not the intention to evaluate here the achievements of science and its pragmatic value in giving man real happiness and satisfaction. That is an entirely different question’  Yet  they are compelled to refute the unscientific conclusions of scientific thinkers and some of the religious leaders. Our answer to the religious leaders is that the practice of meditation and concentration has been used not only by Oriental religious groups but also by Occidental religious groups such as the Christian mystics-St. Bernard, St. Ignatius, St. Teresa, and St. John of the Cross and many ancient and medieval Jewish mystics of Europe as well as of Asia.

The conclusion is almost inevitable that without meditation the conflicts cannot be removed. Meditation does not make one passive or negative. On the contrary, it brings out the dynamic power of the mind.  Modern psychotherapy might help one temporarily, but it alone cannot give sufficient strength and stamina to the mind to ward off the evil influences of modern life.

Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.
Thich Nhat Hanh

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

“This desire resulted in the process of creation, symbolized by the swastika within the creative center, representing a four-dimensional rotating universe.It is interesting to note that if you merge your consciousness with that of the Creator, you discover within Him a rotating swastika.In other words, swastika stands for both the Creator and the Creation – they are inseparable”

Itzhak Bentov (RIP)   a highly respected Jewish/Czech inventor/scientist.

An attempt to interpret our religious beliefs and symbols is a challenging task. Many of these issues defy analysis and call for a judicious combination of the study of the social environment, etymology, aesthetics and philosophy. As far as aesthetics and philosophy go there exists a good deal of subjectivism and value judgement. While talking about etymology and the social environment we are on relatively firmer ground.

Today, the Swastika is known the world over not as a religious symbolism of the Hindus but as the Nazi emblem. But the Swastika continues to hold a religious significance for the Hindus. Like OM, the origins of Swastika are lost in the misty realms of the past and they can only be guessed by piecing together of the surviving clues.

A Change in Meaning by Nazi Germany

In the 1800s, countries around Germany were growing much larger, forming empires; yet Germany was not a unified country until 1871. To counter the feeling of vulnerability and the stigma of youth, German nationalists in the mid-nineteenth century began to use the swastika, because it had ancient Aryan/Indian origins, to represent a long Germanic/Aryan history. The Nazis adopted the swastika because it was understood as an Aryan symbol indicating racial purity and superiority. (The Nazis propagated a historical theory in which the early Aryans of India were white invaders.) There may also be a connection with the swastika’s magical connections, for Hitler and other Nazi leaders were keenly interested in the occult.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be found on nationalist German volkisch periodicals and was the official emblem of the German Gymnasts’ League.

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism and could be found in a multitude of places such as the emblem for the Wandervogel, a German youth movement; on Joerg Lanz von Liebenfels’ anti-Semitic periodical Ostara; on various Freikorps units; and as an emblem of the Thule Society.

In 1920, Adolf Hitler decided that the Nazi Party needed its own insignia and flag. Hitler’s use of the Swastika on the flag of National-socialist Germany has besmirched the Swastika.  For Hitler, the new flag had to be “a symbol of our own struggle” as well as “highly effective as a poster.” (Mein Kampf, pg. 495) . On August 7, 1920, at the Salzburg Congress, the red flag with a white circle and black swastika became the official emblem of the Nazi Party.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler described the Nazis’ new flag: “In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the victory of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and always will be anti-Semitic.” (pg. 496-497)

Because of the Nazis’ flag, the swastika soon became a symbol of hate, anti-Semitism, violence, death, and murder.

Universal Application of Swastika

It must be repeatedly emphasised that the Swastika was never thought of in any way by anyone as being an evil or “dark” symbol until Hitler misappropriated it as the symbol of Nazism. Tragically the image of the Swastika continues to strike fear and horror into the hearts of many, due to their not knowing its true spiritual origins and meaning.Until the Nazis used this symbol, the swastika was used by many cultures throughout the past to represent life, sun, power, strength, and good luck.

In fact, the Swastika has been used by many cultures going back at least 3000 years. Artifacts such as pottery and coins from ancient Troy show that the swastika was a commonly used symbol as far back as 1000 BCE.

It has been found used by the celts in northern Europe and by the Greeks as early has 1000 BCE. In India the symbol has been used since Vedic times. It is most commonly seen as an ancient Aryan symbol. Nazi Germany did not invent the symbol, but only borrowed it in order to show the “aryan” roots of their new German state. Today, unfortunately, the Swastika is most commonly known for the destruction of life rather than its affirmation.

During World War I, the swastika could even be found on the shoulder patches of the American 45th Division and on the Finnish air force until after World War II.

The Swastika is an ancient symbol that belongs to history of humanity and it was and always will be symbol of Sun / Peace / Luck / God / Power / Life and Protection. We can find 卐 in a many places of mother earth in so many different forms

The swastika is also a motif used by certain African groups. One of the oldest recorded uses of the swastika is in the adinkra artwork of the Akan people in Ghana. Referred to as nkotimsefuopua, the swastika was used in Akan goldweights as early as 1400. In 1927, Scottish anthropologist Robert Sutherland Rattray noted servants in Ashanti Empire wearing the image on their dresses. The swastika is clearly carved on one of the Rock Hewn Churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia which dates to the 12th or 13th century.

It first appears in the archaeological record here around[23] 2500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilization. It also appears in the Bronze and Iron Age cultures around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. In the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, the swastika was a symbol of the revolving sun, infinity, or continuing creation the use of the swastika by the Bön faith of Tibet, as well as later syncreticreligions, such as Cao Dai of Vietnam and Falun Gong of China, can also be traced to Buddhist influence.

The paired swastika symbols are included, at least since the Liao Dynasty (AD907–1125) , as part of theChinese writing system (卍 and 卐) and are variant characters for 萬 or 万 (wàn in Mandarin, man in Korean, Cantonese and Japanese, vạn in Vietnamese) meaning “all” or “eternity” (lit. myriad

In Chinese and Japanese the swastika is also a homonym of the number 10,000, and is commonly used to represent the whole of Creation, e.g. ‘the myriad things’ in the Dao De Jing. During the Chinese Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu Zetian (684-704) decreed that the swastika would also be used as an alternative symbol of the Sun.

When the Chinese writing system was introduced to Japan in the 8th century, the swastika was adopted into the Japanese language and culture, with the meaning remained unchanged but slight change on its pronunciation. OnJapanese maps, a swastika (left-facing and horizontal) is used to mark the location of a Buddhist temple. The right-facing manji is often referred to as the gyaku manji (逆卍, lit. “reverse manji”) or migi manji (右卍, lit. “right manji”), and can also be called kagi jūji (literally “hook cross”).

In Armenia swastika is called “vardan”, “arevakhach” and “ker khach” and is the ancient symbol of eternal light (i.e. God). Swastikas inArmenia were founded on petroglyphs. Among the oldest petroglyphs is the seventh letter of the Armenian alphabet – “E” (which means “is” or “to be”) – depicted as half-swastika.

In Iran, a golden necklace of three swastikas found inMarlik, Gilan province Iran, dates back to the first millennium BC. There is a swastika on the hip of a lion in the golden cup of Hasanlu (1200 BC) and the golden cup of Kelardasht.[32]

In Bronze Age Europe, the “Sun cross” (a three- or four-armed hooked cross in a circle) appears frequently, often interpreted as a solar symbol. Swastika shapes have been found on numerous artifacts from Iron Age Europe (ArmenianArevakhach), Greco-Roman, Illyrian, Etruscan, Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Slavicand Georgian Borjgali. This prehistoric use seems to be reflected in the appearance of the symbol in various folk cultures of Europe, notable

The bronze frontspiece of a ritual pre-Christian (c. 350-50 BC) shield found in the River Thames nearBattersea Bridge (hence “Battersea Shield”) is embossed with 27 swastikas in bronze and red enamel.[38] An Ogham stone found in Anglish, Co Kerry, Ireland (CIIC 141) was modified into an early Christian gravestone, and was decorated with a cross pattée and two swastikas.[39] The Book of Kells (ca. 800) contains swastika-shaped ornamentation. At the Northern edge of Ilkley Moor in West Yorkshire, there is a swastika-shaped pattern engraved in a stone known as the Swastika Stone.

The pagan Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.[42] The Swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in Kent, in a grave of about the 6th century.

Swastika was wide spread among the Illyrians, symbolizing the Sun. The swastika is one of the most common symbols used throughout Baltic art. In Latvian the symbol is known as either Ugunskrusts, the “Fire cross” (rotating counter-clockwise), or Pērkonkrusts, the “Thunder cross” (rotating clock-wise), and was mainly associated with Pērkons, the god of Thunder and justice.

In the Polish First Republic the symbol of the swastika was also popular with the nobility. According to chronicles, the Rus’ prince Oleg, who in the 9th century attacked Constantinople, nailed his shield (which had a large red swastika painted on it) to the city’s gates

In the Western world, the symbol experienced a resurgence following the archaeological work in the late 19th century of Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the symbol in the site of ancient Troy and associated it with the ancient migrations of Proto-Indo-Europeans, whose proto-language was not incidentally termed “Proto-Indo-Germanisch” by German language historians

In Finland the swastika was often used in traditional folk art products, as a decoration or magical symbol on textiles and wood. The swastika was also used by the Finnish Air Force until 1945, and is still used in air force flags.

The swastika motif was used by some Native American groups. It has been found in excavations of Mississippian-era sites in the Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. Though it is not known for exactly how long, Native Americans also have long used the symbol of the swastika.

A brightly colored First Nations saddle featuring swastika designs is on display at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Canada.[65]

The swastika is also used by a number of new religious movements established in the modern period.

•             The Theosophical Society uses a swastika as part of its seal), the Theosophical Society symbol has been free from controversy, and the seal is still used.

•             The Raëlian Movement, who believe that Extra-Terrestrials originally created all life on earth, use a symbol that is often the source of considerable controversy: an interlaced star of David and a swastika. The Raelians state that the Star of David represents infinity in space whereas the swastika represents infinity in time .

•             The Falun Gong qigong movement uses a symbol that features a large swastika surrounded by four smaller (and rounded) ones, interspersed with yin-and-yang symbols.

•             The Odinic Rite claims the fylfot as a holy symbol of Odinism, citing the pre-Christian Germanic use of the symbol.

True Meaning of Swastika

Unlike OM, the Swastika is not a syllable or a letter. It appears to be decorative charecter which could have originated in a hieroglyphic (pictorial) script.

The word Swastika is normally believed to be an amalgam of the words Su and Asati. Su means ‘good’ and Asati meant ‘to exist’.

As per Sanskrit grammer the words Su and Asati when amalgamated into one word become Swasti (as in the case of Su and Aaatam becoming Swagatam meaning welcome). If this derivation of the word Swastika is true, then the literal meaning of the term Swastika would be ‘let good-prevail’. In Sanskrit, the proper spelling of the word swastika is svastika. Sanskrit has no ‘w’. Literally, the word svastika is a statement of affirmation, “It is!” “Life is good!” “There is value” “There is meaning!” Svastika is a term that affirms the positive values of life. The word is made of su + as. “As” is the root of the copular verb “to be” of which the third person singular is, “asti,” “it is.” Su is a prefix used in Sanskrit to intensify meaning in a positive way, thus su+asti means literally, “it really is!” When combined, the ‘u’ changes into a ‘v’ thus giving the form svasti. The ending ‘ka’ makes this verbal form into a noun. This is the linguistic morphology of the word, svastika.

The Swastika or Svastika has been called “the most sacred and mystic symbol in India.” The word “swastika” comes from the Sanskritsvastika – “su” meaning “good,” “asti” meaning “to be,” and “ka” as a suffix.

The true and literal meaning of the Sanskrit word “Svastika” is “All is well.” In one sense it is a symbol of auspiciousness and has been used in Hindu symbolism to represent the Sun or Vishnu or Ganesha. The four arms bent at right angles also refer to the continual motion and revolution of the invisible forces of the universe and of the Cycles of Time. The conjunction of the two lines symbolises the union of Spirit and Matter whilst the central point represents the fixed, unchanging, eternal centre…the Infinite Divine Principle Itself…the ONE Ultimate Reality that Hinduism refers to as Brahman or Parabrahman; the Supreme Self.

All  forms present the Swastika to us as if it were only a symbol. But it is quite possible that Swastika was an object which played an important role in the real lives of people. Some scholars have said that in ancient times forst were builtin the shape of a grid resembling the Swastika, for defensive purposes. Under such an arrangement it was difficult for an enemy to storm into all parts of the fort simultaneously. . The understanding of the Swastika as a blueprint for a fort can also be etymologically corroborated. In Sanskrit, Vasa means to inhabit and Vastu means habitation. While Su means good. The word Swastika might be an amalgam of the terms ‘Su’ and ‘Vastu’ pronounced as as ‘Swastu’) meaning ‘a good habitation’

Direction of the Swastika

There exist many types of signs which stand for the Swastika. Even the standard version has two forms the one facing the right also called the symbol of- the right hand path and the one facing the left called the symbol of the lefthand path. These two Swastikas are also considered to represent the male and female. There is also a Swastika which is an amalgam of these two types. In ancient times, the direction of the swastika was interchangeable as can be seen on an ancient Chinese silk drawing.

Some cultures in the past had differentiated between the clockwise swastika and the counter-clockwise sauvastika. In these cultures the swastika symbolized health and life while the sauvastika took on a mystical meaning of bad-luck or misfortune.

But since the Nazis use of the swastika, some people are trying to differentiate the two meanings of the swastika by varying its direction – trying to make the clockwise, Nazi version of the swastika mean hate and death while the counter-clockwise version would hold the ancient meaning of the symbol, life and good-luck.

In India, the Swastika is used in two forms, one with the arms moving to the right, the right-handed Swastika, and the other with the arms moving to the left, the so-called “left-handed” occult Swastika. It is commonly thought that the Nazis used the left-handed Swastika and that this is the difference between the Hindu’s use of the Swastika and the Nazi’s use of it. But this is not the case. In fact, the Nazis used the same right-handed Swastika that is used in modern Hinduism, but gave it a 45 degree turn. This gives it the appearance of being left-handed, even though it is not. Regardless, in India many groups have used the left-handed Swastika. One common example amongst Hindu groups is the Theosophical Society, which used it on their logo. The left-handed Swastika is also associated with esoteric tantric practices. Jains and Buddhists often use the left handed Swastika as well. Today the right-handed Swastika is mainly used in Hindu temples, homes and sacred ceremonies as a symbol or affirmation of good luck, health and prosperity. A “yes” to life!

The swastika is an ancient symbol present in numerous and diverse cultures around the world, including the cultures of India, Asia, the Middle East, Europe and North America. In India, the swastika has thousands of years of history and still retains its place of pre-eminence among the sub-continent’s spiritual symbols. It remains one of the most prominent spiritual symbols in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, and is found adorning temples and religious shrines throughout Asia.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Spirituality can be understood as the quest to understand and adhere to one’s spiritual intuitions.  Examples of such intuitions include that life has a positive purpose, and that one should be fair and compassionate.   This is distinct from religiousness, which designates one’s adherence to the tenets of an institution regarded as having authority concerning how one should live and what is ultimately true.

There is considerable dispute among many persons as to whether or not Spiritual philosophy can contribute anything toward the stable working of the human mind. There are many others, who feel that psychological training is absolutely necessary for the progressive ministers of Spiritual philosophy,  so that they may be able to help the unhappy conditions of their people. Let us consider the origin of mental disturbances to determine if Spiritual philosophy, properly understood and practiced, can stabilize the minds of men and lead to real satisfaction and happiness in life.

When we study the disturbed states of the people, we recognize three different types of functional ailments:

(1)   Neurosis, which originates in actual physical disorder such as defective brain matter and nervous system;

(2)   Psychogenic neurosis, which originates in mental disturbances of such types as mental conflict, frustration, and discontent; and

(3)  Psychosis, which is mental illness. Neurosis of purely physical origin can be treated and helped medically by the neurologists.

It requires technical knowledge to help neurotic conditions  of these types, and only the medical authorities can  be of service to such persons as  they know the structure and functioning of the nervous system and other parts of the body.

The psychogenic neurotic conditions originate in a different source. The mental conflicts and confusion are due to either abnormal primary or secondary urges. The physical side can be helped only by the neurologists or psychotherapeutics  and physicians, but such treatment cannot be beneficial unless it is supplemented by a sound and satisfactory philosophy of life. This can only be given by a man who has it himself, whether he is a religious man, psychiatrist, psychologist, or a physician, then, and then alone,  can be of service to a person who has a psychogenic neurosis. One must not  limit religious leadership to the people who have adopted religious way of  life. A physician or a psychologist may be equally religious if he has the proper understanding and appreciation of religious philosophy and practices.

Professor Jung agrees that higher values of life can be given to a person only by  man who has them himself. When we were talking together one day about the utility of the practice of concentration, he fully appreciated this view saying:”I cannot help my neighbours to keep their gardens in proper order unless I keep my own garden in order.” It is also of vital importance in case of mental training. One may be able to teach practical sciences without integrating one’s own- mind, but one cannot teach religion and mental culture without being established  them in himself.

The cases of psychosis can also be immensely helped by the man of stable mind and sound philosophy. Psychosis is generated by the conflicts, confusion, and frustration of the mind and by uncontrolled emotions. Those tendencies can hardly be removed unless higher values are absorbed by the person and then practically applied in his life.

Philosophy of Spirituality is concerned with understanding the ultimate foundations of spiritual intuitions.  Although the nature of this grounding is unresolved, there are some philosophical and empirical reasons for thinking that spiritual intuitions are ultimately grounded in the nature of fundamental reality, and not wholly reflective of socio-cultural conventions or neuro-biological mechanisms.  Investigation of this open issue is important because of the implications, whichever way the answer turns out, for social and political policy, and personal and social health and welfare

When a man has the spiritual ideal and regulates all his activities by it, he has a satisfactory way of life. He may fail many times to reach the goal, yet the very attempt gives a great deal of satisfaction and joy to his mind. In the early stages, the struggle the conflicting elements may remain strong and cause a little disgust and disappointment, but in the long run his whole mind becomes unified because his activities are subordinated to the highest value or goal of life. There is, however, apprehension among some of the outstanding thinkers that often spiritual zeal for salvation creates conflicts. But a proper philosophy of life can hamper any form of conflict. However sinful a man may be, however deplorable his conduct may be, he always has the possibility of redemption and enlightenment. In the teachings of Christ, St. Paul, the great Jewish’ mystics, and the Hindu and Buddhist spiritual leaders, we find definite understanding of the ability of human change and transformation.

Actually proper understanding of Spiritual philosophical ideals cannot hypnotize a man into a paralytic state nor can it create an abnormal sense of fear. On the other hand, it gives encouragement, determination, and power to reach the desired goal. Weaknesses are to be understood properly so that a man can make attempts to overcome them. There is great joy in the struggle of overcoming all obstacles and weaknesses. There is also joy in achieving success in the process of higher evolution.

Another concern among outstanding thinkers is that an unfavourable environment is responsible for mental conflicts. It is true that environmental conditions may create certain situations which are not conducive to the healthy growth of mental life and spiritual evolution. Yet poverty and mental disturbances are not simultaneous nor are they coexistent .A man may be poor and still have a sound philosophy of life, practicing the highest principles of ethics and religion in his everyday life. A man of humble economic condition need not necessarily be immoral or mentally restless. We find many persons of humble circumstances who possess deep spiritual qualities and mental stability because of their sound philosophy of life and its practical application. We know many noble souls in India who became great personalities in spite of their poverty.

Ancient and modern spiritual leaders, through their lives and teachings, remove all conflicts and frustration of the people and give a sound basis for real happiness. These principles has kept the people of India as well as early Christian civilizations in peaceful and harmonious conditions. Mental and functional diseases have been seldom found in them. We also observe ,that not only these great religious leaders but also  of their followers, who really organized their lives on a spiritual basis, have been the happiest persons of the world. Their lives prove to us, without the least shadow of doubt, that conflicts and frustration can be completely dissolved by the practice of spiritual philosophy in everyday living.

Sri Ramakrishna and other ancient and modern Hindu teachers tell us that God is Bliss..Anyone who meditates on Bliss, or God, gets unbounded joy. Try to steady it [the mind] again and again, by fixing it on the chosen Ideal, and at last you will become absorbed  in Him. If you continue your practice for two or three years, you will begin to feel unspeakable joy and the mind will become steady. In the beginning the practice of japam and meditation seems dry. It is like taking bitter medicine. You must forcibly pour the thought or God into your mind. As you persist you will be flooded with joy.

When the poisonous element of hedonism is changed into a spiritual philosophy, the chronic symptoms of modern unhappiness in various spheres of existence automatically vanish. All the progressive laws of social security and other insurances are noble attempts to make people happy and secure, but they will become meaningless if the basic  philosophy of life is not changed. All the progressive laws and regulations are bound to be failures in no time if man’s inner nature is not changed. If the law makers and administrators of law remain the same, then the beneficiaries of the laws will also remain the same. Consequently, conflicts of various types will inevitably exist; the condition of the people may be affected, but the causes will remain operartive, resulting in similar difficulties. Thus, in spite of progressive  thinking, we will enter into a vicious circle because of the failure to understand the root cause of the disease in modern society. All- the noble attempts of modern  psychiatrists will also be failures  to some extent, but they are only temporarily ameliorating the suffering. The real removal of the disease can only take place when psychiatry and Spiritual philosophy in the broadest sense of the term, amalgamate, co-operate, and coordinate properly. Herein we find the utility of Spiritual philosophy .

We know that there is skepticism and a critical attitude on the part of some of the psychologists and psychiatrists regarding the value of religion in psychotherapy. It is, however, conceivable that they have justification for some of their criticisms  regarding certain religious attitudes and interpretations of life.There can be no two opinions regarding the value of the religious conception of life.

Men differ in ritualism, ceremonies, and the use of symbols and forms. But these are not the essential part of Spiritual philosophy . The essential part of Spiritual philosophy religion emphasizes the understanding of the higher self, or God, or over soul, and the control of the lower self or empirical self, the selfish egocentric self. Rituals, ceremonies, creeds, doctrines, and dogmas are the secondary part of Spiritual philosophy . If anyone imagines that religious duties are fulfilled when he observes certain rituals and ceremonies and has only a belief in some personalities, then, of course, psychiatrists or psychotherapeutists will have justification in their criticism. On the contrary Sri Ramakrishna says: Knowledge leads to unity, but Ignorance to diversity long as God seems to be outside and far away, there  is ignorance. But when God is realised within, that is true knowledge. Meditate upon the Knowledge and Bliss eternal, and you will also have bliss. The Bliss indeed is eternal, only it is covered and obscured by ignorance. The less your attachment is towards the senses, the more will be your love towards God. Those who wish to attain God and progress in religious devotion, should particularly guard themselves against the snares of lust and wealth. Otherwise they can never attain perfection. The sun can give heat and light to the whole world, but it can do nothing when the clouds shut out its rays. Similarly, so long as egoism is in the heart, God cannot shine upon it Iron, after it is converted into gold by the touch of the philosopher’s stone, may be kept under the ground or thrown into a  rubbish heap; it will always remain gold and will not return to its former condition. Similar is the state of the man whose soul has touched even once the feet of the Almighty Lord. Whether he dwells in the bustle of the world, or in the solitude of the forest, nothing ever contaminates him. We need to understand that religion brings out the best in a man manifesting the divinity that is’ already in him. In fact, the higher interpretation of any religion is to bring out the best in man.

Swami Vivekananda defines religion as the “manifestation of the divinity that is already in man. It If we understand religion properly, We cannot help thinking that religion alone can solve the basic problem of mental ailments. When religious practices, creeds, rituals, ceremonies, symbols, and statues help us to manifest the divinity in us, let them realize the goal of life. We attain joint heirship ‘with Christ, as St. Paul emphasizes in one of his Epistles:  We are the-children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ. Knowing this fact, ‘we are compelled to think that when a man flies to manifest the best in him, the divine nature in the spirit of God in him, he cannot submit to his lower passions and lower desires and aspirations. The duty of religious leaders is to bring out the higher qualities and not to emphasize ignoble tendencies or frighten cause of his weaknesses.

Spiritual philosophy is to help man remove the cause of conflict and frustration by the positive method of, revealing the divinity (Alma) ‘within him. This Reality is changeless, eternal, pure, and blissful.  It has been the experience of many scientific observers that the religious schools which emphasize the weakness and sinful nature of man often become the sources of discouragement, frustration, and mental conflict. We are thoroughly convinced that right understanding of the religious philosophy of life, as prescribed and lived by the great founders of religion and their successful followers, can create no objection for psychotherapeutists. So we say that a broad and clear understanding of Spiritual philosophy can certainly be coordinated with the technical knowledge of modern psychotherapy. Infect, psychotherapy, as practiced by psychiatrists, and religious philosophy must go together. There is no reason for the conflict between real Spiritual philosophers  and real psychotherapy.’ We are pleased to quote Professor Gordon W. Allport:” By and large psychology has done little to give systematic setting to  these various dynamic formations that reprsent the apex of development in the mature personality. With time, no doubt, when the errors of excessive elementar is in and geneticism are cleared away, and the principle of functional autonomy is substituted as a general guide, the situation will improve”.

It is known to us that some of the  Spiritual philosophers  are rather critical and suspicious of the methods of psycho- therapy. There is, unfortunately, mutual suspicion and skepticism on the part of both groups , but this can be removed by the proper understanding of religion. Then modern psychology would  not be antagonistic to a broad interpretation of  Spiritual philosophy, nor would Spiritual philosophy  term psychotherapy as  an offshoot of the materialistic philosophy of life. It is true that many of the psychiatrists and psychologists  are materialistic in the  broad sense of the term. But our contention is that if psychology is pushed beyond the physiological side, then psychologists will understand the reality behind the three changeable states of  consciousness-waking, dreaming, and sound sleep, or conscious and subconscious.

An analysis of these three states of consciousness will convince us that there is a permanent reality behind them. The very idea of these three changeable states arises from the nonchangeable and permanent existence behind them. Psychology properly evolved and developed can only help in  accepting a permanent reality behind the observable states of consciousness ( the fourth and it: is called turiya, the superconscious). So it seems to us that psychology and  proper Spiritual philosophy understood and developed to their logical conclusions will have to  mingle together. In fact, in India psychology is the basic science of spiritual evolution. Spiritual philosophers are all ethical and psychological leaders. It is evidence to us that a  man. cannot become a thoroughly religious person unless  he established himself  in the higher principles of ethics and psychology. He must have a thorough knowledge  and control over the mental states and thought processes in order to have higher spiritual experiences.

Similarly on the other hand, a psychologist must also have full control over his own mind in order to be effective in treating his clients, for a man who has not integrated his own mind can not help in the integration of the minds of others. Professor Jung and some other psychologists fully realize that unless a psychologist is established in his own integration and unification of mind, having dissolved his own conflicts and frustrations, he cannot be of any definite use to his clients and students. It must be admitted, however, that ‘Power of,modern psycho therapy is ameliorating the suffering of many .persons. We must say that this “will serve only as a temporary help if a higher religious background is not furnished in removing the cause of disturbance. This means  psychological theory alone cannot make one a psychitrist. He must also apply the psychological principles in his own personal life. This leads us to the conclusion that a psyotherapeptist must be a  Spiritual philosopher

in the broader sense of the term. He may differ from others in his conception of God. He may also differ in the methods of integration of his emotions, thought, and will and can act according to, his own natural tendencies and aptitudes. This broad principle is applicable in the higher phases of Spiritual philosophy.

Therefore, a good practicing psychotherapeutist and a good Spiritual philosophers should have  mental peace and happiness in common. From the Hindu point of view, psychology an Spiritual philosophy can never be an antagonistic; rather they are the two phases of the same branch of know ledge both Spiritual philosophers and psychiatrists should work together for the elimination of mental disorder and conflicts. By their lives they should inspire the average men and woman.  Spiritual philosophers should furnish the philosophy or way of life and show the practical application of that philosophy in everyday living by subordinating all activities to the ideal; while psychiatrists and psychologists should use their technical knowledge and its application in individual cases. Of course, the persons who have organic neurosis or who have psychosis due to organic troubles should be handled entirely by the psychologists and neurologists with technical and medical knowledge, while the  Spiritual philosophers should always be prepared to be of service to both the psychiatrists and the clients.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Every act of cognition has a response within the mind. At the same time. knowledge is inseparably connected with an inner emotional reaction; we cannot separate knowledge from its emotional content. It is the purpose of this discussion to present the factors inherent in the human mind which condition man’s reaction to his surroundings, and we shall consider how  these factors  become constructive elements in a person  adjustment to his environment and can contribute to his happiness.

In addition to cognition we have primitive instinctive  urges or impulses. .Man not only has emotional experiences resulting  from external sensations but he also has primitive urges independent of any sensation or perception.Emotions generally have their origin in sensations or perceptions.

First, let us understand all the emotional reactions of the human mind. Our interest in the understanding of emotions is not theoretical, as it is of vital importance in human life and human conduct. A man’s conduct cannot be understood unless we comprehend the inner springs of his actions. These inner springs are what the great psychologists call the instinctive urges or primitive impulses,  are the driving forces of mantals life and activity.

The interest in the study of emotions is of practical value. Moreover  a man’s normal life cannot be well established unless he has proper understanding and proper use of his various emotions.

Let us’ review briefly the five primitive urges or emotions present in all human beings.  It only seem that we are arbitrarily classifying the emotions. It is recognized, however, that they are interrelated ,within themselves and with other emotions; yet for the sake of concrete understanding of our emotional life ,we are mentioning five specific urges:

(1 ) Self-preservation urge-

We observe that there is an inherent impulse in people known as self-preservation. It is, undoubtedly, has  primary importance yet it produces many secondary emotions or what we may call prospective and retrospective emotions, namely: apprehension, anxiety, fear, and such other responses. Every animal has an abundance of this emotion of self-preservation. Even the child shows this instinct before it begins to know anything about itself or its environment.

(2) Self-expression urge

There is the urge of self-expression to be considered. we not only struggle to live and prolong our lives,but we also want to express ourselves. If we do not have proper avenues of self-expression, we become miserable. We also find that if this particular urge is extremely accentuated it creates considerable disturbance in our lives. Self-expression is associated with a number of other urges, such as aggression and submission.

(3) The sex urge

The sex impulse becomes a strong force  The emotIons are difficult clearified by various outstanding tinkers  in motivating different activities in all beings we not only want to express ourselves but we ,want to perpetuate our existence in the form of our children and reproduce the race so that it may continue. There is a pleasure element in the very  expression of this impulse. This urge is associated with love, sympathy, affection, envy, jealousy, and many other secondary prospective as well as retrospective emotions.

(4) Gregarious urge

As a result of the gregarious urge or desire for companionship, human beings find it difficult to live alone; they want company. When they cannot express themselves or their emotions of love, affection, or sympathy, they feel suffocated. Many persons feel extremely alone when they have no outlet for their emotions. Some thinkers are of the opinion that man seeks company for self-preservation so that he can fight the battle for life and have different types of pleasure with his fellow beings. According to them, this urge is a phase of self-preservation. We do not agree with such interpretations. When ‘We deeply study human beings, we find that the gregarious instinct is an independent urge. The accompanying  secondary emotions are love, envy, jealousy, and other such  responses.

(5) Knowledge urge

With the impulse of knowledge, man wants to know not only himself and all the desires within him but  also about his environment, other people, and nature. It is not that we acquired this urge as we began to develop our civilization, but it is an inherent quality of mind. This urge of knowledge also has secondary emotions. The element of knowledge is present in various forms not only in man, civilized and uncivilized, but also in animals.

All these five primitive urges are component urges and they do not always ,work independently and separately. They are often linked with other emotions. Take, for instance, a primitive urge of self-preservation ,which is associated with fear and anxiety. We do not know how many persons have a peculiar complex of fear of ghosts. It sounds amusing, but let us give an example. We know that this so-called ridiculous emotion of fear of ghosts will create many other different emotions. Most people have heard about ghosts and have certain notions about them. When one goes to an empty dark house, particularly after any recent misfortune of death, one feels rather uncomfortable and nervous. If a few squeaks are heard when the door is opened, the person at once jumps to the conclusion that someone is walking around inside, and the first impulse is to run away from the place. We know  of occasions when people actually tried to run away .On inquiry it was found that the floors were cracking owing to their construction and the exposure caused by heat. When the people realized that it ,was not a ghost but only the heat that was making the cracking sounds, the result was laughter, or the emotion of amusement, when they understood how foolish they had been to think that there was a ghost in that particular house.

We have fear, then curiosity, and finally amusement successively occurring in many of our experiences. It is .difficult to separate these primitive urges from the secondary  emotions; they are, as it ,were, linked together. All the primitive urges are associated with other emotions such as fear, amusement, laughter, anxiety, apprehension, and remorse. Some times, we are likely to become apprehensive of the presence of these primary and secondary emotions and urges within us. Being worried, we create certain disorders in our minds; our behavior is changed, and our conduct becomes remorseful. We ask ourselves why we had these apprehensions, worries, and anxieties.. We know that because of them we often wreck our nervous systems. Then we become remorseful and regret that we have indulged ourselves in such expressions of emotion which have ruined our health. If wecontrol ourselves, we are amused that we were so foolish as to have ruined ourselves; we should have known better. In this way the emotions act and react, creating many byprodutucts in the form of functional ailments and disturbances, when these primitive emotions lose their proper balance  would create many strong secondary emotions, they cause conflicts in our lives.

We have higher ideas and evaluate ourselves as to what ,we should or should not do. When we become a little emotional, ,we think that it is not right to be so. Let us take jealousy, for instance. W e are extremely fond of a person.Then someone else comes to like him, and we become jealous. It seen that people have formed particular notions that an individual can like or love only one person. This creates a natural conflict in us. Suspicion, and other such secondary emotions, also create extreme forms of mental and nervous disorders and change our behavior.

Suppose we see or hear many nice things about a person whom we envy. ‘we say: “Oh, yes, he is agreeable; however, he doesn’t dress well. He is awkward and stands in this way or that way.” we happen to know an interesting person, a prominent man, ,who is extremely jealous of one of his colleagues. At the same time, the man knows that he should not express jealousy, as it is not becoming of him. This very conflict colors his behavior and causes him to use slandering  expressions in order to lower the other person. This particular individual suffers from the effect of emotional conflict in his mind, behavior, and body. He has become neurotic and has developed serious functional ailments.

Psychologists ,who are followers of Freud think that conflicts and frustrations are created only in connected with the sex urge or pleasure urge. Adlerians have the idea that conflicts and frustrations are created because of the urge of self-expression or the power urge. Both are far from the truth. They try to associate the conflict with a specific emotion which is regarded by the particular school as the master urge. It has been found through later interpretation and study that such facts are not true. We happen to know an interesting psychiatrist ,who allowed himself to be analyzed by Freudians who interpreted his case in terms of sex impulses. Adler also analyzed him and tried to explain that difficulties ,were created by the malfunctioning of or conflict in self-expression. The gentleman himself was not convinced. We had occasion to study his case carefully, and it is our impression that a kind of dissatisfaction with life itself created these disturbances, as he does not have a sound philosophy of life. The elements of self-preservation, knowl edge, and companionship are operating in the human mind, and conflicts and frustrations can be created by anyone of these primitive instincts.

An individual was persuaded by his parents to take up engineering. He had considerable success; yet he ‘was not happy about it in spite of his position, and he began to have functional ailments. It was found that the type of profession imposed upon him was not satisfactory to his inner nature. He succeeded to the best of his ability, but it did not give him satisfaction. The same situation was found to be true in the case of the psychiatrist previously mentioned; his profession did not satisfy his inner nature, so the symptoms of functional ailments and mental disturbances became operative. It .will not be out of place to say that he had a successful profession, well-established social position, normal  marriage, and normal children.

Similarly, we find that a person can have conflict created by the knowledge urge. All of these emotions can create a Conflict and produce functional ailments. These primitive urges and secondary emotions, prospective as ,weIl as retrospective; can have serious effects on our bodies. It has been discovered that the secondary emotions of worry and remorse result in nerve disorders. Headache, heart trouble, and all sorts of pains and aches are created by these emotions.Little do we understand how such inner emotions can cause physical disturbances.

Dr. Golden’s of the Boston, working in the medical clinic of the Boston Dispensary has studied the effect of suggestion in about 300 cases of pain. Often the pain had been continuous and severe for weeks or months. His procedure consists of thrusting a hypodermic needle attached to an empty syringe into the skin of the painful area after it has been painted with iodine for the purpose of sterilizing the skin. Dr. Golden does not tell the patient that he is going to remove the pain. As he is preparing for the needle test in the presence of the patient he remarks in a low voice to his assistant, but plainly audible to the patient, how surprising, it is that the procedure he is about to employ has removed all pain with in a minute or two in go per cent of the cases in which he has used it. After the needle has been withdrawn he stands by the patient’s side, watch in hand. At the end of thirty seconds he asks how the pain is now and writes down the answer. At the end of a minute the query is repeated. Usually the patient says it is less at the end of thirty seconds and entirely gone after two minutes. In about half the cases the pain returned within twenty-four hours following this treatment by suggestion but sometimes complete relief persisted for weeks and rarely for months.

Dr. Golden’s work indicates that apparently pain of psychic origin is common ,and furthermore it has demonstrated that this pain is often localized and may occur in persons who present no obvious signs of hysteria or nervousness.  The conclusion seems justifiable that a pain removed immediately by mental treatment is probably mental rather than physical in origin but we have found occasionally that organic pain has been abolished by Golden’s procedure-in one instance the pain in acute pleurisy and in another epigastric pain in a patient who had a peptic ulcer which later perforated.

Another person has been suffering from ear trouble and has been treated by several ear specialists. The latest diagnosis of a great specialist is that emotional disturbances, dissatisfaction, and unhappiness are affecting the glands and the circulatory system, resulting in this type of ear trouble. According to the specialist, the patient can be cured only when  he win have emotional satisfaction. It is observed that he feels well when he is peaceful and not upset. Dr. Pratt reports that even toothache and other such troubles originate in the emotional life of an individual. This does not mean that toothache is imaginary; but apprehension, worry, disgust, jealousy, and anger disturb the proper functioning of the nerves, and ailments follow. Today, the majority of prominent physicians are thoroughly convinced that most of our physical ailments are originally functional disorders.

When the mind is troubled, when it has conflicting tendencies and is inharmonious and restless, the whole nervous system will be upset and will not function properly. Glands will be affected, and the circulatory system also will be disturbed. As a result, many ailments arise such as dyspepsia, headache, indigestion, and other difficulties which can easily become chronic. Perhaps many persons would be surprised to learn that some surgical cases were found to be all  functional in origin and could have been treated and cured had they been detected in time.

From  these two instances, and other such cases, it is safe to conclude that the claims made by reliable psycho therapeutists and psychiatrists are really valid. Every emotion has its reaction in the nervous system. For instance, Jove, sympathy, affection, or high spiritual emotions have a pleasing reaction. Have we not observed that when a mother is extremely irritated and comes into the presence of a sweet, smiling child her whole facial expression changes?

We have also seen that when we have been in the presence of a gigantic spiritual personality the whole body was re- freshed. We have, on certain occasions, seen people coming to a great spiritual personality with much sorrow  and heart-ache, and after remaining in that presence even for a few minutes the people were changed. There was little talk. Perhaps the holy man said: Hello, come in.’ or “How are you?” Perhaps he gave a gentle touch of blessing. It is almost impossible to believe that such things happen, but his smiling and happy presence removed the whole heartache, and the nerves became quiet.

It is also true that when ,we eat we should have a happy atmosphere and not become excited. We should talk of pleasant things because it helps digestion. Then the nerves function properly and the body remains quiet. On the other hand, when we have violent emotions we find the body shaking. With an outburst  of anger the body trembles all over, poison is generated, and we cannot have proper digestion. We have repeatedly seen that many lives are ruined by conflicts of emotion. Apart from the conflict, the emotions also create functional ailments and mental disturbances if there is a lack of balance. It is interesting to know that the human mind possesses certain powers of establishing a kind of harmony among the primitive emotions. The normal man is one whose emotions are well balanced. As there is always a danger of neurosis, however, we should be constantly alert that we do not lose the balance of the mind. When there is conflict or an extremely strong emotional urge, we often try to repress it either because of our feeling of self-respect or for other reasons.

Many of the Freudians, and even Lord RusseJI, would have us believe that repression is generally created by the so-called ethical and religious teachings. Some seem to thinkthat religious teachings are responsible for repressions, others are of the opinion that the mind tries to repress painful emo- tions or experiences; while another group comes to the conclusion that it is not merely the sense of pain that causes repression but the sense of propriety, selfrespect, and other such ideas. However, we can safely conclude that it is our very nature to repress disagreeable or unbecoming emotions or urges; and if we observe that our feelings are getting out of hand, we try to repress them. These repressions may be of voluntary or involuntary types.

It is true that repression of emotion is harmful and it creates functional ailments. Again, many persons adopt a defence reaction. They want to hide their emotions and theyshow other attitudes instead.. Sometimes people take up what they call substitution. They have a strong emotion of sex or self-expression for which they try to substitute somethingcreative in the form of art, painting, and other such activities. Then they sublimate that particular emotion through music or the arts. It is found that these methods are not permanently successful. When proper conditions or environments are offered, the original urges again become operative.

All limitations, all embankment or defenses, so to speak, are ,washed away. We often observe that when there is a mighty turrent in the river the little embankments are sweptaway, creating havoc. Similarly, these emotional urges some- times become so strong that, if the right stimuli are offered and the environment is favorble, all methods of substitution and sublimation become negligible.

Hindu psychologists, in fact spiritual leaders all over the world, advocate the use of self-control. This does not mean repression, as many psychiatrists and rationalists seem to apprehend. Self-control is based on the understanding and use of higher values of life. Stoics would advise one to control certain tendencies and conditions, knowing they are undesirable yet sometimes feeling helpless in coping with them.

The real spirit of self-control, however, as ,we advocate it, is based on the changing values of life. When a man learns to eat a better type of food, he has no further interest in an inferior quality. Similarly, when one’s mind is in the habit of enjoying higher values, like spiritual understanding and realization, it does not find an interest in the lower tendencies or human urges and instincts.

Some of the Western psychologists, such as McDougall “and others, seem to think that the instincts cannot be changed. It is true that instinctive drives are inherent in animals; but they do not seem to realize that man, in spite of his animal  nature, is more highly evolved. Man does not live on the instinctive plane. His intellectual achievements prove that hecan overcome some of the instinctive drives by cultivation of higher intellectual attitudes. We also observe that man has a still higher nature, a spiritual nature, which includes moralvalues. When man evolves on the spiritual plane, he completely changes his primitive instincts and urges. Sri Rama krishna, the great spiritual leader of  India, gives anappropriate illustration in this connection: “When the new  leaves sprout in a palm tree, the old leaves drop off without doing any damage whatsoever to the plant itself.” Similarly,when the spiritual nature of man is evolved in the form of love, unselfish service, sacrifice, and other such noble tendencies, his primitive urges drop off. In fact, his instincts are changed completely. It will not be out of place to say that even an animal changes its instinctive nature when it is domesticated and kept in a spiritual and harmonious atmosphere. We know a case in which a dog and a deer actually lived together in a spiritual place ,with towering spiritual personalities and did not express their natural enmity. Theycompletely overcame their primitive instincts and lived as friends. We also know that a cat and a mouse lived in the same place without showing any instinctive enmity toward each other. Many domestic animals change their primitive urges when they are retrained and kept in a harmonious atmosphere. Even ferocious animals change theirnatures under the influence of great spiritual personalities.

‘To die to live” is to overcome the lower self and lower directions of the emotions in order to manifest the higher nature and higher values of life. Then one expands and becomes absorbed in higher phases of experience. Consequently, the lower tendencies die out. The spirit of self control can be cIearly understood from the evolution of human nature.

The most outstanding urge in people is the search after the abiding spirit or God. There is an inherent desire in every man to experience the abiding spirit, and until he reaches that goal there is no hope for real peace of mind. This may seem to be a strong declaration, but when we think of God we and that the primitive instincts are reduced to the master urge for bliss.

We may have a strong feeling for self- expression or any other urge, yet, when we carry it out, we are not satisfied. The successful physician and psychiatrist, who was previously mentioned,has a fine family and home, yet he remains dissatisfied. Something is missing; something  is lacking. You and I know and have found that when people have led a life of success they very frequently have no real satisfaction inside themselves in spite of their so-called expression and position.

Until the innate urge for bliss is fulfilled and understood, there is no satisfaction in life. Frustrations cannot otherwise be successfully eliminated. We do not realize that we possess in the soul a mine of bliss. We go here and there seeking self-expression and self-preservation, while the whole thing is within us. Sri Ramakrishna illustrates this with an interesting example. The musk deer develops musk around its navel. When it matures, the deer gets its fragrance and searches everywhere for it; the foolish deer does not knowthat he possesses this fragrance all the time. We, too, do not realize that the mine of joy is within us, and we seek happiness in outside activities and pursuits. When we find inner joy, the other emotions are established in their proper places.

Similarly, if the guiding principle of divine power or spiritual value of life is withdrawn, there ,will be inevitable chaos in the life of a man resulting in conflict and frustration. But as long as we have God as the center of our lives ,we will find that the emotions of primitive and secondary types will be harmonized and integrated, and all conflicts will be dissolved. Life will be a wonderful expression of joy and happiness. This conclusion can be verified by the study of the lives of men and women who have attained a high level of spiritual realization.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Extrasensory perception (ESP), perception that occurs independently of the known sensory processes. Extrasensory perception (ESP) involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but sensed with the mind.   The four most commonly reported types of extrasensory perception are telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis.

Telepathy

Telepathy (from the Greek τηλε, or tele, meaning “distant,” and πάθεια, or patheia, meaning “feeling”) is the claimed ability of humans and other creatures to communicate information from one mind to another without the use of extra tools such as speech or body language.

Clairvoyance

Clairvoyance (from 17th-century French, clair meaning “clear” and voyant meaning “seeing”) is the purported ability to gain information about an object, location, or physical event through means other than the known human senses. It is a form of extra-sensory perception. A person with this ability is referred to as a clairvoyant.

Precognition

Precognition, or precog (from the Latin præ-, meaning “prior to,” and cognitio, meaning “getting to know”), is a form of extrasensory perception in which a person is said to perceive information about places or events through paranormal means before they happen.

Psychokinesis

The term psychokinesis (from the Greek ψυχή, psyche, meaning “mind, soul, heart, or breath,” and κίνησις, kinesis, meaning “motion, movement” — literally, “mind-movement”), also referred to as telekinesis (literally, distant-movement) strictly describes the movement of matter. Sometimes abbreviated PK and TK, respectively, these are terms coined by publisher Henry Holt to refer to the direct influence of the mind on a physical system that cannot be entirely accounted for by any known physical energy (i.e., moving objects with the mind)

Most ordinary people and many scientists assume that conscious and sensuous experiences are the only realties in the world. However, there are some experiences in human life which are not connected with immediate sense perception. These are generally named in various ways. Some of them are called telepathy, extrasensory perception, miracles, supernatural phenomena, and mystic or religious experiences.

There are critics of these extraordinary happenings among religious groups as well as outside them. In August 1955, Science carried an editorial on ESP research by Dr. George R. Price, a chemist from the University of Minnesota, stating that scientists had to choose between accepting the reality of ESP or rejecting the evidence. Price had carefully studied the data and he frankly admitted the best experiments could only be faulted by assuming deliberate fraud, or an abnormal mental condition, on the part of the scientists. Price felt that ESP, judged in the light of the accepted principles of modern science, would have to be classed as a miracle (this judgment, as we will point out later, is ill founded). Rather than accept a miracle, he suggested accepting the position of the eighteenth-century philosopher, David Hume, who said those who report miracles should be dismissed as liars.

Official recognition of the experimental competency of psi researchers did not come until December of 1969 when the American Academy for the Advancement of Science granted affiliate status to the researchers in the Parapsychological Association. Recent decades have shown authoritative scientific voices displaying a new willingness to deal with the evidence for ESP

Other criticisms relating to repeatability, fraud, statistical inferences, experimental design and interpretation of data have continued. In fact, psi researchers closely scrutinize each other’s work and have often been their own most thorough critics (making it rather easy for would-be debunkers to seize upon their criticisms as grounds for discrediting the entire field). As a response to criticism psi researchers have slowly, sometimes erratically and sometimes steadily, improved the quality of their experiments while continuing to obtain data which they believe is anomalous.

They were not studied by scientific mind until Professor William James of Harvard University collected, compiled, and classified some of them as religious experiences. Most of the psychologists ridiculed these extraordinary experiences studied by Professor James and often called them pathological states. We are happy that he collected these facts for general observation and study in a thorough going and scientific way. He did not ridicule them nor show any preconceived notion or prejudice against them. Rather he submitted them for fair and dispassionate study and investigation.

Some honest sceptics, meanwhile, while continuing to reject the psi hypothesis, reluctantly acknowledge that some of the research deserves careful scrutiny from the mainstream scientific community.  It is admitted that these unusual experiences of man cannot be observed objectively as they are not generally repeated for controlled observation at the convenience of the investigators. Yet it is the height of folly to ridicule or condemn them without thorough scientific investigation.. There are a few advanced societies, like the Society for Psychical Research, which are trying to investigate some of these phenomena. They have studied such experiences and have collected some undeniable facts which fall within the scope of the science of psychology.

We do not mean to say that all the claims of such extraordinary and extrasensory experiences are valid. There have been many unjustifiable elements ‘which were not verified  and supported by facts. So we cannot blame anyone  for being skeptical and critical about them. ‘We ourselves are also critical and discourage mystery mongering. Such indulgence demoralizes and confuses the minds of the people, and it often makes them gullible and superstitious. .As a rule we do not condemn them, as Professor Carlson would have us do, but we advocate a critical attitude and openness of mind so that ,we can actually find the truth about them. The attitude should be scientific in all the investigations. Psychology and science should also have the true spirit of observa- tion and investigation as expressed by Professor James even though these experiences cannot be repeated for the purpose of controlled observation. For that matter, there are many facts in our mental life which cannot always be objectified, as, for instance, the actual contents of emotional reactions.

Professor Rhine in his book, New Frontiers of the mind, describes some of these extrasensory experiences of man and has tried to develop a technique for understanding them. He and some of his colleagues have come to the conclusion that the mind has certain powers for getting knowledge other than through the usual nerve reactions. McDougall seems also to be sympathetic to this system of investigation. It is true that ordinary perceptions are gathered through the nervous system, but extraordinary experiences are achieved without direct contact of the sense organs and nervous system. Yet they have exact and immediate value. So far as the experience is concerned, the same value as if they had been acquired through the senses. They are not imaginative and poetic  but are of practical value, as they furnish knowledge of certain facts. These experiences fall within the range of immediate knowledge as opposed to inferential knowledge. Although they may or may not have a connection with religious experiences, many religious persons ,who have higher mystic realizations also have these extrasensory perceptions.

Let us examine a few instances in which such perceptions have actually taken place. The daughter of a friend of ours, who is a great medical man and authority in this section of the country, had a peculiar or extraordinary experience .when she ,was about thirteen years old. She called her mother one night after she had gone to bed and reported that she smelled something burning in the house. The mother made light’ of the statement and asked the little girl to go  back to bed and rest. After a few minutes the child called again and insisted that she could smell the burning of ,…flesh. The mother at once got out of bed and ,went around the house but found no trace of fire; so she advised the daughter to go to sleep and told her that perhaps she had been dreaming.

In a short while the girl came out of her room and insisted that she detected a very strong odour of something burning, but the mother could do nothing about it. Early the next morning they received a telephone call from a city about a hundred miles away, bringing the news that during the previous night one of the nearest relatives of the mother had been burned alive by a fire “which destroyed the home. This very experience and other such experiences definitely suggest that a human being can have direct perception of something that is happening at a distant place without direct contact through the senses or the nervous system.

A friend was sitting with us in our living room . She suddenly declared: “There ‘will be a death in this house, and burst into tears. I told her that I had no indication that I would die in the near future nor had  any feeling that her daughter or any of my friends or anyone else would die suddenly. So I tried to console her.

About three days later in the course of our service a man, ,who had just played  suddenly had a heart attack and died within a few minutes. This experiece of our friend in foreseeing the death is an undeniable fact which witnessed  and which ,was verified by all ‘who attended the 5ervice This same friend, while staying in India, on one occasion suddenly told me that there would be a death. She had an immediate experience of that future happening. After a day or two we received a cable from .America that one of our very dear friend of  had passed on.

There are people in all parts of the world ‘who are unusually constituted and understand future happenings  immediately and directly even before the occurrence of the incidents. Many of us know that thoughts can be transferred to a distant place. Some persons are emotional1y attuned in such a way that they can transfer their thoughts and emotions to one another without speaking or being directly in touch ,with each other. An American friend of ours often used to tell us that he and his mother ,were so close they did not’ have to talk or express their thoughts and emotions; each would know the other’s thoughts and feelings directly and would act accordingly. Again, we often hear of friends or…parents and children who became aware of sickness,  of the other, through mental telepathy, even though they may have been in different places or in separate countriesThere is no need to illustrate these further, although many such events which ,were verified could be meniIoned. Generally these are regarded by religious groups as miracles or divine visitations. For instance, the extraordinary happenings in the life of Jesus, the Christ, are regarded in western countries as divine power displayed through Him. ,western devotees often understand these man-ifestations as miracles in some of their Christian or Jewish mystics.

Hindu psychologists, like Patanjali and others, discovered laws of the mind which explain such extraordinary occurrences. Extrasensory perceptions or occult powers are not miracles nor are they accidental; they are governed and controlled by subtle mental laws. Western psychology by ridiculing and ignoring these facts is losing an opportunity of studying some interesting mental phenomena. Indian psychology, on the other hand, took account of these extraordinary powers and developed methods by ,which they can be experiaenced and manifested by everyone. It seems to us that Western psychology is partial in ignoring and condemning these phenomena without thorough scientific investigation. We admit that there are some difficulties in scientific investigation, as the methods of development of these extraordinary powers are quite different from the methods that are adopted by the physical sciences. The methods that are used both to manifest and verify such

powers are purely subjective and internal. Patanjali gives an elaborate description of these phenomena and also the ways in which one can develop them through prescribed methods  of concentration on certain objects. He also explains that some persons are born with these tendencies and others can cultivate by systematic practice.

It is ‘necessary now to say a ,word regarding the criticism of these extraordinary powers. We go to a chemist with chemical problems, and he has to apply certain methods which are suitable to the investigation of chemical facts. On the other hand, a biologist will take up quite a different method for his investigation, while an astronomer will apply his telescope and other apparatus for the study of astronomical data. We cannot apply astronomical apparatus to biology or physics. Similarly, psychological facts can be investigated only by psychological methods. So Patanjali prescribes such methods with which to develop mental power.

If anyone wants to investigate these extraordinary powers of extrasensory experiences, he must come to the same state of development as the persons who manifest them. Without having the required mental power it would be impossible for a person to observe and evaluate properly such subtle displays of extrasensory perceptions ,and occult powers. It seems to us the height of folly on the part of scientists to ridicule these experiences without thorough investigation.

We certainly advocate that the experimenter be thoroughly trained as well as the person studied, so that ,we can have a proper and correct evaluation, just as the jeweller, and notthe grocer, can properly evaluate a jewel. ‘We, too, want to be critical in our observation.

There are abnormal persons ,who talk of visions and extraordinary experiences, but those claimed experiences are mere figments of their minds. They have delusions and hallucinations about certain events and also about themselves. People who have delusions and hallucinations show symptoms of mental disintegration. Their emotions are not controlled, their nerves are shattered, and they are much inferior to an average person. A little critical study Will reveal that such persons are abnormal and belongs to   department of psychopathy. Many psychopathic cases have such extraordinary illusions and hypnotic spells that they seem to live in a dreamland. It is quite evident that they do not have normal integration of mind, and their behavior is vitiated by their fancies and imaginary perceptions. The real criterion is the effect on the character of the person. If we observe that the claimed experiences have weakened the personality and demoralized the individual, then these experiences are mere figments of the imagination.

This does not mean that all extrasensory perceptions are within the realm of hallucination, however. we can easily differentiate between hallucinations and actual extrasensory perceptions by a critical test of the validity of their effects and by a study of the character of the person involved. The same scientific test will prove when extrasensory perceptions are valid and when they are only figments of an unstable mind. In the case of hallucinations no new information is added to the fund of knowledge. A person who has them is often confused, while in extrasensory perception new knowl.. edge of a fact or event is gained. Patanjali, in his description of the various extrasensory powers and methods of attaining them, states definitely that they are great obstacles to higher spiritual experiences and mystic realizations.

As we have already stated, Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna, and others strongly discouraged the use of occult powers. They also said that if anyone wants to have higher spiritual realizations he must discourage preoccupation with extraordinary phenomena, although these may occur simultaneously with spiritual practices. In fact, we know intimately that in the course of some intense spiritual practices one sometime, unconsciously and unintentionally develops these powers. A real teacher of spiritual life always advises his disciple to stop their manifestation; otherwise, the mind of the disciple would be lowered to the level of these powers instead of being lifted to the divine plane.

Reference-Hindu psychology by Swami Akhilananda

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

It is inexcusable that we who think in the Western frame of thought should be as ignorant as we are of the frame of thought of the East. Year after year we have spent our time,thinking exclusively in the thought forms of our own Western culture, in practicing or examining the tradition of our own religion, and in evolving our own Western theories of the mind. Few of us have spent even one day of our lives learning about the thought forms that control the minds of millions of our fellow men who adhere to the basic religion of Hinduism. Since in modem days we can no longer deny that all mankind lives in One World, such ignorance of our Eastern cousin’s mind is as dangerous as it is inexcusable.

GORDON W. ALLPORT

Often Western thinkers consider Hindu philosophy and psychology something mysterious; consequently, they almost neglect to mention it in their historic treatment “of these branches of knowledge. It is our conviction that this is due to the Western scholars’ lack of knowledge of the Hindu schools of thought. Unfortunately, the word yoga almost invariably arouses curiosity and suspicion in the West. We have tried to dispel the confused notions of Western readers. Hindu psy- chology and the systems of yoga are neither mysterious, suspicious, nor amusing. They are based on thorough scientific methods of observation and experiment.

Previously, the psychology of the classical schools in the West was concerned chiefly with the study of the mind in its successive states of awareness. The older psychologists described the functionings of the mind, observed how it behaved, and then tried to discover the laws that governed its activities. However, these studies were always limited to the conscious plane. We seldom find any reference to the study o£ other mental aspects. Even the great psychologists seemed unaware of the activities of the hidden states of mind  known as, the subconscious or unconscious. Psychologists from different schools of thought studied the conscious elements only, ignoring the subconscious and superconscious states of mind. From their observations, many of them came to the conclusion that consciousness and soul had no existence separate from physical brain matter and that they were really only products of brain matter. Materialistic thinkers completely ignored the fact that there could be a separate existence of mind or consciousness, to say nothing of a separate existence of the soul, although few had  expounded psychophysical parallelism.

Factually the mind usually functions in ordinary persons through the nervous system and brain cells, just as electricity functions and is manifested through wires and electrical apparatus.  Yet one cannot conclude that the electricity and the wires are identical. Similarly, the mind in its functionings, conscious or otherwise, cannot be identified with the instruments through which it works or has expression.

The trend of modern science, however, is in a direction different from that taken by the materialists of the last century. Some of the modern scientists, unlike their predecessors, are not dogmatic in their views. We do not wish to imply that the psychologists of the older schools of thought were the only ones to put forth their ideas as ultimate solutions. Physicists, chemists, and general scientists were also dogmatic and tenacious in their opinions.

Today it is a pleasure to find that some of the greatest thinkers, some of the most notable psychologists, are taking a liberal stand. They do not limit themselves to one aspect of a subject but are ready to regard it from other points of view, always keeping themselves open to conviction. Many of them are willing to concede that the mind may continue to exist after the dissolution of the body and brain. Dr. William Brown,  one of the outstanding psychologists and psychiatrists of Europe, is much inclined to accept the theory of the post- existence of the mind. The evidence which he himself has gathered, and which was obtained for him from authoritative sources upon which he could depend, has convinced him that there is a strong possibility of the continued existence of the mind after the death of the physical body. He says: It would not be easy to define the scope of psychical research, but we may perhaps state as its most characteristic problem. . . in the cases of extrasensory perceptions and superconsciousness which are cited, that the mind can function without the help of the nervous system as an instrument of perception. How far the embodied mind can get into communication with disembodied minds, the minds of those who have already died, the minds that are to be presumed, either on the authority of religion or on the basis of fact to be still existing elsewhere than in visible human form on this planet.

Professor Eddington says in his discussion of science and mysticism: We have seen that the cyclic scheme of physics presupposes a background outside the scope of its investigations. In this back- ground we must find first, our own personality, and then perhaps a greater personality. The idea of a universal Mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory, at least it is in harmony with it.

The opinions of Professor Gordon Allport, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Dr G Stromberg,  does not discard certain mental experiences which have no sense element in them, but he suggests that they be subjected to scientific investigation: Such frank statements coming from psychologists and other scientist clearly show a definite tendency to differ from and even to refute the theories of the materialists of the last century.

It is interesting to note that psychology itself is no longer limited to the study of the conscious mental plane, and careful analyses of the activities of the subconscious state are being made. This alone is a wonderful achievement and a great advance in the field of mental science. Of course, mechanistic psychologists who reject not only the subconscious but also the conscious states. “Even these thinkers by their denials show that these mental states cannot be ignored and that there are certain phenomena which must be satisfactorily explained somehow if we. are to understand the human personality.

Anyone can study or observe certain psychological states and processes that are going on in the conscious plane, but it requires penetrating analytical intelligence, intuitive insight, clarity of vision, and the utmost patience to try to grasp the functionings of the hidden states of the subconscious aspect of the mind. Often one has only inference upon ‘which to depend. People behave in certain ways; they have certain re- actions. From observation of their conduct and study of their habits the psychoanalyst tries to discover the root from which their actions spring-the motivating cause of their behavior. This is to be found within the subconscious mind.

Nowadays, most of the dynamic psychologists of the West except, of course, the behaviorists and others of similar  type-believe that mental behavior and many of his conscious activities are really determined by the subconscious mind. For instance, if you have any kind of fear they will not leave you alone until they have discovered the underlying cause.. The, want to know why you have that fear and what is your subconscious state that produces it.

Psychoanalysis has made amazing strides in this modem age. The experiments performed and the evidence gathered are really surprising. In their attempts to obtain a clear understanding of the activities that are going on beneath the surface of the conscious plane, psychologists are making definite and deliberate experiments upon the hidden mind. They are analyzing carefully the different psychological states and mental functionings.

According to Psychoanalysists, the greater portion of the mind is actually submerged, unknown to every one of us. Hindus agree ‘with them in this respect. The mind can be compared to an iceberg.. Although only a small portion is visible above the ,water, nevertheless the submerged part of it exists and is a power to be reckoned with. From the surface of the ,water one cannot easily gauge the size of the  iceberg, yet it may be powerful enough to destroy a huge ship such as the ill-fated “Titanic.” Similarly, the submerged mind, the subconscious state, is a potent factor and powerful enough to determine even conscious tendencies. Often we do not realize what influences are hidden there. A man may not be aware of the forces that lie beneath the surface of his mind, nor can these forces be suspected by an untrained observer. Hindu psychologists call these hidden mental forces samskaras.

Modern psychology has developed another aspect of the study of the mind that is a unique contribution to the Western world, especially to medical science. The greater number of our diseases are now believed to be functional and caused by maladjustment, conflict, frustration, or lack of mental balance with consequent disorder of the nervous system. This may be a surprise to many persons. How can Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda.. and the Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali are recommended for further study of the HIndu point of view.  How can the mind and nerves affect the body in such a way as to cause organic disease? When the nerves do not function properly, elements appear in certain organs. Psychologists tell us that many of the so-called organic diseases had their beginning where the organs could not function properly owing to mental maladjustments, conflict, a consequential lack of balance in the nervous system. We all know that the nervous system plays a vital and most important part in our lives. It is closely connected with the mind and is easily affected by the slightest mental disorder. Therefore, mental troubles which  are  reflected in the nervous system can be shown as the real cause of many functional diseases. Also many cases of insanity, neuroses and psychoses, can be traced to mental dissatisfaction and agitation, frustration and conflict.

The motivating forces behind man’s activities are being seriously studied by modern psychologists, but there are points of difference between the Eastern and Western schools of thought. The Hindu psychologists agree that man has various urges and instincts, but they do not accept the theory  of Freud and Adler that either the sex urge or the will to power is the most predominant instinct or that it is the fundamental truth of man’s nature.. In this connection, the ideas. of Dr. William Brown resemble those of the Hindu psychologists because he holds that neither sex nor the will to power is enough to explain human behavior and action.

Dr. Brown also comments, in Science and Personality, that although Freud and Adler tried to discover on predominant instinct in man, they have failed. Freud later seemed to change from his theory of one basic urge of x (pleasure) to a theory of two basic urges–life instinct” and “death instinct,” or sex urge and suicide urge. He evidently concluded that these two are not mutualy exelusive urges in man; they intermingle in human behavior. Accordlng to him and some of his followers, such as Dr. Karl A. Menninger, author of Man Against Himself, life is a struggle between these two forces.

The view of the Hindu psychologists is just the opposite. They come to the conclusion that there is an urge for eternal happiness and eternal existence in the human mind. The search after , bliss is the real motive  behind man’s activities- both- conscious and unconscious, as Spinoza affirmed. The tendency to destruction, or the suicide urge, is not the basic and inherent quality of man; hatred, war, and other destructive activities are rather due  the perverted application and erroneous understanding of this urge for happiness. Hindu psychologists do not agree with the view that man has a basic destructive tendency. Suicide, war, and all other such destructive tendencies are not expressions of the normal mind .It seems that Freud and other psychoanalysts make unnecessary and uncalled-for generalizations from the study of pathological cases. It is also equally illogical and superficial to trace the death or destructive urge even in religious self-abnegation and sacrifice. An unbiased understanding of the true spirit of religious culture will convince us that Freudian conclusions of this sort are thoroughly unjustified.

Dr. William McDougall also differs from the Freudian and Adlerian schools in his interpretation of the motivating force behind man’s activities. He cannot accept either die sex impulse or the will to power as the whole urge, although he definitely believes that the conscious and subconscious activities of man are purposeful In other words, he concludes that there is a purpose behind all consciousness. He seek a “master urge” to explain the purpose of man’s different instinctive functionings, but unfortunately, he does not give the definite or specific nature of that master urge.

Gestalt psychology, of which Dr. Wolfgang Kohler is the most prominent exponent, is seeking a totality” of conscious experience. According to this school, the conscious self is a unity and not a combination or sum total of separate instincts and perceptions.

We can safely say that there is a general tendency among modem psychiatrists to think that all conscious and subconscious activities of men’s minds function purposively and that they are controlled by a unifying principle. There must be a purpose or a reason for the behavior of a man. On the other hand, those of the behaviorist school claim that man is practically  machine and that consciousness itself is only an illusion. These thinkers criticize not only Freud and Jung for their study of the unconscious state of mind but all who  believe in the existence of the consciousness of man, not to speak of the existence of God. To a behaviorist God is only an iIlusion created by the ‘laziness of mankind.” To quote John B. Watson: In the larger group God or Jehovah takes the place of the famn, father. Thus even the modern child from the beginning is confronted by the dictated of medicine men-be they the father, the soothsayer of the village, the God, or Jehovah. Having been brought up in this attitude towards authority, he never questions the concepts imposed upon him.

Behaviorists will tell us to study a man’s physical make-up if we would understand his behavior. Of course, the psycho- analysts, as well as the Hindu psychologists, admit that there is a great change in the physical state when there is a change in the mind and vice versa. When the mind is affected, there will be a change in the body. But there are still many questions which the behaviorists have yet to answer adequately or satisfactorily. They cannot fully explain many of the cases of psychosis and neurosis by tracing the causes in the structure of the nerves and nerve centers, although it is true that some of the dementia praeco and other cases are cured by insulin, other drugs, and shock treatment. However, in spite of the physiological experiments of these schools, their conclusions are incomplete, for they do not explain the extra- sensory perceptions and superconscious states of mind.

The mechanistic schools have exaggerated their claims for their view of the mechanical nature of the mind. According  John B. Watson, mind is a complex mechanism like a modern lino- type, or some other complicated printing machine, which does alI the work of a number of men. But we …do not find any real explanation of human behavior under extremely complicated and unknown environments and situations The mechanical view does not give initiative and dynamic re- sourcefulness to the mechanical mind. In the observation of human behavior we fail to find any purposive ingenuity of the unfathomable mind which can be converted into mere functions of material cells or nerve cells. Mechanistic behaviorism cannot explain the various higher mental faculties or human functions, such as love and sympathy, not to speak of the higher values and spiritual qualities which operate in elevated stages of human society.

On the other hand, the purposivists or hormic psychologists, like Professor McDougall, want to avoid some of the limitations of behaviorism and functionalism by endowing consciousness with purposive faculties. The driving forces are innate in the mind in the form of instincts and urges. Man strives to overcome difficulties and to be master of the situation. Purposivists can better explain complicated human nature although they also fall short of total understanding of human experiences. The same can be said of Gestaltsts. We may safely say that the major trend in American psychology is in the motor aspect of mind. Professor William James can be regarded as the founder of the  action psychology” , although Bain and Darwin were the fore- runners. According to James “all consciousness is motor.” Heleterberg and Dewey became the great exponents of the school of thought which emphasized activity, achievement, and conduct. The pragmatism of James was greedily taken up by Dewey and others in the field of psychology. As a resuIt we find that the development of mind is measured by its outer expressions and achievements in the objective sense. The quality of intelligence is determined by the measurement of ability in action. Consequently, the subjective elemente of mind is ignored. In fact, meditation and inner understanding are generally neglected. Professor Gordon Allport said: “The genius of western psychology lies in its stress upon action or, in slightly dated terminology, upon the motor phase of reflex arc.” Again he said: “We seldom record, for example, an individual’s unique and subjective pattern of  thought life.” This tendency of American psychology is easily understood when we consider the major trends of American life and its outlook. The hedonistic outlook on life naturally affects all spheres of activity in a nation. We shall see later that Hindu psychology has quite a different emphasis, as. it flourished in a nation where the subjective elements of mind and unique inner mental states playa great part. In fact, spiritual idealism is the most dominant factor in Hindu national life. In his evaluation of western psychology  Professor All port is most accurate. According to the Hindu psychological schools, the greatest expression of mind lies in its total illumination, which is achieved, as we shall see, by the subjective methods of concentration and meditation and consequent mental integration. The mind must be synthesized in order for a person to achieve real success.

Greatness of mind can be judged not by its ability in action but rather by its integration and unification. Hindu psychologists recognize four states of consciousness. To use the terminology of some of them, one can say that they believe in the sleeping, dreaming, awakened states, and the superconscious(.susupti, swapna, jagrat  and turiya). The sleeping and dreaming states are included in the subconscious. So, according to Western terminology, this amounts to three states–subconscious, conscious, and superconsious. The study of the superconscious is either ignored or con sidered pathological by most Western psychologists, although Professor William Jarris studies the manifestations of it in his book, Varieties of Religious Experiences,  and Dr. Miiller-Freienfels gives hints of mental telepathy and other such unusual mental phenomena in his treatment o fpara_ psychology in Evolution of Modern Psychology. It is also encouraging to note that Professor Rhine of Duke University has made a careful study of what he calls “extrasensory perceptions” in his book, New Frontiers of the Mind,  to see if he can reach a scientific explanation of certain mental per- ceptions that are received independently of the sense organs and nervous system.

Although telepathy and clairvoyance seem to be expressions of extrasensory powers, they are not to be confused with the superconscious state or samadhi. In fact, the exercise of these extraordinary powers is considered as an obstacle to the attainment of superconscious realization. This  is em- phasized in the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali and the Teachings of Sri Ramakrishna. However, Patanjali (the father of Hindu psychology) and others recognize these perceptions and even give the methods by which one can develop them although they discourage the use of them if one would attain to true spirituality. Sometimes telepathy, clairvoyance, and other similar powers are manifested in persons without any conscious effort on their part; sometimes they are manifested in the course of the true practice of yoga and the right type of concentration and meditation; but they are powers in the ,worldly sense, and the real seeker after truth is ‘warned not to let;’ them draw him from his goal. In Hindu psychology and other such systems a thorough study has been made of the various stages of superconscious ,realization and other extrasensory perceptions through Raja Yoga practices as given in the Yoga Aphorisms of Patanjali. Certain types of lower extrasensory perceptions are discussed in books on Hath Yoga; but ,we do not propose to describe Hatha Yoga, as it is meant primarily for the control of physical laws.

. It is of fundamental importance to note that there are distinct differences between the experimental and inferential methods of the Western psychologists and the subjective and intuitive yoga practices (mental science or psychology) of the Hindus.  The purely objective method cannot be adequately applied to the study of the mind. The psychologist has to interpret the normal and abnormal outer expressions in order to understand the inner states and urges of the mind. He inevitably colors the interpretations by his pre- conceived notions. Apart from that, a particular expression may have different causes. There is a popular saying that a fool laughs three times over a joke. He laughs first when he sees others laughing; again he laughs when he understands it; and then he laughs thinking what a fool he “.as not to understand the joke in the first place. As laughter was created by three different causes, so an external expression can be caused by different inner emotions and urges. ConsequentIy the interpretive method can hardly give convincing understanding of the inner nature of the mind, as neuroses and psychoses may be created in various persons by Superonscious experience, subconscious and conscious urges and mental conditions. Therefore, the Hindus have devoted themselves thoroughly to the subjective methods of psychology which- give a clear ,and conclusive understanding of the total mind.

Western thinkers may be inclined to question the validity of psychological study in India, as they may find that Hindu psychology is not experimental in “”the sense of the Western schools of experimental psychology. Nevertheless, it’” can never be said that Hindu psychology is not empirical, for it is based on the study of the experience of the mind. Brentano and a number of others of his school did not ascribe much value to modern experimental psychology, although empirical psychology was considered by them to be extremely valuable because they were interested in the nature of the mind. Professor Boring evidently does not esteem Brentano highly as a psychologist, as he considers him and his followers to be philosophers ,whose major interest was in the understanding of the whole.  Such historians and other may find it difficult to appreciate the contributions of Hindu psychology, and they may dismiss the whole system as a philosophical treatise or as mystical literature. It would “be unfair to come to such a conclusion, as Hindu psychology gives definite methods not only for knowing the nature of the mind but also for developing its powers.

We should clearly understand what is meant by the subjective and intuitive method of Hindu psychology. It, does not mean philosophizing about the nature of the mind or having a conceptual knowledge thereof, but rather training the total mind of the individual, including thought, emotion, and ,will. It does not depend on the interpretive method, as interpretation of the outer expressions of the mind may not always be reliable. Hindu psychologists firmly believe that psychological facts and development can be verified and developed through personal mental growth.

Hindu psychologists, although subjective and intuitive, are scientific as weIl as practical and dynamic. Psychology in the west is not regarded as dynamic by many outstanding psychologists. It is our opinion that Hindu psychology is more dynamic, as it trains the individual mind to manifest all its latent powers, that through systematic psychological practices the dynamic powers of mind evolve and make an individual mind powerful enough to be of service to others in integrating their emotions and other mental processes.

Hindu psychologists are primarily interested in the study and development of the total mind rather than in the different functions considered separately. The experimental psychologists of the West are interested in the particular phases of mental activity. Some of them go to an extreme in their specialization when they study only nerve reactions and think that they will be able to comprehend the mind itself while they study merely the instruments of the mind. It is interesting to note ,what Professor Hocking rightly says in his evaluation of Western psychology: “But the extant science or sciences of mind have presented us not the mind itself, but substitutes for mind, . .-Near.minds, we may call them.”and again he says: “The several Near-minds of the scientific psychology have their worth and their actuality; but they have life only as organs of mind.” It ,will not be out of place to remember here that Hindus accept the existence of mind apart from and independent of the nerves. Brehtano and the Gestaltists are no doubt interested to a great extent in the total experience1 of the mind but they do not see to go far enough to cover the whole range of mental experiences, as ‘ have said already, for they never consider the superconscious. The psychologists of the unconscious-Freud, Adler, Jung, and others-also fall short, as we have seen. We make bold to say that the Western psychologists are mostly concerned with the different phases of mental functioning by taking them separately and individually in their experimental methods, while Hindu psychologists are primarily interested in the study of the total mind, as they feel that the different functions–consciousness, unconsciousness, super- consciousness, cognition, volition, and conation cannot be really separated. Moreover, they are interrelated.

As we know, any thought creates an emotional reaction resulting in activity. A thought or a concept creates an emotion within, such as attraction or repulsion, pleasure or displeasure, love or hatred. ‘We are also aware of our emotions;as such, a thought and emotion cannot be isolated and observed separately. Emotional urges make the mind active. It is almost impossible to observe activity of the mind (function of will) as separate from either thought or emotion. Nor can we observe a thought as separate from emotion or activity of the mind. Neither can emotions be isolated from the knowledge content of the mind and its dynamic expression, however subtle they may be. Thought, emotion, and will are inseparably connected. That is the reason Hindu psychologists study these functions together when they try to develop and integrate the mind. Then again, they consider that the fullest development of mind can be achieved only when it reaches the superconscious. A student of psychology also has knoweldge of the contents of the unconscious (.sama.rkaras) in the process of the development of the superconscious. In fact, a study of the unconscious when isolated from conscious training the mind is extremely unsafe. So according to Hindu psychologists, one cannot really study and know one state of mind properly without total integration of the mind.

Most of the western psychologists seem to give extreme , emphasis to the motor aspect of the mind. In other words, their chief interest is to know the activity, the motor consequences of mental life, in order to find out how the mind acts and reacts from the motor point of view. On the other hand, Hindu psychologists try to understand and strengthen the whole mind. Therefore, they are especially interested in the development of character and personality, which can be achieved only by integration of the mind. We appreciate some of the Western psychologists like Professor Allport and who are interested in. the total personality of man.  It should be mentioned that we do not minimize the importance of a great number of psychologists in India who taught psychological principles before the time of Patanjali (about 150 B.C.). Applied psychology was taught in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Sankhya system.

The Buddhists also gave many definite and practical ideas of applied psychology for the unification and strengthening of the mind, as well as definite instructions for the total enlightenment of the mind. In fact, Patanjali gives a systematic treatise on yoga, though many of his concepts are based on Sankhya thought.

Hindus have developed their psychology mainly in the course of religious unfoldment. The Western psychoanalysts like Charcot, Janet, Freud, Adler, Jung, and others-began their research in the abnormal states of the mind. The physiological psychologists are more interested in the study of the nerve reactions and functionings of the nervous system than in the mind itself. Professor Hocking of Harvard University aptly calls this a study of the “near-mind.” It should be remembered that it is extremely unsafe, to say the least, to generalize the findings from the study of the abnormal mind and apply them ,to fairly normal minds. Freud and others make superficial remarks about the religious tendencies of man in term of sex, and they try to find the “death” or destrctive” tendencies even in normal and supernormal minds. Actually, the supernormal minds function” in a manner quite different from normal and abnormal cases. This is the reason that the unfortunate generalizations of many of the psychotherapeutists regarding spiritual experiences are extremely inaccurate and unscientific. They are far from the truth.

The science of psychology was developed mainly by the  Hindus as they studied the methods by ,which they reached the highest religious experience-the superconscious state or samadhi. It is the only method of understanding and controlling the mind in order that a higher consciousness may be reached. According to the Yoga aphorisms of Patanjali, the mind becomes thoroughly illumined and can transcend even the limiitation of the nervous system when it is controled and unified in the course of concentration and deep meditation. The mind can immediately and directly reach another plane, the superconscious state, in ,which it experiences reality. This is explained by Swami Vivekananda in Raja Yoga:There is a still higher plane upon which the mind can work. It can go beyond consciousness. Just as unconscious work is- beneath consciousness, so there is another work which is above consciousness, and which is not accompanied with the feeling of egotism. The feeling of egoism is only on’ the middle plane. By the effects, by the result; of’ the work, we know that which is below, and that which is above. When a man goes into deep sleep he enters a plane beneath consciousness. He works the body all the time he breathes, ‘he moves the body, perhaps, in his sleep,  without any accompanying feeling of ego; he is unconscious, and when he returns from his sleep he is the same man who went into it. The sum total of the knowledge which he had before he went into the sleep remains the same; it does not increase at all. No enlightenment does come. But when a man goes into samadhi, if he goes into it a fool, he comes out a sage.

Religious ideals and expressions are essential to the fulfilment and culmination of consciousness in this super- sensuous state. To Hindus, religion is not a barrier to psychological development and understanding; it is the very basis for the total illumination of the mind.

According to Hindu psychologists, when the mind is subjected to the discipline of yoga practices the fine nerve tissues of the body undergo a consequent transformation. The physical and mental forces of man are refined and unified, resulting in emotional balance, development of, adamantine will, and physical poise. A man who has experienced samadhi or superconscious realization understands the “whole mind- conscious. subconscious, and superconscious. He also reaches a stage ‘where the mind functions independently of the nervous system.

In fact, the whole mind appears like a mirror in which he can see the truth revealed. Again, this unified mind that has been subjected to discipline through the practices of ,concentration, meditation, and other processes, becomes a center of power. When a man is master of his own mental forces, he will be able to understand and influence the minds of others. He is well established in poise and creates quite an atmosphere of peace. When anyone enters the presence of such a person, he consciously or unconsciously absorbs the peaceful atmosphere and derives poise and benefit from the contact. A man of superconscious realization can be compared to a luminous substance which radiates light. It not only illumines itself but also objects within its radius. Simi- larly, a man with a unified mind emanates wisdom and strength to others.

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D. Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Mrs Sudha Rani Maheshwari, M.Sc (Zoology), B.Ed. Former Principal. A.K.P.I.College, Roorkee, India

Normally we arrive at the conception and at the knowledge of divine existence by exceeding the evidence of the senses and piercing beyond the walls, of the physical mind.   So long as we confine ourselves to sense-evidence and the physical consciousness, we can conceive nothing and know nothing except the material world and its phenomena.  But certain faculties in us enable our mentality to arrive at conceptions which we may indeed deduce by ratiocination or by imaginative variation from the facts of the physical world as we see them, but which are not warranted by any purely physical data or any physical experience.

The first of these  is the pure reason. The sovereign action of the sense mind can be employed to develop other senses besides the five which we ordinarily use.  For instance, it is possible to develop the power of appreciating accurately without physical means the weight of an object which we hold in our hands.  Here the sense of contact and pressure is merely used as a starting-point, just as the data of sense-experience are used by the pure reason, but it is not really the sense of touch which give the measure of the weight to the mind; that finds the right value through its own independent perception and uses the touch only in order to enter into relation with the object.  And as with the pure reason, so with the sense mind, the sense-experience can be used as a mere first point from which it proceeds to a knowledge that has nothing to do with the sense-organs and often contradicts their evidence.  Nor is the extension of faculty confined only to outsides and superficies.  It is possible, once we have entered by any of the senses into relation with an external object, so to apply the Manas as to become aware of the contents of the object, for example, to receive or to perceive the thoughts or feelings of others without aid from their utterance, gesture, action or facial expressions and even in contradiction of these always partial and often misleading data.

Finally, by an utilization of the inner senses, that is to say, of the sense-powers, in themselves, in their purely mental or subtle activity as distinguished from the physical which is only a selection for the purpose of outward life from their total and general action, we are able to take cognition of sense-experiences, of appearances and images of things other than those which belong to the organization of our material environment.

All these extensions of faculty, though received with hesitation and incredulity by the physical mind because they are abnormal to the habitual scheme of our ordinary life and experience, difficult to set in action, still more difficult to systematize so as to be able to make of them an orderly and serviceable set of instruments, must yet be admitted, since they the invariable result of any attempt to enlarge the field of our superficially active consciousness whether by some kind of untaught effort and casual ill-ordered effect or by a scientific and well regulated practice.

Mind is accustomed to depending on the senses, which is why it is in sleep that the subliminal mind is liberated. Sense-powers and inner senses can be developed in themselves. Experience of truths beyond senses requires something else, however’. The concept of Brahman, pure existence, is beyond ordinary experience. Divine existence is reached by going beyond senses. Pure reason is not fully satisfying, because we want to experience things  as well as conceive of them.  Psychological experience can also be pure, when we seek to be aware of our self as subject.

Awareness of truths is beyond phenomena. Vedanta starts from reason but uses intuition as the final authority, in order to know truths that are beyond ordinary experience. Intuition is the common property between subconscious and superconscious.The foundation of intuition is knowledge by identity. Indian philosophers started from reason, but used intuition as the final test and authority. The pure existence can be known by identity, intuition, but not by thought.

None of them, however, leads to the aim we have in view, the psychological experience of those truths that are “beyond perception by the sense but sizable by the perceptions of the reason”, buddhigrahyam  atindriyam.  They give us only a larger field of phenomena and more effective means from the observation of phenomena.  The truth of things always escapes beyond the sense.  Yet is it a sound rule inherent in the very constitution of universal existence that where there are truths attainable by the reason, there must be somewhere in the organism possessed of that reason a means of arriving at or verifying them by experience.  The one means we have left in our mentality is an extension of that form of knowledge by identity which gives us the awareness of our own existence.  It is really upon a self awareness more or less conscientious, more or less present to our conception that the knowledge of the contents of our self is based.  Or to put it in a more general formula, the knowledge of the contents is contained in the knowledge of the continent.  If then we can extend our faculty of mental self-awareness to awareness of the Self beyond and outside us, Atman or Brahman of the Upanishads, we may become possessors in experience of the truths which form the contents of the Atman or Brahman in the universe.  It is on this possibility that Indian Vedanta has based itself.  It has sought through knowledge of the Self the knowledge of the universe.

Sud-Brahman (Supreme God ), Existence pure, indefinable, infinite, absolute, is the last concept at which Vedantic analysis arrives in its view of the universe, the fundamental Reality which Vedantic experience discovers behind all the movement and formation which constitute the apparent reality.  It is obvious that when we posit this conception, we go entirely beyond what our ordinary consciousness, our normal experience contains or warrants.  The senses and sense-mind know nothing whatever about any pure or absolute existence.  All that our sense-experience tells us of is form and movement.  Forms exist, but with an existence that is not pure, rather always mixed, combined, aggregated, relative.  When we go within ourselves, we may get rid of precise form, but we cannot get rid of movement, of change.  Motion of Matter in Space, motion of change in Time seem to be the condition of existence.  We may say indeed, if we like, that this is existence and that the idea of existence in itself corresponds to no discoverable reality. At the most in the phenomenon of self awareness or behind it, we get sometimes a glimpse of something immovable and immutable, something that we vaguely perceive or imagine that we are beyond all life and death, beyond all change and formation and action.  Here is the one door in us that sometimes swings open upon the splendor of a truth beyond and before it shuts again, allows a ray to touch us, a luminous intimation which, if we have the strength and firmness, we may hold to in our faith and make a starting –point for another play of consciousness than that of the sense-mind, for the play of Intuition.

or if we examine carefully, we shall find that Intuition is our first teacher.  Intuition always stands veiled behind our mental operations.  Intuition brings to man those brilliant messages from the Unknown which are the beginning of his higher knowledge.  Reason only comes in afterwards to see what profit it can have of the shining harvest.  Intuition gives us that idea of something behind and beyond all that we know and seem to be which pursues man always in contradiction of his lower reason and all his normal experience and impels him to formulate that form less perception in the more positive ideas of God, Immortality, Heaven and the rest by which we strive to express it to the mind.  For Intuition is as strong as Nature herself from whose very soul it has sprung and cares nothing for the contradictions of reason or the denials of experience.  It knows what is because it is, because itself it is of that and has come from that, and will not yield it to the judgment of what merely becomes and appears.  What the Intuition tells us of, is not so much Existence as the Existent, for it proceeds from that one point of light in us which gives it its advantage, that sometimes opened door in our own self-awareness.  Ancient Vedanta seized this message of the Intuition and formulated it I the three great declarations of the Upanishads, “I am He”, “Thou art That, O Swetaketu”, “All this is the Brahman; this Self is the Brahman”.

But Intuition by the very nature of its action in man, working as it does from behind the veil, action principally in his more unenlightened, less articulate parts, served in front of the veil, in the narrow light which is our waking conscience, only by instruments that are unable fully to assimilate its messages, __Intuition is unable to give us the truth in the ordered and articulated from which our nature demands.  Before it could effect any such completeness of direct knowledge in us, it would have to organize itself in our surface being and take possession there of the leading part.  But in our surface being it is not the Intuition, it is the Reason which is organized and helps us to order our perceptions, thoughts and actions.  Therefore the age of intuitive knowledge, represented by the early Vedantic thinking of the Upanishads, had to give place to the age of rational knowledge inspired Scripture made room for metaphysical philosophy, even as afterwards metaphysical philosophy had to give place to experimental Science.  Intuitive thought which is a messenger from the super-conscient and therefore our highest faculty, was supplanted by the pure reason which is only a sort of deputy and belongs to the middle heights of our being; pure reason in its turn was supplanted for a time by the mixed action of the reason which lives on our plains and lower elevations and does not in its view exceed the horizon of the experience that the physical mind and senses or such aids as we can invent for them can bring to us.  And this process which seems to be a descent, is really a circle of progress.  For in each case the lower faculty is compelled to take up as much as it can assimilate of what the higher had already given and  to attempt to re-establish it by its own methods.  By the attempt it is itself enlarged in its scope and arrives eventually at a more supple and a more ample self accommodation to the higher faculties.  Without this succession and attempt at separate assimilation we should be obliged to remain under the exclusive domination of a part of our nature while the rest remained either depressed and unduly subjected or separate in its field and therefore poor in its development.  With this succession and separate attempt the balance is righted; a more complete harmony of our parts of knowledge is prepared.

We see this succession in the Upanishads and the subsequent Indian philosophies.  The sages of the Veda and Vedanta relied entirely upon intuition and spiritual experience.  It is by an error that scholars sometimes speak of great debates or discussions in the Upanishad.  Wherever there is the appearance of a controversy, it is not by discussion, by dialectics or the use of logical reasoning that it proceeds, but by a comparison of intuitions and experiences in which the less luminous gives place to the more luminous, the narrower, faultier or less essential to the more comprehensive, more perfect, more essential.  The question asked by one sage of another is “What dost thou know?, not “What dost thou think?” nor “To what conclusion has thy reasoning arrived?  Nowhere in the Upanishads do we find any trace of logical reasoning urged in support of the truths of Vedanta.  Intuition, the sages seem to have held,  must be corrected by a more perfect intuition; logical reasoning cannot be its judge.

And yet the human reason demands its own method of satisfaction.  Therefore when the age of rationalistic speculation began, Indian philosophers, respectful of the heritage of the past, adopted a double attitude towards the Truth they sought.  They recognized in the Sruti, the earlier results of Intuition or, as they preferred to call it, of inspired Revelation, an authority superior to Reason.  But at the same time they started from Reason and tested the results it gave them, holding only those conclusions to valid which were supported by the supreme authority.  In this way they avoided to a certain extent the besetting sin of metaphysics, the tendency to battle in the clouds because it deals with words as if they were imperative facts instead of symbols which have always to be carefully scrutinized and brought back constantly to the sense of that which they represent.  Their speculations tended at first to keep near at the centre to the highest and profoundest experience and proceeded with the united consent of the two great authorities, Reason and Intuition.  Nevertheless, the natural trend of Reason to assert its own supremacy triumphed in effect over the theory of its subordination.  Hence the rise of conflicting schools each of which founded itself in theory on the Veda and used its texts as a weapon against the others.  For the highest intuitive Knowledge sees things in the whole, in the large and details only as sides of the indivisible whole; its tendency is towards immediate synthesis and the unity of knowledge.  Reason, on the contrary, proceeds by analysis and division and assembles its facts to form a whole; but in the assemblage so formed there are opposites, anomalies, logical incompatibilities, and the natural tendency of Reason is to affirm some and to negate others which conflict with its chosen conclusions so that it may form a flawlessly logical system.  The unity of the first intuitional knowledge was thus broken up and the ingenuity of the logicians was always able to discover devices, methods of interpretation, and standards of varying value by which inconvenient texts of the Scripture could be practically annulled and an entire freedom acquired for their metaphysical speculation.

Intuition is always behind reason, but it cannot give an ordered and  articulated form until it is organized in our surface being. This is why the age of intuitive knowledge had to be followed by the age of reason.

Reference-Sri Aurobindo-The Life Divine

Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A. (Socio, Phil) B.Se. M. Ed, Ph.D

Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955), “Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium”, 1941

In the achieved course of the evolution of the spiritual being, the two considerations must be perceived, firstly the consideration of the means, that means the lines of development utilized by Nature and secondly  a view of the actual results achieved by it in the human individual.  There are four main lines which Nature has followed in her attempt to open up the inner being, religion, occultism, spiritual thought and an inner spiritual realization and experiences the three first are approaches, the last is the decisive avenue of entry.  All these four powers have worked by a simultaneous action, more or less connected, sometimes in a variable collaboration, sometimes in dispute with each other, sometimes in a separate independence. But it is when knowledge reaches its highest aspects that it is possible to arrive at its greatest unity. The highest and widest seeing is the wisest, for then all knowledge is unified in its one comprehensive meaning. All religions are seen as approaches to a single Truth, all philosophies as divergent viewpoints looking at different sides of a single Reality, all sciences meet together in a supreme science. For that which all our mind-knowledge and sense knowledge and supra-sensuous vision is seeking, is found most integrally in the unity of God and man and Nature and all that is in Nature.

In the very nature of things all evolution must proceed at first by a slow unfolding, for each new principle that evolves its powers, has to make its way out of an involution in conscience and Ignorance.  Nature affirms at first a vague urge and tendency which is a sign of the push of the occult, subliminal, submerged reality towards the surface; there are then small half-suppressed hints of the thing that is to be, imperfect beginnings, crude elements, rudimentary appearances, small, insignificant, hardly recognizable quanta.  Afterwards there are small or large formations; a more characteristic and recognizable quality begins to show itself, first partially, here and there or in a low intensity, then more vivid, more formative, finally, there is the decisive emergence, a reversal of the consciousness, the beginning of the possibility of its radical change. Faith is indispensable to man, for without he could not proceed forward in his journey through the Unknown; but it ought not to be imposed, it should come as a free perception or an imperative direction from the inner spirit.

It is this process that has taken place in the evolution of religion in the human mind and consciousness; the work done by it for humanity cannot be understood or properly appreciated if we ignore the conditions of the process and their necessity.  It is evident that the first beginnings of religion must be crude and imperfect, its development hampered by mixtures, errors, and concessions to the human mind and vital part which may often be of a very unspiritual character.  Ignorant and injurious and even disastrous elements may creep in and lead to error and evil; the dogmatism of the human mind, its self-assertive narrowness, its intolerant and challenging egoism, its attachment to its limited truths and still greater attachment to its errors, or the violence, fanaticism, militant and oppressive self-affirmation of the vital its treacherous action on the mind in order to get a sanction for its own desires and propensities, may very easily invade the religious field and baulk religion of its higher spiritual aim and character; under the name of religion much ignorance may hid, many errors and an extensive wrong-building be permitted, many crimes even and offences against the spirit be committed.  But this chequered history belongs to all human effort and, if it were to count against the truth and necessity of religion, would count also against the truth and necessity of every other line of human endeavour, against all man’s action, his ideals, his thought, his art his science.

Religion has opened itself to denial by its claim to determine the truth by divine authority, by inspiration, by a sacrosanct and infallible sovereignty given to it from on high; it has sought to impose itself on human thought, feeling, conduct without discussion or question.

Truth and error live always together in the human evolution and the truth is not to be rejected because of its accompanying errors, though these have to be eliminated, often a difficult business and, if crudely done, resulting in surgical harm inflicted on the body of religion; for what we see as error is very frequently the symbol or a disguise or a corruption or malformation of a truth which is lost in the brutal radical of the operation, the truth is cut out along with the error.  Nature herself very commonly permits the good corn and the tares and weeds to grow together for a long time, because only so is her own growth, her free evolution possible.

The wide and supple method of evolutionary Nature providing the amplest scope and preserving the true intention of the religious seeking of the human being can be recognized in the development of religion in India, where any number of religious formulations, cults and disciplines have been allowed, even encouraged to subsist side by side and each man was free to accept and follow that which was congenial to his thought, feeling, temperament, build of the nature.  It is right and reasonable that there should be this plasticity, proper to experimental evolution, for religion’s real business is to prepare man’s mind, life and bodily existence for the spiritual consciousness to take it up; it has to lead him to that point where the inner spiritual light begins fully to emerge.  It is in this attempt that the errors of religion come in, for they are caused by the very nature of the matter with which it is dealing that inferior stuff invades the very forms that are meant to serve as intermediaries between the spiritual and the mental, vital or physical consciousness,  and often it diminishes, degrades and corrupts them: but it is in this attempt that lies religion’s greatest utility as an intercessor between spirit and nature.

Evolutionary Nature in her first awakening of man to a rudimentary spiritual consciousness must begin with a vague sense of the Infinite and the Invisible surrounding the physical being, a sense of the limitation and impotence of human mind and will and of something greater than himself concealed in the world of Potencies beneficent or maleficent which determine the results of his action, a Power that is behind the physical world he lives in and has perhaps created it and him, or Powers that inform and rule her movements while they themselves perhaps are ruled by the greater Unknown that is beyond them.  He had to determine what they are and find means of communication so that he might propitiate them or call them to his aid; he sought also for means by which he could find out and control the springs of the hidden movements of Nature.  This he could not do at once by his reason because his reason could at first deal only with physical facts, but this was the domain of the Invisible and needed a supra-physical vision and knowledge; he had to do it by an extension of the faculty of intuition and instinct which was already there in the animal.  This faculty, prolonged in the thinking being and mentalised, must have been more sensitive and active in early man, though still mostly on a lower scale, for he had to rely also on the aid of subliminal experience; for the subliminal too must have been more active, more ready to upsurge in him, more capable of formulating its phenomena on the surface, before he learned to depend completely on his intellect and senses.

The intuitions that he thus received by contact with Nature, his mind systematized and so created the early forms of religion.  This active and ready power of intuition also gave him the sense of supra-physical forces behind the physical, and his instinct and a certain subliminal or supernormal experience of supra-physical beings with whom he could somehow communicate turned him towards the discovery of effective and canalizing means for a dynamic utilization of this knowledge; so were created magic and the other early forms of occultism.  At some time it must have dawned on him that he had something in him who was not physical, a soul that survived the body; certain supernormal experiences which became active because of the pressure to know the invisible, must have helped to formulate his first crude ideas of this entity within him.  It would only be later that he began to realize that what he perceived in the action of the universe was also there in some form within him and that in him also were elements that responded to invisible powers and forces for good or for evil; so would begin his religio-ethical formations and his possibilities of spiritual experience.  An amalgam of primitive intuitions, occult ritual, religious-social ethics, mystical knowledge or experiences symbolized in myth but with their sense preserved by a secret initiation and discipline is the early, at first very superficial and external stage of human religion.  In the beginning these elements were, no doubt, crude and poor and defective, but they acquired depth and range and increased in some cultures to a great amplitude and significance.

A complete denial of religion, occultism and all that is supra-physical is the last outcome of this stage, a hard dry paroxysm of the superficial intellect hacking away the sheltering structures that are refuges for the deeper parts of our nature.  But still evolutionary Nature keeps alive her ulterior intentions in the minds of a few and uses man’s greater mental evolution to raise them to a higher plane and deeper issues.  In the present time itself, after an age of triumphant intellectuality and materialism, we can see evidences of this natural process,  a return towards inner self-discovery, an inner seeking and thinking, a new attempt at mystic experience, a groping after the inner self, a reawakening to some sense of the truth and power of the spirit begins to manifest itself; man’s search after his self and soul and a deeper truth of things tends to revive and resume its lost force and to give a fresh life to the old creeds, erect new faiths or develop independently of sectarian religions.  The intellect itself, having reached near to the natural limits of the capacity of physical discovery, having touched its bedrock and found that it explains nothing more than the outer process of Nature, has begun will tentatively and hesitatingly,  to direct an eye of research on the domain of the occult which it had rejected a priori, in order to know what there may be in it that is true.  Religion itself has shown its power of survival and is undergoing an evolution the final sense of which is still obscure.  In this new phase of the mind that we see beginning, however crudely and hesitatingly, there can be detected the possibility of a pressure towards some decisive turn and advance of the spiritual evolution in Nature.  Religion, rich but with a certain obscurity in her first infer rational stage, had tended under the overweight of the intellect to pass into a clear but bare rational interspaced; but it must in the end follow the upward curve of the human mind and rise more fully at its summits towards its true or greatest field in the sphere of a supra-rational consciousness and knowledge.

But this primitive stage, if it is indeed such and not, in what we still see of it, a fall or a vestige, a relapse from a higher knowledge belonging to a previous cycle of civilization or the debased remnants of a dead or obsolete culture, can have been only a beginning.  It was followed, after whatever stages, by the more advanced type of religion of which we have a record in the literature or surviving documents of the early civilized peoples.  This type, composed of a polytheistic belief and worship, a cosmology, a mythology, a complexus of ceremonies, practices, ritual and ethical obligations interwoven sometimes deeply into the social system, was ordinarily a national or tribal religion intimately expressive of the stage of evolution of thought and life reached by the community.  In the outer structure we still miss the support of a deeper spiritual significance, but this gap was filled in  the greater more developed cultures by a strong background of occult knowledge and practices or else by carefully guarded mysteries with a first element of spiritual wisdom and discipline.  Occultism occurs more often as an addition or superstructure, but is not always present; the worship of divine powers, sacrifice, a surface piety and social ethics are the main factors.  A spiritual philosophy or idea of the meaning of life seems at first to be absent, but its beginnings are often contained in the myths and mysteries and in one or two instances fully emerge out of them so that it assumes a strong separate existence.

For religion in India limited itself by no one creed or dogma; it not only admitted a vast number of different formulations, bit contained successfully within itself all the elements that have grown up in the course of the evolution of the elements that have grown up in the course of the evolution of religion and refused to ban or excise any: it developed occultism to its utmost limits, accepted spiritual experience, spiritual self-discipline Its method has been the method of evolutionary nature, herself, to allow all developments all means of communication and action of the spirit upon the members, all ways of communion between man and Supreme or Divine, to follow every possible way of advance to the goal and test it even to its extreme.  All stages of spiritual evolution are there in man and each has to be allowed or provided with its means of approach to the spirit, an approach suited to its capacity adhikara. Even the primitive forms that survived were not banned but were lifted to a deeper significance, whole still there was the pressure to the highest spiritual pinnacles in the rarest supreme ether. Even the exclusive creedal type of religion was not itself excluded, provided its affinity to the general aim and principle was clear, it was admitted into the infinite variety of the general order. But this plasticity sought to support itself on a fixed religion social system, which it permeated with the principle of a graded working out of the human nature turned at its height towards a supreme spiritual endeavour; this social fixity, which was perhaps necessary at one time for unity of life if not also as a settled and secure basis for the spiritual freedom, has been on one side a power of preservation but also the one obstacle to the native spirit of entire catholicity, an element of excessive crystallization and restriction. A fixed basis may be indispensable, but if settled in essence, his also must be in its forms capable of plasticity, evolutionary change, it must be an order but a growing order, Nevertheless, the principle of this great and many sided religious and spiritual evolution was sound, and by taking up in itself the whole of life and of human nature by encouraging the growth of intellect and never opposing it or putting bounds to its freedom, but rather calling it in to the aid of the spiritually seeking, it prevented the conflict or the undue predominance religious instinct and the plunge into pure materialism and seeks but exceeding all creeds and forms and universal king, admitting but exceeding all creeds and forms and allowing  every kind of element, may have numerous consequences which might be objected to by the purist, nit its great justifying result has been unexampled multitudinous richness and a more than millennial persistence and impregnable durability, generality, universality, height, subtlety and many-sided wideness of spiritual attainment and seeking and endeavour.

It is indeed only by such a catholicity and plasticity that the wider aim of the evolution from religion a door of opening onto spiritual experience on a means of turning towards it, a communion with God or at definite light of guidance on the way a promise of the hereafter or a means of a happier supra-terrestrial future, these needs can be met on the narrower basis of creedal belief and sectarian cult. But there is also the wider purpose of nature to prepare and further the spiritual evolution in man and turn him into a spiritual being. Religion serves her as a means for pointing his effort and his ideal in that direction and providing each one who is ready with the possibility of taking a step upon the way towards it. This end she serves by the immense variety of the cults she has created some final, standardized and definitive, others more plastic, various and many sided. A religion which is itself a congeries of religions and which at the same time provides each man with his own turn of inner experience, would be the most in consonance with this purpose of nature: it would be a rich nursery of spiritual growth and flowering, a cast multiform school of the soul’s discipline, endeavour, self – realization .Whatever errors religion has committed, this is her function and her great and indispensable utility and service the holding up of his growing light of guidance on our way through the mind’s ignorance towards the Spirit’s complete consciousness and self knowledge.

The means by which this need can be satisfied and with which our nature of mind has provided us is philosophy, and in this field it must be a spiritual philosophy. Such systems have arisen in numbers in the East, for almost always, wherever there has been a considerable spiritual development, there has arisen from it a philosophy justifying it to the intellect. The method was at first an intuitive seeing and an intuitive expression, as in the fathomless thought and profound language of the Upanishads, but afterwards there was developed a critical method, a firm system of dialectics, a logical organization, The later philosophies were an intellectual account or a logical justification of what had been found by inner realization, or they provided, themselves, a mental ground or a systematized method for realization and experience, In the West where the syncretic tendency of the consciousness was replaced by the analytic and separative, the spiritual urge and the intellectual reason parted company almost at the outset, philosophy took from the first a turn towards a purely intellectual and ratiocinative explanation of things. Nevertheless, there were systems like the Pythagorean, Stoic, and Epicurean, which were dynamic not only for thought but for conduct of life and developed a discipline , an effort at inner knowledge in later Christian or New pagan thought structures where East and West met together. But later on the intellectualization became complete and the connection of philosophy with life and its energies or spirit and its dynamism was either cot of confined to the little that the metaphysical idea can impress on le life and action by an abstract and secondary influence. Religion has supported itself in the West not by philosophy but by a creedal theology, sometimes a spiritual philosophy emerge by sheer force of individual genius, but it has not been as in the East a necessary adjunct to every considerable line of spiritual.

Reference-Sri Aurobindo-The Life Divine