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Is Religion Psychotherapy? – An Indian View
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
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A related question to the one posed in the title is: ‘Is religion psychology?’ In order to make this question a little sharper, let us raise two parallel ones: ‘Is religion physiology?’ and ‘Is religion physiotherapy?’
I have the impression that the answer to any of the above four questions is both ‘yes’ and ‘no’. What I propose to do below is to try to find out how we might understand these questions in the light of the Bhagavad Gītā and the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with occasional help from other sources. These two texts are of paramount importance in Indian religion and psychology, and may be considered representative of the classical Indian view.
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page 389 note 1 Dharma will not do for a variety of reasons which are difficult to elaborate here. In the Bhagavad Gitā, dharma is used in many senses, but predominantly as ‘order’, ‘law’ and ‘duty’.
page 391 note 1 The fact that ‘mind’ and ‘body’ follow the same laws or the fact that ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’ materials are treated alike does not lead to the sort of reductionism associated with the modern scientific mentality in which the ideal is to describe all of nature ultimately in terms of dead matter reacting to purposeless forces. Prakrti, although following strict causality, is alive and purposeful, and every existence, even a stone, has a psyche and purpose. Creation is from above downward. In contradistinction to modern scientific cosmology, ‘mind’ precedes ‘matter’.
page 392 note 1 This Self is not personal; it is not his nor of someone else. This Self (Ātman) is what the upanisads speak of as being identical with Brahman. Nor can one think of this as being inside a person and not outside. The Katha Upanisad (11.1: 10) says, ‘What is within us is also without. What is without is also within. He who sees difference between what is within and what is without goes evermore from death to death.’
page 393 note 1 Krsna identifies himself in the Gītā with the supreme Brahman, supreme Ătman and supreme Purusa various places, and frequently shifts from a personal mode of speaking to an impersonal one. Personal-impersonal, subjective-objective, internal-external and other such dichotomies are too often said to be transcended by sages to be taken rigidly.
page 393 note 2 All these remarks may appear less strange if one keeps in mind older Western connotations of words like‘physics’, ‘physiology’, ‘psyche’. For Plotinus, for example, a stone has a ‘psyche’ as a man does. In this connection, see Armstrong, A. H. and Ravindra, R.: ‘The Dimensions of the Self: Buddhi in the Bhagavad Gītā and Psyché in Plotinus’, presented at the Second International Conference of the Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Brock University, St Catherines, October 1976.Google Scholar This paper is also pertinent to the subsequent discussion, particularly as it relates to buddhi.
page 394 note 1 Of course, it still has a function as part of nature following laws of cause and effect.
page 395 note 1 The quality of breathing in a person is intimately and directly related with one's inner state, as is apparent from even a superficial observation of oneself. Traditional appreciation of this fact is reflected in words like pneuma which in Greek means breath, air as well as spirit, or ātman which in Sanskrit means self or spirit and also means breath like its German cognate atmen: to breathe.
page 395 note 2 Chitta includes not only reason but also emotions. These emotions, unlike the higher ones proper to buddhi such as bhakti (love and devotion) and śraddha (faith), are from samkalpa which is imagination or desire-well; this in turn is nourished by sensual pleasures and displeasures.
page 395 note 3 Patanjali's yoga ends here for he defines yoga to be the control of the fluctuations of chitta (Y.S. 1.2). His method is like a frontal attack on consciousness. The yoga of Bhagavad Gītā has many more dimensions, which are integrated as several instruments in an orchestra, so that a yogi may conduct a symphony as Krsna does on a larger scale. If one does not get stuck in the obvious over-simplification involved, it may be possible to view the Yoga Sutras as appealing initially to the brāhman svabhāva in the rajas mode, whereas the Bhagavad Gītā speaks to a man of any svabhāva in either the mode of rajas or sattva.
page 396 note 1 This point radically distinguishes modern Western science with its external approach and urge to control what it studies, from ancient sciences, Eastern or Western, dedicated to the harmonization and conciliation of the knower and the object of knowledge. In this connection, see Ravindra, R.: ‘Experience and Experiment: A Critique of Modern Scientific Knowing’, Dalhousie Review, Lv, 655–74 (1975–1976)Google Scholar, and also Ravindra, R.: ‘Review of Visionary Physics: Blake's Response to Newton by D. D. Ault’, American journal of Physics, XLIII, 114–16 (1975).Google Scholar
page 396 note 2 In this connection, see Ravindra, R., ‘Self-surrender: the core of spiritual life’, Studies in Religion, III, 357–63 (1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Ravindra, R., From the Village to the Mountain: Spiritual Search - East and West (Shaila Press, Halifax, 1976), chapters 1 and 3.Google Scholar
page 396 note 3 Examples of this kind are physical and mental gymnastics performed for material rewards or at best for the pleasures of the body or the mind in the sports world and the academia. Perhaps the major cause of our contemporary cultural disorientation is the lack of connection between scholarly, artistic and scientific ‘research’ and any ‘search’ for the transcendent. This shortcoming exists not only in practice but even in the prevailing theory of knowledge.