December 2021 - Joseph Vrinte

Reflections upon Psycho-spiritual obstacles on the journey to the Divine

ABSTRACT

This book is offered as an explorer ’s source book in the mapping of various psychological problems inherent in the practice of Sri Aurobindo’s integral sadhana. There are possible dangers in working with spiritual and psychological domains simultaneously and the various pitfalls are extensively elaborated in this book, because knowing about them can lessen the dangers. Questions and critical notes are not written in a mood of despair or frustration and they are certainly not meant as a criticism against the devotees of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, on the contrary they are questions that entered the mind of the author during his research-work and long connection with the Ashram and thereafter living in Auroville for the last twenty-two years.

The author could not have asked these questions personally to Sri Aurobindo because the latter left his body when the author was just born, and later on he never came “in silence” to the author to answer these questions. The questions are not merely based on an academic, theoretical analysis, but they are as much related to the author ’s experiences, reflections, observation and perceptions during his practice, using it as a means to organise, understand and comprehend them in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s metaphysical vision. The author, as a scholar-practitioner, while attempting to practice the discipline of this study, navigates his way through various difficulties most seekers are confronted with during their practice, either in the beginning or later on.

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ABSTRACT

This work aims at creating an impetus for a wider and richer understanding of Sri Aurobindo’s and Ken Wilber’s views, without jumping to general conclusions concerning ‘essential’ differences and ‘ultimate’ identities; it endeavours to maintain the autonomy and multi-dimensional richness of each discipline. The reflections and critical comments aim to analyse and to clarify various discrepancies between them. The author does not assert the superiority of one view over the other and does not want to argue whose thought is the correct one. He goes beyond allegiance to any one approach, as each model contributes something of value to the understanding of the complexity of Being. The author has broad sympathy with the aims and intentions of both thinkers, and tries to supplement this sympathy with a critical impartiality.

The subject matter of this book is so vast that it would be presumptuous to attempt to deal with it comprehensively and it would be pre-posterous to pretend a final solution to a set of ideas as comprehensive as these worldviews. The author is aware that the contents of this comparative study may appear offensive to the followers of Sri Aurobindo, or be interpreted by Ken Wilber as a mis-representation of his works, but this study only aims at indicating some possible potentials of both integral thinkers that are not being utilised. He tries to stimulate a fruitful dialogue and evaluates this dialogue in a sympathetic manner when he refers to the intentions of both thinkers.

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ABSTRACT

Transpersonal psychotherapy is characterised by the acceptance of the spiritual and cosmic dimensions of the personality, and the possibility of the development of higher states of consciousness. The transpersonal psychotherapist examines the negative influence of psychological conflicts on spiritual development, and the positive influence of spiritual practices on intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts.

By including spiritual development in the therapeutical level the transpersonal psycho-therapist moves towards the dynamic process of self-transcendence where the individual is seen against his cosmic background.

Sadhana, the spiritual practice or discipline of Yoga, is related to the gradual unfoldment of the divine consciousness present in each and every being and which ultimately leads to the Divine life. Sri Aurobindo’s integral sadhana aims at the growth of a new consciousness and new inner life in which the surface personality, if looked at from the true and larger consciousness, becomes an instrument for its own perfection.

It is not an escape from the world to God, but a transformation of the seeker’s integral being into the terms of God-existence, i.e., to transform one’s entire being into God, ‘so that in a sense God Himself, the real person in us, becomes the Sadhaka (spiritual practitioner) of the Sadhana’.
In this critical survey the author tries to reveal unexplored features of two different but often overlapping approaches.

It is not always evident whether apparent similarities or divergences in their views are a matter of ideas or simply of terminology, and this work attempts to give the reader a clear insight and a deep appreciation of their respective psychological views.

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ABSTRACT
The aim of this work is, in the first place, to make a comparison between the psycho-logical insights underling Sri Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga and the Humanistic and Transpersonal psychologies developed by Abraham Maslow, together with their respective views on the various levels of human consciousness; in the second place, the intention is to pinpoint and reveal hitherto unexplored features in the works of both – a very extensive task of which only a little has been done – with reference to the writings of some other authors who have interpreted the psychological aspects of either Sri Aurobindo or Abraham Maslow.

In attempting to measure some of the basic postulates of these two thinkers it is essential to bear in mind that the psychologies of Sri Aurobindo and Maslow are founded on two different kinds of knowledge. Both based their psychology on authentic experience, but Sri Aurobindo expressed his insights largely in the language of Indian metaphysics, while Maslow used the Western empirical approach, struggling with the language of science.

Maslow’s metaphysical assumptions do not go beyond the intellect; they are based on speculations about the ultimate reality and have only limited spiritual value. For Sri Aurobindo, it is only by going beyond mind that each of us can contact and know the ultimate reality; only spiritual intuition and experience can reveal the nature of truth. Intellectual thinking, as an instrument for expressing the nature of truth, comes in only secondarily, as a judge of generalised statements drawn from supra-intellectual experience.

Throughout this work we are dealing with two different but often overlapping philosophies, and a crucial element in this comparison is the language that each employs. It is not immediately evident at any given point whether an apparent similarity or opposition in their views is a matter of ideas or simply of terminology.

Sri Aurobindo, born in the 19th century and educated in the classical tradition of the Occident as well as self-educated in the tradition of his native cultural heritage, employs the English of the intelligentsia of his time supplemented by the specific terminology of the Hindu tradition, sometimes in the original Sanskrit and sometimes in various translations.

Maslow, on the other hand, although he had read a great deal on eastern thinkers, was a citizen of the United States of America, where the development of language was diverging from the British mainstream. He thus employed a syntax and nomenclature which was far more idiomatic, colloquial and immediate in its impact than that of his predecessors in the field of psychology: his language had almost nothing in common with the language of Sri Aurobindo, classical scholar and mystic seer in the Hindu tradition.
It should be emphasized here that this thesis is not a comprehensive study of the complete works of the two thinkers, but rather a critical survey of some of their points of agreement and divergence; care has been taken not to lose sight at any point of what is essential in their respective visions.