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Sri Aurobindo, Jung and Vedic Yoga

— Prof. Satya Prakash Singh


cover
Price: Rs 1395

Hard Cover
Pages: 462
Dimensions (in cms): 14x22
   
Publisher: Standard Publishers (India), New Delhi
ISBN: 978-81-87471-90-5





About Sri Aurobindo, Jung and Vedic Yoga

The author approaches the study of the structure and manifestation of the human psyche from three angles: yogic sadhana, psychological experimentation and Vedic revelation. These supposedly irreconcilable sources are harmonised, "leaving thus the way to re-emergence of the human psyche in all its non-spatio-temporal immensity and purity".

The part of the book dealing with Sri Aurobindo and Jung was published in 1986. With the addition of the Vedic perspective, the study of psychology gains in depth while spirituality is "enlarged in the historical perspective". In the process our understanding of the Veda itself is enriched as the "Jungian perspective adds to the feasibility of its psychological content" and the "Aurobindonian perspective unfolds the treasure of spiritual knowledge embodied in it."


REVIEW



The book under review is an enlarged edition of Prof. S.P. Singh's previous book, Sri Aurobindo and Jung: A Comparative Study in Yoga and Depth Psychology (1986). In addition to the contents of the previous book, the present edition includes new sections presenting the Vedic perspective on various topics which were dealt with previously only from the viewpoints of Jung and Sri Aurobindo. The present edition contains also a new chapter on "Vedic Yoga" which fills the last fifty-three pages of the book.

     Though the title of the book begins with Sri Aurobindo, the comparisons made in the book stem from the thought of Jung. Commanding a unique combined scholarship of Jung, Sri Aurobindo and the Vedas, the author presents the basic concepts of Jungian thought and delineates their similarities and differences in relation to Sri Aurobindo's thought. The sections on the Vedic perspective also bear on some of the core Jungian concepts.

     One fundamental similarity between Jung and Sri Aurobindo is that they both base their views of the psyche on empirical and experiential data rather than on speculative theory. But whereas Jung was reluctant to accept the spiritual discoveries of past sages and chose to rely on intellectual inferences drawn from his own findings, Sri Aurobindo freely and profoundly imbibed the ancient Indian spiritual traditions and used them in the true scientific spirit as working hypotheses for his own spiritual search and experiments, thereby arriving at discoveries which are, unlike Jungian thought, not an inferential mental knowledge but truths based on spiritual realisation. As the learned author states in writing about the Vedic view of the conscious and the unconscious: "By virtue of his access to the Veda in the original, Sri Aurobindo could take advantage of the Vedic wisdom and frame his psychology in an integral way. The same was not available to Jung. Lacking in the Yogic power to make direct access to the psyche by himself, he also had to rely on inferences made on the experiences of others. This twofold lacuna in his approach has told adversely on the substantiality of his conclusions regarding the phenomenon he calls the collective unconscious."

     The collective unconscious, which looms large in Jungian thought, has been compared by the author to what Sri Aurobindo has called the subliminal. Generally, Sri Aurobindo has used the term "subliminal" to connote the inner being, "taken in its entirety of inner mind, inner life, inner physical with the soul or psychic entity supporting them." This is what he calls the subliminal proper. But a few times Sri Aurobindo has employed "subliminal" as "a general term used for all parts of the being which are not on the waking surface." In this broader sense the subliminal includes not only the inner being (the subliminal proper) which is behind the surface consciousness, but also the subconscient which is below the surface consciousness, and the superconscient, which is above the surface consciousness. The author has generally used "subliminal" in the broader sense of the term, which is apt to cause confusion to readers who are familiar only with the usual narrower meaning given to it by Sri Aurobindo.

      Another point of confusion is that at some places in the book, the subliminal has been used synonymously with the psychic entity or soul, the innermost centre of the inner being. For example, the author's description of the subliminal as that which "burns in the temple of the inmost heart" is Sri Aurobindo's description of the psychic entity. Statements such as these are apt to mislead those who are not adequately familiar with Sri Aurobindo's thought.

     The author rightly observes in the Preface of the book that "the perspectives from which they [Jung and Sri Aurobindo] have viewed the human psyche are poles apart from each other." But many of their radical differences regarding the nature of consciousness, the unconscious, ego, self and transformation have not been adequately brought out in the book.

     In the last chapter on "Vedic Yoga" Prof. Singh has presented eight types of yoga which he has formulated on the basis of the Vidyas, techniques and practices mentioned in the Vedas and Upanishads. In making comparisons between the Vedic yogas and Sri Aurobindo's yoga, the following remarks of Sri Aurobindo have not always been kept in view:

"I do not think exact correlations can always be traced between one system of spiritual and occult knowledge and another. All deal with the same material, but there are differences of standpoint, differences of view-range, a divergence in the mental idea of what is seen and experienced, disparate pragmatic purposes and therefore a difference in the paths surveyed, cut out or followed; the systems vary, each constructs its own schema and technique."

     Sri Aurobindo, Jung and Vedic Yoga, "a product of the author's keen study and contemplation extending over four decades," is a feat of rare scholarship, abounding in choice quotations from Jung and Sri Aurobindo, and references to the Vedas. The inclusion of an Index is a welcome feature of the new edition. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of transpersonal psychology and yoga. To profit most from the wealth of ideas contained in the book, the reader will do well to begin by acquiring a sound understanding of Sri Aurobindo's comprehensive cosmological and psychological thought to serve as an integral and illuminating framework within which the stray and hazy insights of Jung and the intuitive discoveries of the Vedic Rishis can be placed and properly understood.

— A.S. Dalal

Dr. A.S. Dalal was a practising clinical psychologist in the USA. He now lives in Pondicherry. He has authored books on Sri Aurobindo's psychological thought, and has edited a popular series of compilations from Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.

November 2003