Merging Horizons: The Crossroads of Hindu Thought and Western Psychology I

Examining the role of Bharat’s mind sciences in shaping modern mental health system

Healthy mind and body are two of humankind’s most ardent pursuits. Every society has been concerned with physical health and treatment of physical illnesses and injuries. Mental health, on the other hand, has traditionally been viewed with suspicion and disdain. It is, therefore, not surprising that while everyone knows about Hippocrates, the great Greek physician from 2500 year ago, there has been no noteworthy equivalent in the Western world in the field of mental well-being until the late 19th century.  

The ancient Indian thinkers, on the other hand, considered mind and body as two interconnected aspects of the same reality. Many millennia ago, they had explored the depths of the human mind, formulated highly advanced theories about its workings and developed practical techniques to achieve higher states of consciousness. A more accessible form of this ancient knowledge can be found in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, which begins by describing Yoga as chitta vritti nirodha (a system for the removal of fluctuations of the mind), offering little hint of the sophisticated system – of which meditation is just one part – for attaining a peaceful state of mind as a precursor to self-realization. 

Today mental health is as big a problem, if not bigger, as physical health. Data from organizations like SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) and CDC (Center for Disease Control) suggest that 1 in 5 adults and 1 in 6 youth in the 6-17 age group experience some form of mental illness each year in the U.S, suicide is the second leading cause of death among the 10-34 age group, depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. America spends nearly $250 billion per year on mental health treatment, not counting the cost of the ripple effects of mental illness such as cardiovascular diseases, violent crime, drug addiction and lost productivity, among others. The global figure for mental healthcare cost exceeds $1 trillion annually. Thankfully, over the last 100 years or so, a variety of clinical modalities have become available, offering healthcare professionals a range of options to treat mental disorders. 

Over the last few decades, the view of what constitutes mental health has evolved in a more holistic way. It now encompasses not just the curative aspects of mental health, but also positive aspects that help people live contented and enjoyable life. The scientific disciplines that support this emergent view of mental wellness have grown as well. In addition to psychoanalysis, psychopathology and psychiatry, the field is now replete with such sub-disciplines as humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, positive psychology, integral psychology and perennial psychology. A more expanded interpretation of mind sciences even includes the adjacent disciplines of cognitive science and consciousness. 

So, where does the ancient Indian knowledge stand in this burgeoning field? 

It can be said without hesitation that Indian mind science, especially the meditation part of it, has become a key part of American life. According to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, almost 40% of Americans meditate at least once a week. Meditation has also become a part of workplaces and schools across the Western world. Most meditation practitioners report significant improvements in physical wellness such as removing aches and pains to maintaining cardiovascular health, as well as mental wellness such as improved focus and memory, reduced stress levels and anxiety, and improved sleep. After Yoga, meditation is the most popular choice of CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine) today. 

Meditation and related concepts are also the subject of intense research. One only needs to look at a contemporary journal of psychology, psychiatry, cognition and consciousness, to see just how thoroughly these ancient Hindu sciences have been studied, modified and repackaged to suit the Western tastes. The realization that meditation could go beyond releasing stress and could help ‘train the mind and reshape the brain’, according to the psychologist Daniel Goleman, was an insight that was too precious to ignore. 

Transmission

Certain aspects of the Hindu thought system were known in the West even before Swami Vivekananda formally introduced it to the Vedanta philosophy in 1890s, or Paramahamsa Yogananda established the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in early 1920s to disseminate his version of Hindu philosophy. In 1989, Charles Fillmore, the co-founder of Unity, a part of the New Thought Movement, wrote the following in a magazine called Modern Thought: “…the evolution of the spirit has created a demand for a religion of broader scope, and we turn to the lore of India, for lack of a better system nearer home.” He began to explore different styles of meditation and finally arrived at the conclusion that the meditative practices from ancient Hinduism were the most effective. Thus began the practice of ‘silent meditation’, a core concept for Unity, that facilitated ‘conscious contact with God’. 

It was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced a simplified version of meditation on the world stage and promoted it above other aspects of the Ashtanga or the 8-limbed Yoga system.  In 1955, he presented the world with Transcendental Meditation, simplifying and rebranding the original meditation techniques, and followed it up by establishing research institutes to explore the topic further. 

Maharishi’s meditation-made-easy solution was not received with equal enthusiasm by everyone, for while it increased overall interest in the spiritual practice in the West, it took the practice distinctly away from its traditional roots. According to the Maharishi, this wasn’t about meditation leading to samadhi but to a state of ‘deep rest’. It wasn’t about samskaras, vasanas or karma (broadly speaking, desires and action spurred by such desires) but about stress and relief from it. Nor was it about mantras or chants in a language unknown (Sanskrit), but about a guided set of instructions and simple procedures in English, thus not only keeping it simple for anyone to practise, but also making it easy for anyone to teach it.

One of Maharishi’s achievements was to make meditation (TM) ‘un-elitist’ and accessible to the common man. Ironically, his students included some of the biggest celebrities from the 1960s – Deepak Chopra, Herb Benson, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the Beatles, Beach Boys and many others. 

In 1967, a lecture by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in London would turn the attention of everyone in the West towards meditation, simply because of three youngsters in the audience who would seek him later to learn his Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique. They were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison from the Beatles. They already had fame and fortune, and now, TM would add to their spiritual wealth. Watching them walk away from the limelight to live in solitude and meditate, millions were both curious and inspired to find out more about meditation and how it could help them handle the tumultuous 60s. Suddenly, meditation and mental health seemed to be the topic on everyone’s minds. Lectures, classes and ashrams that offered to teach meditation techniques were in big demand. 

In 1969, Maharishi founded a separate entity called Transcendental Meditation Centres (TMC), exclusively for the African American community, to help them experience inner peace and enlightenment through TM. TMC also trained black Americans to become TM teachers and help thousands of others in their spiritual journey. The Centres also conducted studies on African Americans to understand how they responded to TM. The call for blacks to sign up for TM had been given loud and clear by the Maharishi in the May 1968 issue of Ebony. The affirmative response was equally loud. 

In 1973, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi set up a formal system that would facilitate the study of consciousness in a scientific way and named it Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI). According to him, it was based on Vedantic knowledge and ancient Hindu philosophy and would help study the creative process of consciousness in the individual. It was one of the early attempts to formalize the study of meditative techniques in a scientific manner, and facilitated the entry of mind sciences into universities, corporate sectors, and millions of homes. 

Sometime in 1975, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi extended his Transcendental Meditation technique with the TM-Sidhi Program, to help the mind attain Transcendental Consciousness which, according to Maharishi, forms the fourth major state of consciousness. The program was based on the concept of siddhi, as explained in Patanjali’s Yogasutras, and was meant to enable the individual to attain extraordinary powers by controlling the mind. Maharishi also proposed the application of scientific studies to conduct research on the physiological effects of Transcendental Meditation and the development of higher states of consciousness, areas previously relegated to mysticism.

Even as TM was gaining ground as “The meditative practice of America”, many others were entering the arena. One of them was Amrit Desai, a disciple of Swami Kripalvananda, who arrived in the United States in 1960 with a new concept he called ‘Meditation in Motion’. This ‘spontaneous posture flow’ was part of Kripalu Yoga, a system he developed and named after his guru. Similarly, Chinmoy Kumar Ghose, popularly known as Sri Chinmoy, came to America in 1964 and over the next 4 decades gave extensive lectures on meditation at various universities, the United Nations, as well as to general public. In 1975, Swami Muktananda, a disciple of Swami Nityananda, opened a Siddha Yoga Ashram in Oakland, and began promoting a typical Hindu lifestyle that included vegetarianism, meditation and chanting. Many others also entered the field and tried to promote their own versions of meditation and related practices in the United States. Notable among these were Sai Maa for her Brain Illumination Meditation, Guru Maharaj for Divine Light Mission and Bhagwan Rajneesh for his Dynamic Meditation, a form of meditation that involves letting out energy before the body and mind settle into silence.

However, none of these movements came close to the prominence that TM had garnered. It had already acquired a formal structure and curriculum through the Students International Meditation Society (SIMS), founded by Maharishi in 1965. In the years that followed, SIMS had made its presence in Berkeley, Harvard and Yale, in addition to the founding chapter in UCLA. According to media reports, students queued up by the thousands, waiting to be initiated into TM by the guru who had leading celebrities, including the Beatles, for his students. 

The Maharishi left his earthly body in 2008, leaving behind a long list of accomplishments and accolades. His crowning achievement was the revival of India’s ancient spiritual tradition of meditation in the West and beyond, even if the traditionalists did not appreciate his stripping it away from its spiritual context. The Newsweek credited him with helping to launch “a legitimate new field of neuroscience” and Times of India hailed his “unique and enduring contribution to humankind (through) his deep understanding of…pure consciousness”. His legacy continues to live on through the many institutions he founded, plethora of publications and lecture recordings, and millions of followers whose lives he had changed.  Many of his star students would continue to add to his legacy by adapting Vedantic ideas and yogic traditions to further the field of mind sciences.