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

Influence on Western Mind Sciences

While the Vedantic paradigm in which the ancient Hindu thought system was originally placed was of interest to the West, they were far more interested in how it could be used as a relaxation technique and an effective ‘stress buster’. Mind science was already an active area of scientific research in 1950s. The advent of TM took place just at the right time to propel this effort into high gear.

Transcendental meditation was ‘systematic’ meditation that did not required one to pray or concentrate; all one had to do was follow the procedure offered to them. This made it easier for the Western world to consider it scientific while meditation in its original form was not, in their view. Thousands of TM practitioners became subjects of study, which in turn yielded data, which eventually found its way into graphs, presentations and articles. It was not long before every aspect of this ancient knowledge system would be taken apart, modified or repackaged to suit Western audiences.

One of the first attempts to bridge the gap between TM and modern science came in 1968 from a UCLA graduate student, Robert Keith Wallace. He collaborated with Harvard cardiologist Herbert Benson for a Ph.D. dissertation titled ‘The Physiological Effects of Transcendental Meditation: A Proposed Fourth Major State of Consciousness’. This work provided “scientific” proof that a mental technique could control body functions like heart rate, oxygen consumption and respiratory rate.

One experiment inspired another and soon, research institutes were busy tinkering with the ancient Hindu techniques to probe the mind. While Robert Wallace had shown the way, Herbert Benson (b. 1935) threw open the gates with his rebranding of meditation into The Relaxation Response. In 1975, he published a book by the same name that went on to sell over four million copies. The book highlighted the physical changes that meditation could bring about in the human body. As a result, meditation came to be seen as a method of calming the mind and relaxing the body.

Subsequently, a number of doctors, therapists and medical thought leaders crafted their own meditation techniques, some of them branded and packaged for mass audiences. In essence, the ancient knowledge of India had begun its journey from prayer halls to lecture halls and research laboratories, and from there, to hospitals and psychiatric institutes. Soon meditation became one of the recommended programs for patients suffering from chronic pain and other ailments. Meditation also went on to become a performance enhancer, thanks to the packaging talent of the West. Another fact that research revealed was that meditative practices helped inculcate positive humane qualities like love, compassion, generosity, kindness and an orientation to service – the qualities associated with higher consciousness. It was not long before many celebrities jumped on the band wagon. Score of well-known musicians, actors and sportspersons became avid spokespersons for meditation. From Arthur Ashe, Bill Walton, and Steve Carlton to Goldie Hawn and Shirley MacLaine, the list of celebrities who endorsed meditation was growing rapidly.

In 1970s Jon Kabat-Zinn (b. 1944), a student at MIT, was introduced to Vipassana, the ancient Buddhist version of meditation. In 1979 he founded the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he adapted the Vipassana system into his Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program. The program was later renamed as “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction” (MBSR), removing the Buddhist framework and downplaying the connection between mindfulness and Buddhism.

The success of meditation also spawned two immensely prosperous industries – self-help books and self-help gurus. It soon became a lucrative proposition for bookstores to have shelves crammed with books on meditation and guided versions of it. One of the first books to be written that brought science and religion under the mind sciences umbrella was The Science of Mind (1926), by Ernest Holmes. The book went on to become a bestseller and Holmes made it a spiritual and religious movement a year later, within the New Thought Movement. As with many other leading spiritual voices in the West, Holmes’ teachings were largely based on Vedantic philosophy, but with little credit being given to the original source.

Amongst the plethora of books that hit the bookshelves and helped popularise meditation was TM: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress (1975) by Harold H. Bloomfield. The book was eventually featured in the New York Times bestseller list, which in turn catapulted Bloomfield to the status of a self-help expert. Another book, Powers of Mind, published in the same year by Adam Smith takes readers on a psychedelic journey into the human mind, touching upon meditation, mind expansion and an altered state of consciousness. The Heart of Meditation (2002) by Sally Kempton was another book that came from knowledge and practice of Siddha Yoga under Swami Muktananda at SYDA.  Meanwhile, the list of self-help experts also grew. After Harold Bloomfield came the likes of Deepak Chopra, John Gray, Barbara De Angelis, Peter Russell and Marci Shimoff.

The media was not to be left behind. Several leading publications featured articles on meditation as it had become a hot topic of discussion and debate. In 1975, Time magazine featured an article on meditation with a picture of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi titled, ‘Meditation: The Answer to All Your Problems?’ and praised TM as ‘the most visible manifestation of the industrialized nations looking for relief from the pressures of modern life in Eastern spiritual or quasi spiritual movements’.

A couple of decades later, Robert Forman initiated the Journal of Consciousness Studies in 1994 to throw light on the various disciplines that comprise the study of consciousness. And in 2003, Time magazine ran another article on meditation, under the headline ‘The Science of Meditation’, primarily focusing on the scientific research done on the topic since TM began.

The entertainment industry followed next. Merv Griffin, a TV producer and talk-show host featured Maharishi and some of his celebrity followers like Clint Eastwood in his eponymous show in 1975. The show was reportedly seen by almost 40 million viewers.

Commercialization of meditation transcended the self-help manuals and prescriptive medical solutions – it got into the realm of merchandise as well. Not the t-shirts and yoga mat variety which, incidentally, is already a multi-billion-dollar industry, but categories catering to the olfactory, like deodorants. Scent of Samadhi has been positioned as ‘the only all-natural deodorant to work in perfect harmony’ with one’s individual chemistry. In other words, what is acknowledged as the highest state in meditation (samadhi) has now undergone a commercial branding exercise for an ‘all natural and herbal fragrance’.

Influence on Psychology

The birth of Western Psychology is attributed to William Wundt (1832-1920), in 1879 at the University of Leipzig in Germany. However, what often goes unmentioned is that Sanskrit texts were being translated and read with nearly feverish excitement in Germany, throughout the 19^th century. Similarly, the names of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) will forever be remembered for their pioneering theories on the workings of the human mind. What is not widely known is the extent to which they, especially Jung, borrowed from the Hindu principles of karma and reincarnation. It may also come as surprise to many that Carl Jung was the first westerner to explore Kundalini Yoga. In 1932 he gave a series of lectures on Kundalini, which would go on to form the basis for his book, “The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga”.

Jung’s successors have tried to downplay his debt to Hindu concepts, perhaps fearing that Eastern references would erode scientific respectability. However, Harold Coward, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary in Canada, in his book Jung and Eastern Thought, reveals that Jung himself credited karma theory as the inspiration for his notion of archetypes. Coward further notes, “To Jung, the Indian understanding seemed a great advance on the common Western view that a person’s character is the particular admixture of blessings or curses which fate or the gods bestowed on the child at birth”.

Successive generations of researchers have continued to add newer sub-disciplines to the spectrum of Freudian and Jungian theories. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970), an American professor of psychology, had serious doubts about Freud’s insistence on rejecting spirituality as a navigation for human behaviour. He joined a small group comprising Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, Gordon Allport, and Rollo May that met in Menlo Park, California with the objective of creating a new branch of psychology to study the entire spectrum of human experience. This led to the evolution of Transpersonal Psychology, the first subdiscipline in psychology to include ancient ritual and spiritual traditions into the ambit of modern consciousness research. In 1975, Robert Frager and James Fadiman, two of the early students of this branch of psychology, founded the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California. Renamed Sofia University, this institute continues to offer undergraduate and graduate level programs build on the core principles of transpersonal psychology.

Baba Ram Dass (1931-2019), born Richard Alprechts, adopted the Hindu name after visiting Neem Karoli Baba in India, and went on to become an influential figure in the New Age Spiritual movement. A psychologist by training, he had served on the faculty of Harvard University in 1960s. During his tenure there, he conducted research on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs as well as the connection between drugs and mystical experiences, a work that resulted in his dismissed from Harvard in 1963.

Ken Wilber (b. 1949), a leading figure in the field of Transpersonal Psychology, worked on a series of books beginning with Spectrum of Consciousness (b. 1977), in which he outlines the development of consciousness as a hierarchical progression across three levels – pre-personal, personal and transpersonal, which in turn go through 11 stages of development. It is here that Wilber introduces the concept of non-duality and formless consciousness, indicating that the Vedantic scriptures had been a source of his inspiration.

He was also the first the use the term Integral Theory, where the concept of integral was inspired by Sri Aurobindo’s use of the word in the spiritual sense in his book The Synthesis of Yoga, in which he refers to purna yoga. Reflections from his work led to the concept of integral psychology, also defined as the ‘theory of everything’, essentially drawing all aspects of the body, mind and soul together as one whole. Sri Aurobindo had referred to it as the existence of disparate elements in a harmonious state with the divine.

Robert K. C. Forman (b. 1947), a former professor of religion at the City University of New York, co-editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies and a long-term Transcendental meditation practitioner, suggested the concept of ‘perennial psychology’, to describe mystical experiences that are unmediated and arise from a process of detachment and letting go. He was alluding to what the Upanishads say – Ayam Atma Brahma, the Self is Brahman, an awareness that transcends thought, feeling, and identity.

It was not just psychology that advanced on the foundations of Vedanta; psychiatry underwent a transformation too. Mental health issues that were concerned with religion were once considered as being outside the ambit of therapy as they lacked suitable scientific grounding. In extreme cases, those struggling with spiritual unrest of the mind were locked up in institutions. The Spiritual Emergence Network, founded by transpersonalists Stanislav and Christina Grof in 1980, changed all that. The objective of Spiritual Emergence was to facilitate better psycho-spiritual health in the individual and help those undergoing such mental or emotional crises to avail of specialized mental health referral and support services.

Several institutions came up to further research and conduct formal studies across various fields of mind sciences. The California Institute of Asian Studies was one such institute, founded on the basis Sri Aurobindo’s teachings and the Hindu interpretation of psychotherapy. Currently functioning as the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), it has fully accredited undergraduate and graduate programs on psychology.

 Influence on other religions

Meditation was not just altering the landscapes of mind sciences in the West; it was also impacting religion. Soon, what was intrinsic to Hinduism took new forms so as to be acceptable to other religions. There were a few reasons for this. One was the keen following that meditation and Hindu traditions of chanting and kirtans seemed to have amongst the younger generation of Americans. They had to be led back to their own religion. The other was that the benefits of looking within and being at one with our consciousness began to be recognised and so, several religious leaders commissioned research into their own religions to unearth equivalents.

In the 1970s, Christianity was introduced to a practice called Centering Prayer by Father William Menninger. Determined to find meditation techniques similar to those practiced by Hindus, he looked inward into his own religion. It was when he came across a 14^th century book, The Cloud of Unknowing, that he realised that he had unearthed an important practice that had a lot of potential. In 1974, Menninger had created a new meditation method – Centering Prayer, appropriately named as it centred entirely on ‘the presence of God and His will and love’. Judaism has also developed its own version of Jewish meditation that is currently taught in synagogues, with Hebrew chants.

The relationship between traditional meditation and Western psychology has always been debated and written about, but few have captured it better than Roger Walsh and Shauna L. Shapiro who, in their article in American Psychologist in 2006, described the dynamics between the two in three stages, which began with ‘a prolonged period of mutual ignorance and misunderstanding’, then went on to ‘paradigm clash’ and eventually settling into ‘open-mindedness and mutual exploration’.

Concluding Remarks

That there is a great crisis of Mental Health in America cannot be disputed. It has been there for a long time and continues to be there. If anything, it has only grown more severe. A culture that celebrates winners and scorns losers, accompanied by intense competition, must inevitably leave in its wake a sea of disappointed and unhappy people. Then there is Big Pharma waiting in the wings to mitigate the problem with drugs that promise temporary relief, and only get people addicted. When profits from drugs are dependent on people continuing to depend on them, there is really no incentive to fully cure anyone.

What the Western adoption of Hindu methods of managing the mind has done is that it has opened up the possibility of an alternative to medications, alcohol and drugs as the only means to momentarily forget one’s troubles in this world. Besides, this alternative goes beyond merely enabling someone to momentarily forget their sorrows, and has the potential to produce a lasting and positive transformation of the psyche. And it is low-cost, and easily available to anyone who wishes to pursue it. That alone ought to make the case for these methods to become increasingly mainstream.

However, there is an elephant in the room. The West has a long tradition of not giving credit to Hindu thought, and has a preference for ideas of its own. Grudgingly, the West has been willing to accept Buddhist Ideas – So meditation and mental health related practices are getting packaged as “mindfulness” i.e., as a derivative from a primarily Buddhist paradigm.

It cannot really be disputed anymore that the emergence of Psychology as a discipline of study emerged in Germany at the time when Sanskrit texts were being feverishly translated and made available widely in several German universities. While the Western adopters and adaptors of the ancient Indian mind sciences have been very thorough in ensuring that they did not give any credit to their original sources in Hindu texts, so that their findings can be presented as their own contributions to human knowledge, this is not a sustainable situation given that the source texts themselves continue to be available widely today.

Thus, the relationship between the West and Hindu thought continues to be trapped in a paradigm of appropriation/denigration. On the one hand, the Western researchers continue to take freely from Hindu texts, which have become like an open-source library of ideas, without acknowledging the source, and on the other hand they continue to paint Hindu civilization as backward, primitive and a threat to the world. The only exception to this trend is a small minority of spiritual-but-not-religious community members who are willing to boldly go against it. As the billion-strong Hindu society comes into its own, it remains to be seen if such an untenable relationship can be sustained.

About the authors

Dr. Jai Bansal is a scientist, author, and community leader with a keen interest in Indian history and in exploring the contributions of the Hindu civilization to the world. He currently serves as the Vice President of Education for the World Hindu Council of America (VHPA), as well as a member of its executive board and the governing council.

After a distinguished career spanning 38 years, Dr. Bansal retired in 2014 as the Chief Scientific Officer and the Global Technology Development Advisor of a global petrochemical company. From 2014 to 2018, he served as an advisor to the Argonne National Laboratory, Chicago, and the US Department of Energy. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada, and a B.Sc. (Distinction) from Panjab University. He has published widely and holds over two dozen scientific patents.

Mr. Kalyan Viswanathan is currently serving as the President of Hindu University of America and guiding its renewal and revitalization. He was a longtime student of Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, established in the Advaita Vedanta Sampradaya and was associated with his work for over 20 plus years. Prior to his involvement with Hindu University of America, Kalyan was a Global Practice Head for one of India’s largest IT Services Company, with a 20-plus year track record. He holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani. He is also working on his Doctoral degree in Hindu Studies, currently, with a scholarly focus on the intersection of Hindu and Western thought, the recovery of Hindu epistemology and its relevance and value for humanity.