Psychology
People drain more power reacting to others, or to their environment. A person is left with no power for transformation or proactive change. Such a person is powerless. But when a person halts the process of draining powers through such reactions, then he or she begins to gather power. Existence of gathered power is evident when a person is able to effect changes in habits, lifestyles, and character.
– the Aghori, Aunt Preema, in Amarananda Bhairavan’s Kali’s Odiyya.
When we begin to learn that we have the ability to problem solve for ourselves, it raises our self-esteem in a grounded way. Going to meet our helping spirits make us feel valued and connected to the spirit that lives in all things. We feel loved by the power of the universe, and we never feel alone again.
– Sandra Ingerman, in her book Shamanic Journeying
Desire & Suffering
Psychology for the most part is about reducing one’s mental suffering/agitation. While modern psychology has made good job of classifying the different kinds of mental ailments, and the specific treatment methodologies for each, the sages of the East, a couple of millenniums before modern psychology, sought to find the root cause of all suffering, and sought to find a universal solution. That is, a solution that works at a very fundamental level, so that it is applicable to all human beings. Hindu and Buddhist* thought determined desire to be the root cause of all suffering, and evolved a solution that came to be known as yoga.
People are caught up in the web of desire, constantly craving (for things ranging from material to emotional desires). When we desire something (money, attention, a person, a house, a promotion, respect, love, etc.), and we don’t get it or things don’t work out the way we want, it causes a disturbance in the mind (sadness, anger, jealously, resentment, frustration, etc.). This disturbance causing suffering. But how do we end up falling victim to desire in the first place? Lack of clarity. Once we have the clarity, we can critically examine ourself and weed out the root cause of the problem: the desire, and why we have this desire, craving, or attachment. People cling to their attachments and cravings as if their life depended on it. You cannot be happy if you are not content with what you have. A common problem caused by modernization for example, is that instead of simple living, people often over-commit beyond what they are capable of affording (in terms of time and money), unnecessarily complicating their lives and suffering for it.
People even take out their own jealousy, resentment, failures, lack of control, lack of competency… against something/someone else totally unrelated. I’m reminded of a watching this stray dog walking on the street by itself not disturbing anyone. Next thing you know, some random guy who was walking behind the dog, catches up to the dog, and just kicks the dog, it yelps, and the guy keeps walking ahead. What did the dog do to him? Nothing. The agitated mind has nothing better to do but to kick or find fault in the next person (or even oneself) as opposed to say constructive criticism.
Clarity
Lack of clarity causes us to falls prey to desire for transient things. We crave for one desire after another to keep the mind happy and sedated. Once we have clarity, we know that it is this desire that is causing the problem, and we engage in the next step: control, transformation, or dissolution of the craving. The mind stops being restless and achieves [even more] clarity and wisdom.
It is ever so often that people think that it is the other person who needs the clarity, not they themselves. This thinking gets one into more mud. On the other hand, when you focus on yourself having clarity, it gives the ability to provide sound reasoning and illustrations that are at the level of understanding of the other person (who may lack clarity).
The contentment that comes with clarity even allows people to resolve things by agreeing to disagree. Like when a problem maybe intractable, or having more than one valid solution, or may be subjective (depending on where each places his/her values for example), or where one of the sides is very much lacking in maturity. Even in the later case a person who is more mature can deal with it, without getting agitated, and as a last resort simply disassociating from such situations.
Everyone has problems. It’s about how you face them and deal with them, the degree of composure or agitation. When the mind is agitated it has no clarity, and when it has no clarity it becomes agitated. Vicious circle. Yoga can help break this vicious cycle and provide that peace of mind and composure (and the clarity and patience that follows).
Yoga
While the subject of psychology in the West has always been a soft-science, in India psychology was explored to mind-boggling depths with the perplexing mathematical rigor typically associated with hard-sciences. This is found in all of the six schools of thought (darshanas) in Hinduism, including Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Established a couple of millenniums before modern psychology. While Western psychology dealt with treating problems at the conscious and subconscious level (which is the only level Western psychology knew about), Hindu psychology went further and deeper which involved dealing with the nature of the mind itself, reaching heights still unknown to modern psychology.
Hindu yogis realized that the best psychologist is yourself (i.e. the best person to remove the many conditionings, weakness, fears, insecurities, etc.), and the tool to do that is yoga.
The Bhagavad Gita, with its focus on the mastery of the self, can be taken as a summary/treatise on science of the human condition: the interactions between the manas (mind), buddhi (intellect), indriya (senses), ahamkara (ego), gunas (tendencies), vasanas (conditionings), samskaras (past-life impressions), and prakriti (one’s material constituents), and how they make up “who/what we are” and how to master it using the science of yoga (as described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras). The Bhagavad Gita also talks about the four varna (archetypes), and that an individual fits a particular archetype based on his gunas (tendencies/qualities) and karma (actions). In addition, they went well beyond the two levels of modern psychology (consciousness and subconscious) and categorized four levels of consciousness: jagrata, svapna, susupti, turiya, which have no counterpart at all modern psychology.
So why isn’t there more awareness on this (at least in India?). For one, the elite Indians during and after British rule sold themselves out to British educational system, which blindly purged anything “Hindu” (and demoted it by associating it with religion) from all text books and syllabuses. It is an irony that for example, the Bhagavad Gita is correctly not considered a book of religion in Virginia/USA: it is given as one of the options in summer reading list for schools in Virginia (in contrast the Bible or the Koran are not in the reading list, being religious books). Ironically, in India, the Bhagavad Gita, is still treated as a religious book (not as a book of yoga or philosophy). There are many such hangovers from the British educational system (like associating yoga with “mysticism” and thus unworthy of study as a science, or treating many of the Hindu customs as pagan practices of heathens). Yoga in India opened up only after it went full circle – to the West and back. Hopefully the same unlocking happens to the volumes of spiritual texts waiting to be tapped.
Hindu psychology is not a doctor-patient affair. Like Ayurveda, it is also largely dependent on self-effort, demands reflection, meditation, discipline. For this it prescribes various types of yoga. In most situations, a bit of yoga (in any form), on a regular basis will help much more than what months of counselling would offer.
Even the smallest disciplined effort…
Even the smallest effort goes a long way in protecting oneself from the demons of anger, hatred, envy, greed, lust, insecurity, fear, etc. It is always repeated in spiritual texts, a few minutes a day done consistently at a particular time, is much better than intensively doing randomly.
नेहाभिक्रमनाशोऽस्ति प्रत्यवायो न विद्यते ।
स्वल्पमप्यस्य धर्मस्य त्रायते महतो भयात् ॥२-४०॥Here no effort is lost (नेहाभिक्रमनाशोऽस्ति), nor any loss of progress is found (प्रत्यवायो न विद्यते). Even the smallest amount (स्वल्पमप्यस्य) of this effort (धर्मस्य, here referring to yoga) protects you (त्रायते) from great danger/fear (महतो भयात्, mahato bhayaat). – 2.40
There are over 16 million people who do yoga today. Even though yoga as it is practised in the West is primarily hatha yoga (i.e. bringing spiritual, mental, and physiological well being mainly through physical exercises), people practice it for the clarity and peace of mind that it brings. They and many large companies wouldn’t be doing it or sponsoring it if it had no effect.
A Note on Suffering
Note here that we’re talking about suffering that arises when you have a choice. Not the suffering that arises due to external factors (like war, natural disasters, and other tragedies). That is, that which is in your control — which accounts for a good majority of the suffering for those who are lucky enough to be not living in conflict zones.
Though, the Buddha would argue that even the suffering that arises due to external factors (ranging from loss of livelihood, starvation, torture, etc) is also under your control. Many enlightened beings like the Buddha, have achieved that level, but not all of us are interested in seeking “enlightenment”. Most of us want to live in the material world and yet ease our suffering. We all want to live happy and content lives. So, we all take the same approach, that of yoga, but to the extent of what are goals are, or conversely to the extent we need it.