Western Psychology is a failure and Indian Psychology is not a Success.

WESTERN PSYCHOLOGY IS A FAILURE AND INDIAN PSYCHOLOGY IS NOT A SUCCESS

Topic: Western Psychology (WP) is a failure and Indian Psychology (IP) is not a success because both WP and IP lack the knowledge of the Creator (Virtuous Nature) and Creation (Virtuous Being). And there is the Modern Indian Psychology (MIP) for a Paradigm shift.

Introduction: Why Western Psychology is called as a failure and Indian Psychology (IP) which is also known as Spirituality is not a success because both have never come out with a solution for the current crisis at both an individual level and at the social level. Human beings are not free from either mental illness or physical illness. Education or Counseling or Epistemology of Psychology has never helped the humanity to live a peaceful, healthy and happy life. Of course both Western and Eastern Psychology are trying their level best but the ultimate goal is yet to be attained and it is beyond the reach of the masses.

In India, UGC has already included Indian Psychology as part of the NET syllabus and many leading universities have introduced Indian Psychology as syllabus for Post Graduate Students. There is a realization for re-inventing the Indian Psychology to tackle the continuing psychological crisis.

Ontology:  Western Psychology (WP) knows about the being but did not explore. Eastern Psychology(EP) has wealth of knowledge about the being but did not make it available for a common man instead kept it philosophical and made it a different filed as Philosophy and being used only by religious gurus, unattainable and out of reach to the common people.

Human being consists of :

a.       Being or Self

b.      Mind(all types of thoughts)

c.       Intellect (Intentional thoughts to take decisions)

d.      Memories (recording of thoughts)

e.      5 senses

f.        Sense organs

g.       All comprising body

Western Psychology(WP): Western Psychology founders like Wilhelm Wundt , William James  and Wilhelm Dilthey were aware of the being through Greek and Indic influences, but without exploring or doing research on it, they did research on mind, intellect and memories which is further went into expansion by dividing the mind / thoughts in to conscious, sub conscious and unconscious by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Alfred Adler.

The being can be known as a Driver of a Car or it is like a Programmer of a Computer. WP are like a good mechanic and Hardware experts, devised experiments to understand mind, intellect, memories and their various forms and workings in real life leaving the Driver / programmer untouched.

Very little they realized that the Car/Computer cannot be set right when the driver/programmer is insane and abnormal. It is like you keep repairing the car / computer and give it to an unlicensed or ill-trained driver/programmer to operate it. This way WP has become a failure in spite of all its valuable efforts.

Eastern Psychology(EP) and Indian Psychology(IP):  Eastern Psychology is well known for the great philosophies of Lord Buddha for Buddhism, Adi Sankarachariar for Brahma Sutras, Vivekachoodamani, Bhajagovindam , Upanishads and Vedas of great Sages, Sage Vyasa for Bhagawatham and Bhagawad Gita, Tulsidas, Kamban, Valmiki for Ramayan, Ramana Maharishi, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Vivekanand, Swami Paramahamsa Yoganand, his guru Sri Yukteshwar and great ancient rishis like Sage Agastyar, Sage Nandi Devar and his disciples like Sage Patanjali of Yoga Sutras, the compiler of Ayurveda Sage Charaka, Sage Sushruta and many great thinkers like J.Krishnamurthy, Swamy Rama and Swamy Chinmayanand, Sage Vallalar, Sage Pattinathar and many more.

Here in Eastern and Indian Psychology, they understood and explained about Being, mind, intellect, senses, sense organs and body. Like for example Sage Patanjali gives Ashatanga yoga, the eight steps of Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi for the complete human being. Ayurved had explanation for the categories of thoughts like Satwik, Rajasic and Tamasic, their effects and remedies, even went to the extent of saying that distortion of intellect is the main cause for all sufferings, since distortion of intellect leads us to live an unhealthy life style affecting our both mind and body.

The history says that due to foreign invasions in India, due to western influences, not working on our own treasure of Indic knowledge instead following the Western Experimental Psychology and also by living a life of split personality by dividing spiritual and professional life in to two different aspects, we were not able to practice the application of spirituality or true being, true nature in real life. It has been taught and lived as if all that is connected with our being or unseen values and virtues which have to be observed with attention and introspection are only for the other world (after death) and all that is material and physical which are visible and easily observable is for this world. And in fact this attitude is just the imitation of the western psychologists by the Eastern and Indian Psychologists. Indian Psychologists denounced the being thinking that, being is pure philosophy and not connected with Science or Psychology or real life application.

In India and East, although the importance of being is understood very well in detail more than the Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and others like Immanuel Kant, it remained only in books, scriptures and rituals without any scope for Research and real life application. All researches were carried out as per the Western Psychology on mind, emotions leaving behind the being who is the real Driver / Programmer of mind, intellect, feelings, emotions, memory, attitude, personality, character, will power, senses and body.

Following are some of the reasons why Western Psychology is a failure and Indian Psychology is not a success:

1.       God (Creator): Both Western and Indian Psychology consider God as someone for religious purpose and non-professional. In reality, as explained in Patanjali’s yog sutra, Upanishads and Brahma Kumaris, God is the One Being who helps us to understand or recall the Original Qualities / nature of human being whenever human being forgets or loses his real nature. It is like, God is a role model or Sample who is completely virtuous, with whom I can compare myself and set right my differences every moment. Not knowing the real purpose of God, we keep comparing ourselves with Cine actors (as shown in the screen), neighbours and other human beings to imitate and role model their disturbed personality leading to degradation.

Plato shares Socrates views in “The Republic” that human beings have degraded God’s benevolent and compassionate nature by attributing violence, hate and revenge to God through Scriptures and Poetry. Plato says: the most important thing what we have to do is to remove all degradations attributed to God in the scriptures and books. So that, our children have a true role model of God to imitate from their child-hood days.

2.       Being (Creation): Western Psychologists totally ignored the being due to the philosophical nature given to self. Even in India, it is said that the being is universal and unlimited (in fact the being is an individual but his consciousness is unlimited), all is one, kept sharing views of quantum physics which is not at all applicable to real life situations. In reality, Being or every individual has natural qualities of peace, love, happiness, compassion, mercy – all positive emotions and virtues as their original personality which is nothing but same like the God. Although Buddhism preaches these qualities, it has become a religion and is expressed as a religious practice of renunciates only leaving God and individual being beyond their scope of consideration.

In reality, the positive qualities and virtues are natural nature of a being, the original personality, which has to be applied in real life activities and interactions. By psychologists and other professionals, these qualities have been kept aside thinking they are unprofessional and not to be used for our bread and butter.

3.       Research: Researches have been carried out and many theories / approaches have been in use to set right the personality of an individual neither knowing the role model to imitate nor knowing the ideal personality to achieve. It is like groping in the dark and blind men leading the blind. And this is exactly happening in psychology.

a.       Western Psychology does not know about the goal to attain and the tools and techniques it uses to attain cannot lead to its goals. Because it leave aside the Driver/Programmer and keep working on the hardware.

b.      Eastern psychology, although it knows the real nature of being, at the same time misunderstanding and misinterpretations in religion and scriptures about God and Being make it complicated and it lacks in real life application.

If we know that the goal or the qualities of being to be attained and also know  the role model – Godly divine attributes, free from distortions, we can easily control the tools and techniques accordingly to reach the final destination of healthy being - personality both in mind and body.

Solution – Modern Indian Psychology(MIP):  For a better solution, we need to have a paradigm shift in psychology like introducing a Modern Indian Psychology which is going to be far advanced than the existing Western, Eastern and Indian Psychology but at the same time taking into consideration the positive attributes of existing psychology.

We can categorize two types of groups. One is students and other as professionals.

For students:

a.       We have to educate them on Original personality, its positive qualities, virtues, values and how to retain this original personality in all walks of life. This has to be taught with practice and experience, even from nursery classes.

b.      Research has to be done on real life application of Original personality in various professional lives.

c.       Students are to be shown the true divine positive attributes, virtues and values as the role model to be followed in life.

This approach of Modern Indian Psychology is elaborated in the Book: Shrimat Bhagawad Gita available at http://shiva.ind.in/Courses/

For Professionals:

Training has to be provided on not just teaching values and positive thinking but how to get connected with their original personality and emerge those qualities from within. Nowadays, it has become fashionable to talk about values and positive thinking but very few teach the method to move from distorted personality back to original personality of values and virtues.

This approach of Modern Indian Psychology is elaborated in the Book: Shrimat Bhagawad Gita available at http://shiva.ind.in/Courses/

Conclusion: Based on our experiences and result of various researches, we know that by knowledge of mind, intellect, organs, we are not able to get rid of either mental or physical disorders. Because we leave aside the driver / programmer of these mind, intellect and sense organs.

It is the real need of the hour to work on the Driver/Programmer and by making human perfect by helping him retain his original personality of values and virtues to make all his subordinates like mind, intellect, memory and senses to become hale and healthy.

If the knowledge and the method is right, then it reflects on our personality, health, society and the world. As we know and see the real condition of the world with physical and mental disorders, we know our existing knowledge and methods need a complete paradigm shift, a re-evaluation. It’s time to re-invent our personality and re-invent the ways we deal with physical and mental disorders by understanding the Creator – the role model of divine personality and Creation -  individual goal of divine nature.