People are more like poems than like stacks of cards.

By MatthijsPosted on January 5, 2021January 5, 2021Cat UncategorizedLeave a comment

In their basic nature people are closer to poems than to stacks of cards, so while it is not bad for psychologists to have some basic idea of statistics, for example in the area of public health, reading and writing poetry should be considered a core subject in psychology. Of course, there are more prosaic types… Read More »

Widening, deepening, heightening…

By MatthijsPosted on December 9, 2020December 9, 2020Cat Miscellaneous musings, UncategorizedLeave a comment

The Divine is, quite obviously, anantaguna, of infinite qualities, but there is a long tradition of distinguishing three major aspects of the Divine: the Cosmic, the Personal and the Transcendent. The ways by which these three aspects can be realised are quite different. The Cosmic Divine is found by widening, and amongst the three, this… Read More »

Free Will

By MatthijsPosted on December 3, 2020December 3, 2020Cat Miscellaneous musings, PsychologyLeave a comment

What free will means for us as individuals depends on what we identify with. We feel free whenever we love and identify with the powers that push us around, we don’t feel free when that is not the case. Accordingly, as long as we identify with one small creature in the midst of a large… Read More »

Dream-notes that bring the Real close

By MatthijsPosted on May 1, 2018May 3, 2018Cat Miscellaneous musings, PoetryLeave a comment

A few passages on Love, Ananda and the new world by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother For there is, concealed behind individual love, obscured by its ignorant human figure, a mystery which the mind cannot seize, the mystery of the body of the Divine, the secret of a mystic form of the Infinite which we… Read More »

Beyond physicalism: a short note on why we need Sri Aurobindo’s vision

By MatthijsPosted on July 30, 2016Cat Psychology2 Comments

The physicalism that is widely assumed to be an essential element of the scientific method and way of thinking, even by those who consider themselves post-positivist, is actually neither a necessary condition, nor a finding of science. It is no more than an assumption that simplified physics and chemistry to a level where they could… Read More »

The business of reason

By MatthijsPosted on August 19, 2013July 22, 2020Cat Cognition & Methodology, Miscellaneous musings1 Comment

"The reason cannot grasp all truth in its embrace because truth is too infinite for it; but still it does grasp the something of it which we immediately need, and its insufficiency does not detract from the value of its work, but is rather the measure of its value. For man is not intended to grasp… Read More »

Two ways of applying Indian Psychology

By MatthijsPosted on April 14, 2013April 14, 2013Cat Miscellaneous musings, Psychotherapy and counseling2 Comments

There are two distinct ways in which Indian Psychology can be applied; there is a gradient between these two approaches, and many mixed forms are possible, but conceptually it is useful to distinguish them. The first could be called instrumental or pragmatic, the second essential or paradigmatic. In the first approach, decontextualised ideas and techniques… Read More »

How to do research in Indian Psychology?

By MatthijsPosted on October 9, 2011February 8, 2013Cat Cognition & Methodology2 Comments

One of the hallmarks of Indian Psychology is the central role it gives to consciousness. But how do you study consciousness? Consciousness is quintessentially subjective, and mainstream science does its level best to be as objective as possible. Can subjective and objective research be brought together in one single framework? During the last few hundred… Read More »

Why do we need Indian Psychology?

By MatthijsPosted on July 17, 2011November 3, 2011Cat Cognition & Methodology, Society2 Comments

When modern psychology discovered in the beginning of the 20th century that introspection was not a very reliable method of enquiry, it did not discover anything new. The Indian civilization had discovered this thousands of years ago. What was different however, was how modernity reacted to this discovery. It is good to stand still at… Read More »

the golden youth cooperative

By MatthijsPosted on May 11, 2011May 31, 2011Cat Miscellaneous musings2 Comments

Just came out of a dream in which I visited the most beautiful place I've ever been to. When I just woke, I thought the place was very well-known, that I and many others had been there so many times; now more fully awake, I realise -- though it feels upside-down to use the word… Read More »