PSYCHIC EDUCATION: A WORKBOOK<\/p>\n
Jan and I have been working for quite some time on presenting a view of the workings of the brain and nervous system that is consistent with Mother and Sri Aurobindo\u2019s integral yoga psychology.\u00a0 I\u2019m writing about this here on this blog because I think between on the one hand, the new insights on neuroscience and practical psychology, and on the other, the best of Indian psychology, particularly integral yoga psychology, I think we now have an ideal bridge between the predominantly materialistic science of today and the \u2018new\u201d, \u201cgreater\u201d science which Sri Aurobindo predicted almost a century ago.<\/p>\n
I plan to explore in some detail, a wonderful book by educator Neeltje Huppes, \u201cPsychic Education: A Workbook\u201d. It is one of the clearest, simplest outlines of integral yoga psychology (or \u201cIYP\u201d) available.\u00a0 And not only does she give a clear summary of IYP, she provides wonderful, practical exercises to implement yogic psychology in our daily lives. Developed over a series of\u00a0 years with Dr. Matthijs Cornelissen (largely at the Mirambika school in Northern India), it has been used mostly with young children and teenagers. But as someone who has \u201cpracticed\u2019 (or tried to practice!) yogic disciplines for approximately 4 decades, I still find many of the exercises \u2013 even beginning ones \u2013 quite useful.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll start with an overview of the book, and then I will start commenting in detail on chapter 2, \u201cSelf-Observation.\u201d\u00a0 I like particularly that the opening chapters are quite explicit about the need to deal with the surface nature, and to make efforts in \u201cpurification\u201d of the mind, heart, instincts and body (or as IYP refers to them, the mental, vital and physical consciousness).\u00a0 There seem to be 2 distinct problematic trends in contemporary spirituality (at least, in Europe and the Americas; I don\u2019t know how much this applies to Asia, though from Asians I\u2019ve met in America, it sounds like it\u2019s becoming very similar, unfortunately).<\/p>\n
On the one hand, the followers of Eckhart Tolle and others interested in what has come to be called \u201cnon-duality\u201d reject personal effort, since, as there is no \u201cdoer\u201d \u2013 it is only an illusion \u2013 \u201cwho\u201d is there who can make any effort?<\/p>\n
At the other extreme, there are those more attraced to a \u201cbhakti\u201d approach, who \u2013 in a very interesting ironic twist \u2013 also reject effort, since the Divine is so vastly superior to us, and our minds are completely useless when it comes to spiritual practice, what use is our effort?<\/p>\n
I think that both of these attitudes are actually rooted in Protestant theology (or pseudo-theology) related to a dualistic vision of the world that emerged after the Renaissance, and in particular has been fostered by the ever-increasing split between religion and science (mirroring an inner split between left-hemisphere and right-hemisphere \u2013 or \u201cleft mode\u201d and \u201cright mode\u201d \u2013 feeling\/thought that is tearing apart global civilization.\u00a0 But that is material for another past, and now with much relief, I\u2019ll return to Neeltje\u2019s book.<\/p>\n
*******<\/p>\n
Neeltje explains in the introduction that the book is really 2 books in one.\u00a0 The first 10 chapters are a \u2018workbook\u201d for finding the psychic being \u2013 the true soul, what in ancient Indian literature was referred to as the \u201cchaitya Purusha\u201d \u2013 and integrating our mind, heart, instincts and body around that \u201csoul center.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The latter half of the book is aimed more directly at educators, those who seek to make education what it was in the ancient world, a drawing out (\u201ceducare\u201d) of the latent knowledge of the soul that we all possess but so rarely use.<\/p>\n
In the first chapter, titled \u201cThe Great Discovery\u201d, Neeltje, in inspired, simple and at times beautiful language, invites us to understand the soul in the context of evolution.<\/p>\n
The following is an excerpt from the first chapter:<\/p>\n
*********<\/p>\n
The Great Discovery<\/p>\n
The first work to be done is to have a closer look at ourselves. We live day in and day out, but how well do we know who we are? Does this seem to be a strange question to you? Probably yes, at least if you define yourself only by the body you live in, the relation- ships you have, the work you do. But what is meant here is your real, inner self\u2014your psychic being, the divine in you. We talked about \u201cthe ignorance\u201d in the previous chapter. It is due to this igno- rance in our surface awareness that the psychic is hidden from us. So it takes effort to become really aware of the psychic being, it takes effort to regularly look for it inside ourselves, it takes effort to live within constantly. This chapter is written to help you decide if you really want to start this effort of preparing yourself for the psychic discovery .<\/p>\n
“Is it then really so important to go in search of my psychic?\u201d you may ask. Here is, in short, a description of the different parts of our being. It may help you to look at yourself with more clarity.<\/p>\n
There are three main parts: each human being has an outer nature, an inner nature and an innermost core. The outer nature is made up of the physical, the vital and the mental nature. It is everything in you that is visible on the surface for others. Through your outer nature you deal with your surroundings. All that you see, hear, taste, smell, touch comes to you through the outer na- ture. All your actions, your interactions and communications with others belong to it. Reading this book, cooking a nice dish, hav- ing a good conversation with a few friends, it all belongs to, is done by your outer nature.<\/p>\n
Next comes the inner nature. It is everything in you that is going on behind the scene, that is not visible to others and often not even to yourself. Here also there are three main parts. There is an inner mental, inner vital and inner physical. For example, a noble character typically comes from special qualities in the in- ner vital. Some people are afraid of dogs, others love them. The outer vital being notices and expresses the fear or love for dogs, but this fear has its origin in the inner nature; you do not exactly know why it is so that you love or fear them.<\/p>\n
Lastly, there is our core, our central being. This has two main parts: the Self and the soul. The Self, also called Atman, is im- mortal and remains the same through all our lives. You can con- tact it just above the head. Then there is the psychic which you can find behind the heart. The Mother mentions in one of her Playground talks that each human being is unique and that each one has a role to fulfil. The uniqueness is in our psychic being and it can express itself in the world through some special quali- ties of our inner and outer nature. These qualities may change or may be perfected from birth to birth, but our essence remains always the same.<\/p>\n
The psychic is often called the soul; it is your divine centre. The psychic is constantly in touch with the Divine. It is the por- tion in you that remains permanent and comes down again and again in a human body. From life to life the psychic can grow from a small presence behind the veil into a fully developed psy- chic being. You can help it grow. It does so every time you <\/i>put in the effort to allow it to develop and manifest itself. This effort has many facets but we can give it the common name \u201cself-prepa- ration\u201d.<\/p>\n
The psychic being<\/b><\/p>\n
Because this book is about psychic education here follows a more detailed description of the psychic being. Each one of us has at the centre of our being a spark of the Divine Consciousness; this is what is called the soul. This core is permanent, it generally enters the body at birth. After it has entered the body it gathers around itself elements for the development of a psychic conscious- ness. In this way, slowly, around the soul, grows a psychic pres- ence. This presence is the beginning of a psychic individuality. Over many lives this psychic presence can grow into a psychic being. There comes a moment when the psychic being is so well formed that it expresses an individual and independent Divine Consciousness. Thus each psychic being is unique and expresses a unique part of the individual Divine. Another way to put this is to say, that the psychic being is the part in you that expresses the Divine Truth in a unique way.<\/p>\n
The role of the psychic being is to support the evolution or the unveiling of the Divine Consciousness on earth, so that one day there will be a Divine Life possible right here on earth. The psychic being is the link between your outer nature, (mind, vital and physical) and your highest Self or Atman. The psychic as- pires that the inner and outer nature may open themselves to the Divine so that they can express the divine will here on earth. The outer nature which is full of ignorance has to be prepared for this, and this process is called purification. Sri Aurobindo in his letters to sadhaks and The Mother in her Playground Talks have often spoken about purification. You will read more about it in the two chapters about Purification .<\/p>\n
The psychic aspires to feel the presence and power of the Di- vine within the heart, it really wills that your whole being be- comes one with the Divine. It aspires for contact with the higher consciousness so that this may penetrate your outer and inner nature. This process is called unification, and this is discussed in the chapter called Unification .<\/p>\n
Then there is what Sri Aurobindo calls the transformation of your mind, life and body. This individual psychic being is able to make a beginning with the transformation of your outer mental, outer vital and outer physical nature into divine mental, divine vital and divine physical nature. This divine nature will become an instrument for expression in the world. The full transforma- tion can happen only after the psychic being is fully developed.<\/p>\n
NEXT: some comments on the above passages, with some details from current neuroscientific discoveries about consciousness in evolution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PSYCHIC EDUCATION: A WORKBOOK Jan and I have been working for quite some time on presenting a view of the workings of the brain and nervous system that is consistent with Mother and Sri Aurobindo\u2019s integral yoga psychology.\u00a0 I\u2019m writing about this here on this blog because I think between on the one hand, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ipi.org.in\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}