Well-being and Self-transformation in Indian Psychology

Abstract

This paper uses instances from literature covering a broad spectrum of Indian philosophies, art, medicine and practices—attempts to offer the components of a psychology that is rooted in transformative and transpersonal consciousness. Psychology, in this instance, refers to a systematic study of mind, behavior, and relationship, rather than the formal Western discipline as such. In the Indian approach to understanding consciousness, primary importance is given to the possibility of well-being. Such an approach facilitates an immediate comprehension of the unity of metaphysical opposites, such as matter and consciousness, and its experience as empathy, love and intuition. It involves a thinking that connects the gross and the subtle, the particular and the universal, the outer and the inner, the objective and the subjective, through a discipline of transcendence. This paper argues, based on carefully selected narratives from the Indian philosophical discourse, that the theories of the transpersonal developed in Indian wisdom traditions are founded on a practical body-mind discipline designed to lead to well-being and self-transformation.