10 Key Differences Between Western Psychology and Sanskrit Psychology
This is a manifesto of sorts. You’ll probably disagree with much of it, maybe even get angry. I ask you to read it with an open mind if possible and name your objections with thought and evidence.
What is Sanskrit Psychology?
Sanskrit Psychology is any scientific thinking about the person/ the self that is based in one of the traditional Indian thinking systems. Western psychology is , for may people, the more familiar scientific approach to understanding the mind, brain and behaviour based on the belief that this science is observable, repeatable, and predictive. Whilst the differences in that might seem trivial there are a whole range of reasons why both systems should be studied equally, seriously and separately. Only then can we bring them together in a way that benefits both east and west. Here are ten differences that mark our starting point.
Sanskrit Psychology studies the person, not the mind and brain.
In SP, the person isn’t reducible to parts and can only be studied as a whole. This is because a person is a complex system that disappears once you take away a part of it. Everything is linked with such co-dependency that there’s little point in looking at one thing alone. You might have heard the story of the blind men and the elephant in which a king asks for them to describe an elephant. They each go to the elephant and begin feeling the probably confused creature. The first feels the trunk and declares that the elephant is like a snake. The second goes to a leg and confidently proclaims the elephant is a tree. A third goes to the tail and says the elephant must be fly-swatter. A final man goes to an ear and says the elephant is a basket. It’s only by bringing together all their thoughts that a picture emerges of the majestic elephant in all its complexity.
Sanskrit Psychology understands the person as the embodiment of consciousness, not the producer of it.
Many people in Europe and America are firmly convinced that we are born with a brain and that brain makes us conscious. We’ve been told that repeatedly for centuries and almost everyone accepts it, but what if it wasn’t true? With some of the finest minds that have ever existed searching for the root of consciousness we have never once found any evidence at all that conscious sits in or is produced by the brain. SP looks at the problem of consciousness the other way round. Consciousness, it’s said, is a fundamental part of the universe and the universe produces living beings out of it. Pure consciousness is chopped up and grows a body to experience the world in before going back to the whole at the end of its life. This is hard for many people to accept but it’s worth considering as it can really help us to consider ourselves in a new way.
Sanskrit Psychology understands the person as part of a whole, not an individual separation from it.
Think about a wave on the ocean. We can talk about the wave, we can talk about its height and speed and foam and anything that it carries. We can talk about its taste and smell and feel but what we’re really referring to is the part of an ocean. Take away the ocean and there can be no wave. Waves are all different but each one is part of the same thing, connecting every coast. We can study a wave and learn so much about it but without an understanding of the ocean, which we can see if we change our perspective we can’t understand it. We can also study the moon which we can see in the sky but we can’t directly look at it’s influence on the tides, only its effects. SP studies the whole so that influences, connections and impacts can be seen.
Sanskrit Psychology accepts versions of the universe that are dual (separated into 2 parts), whole (only one part), or a complicated mix of both
This can be quite complicated to understand without a background philosophy but there are two ways of considering the whole universe. One is that it’s made up of matter (stuff) and spirit (soul, God, energy). This is the kind of thinking we involve ourselves in when we talk about a soul that lives in the body and exists on death. The other main way of thinking about everything is that there is only one thing: stuff. All materials, energy, thought etc. is what constitutes the universe. There was once a s-called big bang which produced lots of stuff and then got so complicated that it somehow - no one knows how - produced conscious people. There are some less known ways of thinking about things that are worth a thought. The first is similar to one-thing thinking but rather than there is just stuff, there is thought to be just consciousness or energy. This means that everything we see, touch, taste, and hear is merely a thought. None of this around us is the real world, it’s only imagined. Finally there are what are called the non-dual ways of thinking - not two things but not one thing either. This brings together ideas about the universe being consciousness/energy but that energy manifesting stuff or performing the whole thing as an illusion. It exists the way dreams do or dances and it can all disappear just as quickly. Thinking about these deep and troubling possibilities are part of understanding our place in the world, rather than simply accepting someone else’s version of it with all its contradictions and conveniently ignored shortfalls.
Sanskrit Psychology understands that the mind and body are one thing, not two.
Following on from this, if you don’t think a soul is a separate entity or don’t consider the soul and the mind to be similar, then it can be easier to think of the mind and body as not separate, the way they are often described in the modern western world. Even in yoga we hear about joining the body and mind together, but this can’t be the case if they are already one. Traditional yogic psychology considers mind to be a subtle type of matter, but matter none-the-less. It exists in the same way electricity does - part of the material universe but difficult to understand its function and meaning until it powers our laptop. You can’t find the mind on the operating table but you can observe it moving, just like the wind. In some thinking, the idea of consciousness then exists entirely separately to the mind/body whole, but that’s another story.
Western psychology popularly focuses on ego or the un/conscious experience of being an individual
Since Freud and up to the present, many people turn to western psychology to understand their experiences, thoughts and emotions. Whilst this is all very helpful to many people it only considers one aspect of the person. Psychology was, for a long time, a way of understanding the mind so that it could be cured - in lots of cases it still is. In the middle of the twentieth century and with great acceleration towards the end of it, more and more people thought about thriving, not just surviving. Humanistic and the Positive psychology became a set of tools for finding happiness and achieving financial and cultural goals. Self-help books sell millions of copies every day based on some of this, often flawed, thinking.
Western psychology aims for wellness and happiness as finishing lines, even though they can’t be
What is wellness? What is happiness? Many people have been conditioned to treat them as goals, finishing lines, happy-ever-afters, even though we all know without doubt that happiness and wellness are temporary. People can be well or happy in an extraordinary range of world circumstances, whether it be a poverty-stricken village or a billionaires mansion. They can also be miserable in exactly the same circumstances. Happiness and wellness are rooted in comparison - having more now (whether that’s health, money or anything else) than you did before. Unless you accumulate more things and more personal power, then happiness will fade unless you look beyond it and understand the bigger picture and your place in it.
Western psychology insists on modelling itself on other sciences such as physics
Psychology has been fighting a battle since birth. The battle for legitimacy. Other sciences, with some justification, consider psychology to be more ephemeral, even woo-woo. Repeatability, predictive models, statistical averages all go towards this legitimisation but, as many psychologists know whether they admit it or not, many of the most famous experiments, on which we base all kinds of assumptions, have never been successfully repeated. Even in medicine, where we’re supposed to trust drugs that we’re told will cure our depression, anxiety, and madness, only seem to work half of the time and when they don’t the doctor relabels us “treatment-resistant” so as not to admit a fault in the methodology.
Western psychology relies on external help
Despite recent advances in understanding around practices like meditation and thousands of available self-help books, western psychology overwhelmingly relies on external help in the form of medication, a therapist, and interventions up to and including forced removal of liberty. This is what happens when a fledgling science is so keen to be taken seriously that it adopts the language of a well-established paradigm, in this case medicine, and steps into its shoes. Much like maternity used to be the preserve of elder women and became under the power of male doctors, psychology takes the power of the medical profession to declare mental health subject to diseases that aren’t diseases and enforce cures that aren’t cures. Can it help people? Of course, but its power should be treated with caution.
Western psychology can’t be simply replicated in other times and cultures
WP is predicated on the idea that all humans are the same and this can be seen in any number of statements that start with “People are…”, “science says…”, or “Evidence tells us…”. This has proved time and time again to not be true. Culture, environment and upbringing change people and whilst many biological features remain true for most people - such as smiling to indicate happiness - there have to be some incredible differences recognised if we aim to understand the whole world. Smiling does indicate happiness but it can also mean anything from “I tolerate you being here despite my feelings towards you”, to I am about to do something incredibly evil to you for no other reason than I can”. WP, particularly the kind that purports to explain mental health and happiness, is what is known as an Indigenous Psychology, meaning it can only be applicable to the people in the time and place that its studied. Anyone who tries to tell you that human experience and the understanding of that experience has always been the same is missing the point of being human - that our power lies in our adaptability and responsiveness to environment.
Have I missed any? Disagree on any or all of it? Let me know; this is a new and growing area of research after all…