Yoga Psychology And The Transformation Of Consciousness

From the perspective of yoga psychology the view from infinity even our basest instincts, our most mundane acts, and our greatest follies can be understood as the limited or distorted expressions of a purposeful, compassionate and infinite intelligence. Yoga Psychology is based on the writings of Sri Aurobindo, the revolutionary poet and philosopher who founded the independence movement in India later led by Mahatma Ghandi.

Integral Yoga Psychology is a new attempt to position the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother within the frame of yoga psychology, as an inquiry related to transpersonal and whole-person psychologies. This book contains 11 essays by leading scholar-practitioners of integral yoga, sketching its possibility-space as a psychology. It attemps this through a hermeneutics of the texts of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, as well as their own and their disciples' practices and experiences. It also makes a beginning at locating the field in its larger contexts, through comparative, qualitative and empirical studies, as well as probing the clinical possibilities of its models.

The subject matter of this book is so vast that it would be presumptuous to attempt to deal with comprehensively and it would be pre-posterous to pretend to a final solution to a set of ideasas comprehensive as these worldwiews. The author is aware that the contents of this comperative study may appear offensive to the followersof Sri Aurobindo. He tries to stimulate a fruitful dialogue and evaluates this dialogue in a sympathic manner when he refers to the intentions of both thinkers.

This book discusses the profound philosophy and practical psychology behind yoga, beyond its popular body-culture aspect. It pays particular attention to the psychological principles involved and their implications for the consummate understanding of human nature. It explores the psychological aspects of yoga theory and practice and discusses the aphorisms in Patanjali’s treatise on Yoga with necessary commentary in current psychological terminology to make them intelligible to students of psychology and other interested readers. Importantly, the author draws out the implications of these aphorisms for future psychological study and research. The book discusses the author’s concept of yoga of nonviolence which brings in Gandhian ideas into the framework of yoga. The author’s own vast experience in creating interfaces of yoga research with practice also informs the discussions in this book. This authoritative and topical book by an eminent academic like Professor Ramakrishna Rao is of interest to scholars and students of diverse disciplines, including but not limited to psychology, philosophy and wellbeing research.

The Yoga of Consciousness examines how our consciousness, identity and prana change through waking, dream and deep sleep - and more importantly how we can follow this process to higher levels of awareness behind the ordinary human state. The book proposes specific yogic insights and approaches to take us beyond these three ordinary states to the transcendent state of pure unity consciousness beyond both body and mind.