Yogic insights into human psychology
Modes of nature and the enemies of the soul
Abstract
Yoga psychology recognises at least three different modes of nature in its working. These are universal modes and can be seen operating from the atoms and starts to the most complex human beings. It is through one or the other of these modes that human beings ordinarily operate. These are being discussed here.
The concept of normalcy
In psychology one of the greatest grey areas is the very concept of normalcy. Most often, we extend the idea of physical normalcy onto psychological aspects as well. Thus seen, normalcy is normative in nature. In other words, normalcy is understood in terms of what most people call the average humanity experiences and behaviours. This standardises human behaviour within a certain range and whatever deviates from that is considered abnormal. It puts most of humanity under a single large rubric of normalcy, the only distinction and distinctive types being based on traits and habits. By doing so it also prevents the possibilities of further evolution and growth. Yoga psychology, on the other hand, sees in man the possibility of a constant growth towards greater and greater levels of normalcy.
The tamasic humanity
There is, for example the normalcy of the tamasic man, who is comfortable within his limits set by nature and prefers his mechanical routine, centred around his physical needs, ratherthan seeking and exploring beyond his boundaries. He dares not the impossible and probes not the depths of his own nature or of creation. Satisfied with surface facts and superficial knowledge, which he calls the mint of wisdom, he seeks no further. He is satisfied with everything in his life, from the religion he is born in to the information he gathers from the tabloids and the limited sources of his learning. His is the spirit involved completely in matter and sharing its mechanical stability and consistency. His is not the higher satisfaction that comes by discovering the stable basis of all that moves in nature but the satisfaction that comfort of limits and seemingly safe and secure boundaries provide.
This kind of normalcy is found in plenty and nature seems to multiply it fast. This inertia, while useful to secure the physical type, our human form and habits, and the tendencies in the early model of humanity through heredity and genetics, prevents us from degenerating into a beast. At the same time it also prevents us from evolving into a still higher type of humanity. The average human pitch, the common man, the customary thoughts and practices, the ritualistic religion and standard ideas and systems of a practical philosophy are his stock with which he trades the goods of his life. The centre of the self here is the physical form, the bodily ego and all that surrounds our bodily life and immediate physical environment. This humanity is closer to the animal kind even though the rudiment of thought has awakened in him and gives to his brain the glint of early human intelligence.
The angry Rakṣasa and the arrogant Asura
But eventually the force of evolution working in the heart of nature takes over and out of the tamasic man refusing to grow there emerges a fiery and angry humanity, the early rajasic type. It breaks through the mould by sheer force of anger or the strong impulsion of desire. It is moved by stormy and turbulent energies of lust, anger, and greed to acquire more and more, the ambition to expand its empire. Along with these violent energies there is also born as its complimentary counterparts, jealousy, clinging attachment, fears of all kinds but most of all of losing what one has acquired or is violently attached to, be it a person or personal wealth or a position of authority or simply an opinion held by the mind as true.
This is the fighter type. Whether for truth or for falsehood this type must fight, often violently so. This is the Rakṣasic and Asuric type of humanity whose description we find in Indian scriptures. The difference between the Rakṣasic and the Asura is primarily in the centre where his gigantic ego-self is stationed. The Rakṣasic is centred around the vital and driven on the path of violent deeds in quite a thoughtless, mindless manner. The Asura, on the other hand is a mental creature, even sometimes a brilliant human being who nevertheless provides the intellectual support to the Rakṣasic and gets his egoistic purposes served through violence.
The Asura seems to have skipped a few important evolutionary stages. His excessive violent energy has made him leap immaturely into the skies of the mind, a leap that sooner or later leads to an equally precipitous and calamitous fall. Nature, in general respects the steps of evolution and even though it seems to take sudden leaps in a few individuals, it is only momentary and temporary. The steps of the violent aggressive intellectual moved by titanic forces are bound to stumble by their speed. His excessive drunkenness with pride and arrogance is bound to lead to eventual failure and fall so that he can retrace the journey with the steady and proper steps of ascension marked out for humanity.
The gentler humanity
There is however a gentler version of the rajasic kinetic man. He too is driven by desire where his centre lies, but his is the way of hewing his path not with the axe of the angry man with proud violent deeds but through charm and snare of emotions. He gets his due through affection and mutuality, through co-operation and collaboration than through competition and battle. He grows as a harmonious vital man who nevertheless expands his empire but in ways that do not hurt another even though it is his own benefit that concerns him most. This is quite a successful evolutionary type.
The violent angry type succeeds but only temporarily, even though mightily. Yet his age seems to be soon coming to a close as it is counter-productive to the collective evolution of humanity. He is still needed when nature wants sudden upheavals and is keen to advance through swift and sudden leaps, through rapid revolution rather than through a slow evolution. But whenever nature strives for the collective growth rather than of the few powerful individuals it prefers the latter type. However, nature cannot yet spare the violent aggressive type until humanity lives under the law of truth and peace and natural harmony.
Birth of the warrior-type and the Samurai
However evolution does not stop here. It advances further and out of the kinetic rajasic man there emerges the soul of courage, beauty and love. The aggressive violent humanity changes into a true warrior-type of humanity, a being that is just and fair, self-controlled even in its power, a master and not a slave of his tremendous energies. Here we find after much effort the first proper rajasic humanity who is ready for a conscious participation in his own individual as well as thecollective evolution of humanity. He is the true Kṣatriya, the knight and the Samurai who emerges from a humanity prone to the bourgeois ideal of life, a humanity whose glory has been sung in a number of scriptures.
Here we must distinguish, as yoga psychology does, between violence and strength. Violence is the sign of vital weakness. It shows an inability to hold the vital force which must be thrown out at the first opportunity of fight through anger. Strength on the other hand is always self-contained, a master of the energies and power one wields and not its slave. A strong man is calm as a lion though fierce and fearless if he is called upon to battle. This is the great though remarkable difference between the two. A truly strong man does not fight for petty personal reasons nor does he fume with anger and spew hatred and venom on those who oppose him. He is rather a man of justice and fair dealing. If justice and strength is his right arm then compassion and forgiveness is his left. This type surely ruled the earth once until it became replaced more and more by the intellectual type of mankind, whose centre of vision and action is thought rather than feelings and will.
The balanced and reasonable sattvic man
Out of the rajasic man emerges a sattvic humanity. Neither the inertia of the tamasic man and his slow pace of thought and will, nor the action-oriented rajasic man ready to rush and leap is in his walk. The sattvic man walks a measured life. His is a life of balance and an instinctive need for harmony, peace and light. Moderation in all things is his watchword. It is not that he is free from ego but his is a gentler ego-apparatus that is not hardened and fastened with knots of arrogance nor is he drunken with pride. His pride takes the form of self-respect rather than the vanity to which the vital rajasic man is more prone to. He may be ambitious but he would not like to break the rules or do something unfair and unjust so as to satisfy his ambitions. He believes in fair dealings with his fellow-men and has in general a kindlier attitude towards all creatures.
The progressive transition
The rajasic man is needed to break the limits and when the divine Will in creation is to break the fixed formats of life we see the rajasic man multiply, as had happened and is still happening in the world. The forces and tamas and tamasic man come in to complete the process of disintegration. He finishes what the rajasic man initiated. All this eventually helps the Evolutionary Power to give birth to new forms and institutions to embody the New Spirit of an Age.
But when the new idea has found its ground upon earth then it is through the sattvic man that it is kept alive and preserved. Though each individual carries something in him of all the three gunas, yet there are predominant types of humanity that emerge through the course of the long evolutionary journey of the soul in man. This evolution is the real cause for rebirth and not reward and punishment as we often presume. Reward and punishment is a human concept based on an instinctive need for justice and balance. In the divine vision it changes its form as with all human values, and instead of a balance created through reward and punishment, it becomes a balance created through a growing evolutionary push given to each individual. This push comes from within and when an individual experiences this evolutionary pressure from within to move up the ladder of gunas, he often goes through a period of stifling psychological pain. It is the pain of a new birth. He also experiences dislocation from the circumstances of his birth and passes through a borderland of No-man’s zone, which can be very disconcerting. We see this too happening in our times since it is the Age when the evolutionary march of mankind has been given a big push.
Much however depends upon how the individual navigates through the change. Some will fall back, though temporarily, to the old way of life even though something within will feel the pain of losing an inner opportunity for growth. They bargain security for progress. Others will take their chances and leap towards the future. Passing through a phase of uncertainty they will stabilise their feet on the new step of the gain stairway of consciousness built for man’s ascension towards the very highest possibility that awaits him in some near or distant future. This higher possibility foreseen for man and glimpsed in the life of countless seers, saints and yogis is the emergence of the spiritual man out of the sattvic mould.
The evolutionary ladder of normalcy
Of this we shall speak subsequently. But this much we can see, that in the language of yoga normalcy itself is seen along an evolutionary hierarchy. This also provides us with a framework for working through the different layers of humanity. This idea that all human beings are the same and therefore can be dealt in the same way has created much confusion of thought and action. For example we ignorantly believe that a given system of therapy or practices, be it even spiritual practices, can apply equally to all. It is this mistake that has also led to fixity and eventual hardening of sects and organised religions. The truth of the matter is that different human beings need different things including psychotherapeutic interventions. One does not deal with the pigeon and the snake or the lion and the deer in the same way even though they are all beautiful animals. Each is needed for the balance of the world-play and has its own place in the complex and intricate web of creation.
Similarly it is with the different human types. In essence all humanity is the same even as all creation is the same in its core and source. But they are different in terms of the quality of nature that each one predominantly embodies, the temperament born with the soul-type, the evolutionary urge generating within him, the pressure to grow, among other things. This should not be seen as a racist view which sees some human beings as higher and others as lower. On the contrary it means that each human being is constantly moving up the evolutionary ladder. The more evolved was at some point of time on the lower rung. Similarly the presently less evolved is preparing to move forward and further.
In fact the sign of an evolved type is that he instinctively understands the lesser stair and hence deals with the different layers of humanity with a respect and compassion that understands even as it leans to help. The same is however not expected of a lesser evolved type. He knows not the next step and hence he completely misunderstands the evolved type of humanity. He sees it in his own light and thinks the other is either a sham or a hypocrite or at best a weirdo and a freak. Or else he may sometimes admire and look upon the evolved type with awe and admiration and yet it is hard for him to understand and comprehend his way of working since the operating systems are different and though each may be standing on the same ground they are seeing different things through their own unique windows. One in essence but different in manifestation or soul/self-expression is the key here.
The mixed types
We may ask if there is any validation of this concept. Well, the validation is everywhere to be seen. In nature right from the atoms to the galaxies, from the tiniest microscopic cell to the most complex organism, we see these three basic forces at work whose names are, the static or potential energy which is the energy at rest or inertia, the kinetic or dynamic energy or the energy of motion and, the balancing or neutralising energy or the energy of equilibrium. The entire creation is a handiwork of these three basic energies that can combine in various ways. According to the science of yoga all nature is built on a single basic plan.
The same energies when applied to non-material aspects of creation, which include human psychology, are termed as tamasic, rajasic, and sattvic. It is the varied combination of these three basic fundamental modes of energy in nature that builds the different types of humanity. What has been described here is the predominant type but the combinations can be many times more. This implies a certain degree of plasticity of thought and understanding in the application of this principle in real-time. Just as a fresh fruit is predominantly sattvic but turns tamasic when stale or when unripe, so too humanity also can regress or evolve or simply be moved with a different impulsion than its original nature.
This can create a certain confusion of being, a mixture of dharmas, so to speak. This truth too has deep implications in determining the line of work one must take up. A predominantly sattvic man may be very good when it comes to research and scholarly work, as an administrator he would be a fair and just person, but he will fail miserably if he is called upon to battle and bring about great changes and reforms in society. Similarly a rajasic person may be a warrior for a good cause but at any given time his asuric tendencies, which he has just left behind, canupsurge, creating in him an ambitious man without scruples and a rudimentary ethical sense. But the same man combined with a sattvic energy will be a warrior with great compassion in his heart. His rajasic nature will call him to battles outside but his sattvic nature will simultaneously urge him to undertake the inner battles directed towards self-conquest, thereby creating the ideal noble human type of the ancient Indian Aryan society.
We can limit our consideration of these various types of humanity here since Nature is now going through a great upheaval. She is upturning the soil of human nature in a massive and unprecedented way, creating a terrible mixture of all kinds. Therefore what we see in times as these are more and more mixed types. But this mixture is simply a breaking of the past moulds since she is preparing for a new leap, for the emergence of a new type of humanity that will go beyond the sattvic type to a greater and greater degree of spiritualised humanity or the deva type rather than the mere human, even if it be an exalted type of humanity.
Dr. Alok Pandey, an editor of NAMAH and a member of SAIIIHR, is a doctor practising at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
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