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Indian Psychology: Implications and Applications

K. Ramakrishna Rao

Over the years, I have used two metaphors to describe the psychological content in classical Indian thought. Psychological insights in the Indian tradition are rich diamonds in the raw, buried deep in the ravines worn by philosophical streams and covered by issues and concerns extraneous to academic psychology. So they need to be mined and recovered by modern investigative tools, cut into contemporary categories, polished by concepts currently in vogue, and displayed dressed in fashionable discourse. Only then can we see their radiating natural brilliance and their many-sided splendour. In the second metaphor, classical Indian thought is a treasure trove of psychological thought, hidden in the thick forests of philosophical and religious texts, waiting to be harvested.

In a significant sense, the analytic approach of Western psychology is piecemeal. It is said that psychology, with some exceptions, has bits of theories relevant to specific areas such as perception and learning, but not an overarching theory encompassing the entire field. In the Indian tradition, however, the approach is synthetic and holistic. Its meta-theoretical postulates help to overcome dichotomies such as the sacred and the secular, spirituality and science, theory and practice, society and individual, reason and expereince. They help to build models for studying human nature in its totality and formulate comprehensive theories that apply to a wide variety of topics and issues. Therefore, I believe, Indian psychology has implications that are in a sense broader than psychology itself. It has potential for application to areas, which current Western approaches appear unable to address effectively. These include such vital concerns as conflict resolution at a social level, transformation at a personal level, and the widely held beliefs in spirituality and paranormal phenomena.

With the backdrop of classical Indian thought, it becomes possible to develop a meta-theory and unified models for psychological research. We hope that this exercise will contribute to the growth of the discipline appropriately called spiritual psychology, which has implications for bridging the science–spirituality divide. Science and religion are generally considered to be disparate and inconsistent, if not conflicting, attempts at understanding reality. Our contention is that science and spirituality need not be so considered. In this chapter, I will present an outline of what I consider to be the major assumptions of a meta-theory of science and religion, important conceptual and methodological issues in studies of spirituality, the relevant implications of these assumptions for psychological theory and research, and possible areas of application.

Religion and Spirituality

Spirituality and religion have gained a measure of respectability in recent years in academic discussions, thanks to the substantial literature that appears to connect them to health (George et al., 2002; Koenig et al., 2001). However, what the concepts ‘spirituality’ and ‘religion’ precisely mean is a matter of considerable controversy. For example, Koenig et al. (2001), in their Handbook of Religion and Health, call our attention to the difficulties involved in finding acceptable definitions for religion and spirituality. Pointing out the inadequacy of their dictionary definitions, they list several distinguishing characteristics of religion and spirituality (Table 1.1, p. 18). These include, first, that religion is community-focused, observable, measurable and objective, whereas spirituality is individualistic, less visible and measurable, and more subjective. Second, that religion is organized, behaviour-oriented, and involves outward practices. Spirituality, however, is less formal and systematic, and more inward directed. Characterizing religion as ‘an organized system of beliefs, practices, rituals, and symbols’, Koenig et al. (2001) regard spirituality as ‘the personal quest for understanding answers to ultimate questions about life, about meaning, and about relationship to the sacred or transcendent…’ (p. 18). They depict spirituality as the outer circle which includes various religions as inner circles (Figure 1.1, p. 19).

Others, like Teresa Woods and Gail Ironson (1999), also emphasize the public and private aspects of religion and spirituality. However, it is well known that William James (1902), among others, emphasized the private aspects of religion as well. It is suggested, therefore, that religion and spirituality are overlapping constructs. They exhibit some common characteristics and some non-shared features (Miller & Thoresen, 1999). According to Miller and Thoresen (1999), ‘the field of religion is to spirituality as the field of medicine is to health’ (p. 28). This view suggests that spirituality is an inner circle within the wider circle of religions, a view somewhat different from the one expressed by Koenig et al. (2001). Empirical studies of spirituality and religion have rarely made operational distinctions between the two. Again, to quote Miller and Thoresen (1999), ‘almost all empirical studies to date have not recognized the distinctions…but instead have treated religiousness, religion, and spirituality as the same general concept’ (p. 29). Further, they point out that ‘with rare exceptions, the available literature has measured religious…rather than spiritual variables’ (ibid.). The latter assertion may be an oversimplification, once we acknowledge that spirituality and religion are not sufficiently well distinguished for operational purposes.

Peter Hill and Kanneth Pargament (2003) point to the dangers of bifurcating religion and spirituality. They list four such dangers. (1) Manifestation of spirituality in all its forms occurs in a social context, and all organized religions address personal affairs. Therefore, the view that one addresses issues at the social and the other at a personal level is untenable. (2) There is a growing tendency to think that spirituality is good and religion is bad. There is no justification for such attributions as both have potentially beneficial and harmful sides. (3) For most people, the distinction between religion and spirituality does not exist. They have spiritual experiences in an organized religious context. (4) The polarization of the two concepts, spirituality and religion, ‘may lead to needless duplication in concepts and measures’ (p. 65). Hill and Pargament suggest that the sacred, which includes the divine and the transcendent, is ‘the common denominator of religious and spiritual life’ and spirituality is ‘a search for the sacred, a process through which people seek to discover, hold on to, and, when necessary, transform whatever they hold sacred in their lives’ (ibid.).

The definitional and operational ambiguities of religion and spirituality constructs spill over into the science–religion dialogue. Without a certain degree of clarity of the core concepts ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’, the science–religion dialogue would be a non-starter. We believe that the spiritual traditions of India have something to offer in this context. There is a general consensus between the Indian and Western perspectives that the common ground between religion and spirituality is the sacred. The sacred may refer to different things such as god, divinity, ultimate reality and so on. The common denominator of all of them, it would seem, is transcendence. Transcendence implies going beyond what is given in one's normal sensory experience. In the spiritual traditions of India, whether Hindu or Buddhist, there is an overwhelming emphasis on transcendence as a state of being that goes well beyond sensory awareness. Spiritual pursuit is an exercise for transformation of the human condition to achieve transcendence. Spiritual psychology is dedicated to understanding this process. Thus, in the Indic traditions, spirituality is the quest and religions are the tools and technologies—first, to aid in that quest and, second, to apply the discoveries of the spiritual quest to life and living. Spirituality is to religion what science is to technology. Seen in this light, science and spirituality are two truth-seeking activities that seem to run parallel to each other.

Science and Spirituality

From time immemorial, science and spirituality have been two important avenues of human endeavour. Search for truth is the goal of science as well as of spirituality. Their discoveries have had enormous influence on people across cultures and around the world. However, their relative roles and dominance have varied over time. It would seem that spiritual quest was the dominant force first. Today science clearly has the upper hand, even though spirituality does seem to play a major role in the personal lives of a majority of people. Again, the application of science and spirituality has profoundly influenced human life all along. The discovery of truth, whether in the area of science or spirituality, quite often leads to development of technologies that affect our lives in a variety of ways. Technological development is not the exclusive province of science. Analogous developments take place in the sphere of spirituality as well. In a significant sense, religious practices are the offshoots of the application of spiritual discoveries.

Most of the time, science and spirituality have run as parallel quests. We are concerned at a given time with one or the other. Consequently, they are compartmentalized, considered in isolation, and pursued independently. However, when there is a simultaneous focus on the two for their unified understanding, problems arise in the form of truth conflicts. This in turn leads to the perception of one in opposition to the other. One then tends to pronounce a verdict from one perspective, however disconcerting it may be from another. The option of convenience is to keep science and spirituality as separate as possible and limit them to pre-circumscribed domains with impregnable walls built between them. Alternatively the tendency is to reject outright one in favour of the other. This is an unnatural arrangement, because both science and spirituality continue to affect our being and behaviour, whether or not we acknowledge it. An obvious casualty in the process is a meaningful dialogue between science and spirituality.

If the effects of science and spirituality on humans are genuine as believed, a dialogue between the two is not merely warranted, but necessary. This calls for a meta-theory aimed at the unification of science and spirituality, because a theory of science or spirituality alone is unlikely to facilitate a meaningful dialogue between them. The underlying perspective of such a theory should be one that does not pit science against spirituality, or vice versa, one that does not conceive either in opposition to the other, but postulates unity and complementarity between them, at perhaps a more profound level than is obvious to commonsense. In this context, spiritual psychology, which attempts to gain unified understanding of the transcendental and empirical domains of our existence and experience, appears to be the discipline that holds the key.

The basic postulates of a meta-theory embracing science and spirituality include the following. First, science and spirituality are two knowledge streams that spring from the human mind. The two streams are marked by their distinct epistemological contours. They travel through different terrains, but finally merge into the mother sea of consciousness. Second, emancipation of the human condition from the limiting constraints of ignorance and suffering to a state of happiness and well-being are the goals of both science and spirituality. These goals are pursued by different strategies and methodologies with varying degrees of success. However, success or failure is not confined to one domain or one methodological stance. Rather science is applicable to some areas of human concern, and spirituality appears to matter in some others. Scientific habit of the mind and spiritual outlook are not opposed to each other; they serve different functions. However, together they hold the best hope of achieving the highest happiness, with fewer risks. Third, there is no intrinsic opposition between science and spirituality. There are, of course, epistemic differences between them. They follow different methodological strategies which are valid in their respective domains. Problems arise and mistakes are made when there is conflation of the two, and when transgression of the paths takes place, such as the attempts to prove the existence of God by science or the denigration of evolutionary theories by assertions of creation by some religious sects.

It would not be correct to say that science alone leads to truth. Perhaps it can be said that science leads us more reliably to understand the physical world. The same may be said about spirituality as being more appropriate in dealing with non-physical matters such as values. There may be areas where both approaches are appropriate and a unified approach more fruitful.

In the Indian tradition, both science and spirituality have the same goal, which is liberation (mokṣa). The goal of science is enriching the human condition by freeing it from constraints of hunger, disease and deprivation; and creating physical conditions for comfort, convenience and need gratification. With their exponential growth during our lifetime, we have come to expect science and its offshoot technologies to provide plenty for all. The growth is not without its problems, however. The explosive growth of science with unpredictable consequences threatens to subvert and distort life itself on this planet. Nuclear energy and genetic engineering, for example, which have extra-ordinary potential to transform the human condition, are more feared today than loved. The promise of science to satisfy human needs has not helped to reduce the needs. Rather, it spurred the insatiable desire for more. Indiscriminate exploitation of resources and ingenious destruction of the environment followed. Also, the belief that satisfying the physical needs of food and shelter, and the psychological concerns of security and stability, will lead humans to devote themselves to finer aspects of life—such as pursuing art and promoting values of love, compassion and altruism—is belied. Economic prosperity and happiness appear to be unrelated beyond a point. Thus science as a liberating influence appears to have serious limits.

The goal of spirituality, like that of science, is also liberation. It is the liberation of the inner spirit. Spirituality could be seen as a complementary force that gives a positive direction to science and acts as an antidote to the latter's use for destructive purposes. In the least, it provides coping mechanisms to deal with psychologically debilitating anxiety, stress, fear and helplessness. At its best, spirituality is known to free humans from all kinds of suffering born out of dysfunctional egos with insatiable desires, and consequent personal frustration and externally directed aggression. Spirituality could be a soothing syrup to congested minds that cough conflict and abuse. At the same time, it may also be seen as a blinding influence that shuns reason, spurts superstitious behaviour and stifles ambition and achievement. Instead of liberating, it could exile the human spirit to the dark recesses of ignorance, disease and deprivation. Thus both science and spirituality are double-edged. They could be used to emancipate or to enslave. However, working in tandem, they could help enhance human potential, limiting each other's adverse effects.

A dialogue between science and spirituality would help to clarify their relative roles. In this context, exploring areas in which spiritual matters, such as whether prayer affects measurable empirical variables like health, is of considerable importance. Spiritual psychology is the discipline of relevance here.

Spiritual Psychology

Science has methods that work well in their legitimate domains of application. It would be a category mistake, however, to ask of science the proof for the existence of God. It would be equally inappropriate to ask for a spiritual explanation of the structure of the atom. Does it follow then that science is science and spirituality is spirituality and the two shall never meet? Not necessarily so. If it were, the question of dialogue between the two would not arise. Inasmuch as the human mind is the source from which science and spirituality spring and merge back in consciousness, as postulated in the unified theory—despite the distinctly parallel tracks on which they run—there is obvious interaction between the two in our lives. The science–spirituality dialogue is predicated on such interactions. Spiritual psychology focuses on them as its subject matter.

We said that science and spirituality spring from the human mind. However, they manifest as two distinct epistemic modes. One is the rational mode. It is mediated by the senses, the nervous system, and the brain. The other, the intuitive mode, is the revelational component of spiritual experience. It is the so-called transcendental aspect of our being that is not mediated but directly experienced. It processes consciousness-as-such. It is knowing by being. As William James puts it: ‘Mystical experiences are as direct perceptions of fact for those who have them as any sensations ever were for us’ (1902/1914, pp. 423–424). The existence of the intuitive/revelational mode is fundamental for spiritual experiences, just as the brain and sensory processing are essential for scientific understanding. Science is based on cognitive processing of information. In the Indian tradition, spirituality is considered transcognitive. Consciousness is believed to manifest in humans at the cognitive as well as transcognitive (transcendental) levels. Spiritual psychology explores the two together in the phenomena that are a joint manifestation of sense and reason on the one hand, and intuition and experience on the other.

Without miracles and mystical experiences, the sacred texts of most religions would be left with little credible substance. The miracles and revelational experiences may have a spiritual source. For this reason, they are labelled as non-natural or supernatural phenomena and are seen as conflicting with the basic limiting principles of science. For some, that is a sufficient justification for their rejection as genuine phenomena. Such a rejection would be comforting if one were to live in the domain of natural science alone. That would leave out, however, a great deal in our beliefs and practices. Exploring the spiritual component in our beliefs and behaviour is the business of spiritual psychology.

Science is based on reason and observation. Spiritual truths are born of revelations and are anchored in experience. Science in general is third-person oriented, whereas spirituality is first-person practised. Thus science and religion enjoy two diametrically different perspectives. Their validity essentially depends on the validity of the sources from which their respective claims emerge. If revelations are delusional experiences of maladjusted messiahs, religious beliefs tend to be false and detrimental. On the contrary, if they are indeed non-rational forms of knowing the truth, then there must be a non-rational source or pathway to truth. If there are thus two diametrically different sources of truth seeking, in which scientific discoveries and technologies on the one hand and religious beliefs and practices on the other are based, it is enormously important that we study the authenticity of religious experiences as we do the validity of scientific discoveries. It is the business of spiritual psychology to do just that. Since the mind is the seat/base of all knowledge, spiritual psychology attempts to study the mind as the interfacing instrumentality between science and religion. In an important sense, it is an attempt to apply spirituality underlying religious behaviour to psychology in general, and to its transpersonal and transcognitive aspects in particular.

Spiritual psychology is both a branch of psychology, like child psychology and social psychology, and a system of psychology, like psychoanalysis. It has a set of basic postulates that provide an overarching theoretical orientation. The basic postulate in this case is the primacy of spirit defined as the principle or centre of consciousness in the embodied human condition. Spiritual psychology, acknowledging the primacy of the spirit, explores its relation to the mind and the body in the person. Spiritual psychology explores the unity of the spirit, the mind and the body as they manifest in the human context. It serves as the bridge to connect the otherwise disparate realms of personal and transpersonal, the secular and the sacred, the cognitive and the transcognitive processes.

Spiritual psychology shares a great deal with religious psychology and yet is very different from it. Religious psychology, as the Cambridge psychologist R. H. Thouless (1972) defined it, seeks ‘to understand religious behaviour by applying to it the psychological principles derived from the study of non-religious behaviour’. Spiritual psychology goes well beyond this. It seeks to understand human nature itself from the study of the spiritual aspects in our beliefs and behaviour. Postulation of the primacy of the spirit is the defining characteristic of spiritual psychology. Spirit (ātman), in the Indian tradition, is consciousness-as-such. Consequently, the study of consciousness-as-such in its relation to the thinking-mind and the sensing-brain constitutes the subject matter of spiritual psychology.

Theoretical Base

Indian psychology has much to offer for a foundational base to build the edifice of spiritual psychology. Psychology in the Indian tradition is an ‘inner’ discipline in search of realizing truth and perfection in the human condition. The goal is to find oneself in an unconditioned and unmasked state. While assuming that consciousness is the ground condition of all knowledge, Indian psychology studies consciousness in its multifaceted manifestations and seeks to explore the experience of its true nature in one's being. Indian psychology is not only a body of generalizable principles, but it is also a set of practices that can be used for the transformation of the human condition towards perfection. It has its own methods appropriate to its subject matter and objectives. The methods are observational, but they are different from the externally oriented observations of ‘outer’ sciences. They are a peculiar blend of first- second- and third-person perspectives. They provide for personal, subjective, and non-relational authenticity and in-group inter-subject validity (Rao, 2002). The strength of Indian psychology consists in the potential it offers for transformation through successive stages and processes of deconditioning the person to a state of freedom and perfection. The following twelve points/principles provide the outline of a model based on classical Indian psychological thought:

1. Psychology is the study of the person (jīva).
2. The person is consciousness embodied.
3. The person is not an isolated and disconnected entity in that the jīva is transpersonal and interconnected by transcognitive states.
4. Consciousness-as-such is irreducibly distinct from material objects, including the brain and the mind.
5. The mind is different from consciousness as well as the body/brain machine. Unlike consciousness, the mind is material, albeit subtle. Unlike the brain, the mind has non-local characteristics, that is, it is not constrained by time and space variables, as gross material objects are. Thus the mind is the facilitating principle and function that interfaces consciousness at one end and the brain processes at the other.
6. Consciousness in the human context, that is, consciousness embodied, appears circumscribed, conditioned and clouded by a vortex of forces generated by the mind–body connection. Consequently, the conditioned person becomes an isolated instrument of individualized thought, passion and action.
7. From individuation arise, on the one hand, subjectivity, rational thinking and relativity of truth and values. On the other hand, there arises the ego as the organizing principle.
8. With the ego, come attachment and craving which lead the person in turn to experience anxiety, insecurity, stress, distress, disease and consequent suffering.
9. Situated in such an existential predicament of ignorance and suffering, the goal of the person is self-realization.
10. Self-realization consists in achieving a state of freedom and liberation (mokṣa) by a process of deconditioning training and consequent transformation of the person to achieve higher states of awareness and achievement. This is accomplished by accessing consciousness-as-such in transcognitive states.
11. Endowed with consciousness, mind and body, the person is capable of brain-processed learning (śravaṇa), mind-generated understanding (manana) and consciousness-accessed realization (nididhyāsana).
12. Yoga is a method of liberation via realization of transcognitive states. Realization takes different forms relative to the different dispositions of the seekers. These include knowledge-focussed jñāna yoga to meet the thought needs, devotion-filled bhakti yoga to deal with one's passionate nature, and action oriented karma yoga for those dominated by the impulse to act. Thus wisdom, worship and work are three distinct routes for self-realization.

This model makes a fundamental distinction between ‘consciousness/spirit’ and ‘mind’, and a secondary distinction between ‘mind’ and ‘brain’. Consciousness is the knowledge side of the universe. It is the ground condition for all awareness. Consciousness is not a part or aspect of the mind, which, unlike consciousness, is physical. Consciousness does not interact with the mind or any other objects or processes of the physical universe. However, in association with consciousness, mental phenomena become subjective and are revealed to and realized by the person.

In this view, the mind is the interfacing instrumentality that faces consciousness/spirit on one side and the brain and the physical world on the other. The mind thus gives the impression of having two faces—the physical side in its relation to the brain and other physical systems, and the subjective side facing consciousness/spirit. From the physical side, the mind collects information by processing the inputs it receives. This is normal cognitive processing. When the information thus processed is exposed to consciousness at the other end, that is, when the light of consciousness is reflected on it, there is conscious experience of the phenomenal data. In a reflexive situation, where the reflection of consciousness reflects back in consciousness (pratibimba), one has subjective awareness.

The mind, though physical like the brain, is different from it. The mind is closely connected to different systems of the brain. It influences and is influenced by events in the brain. Most Indian traditions assert that the mind is comprised of subtler forms of matter than the brain. Consequently, it has different characteristics such as non-locality. Its subtle character makes it possible to receive the light of consciousness/spirit to reflect its contents. By virtue of its implicit non-local nature, it is possible for the mind to act on systems beyond the body complex with which it is associated. Such a conception of the mind leaves open the possibility that the mind may survive the destruction and cessation of the associated body at a given time.

The mind thus enjoys dual citizenship in the physical world as well as in the realm of consciousness. As a material form, the mind's citizenship in the material world is by birth as it were. Its naturalization in the domain of consciousness/spirit is a matter of choice and an outcome of significant effort. Its citizenship in the material realm bestows on it the right to process information through its sensory channels and neural connections. The mind also has involuntary and passive access to consciousness in that the light of consciousness shines on it to illumine its critically poised contents, which become subjectively revealed. The mind also has within its reach the possibility of partaking in consciousness-as-such by disciplined practice so that it may have direct and unmediated knowledge. This possibility is otherwise remote because of the mind's habitual involvement with the sensory and cortical processes.

In the dual roles of the mind, two distinct processes—the cognitive and the transcognitive—aid the mind. The former involves sensory-motor processes; while the transpersonal processes involve accessing consciousness-as-such and achieving pure conscious states. In normal cognitive processes, consciousness is reflected in the mind. Awareness consists in those reflections. In transcognitive processes, consciousness is realized in the mind. Awareness in such a state consists in a relationship of identity with consciousness.

The main concern of psychology, in general, is with the normal processes of the mind. Therefore, the spotlight is on the brain and the sensory processes that give us information. Observational techniques from the third-person perspective are appropriately employed to study mental phenomena. Consciousness-as-such, which is not accessible to third-person observation, is lost sight of in scientific discussions. The consequence is a physical paradigm of the mind functioning in a mechanical universe. Functions of the mind, it is assumed, are best understood by identifying the correlated brain states. Significant shortcomings of this approach include: (a) consciousness-as-such is routinely ignored; (b) higher states of consciousness generally remain outside the scope of consciousness studies; and (c) the interest in studying consciousness is confined to the theoretical side, with little appreciation of its practical implications for developing higher states of awareness. The goal has been one of maintaining normality rather than seeking to transcend it.

Theory to Testing

So far we have attempted to model a perspective for studying spirituality in the context of doing psychology. If psychology is considered a scientific pursuit to understand human nature, spiritual psychology is an area in which science and spirituality do not go their separate ways; they are not compartmentalized. Rather they are seen as complementing each other. What happens then to the basic issue of incompatibility of science and spirituality? We are told that science essentially deals with observable and tangible things. Its methods require operationalization of variables and replication of results. It is argued that the methods of science make philosophical commitments inconsistent, if not incompatible, with the conceptual foundations of spirituality (Slife, Hope & Nebeker, 1996). Psychology made a commitment to strictly adhere to the methods of natural science. Is it possible then for psychology to study spirituality which stems from altogether different theoretical assumptions? If the hallmark of spirituality is transcendence, can transcendence be studied by methods developed within the sensory framework? Does this necessitate a reinterpretation of spirituality and altering of spiritual conceptions to fit the requirements of science and its methods? Slife, Hope and Nebeker (1996), for example, raised these questions as worthy of formal discussions as they observed that the recent work of researchers in spirituality ‘has the potential, at least, to undermine the very conceptions these researchers are attempting to test’ (p. 78).

Such concerns are largely an outcome of the prevailing positivist mindset in the Western psychological tradition. In the Indian tradition, for example, there is no such limitation or narrowing of science to observable and tangible phenomena. In fact, there is no clear-cut incompatibility or conflict between science and spirituality. Transcendence is the goal of spirituality; and is achieved through a process of transformation. Transformation takes place in the physical plane by gaining control over normal psychological processes. Meditation, for example, is a method suggested to bring about the transformation of the person and achieve a state of transcendence. Psychology in the Indian tradition has a workable blueprint for erecting the edifice of spiritual psychology by sidestepping the science-spirituality dichotomy. Consciousness is the common denominator of science as well as spirituality.

Spiritual psychology and general psychology represent two distinct conceptual streams that flow in two different directions. The spirituality stream deals with states of pure consciousness and their role in human condition. The general psychology stream touches only the periphery of consciousness and thus leaves out the spiritual and transcendental experiences. Together the two streams appear to cover the entire spectrum of mental phenomena. Therefore, if there were a confluence between the two, we may be in a better position to understand the unity and nexus between mind, body and consciousness. Spiritual psychology is an exercise toward that end. Spirituality per se may not be empirically tested; but, I believe, its effects can be observed and measured.

Implications and Applications

Socio-Political Implications

Spiritual psychology has important implications and some possible applications. M. K. Gandhi's thought and experiments in political action may be seen as grounded in spiritual psychology. The concept of satyāgraha and the non-violent action themes for social change and moral reconstruction are landmark experiments in spiritual psychology. Gandhi spoke of ‘spiritual force’. He referred to an ‘inner voice’ guiding him. His emphasis on truth, non-violence, love, compassion, and altruism are hallmarks of spiritual psychology applied to life and social action (Gandhi, 1938, 1958). Thus spiritual psychology has socio-political relevance; and research in this area, which is lagging, is truly warranted.

Therapeutic Implications

As mentioned, the primacy of the spirit is basic to spiritual psychology. The concept of spirit has diverse connotations. In Indian psychology, ātman (Vedānta) or puruṣa (Sāṁkhya-Yoga), come close to the English word ‘spirit’. Ātman is consciousness-as-such, unclouded by and free from the polluting accretions emanating from the sensory processes. Sri Aurobindo (1992) called the embodied, incarnate portion or aspect of the ātman the ‘psychic being’ of the person. In Western psychology—especially in its applied therapeutic aspects—the ego occupies the centre stage, taking the place of the spirit. It is the functioning of the ego that is of primary concern. Understanding the problems of adjustment of the ego, and dysfunctions of the ego caused by factors such as chemical imbalances, childhood trauma, or problems of sex, has been the saga of much of Western clinical psychology and psychotherapeutic practices.

The ego in the Indian psychological tradition is a manifestation of the mind and not of consciousness. It masks the spirit, the self. Shrouded by ignorance, the ego masquerades as the self. Therefore, tearing down the veil of ignorance, taming the ego, transcending the limiting adjuncts of the mind to allow the true light of the spirit to shine and reflect on the mind of the person, become the focus of spiritual psychology. This is what is involved in the process of transformation of the person. Yoga, for example, is a method of training for such transformation. According to Sri Aurobindo, there are three intra-psychic processes involved in ego-transformation. They are aspiration, surrender and rejection. Aspiration is the motivating factor, the driving force to feel the presence of the divine spirit. If spirit is consciousness-as-such, aspiration is the desire to access consciousness-as-such. Surrender refers to the openness to witness consciousness-as-such with no prior notions, attitudes and expectations. Rejection is the throwing out of all those ego accretions that cloud consciousness-as-such, so as to allow the unencumbered play of the psychic being. The function of the psychic being is accessing consciousness-as-such to guide and transform both our individual and collective life (Sri Aurobindo, 1992).

Western psychology pays more attention to ego-adjustment than ego-transformation. For example, the discussions often revolve around the defence mechanisms. G. E. Vaillant (1993) in The Wisdom of the Ego provides a brilliant classification of the varieties of defence mechanisms and styles of functioning, ranging from psychotic delusions to mature altruism and humour. All these styles, whether normal or aberrational, are attempts at adjustment and not transformation of the ego. Transformation involves tracing the route back from existential suffering, controlling craving and attachment, and transcending the limiting adjuncts of the mind so that the clouds of ignorance hovering around the person are dispelled and the person experiences states of pure consciousness. Such experiences are the transformational resource and gateway to realization, the discovery of the spirit within. Spiritual psychology in the Indian tradition is positive psychology that promotes health, happiness and joy in a non-ego binding manner. It is the joy of the spirit and not of the ego that the transformed person experiences. The general psychotherapeutic approach is horizontal, travelling across the existential contours of the ego. The spirituality way is vertical, elevating the person from the tangled ego to the sublime heights of the spirit, that is, states of pure conscious experience.

In the Western tradition, consciousness and the mind are conflated. By considering intentionality as the defining characteristic of consciousness, the possibility of the existence of pure conscious states, that is, consciousness without sensory content, is pre-empted. Consequently consciousness is either denied and reduced to processes in the brain or left completely unfathomable as in radical dualist postulations with an unbridgeable chasm between mind and body.

Understanding Extra-Ordinary Human Experience

Extra-ordinary human experiences such as telepathy and the direct action of mind over matter, which is technically labelled as psychokinesis (PK) pose severe explanatory challenges within the Western paradigm of science. They refer to events that cannot simply occur in the physical universe as we know it. The basic limiting principles, as C. D. Broad (1953) labelled them, governing the assumptive base of science rule out the possibility of mind-to-mind communication that does not involve meaningful transformation of energy between minds. Similarly non-inferential precognition is an absurdity. All attempts to naturalize the supernatural—that is what parapsychology hopes to do—result in the paradox of demolishing the very assumptive base of science by science itself. The attempts to find a naturalistic explanation of extrasensory perception (ESP), which is the ability to communicate without any sensory channel, and PK have not been successful. These include observational theories based on quantum mechanics (Irwin, 1999).

I am inclined to argue that research in the area of extra-ordinary human experience is unlikely to make much headway if the research continues to employ the disjunctive Western conceptual categories. The most that could be established within the Western paradigm is to provide extensive and even compelling evidence for the existence of cognitive anomalies. Beyond this, I venture to hazard, few insights into the nature of the phenomena themselves could be gained by methods that basically assume their non-existence.

In this context, spiritual psychology has much to offer and may give a new direction and a fresh impetus to parapsychological research. In Indian spiritual psychology, for example, there are concepts, methods and models that could make a difference. In the classical Indian tradition, no sharp distinction is made between the natural and the supernatural, the scientific and the spiritual. At some level of awareness, even the subject–object dichotomy disappears. Consequently, neither the paradox of naturalizing the supernormal nor the perplexities of parapsychological research pose any serious threat for an understanding of the psychic process within the paradigm of spiritual psychology.

Implications for Health and Wellness

The recent investigations in the area of epidemiology of religion, and clinical studies of the effect of religious and spiritual beliefs and practices on health and wellness, belong to the domain of spiritual psychology. There are now many researchers actively engaged researching in this area. Koenig, McCullough and Larson (2001) review in their Handbook of Religion and Health 1,200 research reports and 400 reviews.

Religion of one kind or another has existed in all societies; and it has had profound effects on the lives of those who practice it. Prayer is central to all religious practices. It is universal and ubiquitous, crossing cultural and geographical boundaries. It encompasses all religions, even those that do not specifically acknowledge an entity like God, as in Buddhism. Although the form and object of worship may vary, offering prayers is a pervasive phenomenon that is considered neither unusual nor abnormal. According to a survey published in 1996 by Princeton Religion Research Center, 96% of the US population believed in God or a supernormal power. Despite the universally prevalent and largely shared religious behaviour and the belief that prayer is a means of propitiating gods or invoking supernatural forces/abilities to help improve human condition, it remained a largely unexplored area until recently for contemporary social scientists. However, during the past fifteen years, there are literally hundreds of research reports published in refereed journals.

There are several significant studies that explored the relationship between religiosity and a variety of health conditions. In about 150 studies on alcohol and drug abuse and religious involvement, most of the studies ‘suggest less substance abuse and drug abuse and more successful rehabilitation among the more religious’ (Koenig, McCullough & Larson, 2001). Also, numerous studies investigated the effect of religion on mental health, delinquency, depression, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, cancer and physical disability. (For a comprehensive review of research in these areas, see Koenig, McCullough & Larson, 2001).

Surveys of literature and meta-analysis of published research seem to confirm the claims of individual researchers linking religious practices with better health outcomes. For example, in a systematic and comprehensive review, Townsend, Kladder, Ayele and Mulligan (2002) assessed the impact of religion on health outcomes. They reviewed all experiments involving randomized controlled trials, published between 1996 and 1999, that assessed the relationship between religious practices and measurable health variables. The review revealed that ‘religious involvement and spirituality are associated with better health outcomes, including greater longevity, coping skills, and health related quality of life and less anxiety’. In a meta-analytic review of 29 independent samples, McCullough et al. (2000, p. 1) report that religious involvement has a strong positive influence of increased survival.

If religious involvement does have beneficial health outcomes, as many of the published reports in the West seem to suggest, then we may ask: How does this relationship work? What is its modus operandi, the process that underlies the presumed effect? What is the channel? Who is the source? These important, though often tricky, questions have no easy answers. The favoured explanation is a secular one. Religious beliefs and practices may have psychological effects, which in turn bring about somatic changes. If indeed religious beliefs and activities help to reduce anxiety, stress and depression, they could also help to shield their negative effects on general health and well-being.

As Koenig, Larson and Larson (2001) surmise, when people become physically ill, many rely heavily on religious beliefs and practices to relieve stress, retain a sense of control, and maintain hope and sense of meaning and purpose in life. It is suggested that religion (a) acts as a social support system, (b) reduces the sense of loss of control and helplessness, (c) provides a cognitive framework that reduces suffering and enhances self-esteem, (d) gives confidence that one, with the help of God, could influence the health condition, and (e) creates a mindset that enables the patient to relax and allow the body to heal itself. Again, the values engendered by religious involvement such as love, compassion, charity, benevolence, and altruism may help to successfully cope with debilitating anxiety, stress and depression. All this may be true. Yet, there are issues that go beyond these explanations. For example, if the observed effects of distant intercessory prayer on the health of patients, who did not even know that some one was praying for them, are genuine, as they seem to be, the above secular explanations become clearly inadequate. We need more than a healthy mindset on the part of the patient to recover from illness because someone, unknown to him, had prayed for his recovery. There may be more to religion than being a social and psychological support system. Consider, for example, the case of remote intercessory prayer and its ramifications for future research in the area that explores the effects of religious activities on health and well-being.

Distant (Remote) Intercessory Prayer

A number of studies provide positive evidence linking intercessory prayer with beneficial health outcomes. Intercessory prayer involves praying for others’ benefit. In some of these studies, the patients did not know that someone was praying for them. Yet, their condition seemed to have improved compared to the controlled group of patients who did not have the benefit of someone praying for them. Michael Miovic (2004) referred to two cases published recently in the journal Alternate Therapies, which document the effects of healing at a distance and ‘how an “energy” healer used intention-at-a-distance to cure a girl of glioblastoma multiforme, a very aggressive brain tumour. In this case, the diagnosis and cure were so convincingly established with contemporary medical technology (biopsies and serial brain scans), and the disease itself is known to be so uniformly fatal that it is difficult to ascribe the healer's results to pure chance’ (p. 58).

In a double blind study involving 393 coronary care patients, Randolph Byrd (1988) divided his subjects into two randomized groups. One group is the intercessory prayer group and the other is the control group. Neither the physicians attending on them nor the patients themselves knew which patients were being prayed for. Also, those who actually offered prayers did not know the patients for whose recovery they were praying. Results showed that the patients in the intercessory prayer group experienced significantly fewer episodes of congestive heart failures (p < .05), fewer cardiac arrests (p < .05), received fewer antibiotics (p < .005) and required less respirator support and medication (p < .0001). W. S. Harris et al. (1999) conducted a double blind study of distant intercessory prayer with 990 patients in the cardiac care unit. In this study with randomized controlled trials, it was observed that the experimental group (the prayed for patients) recovered better than the control group of patients. The results are statistically significant, even after correction for multiple analyses. In a meta-analysis of published studies, Mueller, Plevak and Rummans (2001) found that randomized controlled trials had shown a significant positive effect between intercessory prayer and recovery from coronary disease. They observed that addressing the spiritual needs of the patient may enhance recovery from illness.

If these effects of distant intercessory prayer are genuine, as they seem to be, how do we explain them? The secular explanations of the sort considered earlier are clearly inadequate. What is the mechanism involved? Who is the source? What is the channel? It was clearly understood by those who offered the prayers that it was God who was involved, responding to the prayer to influence the health outcome of the patients. Are we then experimenting with God? Can science go beyond itself and deal with spirituality and the divine? This could be scary and frightening to those who assume the essential incompatibility of science and spirituality.

Impressed with the extensive publications in the area, Chibnall, Jeral and Cerullo (2001) toiled for a couple of years to do a methodologically sophisticated and conceptually unambiguous study to test the influence of distant intercessory prayer on health. They found themselves unable to proceed beyond a critical review of the published reports. Their paper, ‘Experiments on Distant Intercessory Prayer: God, Science, and the Lesson of Messiah’, turned out to be more a debunking exercise rather than a constructive contribution. They conclude that this area of research is simply unproductive. They argue, among other things, that the notion of intervention by supernatural beings does not simply meet the basic testability and explanatory requirements of science. They write: ‘Science does not deny God, miracles, and the like, it merely neglects them…. Science cannot actualize spirituality, so why do we ask this of it?’ This paper became quite influential among health professionals in the West for the reason that its rationale is quite consistent with the mindset that makes a clear separation between science and spirituality, between what is believed to be natural as distinguished from the supernatural, which is considered ex-hypothesis as beyond the scope of science. Such separation of the natural and the supernatural engenders among scientists the fear of trespassing into the sacred, which, it would seem, is one of the powerful reasons behind the efforts to fault researches in this and similar areas.

Comforting the critics of the studies reporting significant positive influence of intercessory prayer on health in humans are the results of a recent multi-million dollar study (Benson et al., 2006) funded by John Templeton Foundation in USA. This study of the therapeutic effects of intercessory prayer in cardiac bypass patients, carried out by a team of sixteen researchers, involved three groups of randomly assigned patients in six US hospitals. One group numbering 604 patients received intercessory prayer after being informed that they may or may not receive prayer. The second group of 597 patients did not receive the prayer after similar information that they may or may not receive the prayer. The third group of 601 subjects received intercessory prayer after they were told that they would receive such a prayer.

The subjects in the two prayed-for groups received 14 days of prayer for uncomplicated recovery after the bypass surgery. The primary measure of outcome is the presence of any complication within thirty days of surgery.

The results showed no significant benefit to the patients in the prayed-for groups over the control group of patients who did not receive any prayers. On the contrary, it was found that the patients in group three, who were told that they would receive and did in fact receive prayers, fared significantly worse compared to the other two groups. From this the authors conclude that intercessory prayer itself ‘had no effect on complication-free recovery’ from the bypass surgery.

The publication of this study by Benson et al. (2006) was considered by several commentators as the final word on the efficacy of intercessory prayer, even though Benson himself leaves room for more studies. I believe this study should not be considered alone. It is in the nature of studies in areas like this that you do not expect replication each time one conducts a study. It is the cumulative results of a number of studies evaluated by an appropriate meta-analysis that should guide our generalizations. Therefore, the Benson et al. study should be seen not only in relation to other studies involving intercessory prayer but also along with a significant amount of literature available in related areas like studies of direct action of mind over matter or psychokinetic effects. Then, one realizes why these effects are not replicable on demand and why occasionally the observed effect is opposite of the one expected, which is technically known as psi-missing. Also, it would not be correct to say that there was no significant influence of intercessory prayer on health outcome in the study by Benson and associates, because the observed difference between the non-prayed for and prayed for groups in this study is statistically significant. Parapsychological literature is replete with such effects (Rhine, 1952; Rao, 1965). Rather it was a negative or psi-missing effect, the one opposite of expectation. This is not that unusual as Rao's (1965) reviews have shown.

Such attempts to scientifically test the effects of spirituality on life show why the argument that researches in the religion–health area do not meet the testability requirements of science is unconvincing, if not false. In addition, there is no intrinsic reason to bring in God or supernatural beings as the source of observed effects of distant intercessory prayer on health. Consider, for example, the wealth of studies that show similar effects of the influence of direct mental influence on remote biological systems. There is a large empirical database accumulated over the years by William Braud and associates that provides strong evidence suggestive of the possibility of influencing the physiology of a remotely situated person by sheer mental intention of another person. Braud and Schlitz (1991) review eight separate experiments in which the subjects attempted to influence remote biological systems by simply wishing such a change. The crucial difference between prayer and such wishing is that no supernatural being is invoked in the wish phenomenon, unlike in the prayer, which is generally directed at seeking the help of God to grant the wish. The results of the experiments by Braud and associates show that a subject by mental intention alone could influence in the desired direction (a) the autonomic nervous system activity of a remotely situated person, (b) the muscular tremor and ideo-motor reactions, (c) mental imagery of another person, and (d) the rate of haemolysis of human red blood cells in vitro. There is no reference in these studies to supernatural beings or non-testable entities. As Braud points out, based on the over all statistical results, the distant mental influence effects are relatively reliable and robust. The magnitude of the effects is not trivial and is comparable to self-regulation effects. The ability to mentally influence is apparently widely distributed. Thus, these experiments not only show the feasibility of scientifically studying such phenomena as healing through distant intercessory prayer, but they suggest also that the source of the effect may be a living person and not necessarily a supernatural entity like God.

Conclusion

I am convinced that spiritual psychology is a viable discipline and that Indian psychology may be seen as providing the foundational base for it. It should be mentioned, however, that spiritual psychology is different from the psychology of religion, and that religion and spirituality are distinct and different in some important aspects, even though the two are often used interchangeably by researchers exploring the effects of religion on health and well-being. It is necessary to underscore the distinction. Religion is doctrinaire and denominational, having specific behavioural and social consequences. Therefore, being religious implies more than being spiritual. Spirituality is not circumscribed within the bounds of any one religion. Rather it is guided by a belief in what may be called the transcendental aspect of being. While all religions aim at promoting spirituality, there is the distinct possibility that the manifest forms of religious worship and participation in religious activities may be dissociated from intrinsic spirituality. Therefore, a measure of religiosity need not be a measure of spirituality. Researchers are now becoming increasingly aware of this possibility. The Fetzer scale of ‘Multidimensional Measurement of Religiousness/Spirituality’ explicitly recognizes the distinction between religiosity and spirituality.

The Indian social scientists will have an advantage over their Western colleagues in carrying out research at the explanatory level of this area. At the outset, they would be less encumbered and constrained by what I consider a regressive notion that involves the dichotomy of spirituality and science. In Indian psychology, we have appropriate concepts and viable research strategies to meaningfully deal with phenomena that appear anomalous on the surface. In my encounters with theoretical issues in psychology, I find Indian models very helpful. The concept of pure consciousness, the possibility of knowing by being, and the numerous mind-transforming techniques traditionally practised in India, such as yoga, would be useful in modelling process-oriented research in this area.

Centrality of consciousness is the defining characteristic of Indian psychology (Rao, 2004). In the classical Indian tradition, consciousness is not conceived as an epiphenomenon or as a quality of experience. Rather consciousness is an autonomous principle, the ground condition of all knowing. However, not all knowing is of the sensory kind, which gives us only representational knowledge. There is another kind of knowing, knowing by being, which arises when we access consciousness-as-such. In a state of pure consciousness, we are told, one has non-representational direct awareness. In such a state, there is no possibility of dissociation between knowing and being, cognition and conduct, and thought and action. As the Upaniṣadic statement proclaims, ‘to know brahman is to be brahman’. If sensory awareness gives one understanding of the phenomena, knowing by being results in the realization of the phenomena in his/her being. The lives of true saints and those who have had genuine ‘peak’ experiences are instances of those who achieved realization in various degrees. Realization, on the one hand, removes any gap between belief and behaviour. On the other, it has important transformational consequences to the person and his well-being. It is important to recognize that the notion of pure consciousness is not an armchair metaphysical postulate. It is an empirical claim embedded in Indian tradition. We will do well to understand it and study its implications to psychological research. Spiritual psychology is the discipline that could unravel the many mysteries that shroud the several layers of higher consciousness.

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