Page 26 - NAMAH-Apr-2020

Namah Vol. 28, Issue 1, 24th April 2020

how he differentiated cases needing occult paradigms if we consider the yogic insight
intervention and herbal remedies from those that the macrocosm is represented in the
who had to be treated not by him but by a microcosm and the microcosm is represented
modern psychiatric practitioner, who would in the macrocosm. In other words, this is
prescribe psychotropic medication. He also meant to imply that a higher level of Reality
clarified that even in cases treated by him, can be represented at a lower level of reality.
some needed concurrent pharmacological The mystic and the spiritual seeker deal
treatment, too, for which he also made referrals. with the higher level of Reality, while the
When asked if as a mystic, he had any scientist and the materialist deal with the
reservations about taking help from modern earthly reality implying a duality implicit in
psychiatry, he gave a beautiful answer — “Let reality itself. Sri Aurobindo explained that
saadhanaa (spiritual pursuit) and gavesana (scientific this duality is not infallible and is not a “law
research) go together — where is the conflict?” of manifestation”; rather it is “a circumstance”
of evolution. Duality is just “the device of
Clearly this remarkable mystic has an manifesting the Infinite in Ignorance through
integrated approach to treatment. For the imperfect instruments (3)”.
field of psychology, the question remains
unanswered: how can the two perspectives, In a reverse movement, the imperfect
the spiritual and the scientific, be optimally instruments can also be transformed into
combined? An initial exploration of these perfected archetypes not merely in the world
issues is documented by the anthropologist of ideals but in the realm of manifestation.
mentioned above, Natalie Tobert, who has In his magnum opus, The Life Divine, he has
written a fascinating book on her study of described how the earthly reality can be
traditional healers, patients and modern transfigured in transcendental terms through
psychiatrists in India, Spiritual Psychiatries (2). an elaborate and sophisticated process of what
he terms as supramental transformation. In
The relation between the spiritual and other words, the higher Reality can manifest
scientific paradigms at the earthly level, too. Actually, it is not
a question of two different realities but the
The spiritual and mechanistic paradigms of same Reality that is manifested at different
consciousness are so far removed from each levels for “The Reality is one and not a sum or
other that it would be relevant to ponder a concourse (4)”.
whether it is worthwhile to forcibly reduce
one in terms of the other. Instead, perhaps Sri Aurobindo qualified that, Reality or Brahman
it would be more meaningful to keep the expresses Itself in “many successive forms of
two paradigms separate for conceptual, consciousness, successive in their relation even
theoretical, practical and heuristic reasons. If if co-existent in being or coeval in Time (5).”
a link could be established between the two Further, “Brahman is integral and unifies many
paradigms, then our whole perspective of states of consciousness at a time (6).”
consciousness research would change.
This stance helps to consider an overview
A link can actually be made between the two of consciousness where both the synthetic

26