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Sri Aurobindo’s Comments on Western Psychology

Dr. Soumitra Basu

Abstract
It is interesting to note Sri Aurobindo’s observations on the emerging Western psychology.
But the human being is a transitional being and subject to continuous change. Western
psychology studies this change in social, cultural, environmental, genetic and technological
terms. In Sri Aurobindo’s cosmology, this change is an evolutionary one in consciousness,
as the individual traverses supra-rational cognitive matrices, heralding the emergence of a
consciousness based psychology.

Aurobindo was well aware of the main currents
of thought prevalent in Western psychology
before he started writing his magnum opus,
The Life Divine. In numerous drafts, letters
and writings, he had been commenting on
aspects of Western psychology since 1912-13.
Much like a seasoned researcher, he made an
overview of the contemporary movements
in psychology before he embarked on
presenting his own experiential constructs.
Sri Aurobindo did not write a textbook of Some of his comments on various issues are
psychology but his writings are full of seed- listed not merely for historical interest but
ideas that can be extrapolated to build a to demonstrate how his ideas for a futuristic
comprehensive approach to psychology. psychology started to build up momentum.
His main writings, which later on appeared as
books, were simultaneously written during the Comments on early psychological thinking
turbulent times of World War I and its aftermath. in the West
These writings, which are full of psychological
insights, started to be serialised in the journal, He had observed how the old structuralistic,
Arya from 1914 onwards. It seems that Sri functionalistic and Pavlovian ways of

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