Dayal Gauranga spoke at
Harvard’s Bhukti Yoga conference in 2025 on how spirituality can complement
psychology in the healing of past traumas. He explicitly related religion/spirituality
and psychology; my question is whether he succeeded, and if so, what put him past
the finishing line. I contend that even though at times his use of spirituality
lapsed into psychology (i.e., conflating the two domains by psychologizing spirituality),
at the end of his talk he related spirituality to truth, which is not within
the purview of psychology. By truth, I mean religious truth, rather than, for example, 2+2=4. I contend,
moreover, that disentangling religion from other domains by plucking out weeds
from other gardens so to be able to uncover and thereby recognize the native
fauna in the religious garden, as well as pulling the religious weeds that have
been allowed to spread other gardens is much needed, especially in a secular
context. It is with this in mind that I turn to analyzing Gauranga’s
spiritual-psychological theory of healing oneself of traumatic wounds.
Gauranga began his lecture by discussing two patterns that inhibit spiritual development.
One is struggling with everyday human experience because of childhood
conditioning, ego, and unresolved wounds.
The second is engaging in spiritual bypassing by using spiritual
practice to avoid pain rather than transform it. Transforming hurt into a sense
of wholeness requires a person to integrate one’s spiritual dimension with one’s
embodied (i.e.,, materialist) daily experience.
The process of overcoming the
obstacles begins with identifying unresolved psychological pain, even if it is
due to a wound from long ago in childhood. Gauranga’s main point is that spirituality
can be used in the healing process; it is not only psychological. What, then,
is spirituality? One view is that it is the understanding of, connecting to,
and living as our authentic self, which is not material. I believe he had Advaita
Vedanta in mind here. A person is not one’ bank balance, one’s
insecurities, one’s job title, etc. Rather than leave these things behind, the task
is to integrate them with one’s spiritual dimension. In Vedanta meditation, the
key lies in getting in touch with one’s self not as ego and definitely not as
the id, but, instead, as a one’s seat of consciousness. I contend that the seat
goes beyond being conscious of things, including one’s own personality
and desires. By a person getting in touch with one’s seat from which one
is conscious of even oneself as an embodied creature, Gauranga claims that it
is possible to turn inward in compassion to heal the wounded parts of oneself,
such that the person can be restored to wholeness, which includes being spiritually
connected to other people. Gauranga cleverly brought up the notion of a
cybernetic system, such as a thermostat in a house that regulates heating and
cooling, that responds to external stimuli and returns to a homeostatic state
of equilibrium. If the temperature in a house gets too high, the thermostat is
triggered to bring the temperature back down to the temperature-setting. Human
beings have such a system internally; we can return from unalignment to
spiritual wholeness.
It seems to me that by drawing
on the theory of Gregory Bateson in his Steps to an Ecology of Mind, our
species can, if it has the will, enable the planet’s carbon dioxide thermostat
to function to being the atmosphere and oceans back to equilibrium. Whether
that includes our species may depend on how long until, or even if, we
will it collectively, as a species, and back up our will with political power. Bateson
theorizes the maximizing, schizogenic forces, such as our species is described
by Agent Smith in the film, The Matrix, can piece ecologizing forces
that are oriented to equilibrium. Perhaps in terms of psychology, the human
psyche has both types of forces instinctually. Gauranga’s point can be
interpreted as adding that the ecologizing forces that are part of a person’s
mind can involve spiritual wholeness, which the schizogenic self-maximizing
force of the mind as ego can, unfortunately, knock off kilter, and thus off
from equilibrium.
Gauranga applies his notion of
spiritual wholeness both to a person and to one’s interpersonal relations. In both
respect, compassion plays a key role. It is precisely in being compassionate to
one’s wounds from past trauma that one self-heals. I contend that this does no
obviate the need for psychoanalysis by a trained psychologist. In fact the
defense mechanisms that can even come to be imbedded in one’s personality can
become so engrained that therapy is needed for a person to be able to recognize
them. A person could then apply compassion to those internal distorted
mechanisms too. Once psychologically and spiritually healed, and thus rendered
mentally and spiritually whole, a person is freer internally to be
compassionate in one’s interpersonal relationships and external spiritual
connections.
In short, we can discover and
reconnect to our inherent sense of self, and thus compassionately relate to the
parts of us that have been wounded by past traumas. In other words, a person
can integrate one’s body, psyche, and spirit and thus be whole. Krishna’s first
and final advice to Arjuna in the Bhagavad-gita is to surrender and fear
not. From a standpoint of less fear, a person can approach one’s spiritual
connections in the world with broader compassion, as in Augustine’s notion of benevolentia
universalis.
Recognition of one’s own spirituality
and materiality/biology includes reconnecting with one’s body in the present
moment, rather than in recalling past trauma. Spirituality does not lie in
forgetting that we are embodied, which includes the brain. Then can come recognition
of the mentally and spiritually wounded parts of oneself and the related
psychologically protective defense mechanisms, relating to those parts of
oneself with compassion and curiosity. By this means, a person can release and
repair those burdens so to be able to return to the deeper self and free up one’s
connection to the sacred. That is, a person’s spirituality can be a means by
which recurrent pain from past trauma can be healed. Having sketched Gauranga’s
theory of healing, I now turn to the question of whether his theory adequately
distinguishes spirituality, and thus religion, from psychology. From the
standpoint of the religious “garden,” I want to pluck out weeds from other
gardens to be able to find what is distinctly and uniquely religious in the
theory.
Inherent spiritual being, which
is one’s own self below all the crap, is not reachable by a cognitive process,
which, Gauranga claimed, is psychology. This may be a reductionistic claim, however,
as psychology involves emotion. The pain from past traumas is itself emotional
rather than cognitive. Presumably psychotherapy includes a patient feeling unpleasant
emotions rather than merely thinking about or analyzing them. Reducing
psychology to cognition is thus problematic. Gauranga’s claim that psychology
is limited to the mind is more fitting, if the mind is understood to include
the biology of the brain. Cartesian mind-body duality can by the twenty-first
century be shown the door thanks to natural science. Gauranga asserted that a
person’s authentic self (atman) goes beyond the reach of a person’s
mind. Certainly atman lies beyond the stench of ego, but Gauranga was
saying something else: using the mind to cognitively know one’s self at its very
foundation or ground falls short. To be sure, because the mind (i.e.,
concentration) is used in meditation, which is oriented in Vedanta Hinduism to
realizing one’s ultimate self as identical to brahman, distinguishing
psychology from spirituality is not so clear. However, experiencing “pure”
consciousness as being itself as a person’s real self can be said to
transcend the mind because thoughts are arrested as the person is just aware of
one’s being. To be aware does not mean that the mind is aware of anything
other than awareness itself. Having focused on a repetitive mantra, prayer,
scriptural passage, or divine attribute in a bhukti (i.e., lovingly
devotional) way, the human mind can suddenly just stop, and just be aware. A
person is then simply part of awareness, which as universalized is brahman.
The person is not thinking about lunch, Krishna, Jesus, or even oneself, for
thinking itself has stopped. Even the passage of time is not noticed. In this
respect, spiritual experience does not reduce to, or even include, psychology because
both thoughts and emotions have stopped.
Gauranga is on less firm
ground in asserting that compassion towards a person’s own psychological wounds
is spiritual in nature. Compassion is a virtue in philosophical ethics. Furthermore,
David Hume asserts that sympathy, which can give rise to compassion, is
involved in making a moral judgment regarding other people’s motives and acts. Lastly,
Freud posits the psychological existence of not only the the id and ego, but
also the superego, the latter of which is in a mind saying what the person (or
another person) should think, feel or do. Freud’s concept of the
superego, which is psychological in classification, is very close to
compassion. To wit, I should be compassionate, and you should be
compassionate.
Therefore, compassion itself
cannot be claimed to be distinctly spiritual even if it is a byproduct of the
realization experientially and cognitively that one’s real self is identical to
brahman, which is infinite being that is conscious, powerful, and,
according to Ramanuja, blissful as well. To be sure, compassion is no stranger
to religion, as the personifications as Krishna and Jesus illustrate.
Compassion is part of what Gauranga called “spiritual connection.” I’m sure he
would agree that such connection is not the same as what is described in social
psychology textbooks. In this respect, it is crucial that he brought in the notion
of (a) higher being as being foundational to spiritual connection. Whether as one’s
real self as being realized as identical to the transcendent, inherently
unmanifest brahman, or as a deity such as Krishna, including a
transcendent extratextual referent distinguishes spirituality as qualitatively
different from psychology, and even as unique, as sui generis.
Interestingly, religions in
which religious belief is important have a harder job in claiming that spirituality
is distinct from Gauranga’s cognition-delimited notion of psychology. Spirituality
can be distinct even from a more expansive definition of psychology. A “straw-man”
is not needed for religion to survive the modern onslaught of psychology.
Neither must psychology set up a merely “straw” definition of spirituality to
resist its encroachments! The saying of politicians that everything is
political also gets at the maximizing (schizogenic) nature of human domains. In
claiming sovereignty or rights to wholeness, religion too can be understood to
schizogenic rather than ecologizing. From the standpoint of other domains, the hyper-extended
right of sovereignty that religion claims stops at its borders. This does not
invalidate the distinctly religious meaning, which would represent an overreach
onto the territory of religion by schizogenic forces in another domain.
The key, I submit, to Gauranga’s
claim that spirituality is distinct from psychology lies in the type of referent
that anchors a person’s spirituality. In asserting that “any real healing
includes the spiritual self as a healing agent” as distinct from the
psychological self (i.e., the mind), Gauranga added that “reconnecting to the
truth of what we are is spiritual” rather than psychological in nature. Truth.
In including that word, Gauranga successfully supported his claim that
spirituality is distinct from psychology, for the latter domain does not include
making truth claims, just as history too cannot. Faith narratives are not
historical accounts, whether in authorial intent or written content, for
drawing on historical events (and adapting others rather than merely adopting
them) is not the same as writing a historical account.
In being oriented to one’s true self (atman), and as being identical to brahman, or to loving Krishna or Jesus compassionately, especially in extratextual experience that goes beyond thinking over specifical scriptural passages, a person’s yearning for distinctly religious truth is not within the realm of psychology. Crucially, religious truth is based beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and sensibility (i.e., emotion), according to the sixth-century Christian theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius. In chapter 11 of the Bhagavad-gita, the vision that Krishna provides for Arjuna of Krishna transcends Arjuna’s cognitions of Krishna’s divine attributes. As Gauranga noted in concluding his talk, Krishna’s last advice to Arjuna is not to be afraid. The vision in the Gita overwhelms and perplexes Arjuna’s mind.
Therefore, the incorporation of truth, as in a person’s true self, or as a transcendent being (i.e., a deity) that is believed to be the Supreme Person and thus ultimately real renders spiritual connection distinctly religious and not just the quality of garden-variety compassion. Even revelation must travel into our realm as through a smoky stained-glass window, according to Augustine. Rather than arriving untouched through inert human nature as pristine, Augustine’s view can be put in terms of the recognition that what we know, perceive, and feel regarding religious truth inevitably must pass through our biochemical processes, which include even our use of reason (i.e., ratiocination). Simply put, even though religious truth is eternal, not material, and infallible, no person alive as embodied qualifies (i.e., not counting souls in heaven or liberated individual selves) for these divine attributes. Even so, a human instinctual (even genetic) urge to yearn for a reference-point that is transcendent may exist even though the referent transcends instinct. Rather than bypassing the psychological work that must be done to heal trauma, acting on such an urge by meditation, bhukti, ritual, or prayer can provide a transcendent sense of grounding that can fortify distinctly psychological therapy and self-healing. Spirituality and psychology can work together without falling into each other, or one conquering the other.
