The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga

The Positive Psychology of Buddhism and Yoga

Author: Marvin Levine

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2011-03-17

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1136910565

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This book describes Buddhist-Yogic ideas in relation to those of contemporary Western psychology. The book begins with the Buddhist view of the human psyche and of the human condition. This leads to the question of what psychological changes need to be made to improve that condition. Similarities between Buddhism and Western Psychology include: Both are concerned with alleviating inner pain, turmoil, affliction and suffering. Both are humanistic and naturalistic in that they focus on the human condition and interpret it in natural terms. Both view the human being as caught in a causal framework, in a matrix of forces such as cravings or drives which are produced by both our biology and our beliefs. Both teach the appropriatenss of compassion, concern and unconditional positive regard towards others. Both share the ideal of maturing or growth. In the East and the West, this is interpreted as greater self possession, diminished cravings and agitations, less impulsivity and deeper observations which permit us to monitor and change our thoughts and emotional states. Buddhism, Yoga, and Western Psychology, especially the recent emphasis on positive psychology, are concerned with the attainment of deep and lasting happiness. The thesis of all three is that self-transformation is the surest path to this happiness.


The Psychology of Yoga

The Psychology of Yoga

Author: Georg Feuerstein

Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Published: 2014-01-14

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 0834829215

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"Psychoanalysis itself and the lines of thought to which it gives rise," said C. G. Jung, "are only a beginner’s attempt compared to what is an immemorial art in the East"—by which he was referring to the millennia-old study of the mind found in Yoga. That tradition was hardly known in the West when the discipline of psychology arose in the nineteenth century, but with the passing of time the common ground between Yoga and psychology has become ever more apparent. Georg Feuerstein here uses a modern psychological perspective to explore the ways Hindu, Buddhist, and Jaina yogas have traditionally regarded the mind and how it works—and shows how that understanding can enhance modern psychology in both theory and practice.


Yoga and Psychology

Yoga and Psychology

Author: Harold Coward

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2012-02-01

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 0791487911

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Harold Coward explores how the psychological aspects of Yoga philosophy have been important to intellectual developments both East and West. Foundational for Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought and spiritual practice, Patañjali's Yoga Sutras, the classical statement of Eastern Yoga, are unique in their emphasis on the nature and importance of psychological processes. Yoga's influence is explored in the work of both the seminal Indian thinker Bhartrhari (c. 600 C.E.) and among key figures in Western psychology: founders Freud and Jung, as well as contemporary transpersonalists such as Washburn, Tart, and Ornstein.. Coward shows how the yogic notion of psychological processes makes Bhartrhari's philosophy of language and his theology of revelation possible. He goes on to explore how Western psychology has been influenced by incorporating or rejecting Patañjali's Yoga. The implications of these trends in Western thought for mysticism and memory are examined as well. This analysis results in a notable insight, namely, that there is a crucial difference between Eastern and Western thought with regard to how limited or perfectible human nature is—the West maintaining that we as humans are psychologically, philosophically, and spiritually limited or flawed in nature and thus not perfectible, while Patañjali's Yoga and Eastern thought generally maintain the opposite. Different Western responses to the Eastern position are noted, from complete rejection by Freud, Jung, and Hick, to varying degrees of acceptance by transpersonal thinkers.


Practical Yoga Psychology

Practical Yoga Psychology

Author: Rishi Vivekananda

Publisher:

Published: 2006-10

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9788186336397

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Practical Yoga Psychology is a guide to applying the principles of yoga to understanding the human mind and character. The book relates the practice of yoga to the principles and practice of psychology. Psychology is a science that tries to understand how the human mind functions. It tries to explain individual human traits, the behaviour of a person, the way they relate to other people, their surroundings and the world in general. The character and behaviour of a person is studied not just for an abstract understanding but also to find ways in which each person can improve relationships, improve the way they interact with the world and thus enhance their life experience.The science of yoga studies the human soul. In the view of yoga, it is not the body and mind that experience life. It is the soul that undergoes all these experiences through the body. Yoga classifies the character of a person based on the three Gunas, Tamas, Rajas and Sattva.Tamas is inertia, Rajas is passion and action and Sattwa is purity and balance. Yoga also studies the influences of the various chakras on the body and mind of a person. The chakras are centers of concentrated energy. The book explains the core qualities inherent in each chakra.


Yoga and Psychotherapy

Yoga and Psychotherapy

Author: Swami Rama

Publisher: Himalayan Institute Press

Published: 2007-02-08

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 9780893890360

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"Provides and in-depth analysis of Western and Eastern models of the mind and their differing perspectives"--Publisher's description.


Yoga and Western Psychology

Yoga and Western Psychology

Author: Geraldine Coster

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publ.

Published: 1998-12-31

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 9788120815612

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The present work is the product of author`s profound studies in India`s yogic system. The author has worked out this abstruse subject in a peculiarly comprehensible way. The comparison of the Eastern system of Yoga with the system of analytical psychology


The Psychology of the Yogas

The Psychology of the Yogas

Author: Gidi Ifergan

Publisher: Equinox Publishing (UK)

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781800500860

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The Psychology of the Yogas explores the dissonance between the promises of the yogic quest and psychological states of crisis. Western practitioners of yoga and meditation who have embarked upon years-long spiritual quests and who have practiced under the guidance of a guru tell of profound and ongoing experiences of love, compassion and clarity: the peaks of spiritual fulfillment. However, after returning to the West, they reported difficulties and crises in different areas of their lives. Why did these practitioners, who had apparently touched the heights of fulfillment, still suffer from these crises? The author explores the psychological theory of yoga and its concrete yogic psychological methods such as 'cultivating of the opposite' (pratipakṣa bhāvanā), transforming it to 'imagining the opposite', a practice aimed at healing negative habitual tendencies. These methods are extracted from an in-depth study of the Yoga of Patañjali and the Tibetan-Buddhist Ati Yoga of Longchenpa-the Dzogchen. The works of Patañjali (third century) and Longchenpa (fourteenth century) provide a profound psychological framework for understanding the human psyche. These methods are effective but at times difficult to implement. However, as demonstrated through a case study, Western psychology can effectively undo habitual tendencies in a manner which may complement yoga practice, enhancing the integration of one's spirituality and psychology.


The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga

Author: C. G. Jung

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-01-12

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1400821916

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"Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model of something that was almost completely lacking in Western psychology--an account of the development phases of higher consciousness.... Jung's insistence on the psychogenic and symbolic significance of such states is even more timely now than then. As R. D. Laing stated... 'It was Jung who broke the ground here, but few followed him.'"--From the introduction by Sonu Shamdasani Jung's seminar on Kundalini yoga, presented to the Psychological Club in Zurich in 1932, has been widely regarded as a milestone in the psychological understanding of Eastern thought and of the symbolic transformations of inner experience. Kundalini yoga presented Jung with a model for the developmental phases of higher consciousness, and he interpreted its symbols in terms of the process of individuation. With sensitivity toward a new generation's interest in alternative religions and psychological exploration, Sonu Shamdasani has brought together the lectures and discussions from this seminar. In this volume, he re-creates for today's reader the fascination with which many intellectuals of prewar Europe regarded Eastern spirituality as they discovered more and more of its resources, from yoga to tantric texts. Reconstructing this seminar through new documentation, Shamdasani explains, in his introduction, why Jung thought that the comprehension of Eastern thought was essential if Western psychology was to develop. He goes on to orient today's audience toward an appreciation of some of the questions that stirred the minds of Jung and his seminar group: What is the relation between Eastern schools of liberation and Western psychotherapy? What connection is there between esoteric religious traditions and spontaneous individual experience? What light do the symbols of Kundalini yoga shed on conditions diagnosed as psychotic? Not only were these questions important to analysts in the 1930s but, as Shamdasani stresses, they continue to have psychological relevance for readers on the threshold of the twenty-first century. This volume also offers newly translated material from Jung's German language seminars, a seminar by the indologist Wilhelm Hauer presented in conjunction with that of Jung, illustrations of the cakras, and Sir John Woodroffe's classic translation of the tantric text, the Sat-cakra Nirupana. ?