Before we establish the Vedic theory of mind, we need to discuss Modern Psychology in various forms as it exists today.
Modern psychology is a subject practiced and taught by millions of practitioners, taught in almost every college around the world and is legally recognized as a cure. The subject was developed using scientific methods conditional to how you define science) in universities and laboratories over the last century or more.
To present a contrast, the Vedic studies or a Vedic theory of mind, for whatever historical reason, do not have that advantage. The subject of Veda is most neglected; any inquiry into Vedas for a scientific purpose is ridiculed almost instantaneously. Also, Vedic studies are not funded by any government, and on the contrary the governments (in India) loot temple funds. In rare places where Vedic studies are funded, the purpose of such funding is to denigrate or trivialize Vedic studies rather than anything constructive.
We will now discuss briefly the various schools within Modern Psychology and we will discuss how they compare to the Vedic school. The intention here is not to borrow any of the concepts developed by Modern Psychology; Veda is already aware of those concepts from a different perspective expressed in a different language. The intention is not to deride any other subject; but reasonably compare the Vedic school with schools of Modern Psychology with a view to finding any schools that are somewhat a better fit. The purpose of this discussion is not to siphon out Vedic concepts and illegitimately transfer them to outside subjects (as many neo-colonized scholars do); such an approach is unjust, defeatist and results in ultimate loss of knowledge for humanity. Our aim would be to build up a case for an active study of Vedas from the Vedic perspective. Our aim is to help Vedic students understand necessary tools like prANAyAmas and acquaint themselves with the necessary basics of modern psychology to keep their competitive edge. In the process we may reject some approaches of modern psychology as worthless or beyond repair from Vedic perspective.
The main approaches of Psychology are : Behavioral, Psychoanalytical, Cognitive, Neuro-fuzzy, Physiological, Statistical and Psychophysical.
The Behavioral approach is one of the most practical approaches as it is oriented towards the end product namely behavior. Remarkable progress has been made by behavioral scientists and their contribution to the field of Management is invaluable. The "occupational hazard" of being in a business environment is the need for creation of new buzz words every few years. This affects every field related to business, and Behavioral Science is no exception. Minus these buzz words, the field is a real problem solver. Discussion of seven fold sAma is an example of a behavioral interpretation of Veda.
However we will not take up the behavioral approach for a couple of tactical reasons. Firstly, Vedas and the local traditions have their own version of behavioral approaches in terms of dharma and karma; and these approaches were in currency for several millennia. However these approaches are routinely and thoughtlessly denigrated day in and day out by scholars and neo-colonized alike. The Vedic approaches are not given an equal place in academy. On the other hand, using the behavioral approaches of modern psychology at this stage will only help in siphoning of Vedic knowledge into these modern subjects with no possible benefit in return.
Psychoanalytical approach had been developed by Sigmund Freud and other contemporaries. Some Psychoanalysts told me that using their technique they can get a questionnaire filled by the client, and can accurately assess a person's psyche. However, the untold part of the story is that Freud and Jung extensively studied Indic materials before formulating their theories; a fact that was never admitted. We will any way drop the Psychoanalytical approach because this had been discredited by the modern psychologists themselves.
Vedic scholars' approach to psychoanalysis is more direct in that the Vedic scholars directly question a person about his/her knowledge or use of Vedic symbols such as uthgItha or of Vedic devas such as indra or question the opponent regarding various intellectual or psycho-somatic features of yajnA and thereafter assess a person's psychological make up accurately in just a few moments. A most common questions asked among Vedic scholars are: "What do you meditate on?" or "What is the highest knowledge you have?" or "Do you know such and such...", or the best of all: "Tell me that you know, I shall teach you things that are beyond them". The Vedic psychoanalysis is matchless and superior to any approaches claimed so far.
Cognitive approach is one of best approaches Modern Psychology can boast of, and considerable progress has been made in this field along with its application to educational psychology, sociology etc. However as our readers will quickly find out for themselves, the cognitive sciences as we have today lack the depth of symbolism present in Vedic approaches.
Vedic studies are most vulnerable to intellectual piracy from cognitive approaches, as many U-turners have been doing: they study Vedic sciences under a guru for a few years and return to their individual disciplines to transfer the concepts without a leaving any trace regarding the origin of those concepts.
Throughout the development of modern psychology, statistical approaches are extensively used. Significance of a hypothesis or the lack of it, is measured using statistics. However statistics is not a substitute for a good logic, especially in the subject of psychology where psyche is the primary object being studied. A Vedic psychologist does not look for a probable truth.
Beyond the regular use, statistics also plays a vital role in understanding various stochastic processes in social systems like economics and sociology. In 1969 Prof. Lotfi Zadeh invented fuzzy logic, which is a generalized extension of statistics with the addition of membership functions. This theory plays an important role in understanding the collective wisdom of millions of nerve cells. The neuro-fuzzy approaches did not originate from the psychology. They originated from mathematics and computer sciences. Neuro-fuzzy approaches will be extensively used in Vedic interpretation, and we will prove that the Vedic mantras and formulas are actually Neuro-fuzzy rule sets.
Tensor calculus is preeminently used in relativity and cosmic sciences. We will use tensor calculus because knowledge is made up of known, knowable and unknown, which are not crisp data but fields of influence in the body/mind. The interactions between the three fields as they try to control each other leads to creation of various Vedic deities called 'deva's/daiva's. We will establish that the devas are none but co-variant and contra-variant tensors formed by interactions of the components of knowledge.
The Physiological psychology school started out with the ambition of understanding the nature of thought, perception, motor coordination, vision, hearing, touch, hunger, sleep etc using lab tests on living or dead animals. With multi-million dollar equipment and invasive tests on living organisms the subject made good progress in explaining how the nerve tissues work and is also helping Modern Medicine develop and test new drugs. Physiological psychology may one day learn individual bits and pieces of how each cell or organ works, but it can never integrate this knowledge into working of a complex system without the help of other subjects(like philosophy) its originators(James T. Morgan and followers) discarded as worthless; never mind that the philosophical approaches quoted (in rejection) by Morgan et. al, were themselves on weaker grounds (believing in things like "soul resides in pineal gland etc."). We will not take up Physiological Psychology actively, but each of the concepts we express while explaining Veda must be agreeable to Physiological Psychology, otherwise not the discussion would not be valid and our interpretations will have to be revised to suit the findings of Physiological Psychology unless their observations are disputable.
There is one branch of modern psychology we have not discussed so far, namely Psychophysics. This subject is also known as "Mechanical Approaches to Psychology", as if this approach is anything less lively than the other approaches! This subject deals with stimulus-response relationships and tries to develop the field of psychology from the perspective of mechanical interaction of these stimuli. This subject is still in its infancy, but it has taken roots in a few committed schools. (In fact I did not believe myself this subject has even taken up its (correct) name "Psychophysics" which I myself was contemplating to coin for that field. I was a bit too late, but that saved a coin for me).
The initial impression you get after looking at a typical article on stimulus-response mechanism is that it looks more like "Karma Theory"! Once stimulus leads to a response which leads to another stimulus and so on, but a close inspection reveals how wonderful this subject can be when such simple physical relationships can be used to discuss frames of view, contrast, perception, memory and other higher mental faculties.
Psychophysics is looked down upon by some of the popular branches (as every new branch is), but it is now gaining its importance. To site an example of psychophysics, there was one article published in Administrative Science Quarterly in 1981/82 about frames of references & contrast. I figured out that the article is closely linked to guNatraya vibhAga yogA of bhagavat gIta. (We will discuss this some time in future.)
Psychophysics is a real science that approaches the subject of psychology based on principles that emulate physics to the world of thought. (For more information look for it as a single word on internet.)
You may have realized by now, that I am really dying to coin something. So let me coin the term Vedic Psychophysics based on our new-found understanding that Vedas approached the theory of mind based on a psychophysical approach, with full understanding of the existence of neuro and fuzzy approaches.
As we will explain, the enunciation of Vedic theory of mind involves definition and configuration of a multitude of Vedic symbols namely indra, bRhaspati, mitra, varuNa, praANa, agni, soma etc and observing the interaction of these symbols in real world in the breathing cycle as well as cosmic cycles, and designing highly algorithmic and some times recursive rituals to model the real world psychological processes. The Vedic approach alone can better utilize the full functionality of stochastic and neuro-fuzzy approaches in modeling the psychological processes.
Historically over the last few centuries, a discussion of "Vedic Mathematics" was limited to Pythagoras theorem, Trigonometry, Pi or some other multiplication techniques present in the shulba sutra literature. An impartial inquiry into mathematics in ancient India would reveal the advanced nature of mathematics in Vedic society. However, limiting attention to only these aspects misses the point.
It must be accepted that Veda did not formalize its knowledge of mathematics in the form of equations, inequalities as we known them today using the framework that we have today. However the Vedic seers did know a "different form" of mathematics, and they surely knew a "different form" of equations and relationships. The real Vedic Mathematics is yet to begin; it is deposited in the algorithmic approaches of brAhmanAs, the intricate mix and match of syllables of the meters (chandas) of Vedic stanzas, the deliberations of brAhmanAs and araNyakAs regarding the origins of and complex interaction between Vedic gods, and the real nature of yaJna itself. We will also establish that the each and every statement in the so-called ritualistic texts of Brahmana literature, is a neuro-fuzzy rule set that controls the psychological processes at various levels. As described already, the Vedic deities are various tensors formed by interaction of fields of knowledge.
A question arises whether Vedic Psychophysics a Specialized form of Psychophysics or it the generalized form of the latter?
We emphatically state that Vedic Psychophysics is not a specialized branch of Psychophysics, but it is its generalized version. Quite a way to take over!
Vedic Psychophysics is not limited to psychology as the latter is known today. The confidence of the Vedic Rsis is such that they can approach the highest reality from any (literally any) subject. They held the opinion that if the highest reality can not be arrived at by following a lead from any subject, then that subject falls under a different ruler other than that highest reality (which is a logical impossibility)! Taking up this as a challenge, the Vedic Rsis approached the subject with the confidence that all subjects converge into one highest reality, and again originate from it.
That leads to a funny situation somewhat similar to that popular science illustration in wherein a person living in a three dimensional world appears to possess supernatural power (by appearing and disappearing) to a person living in a two dimensional world. Likewise a person living close to the highest Vedic Reality can mix and match subjects at will, at times trying to derive grammar rules from sociology or trying to prove a point on human anatomy using ritualistic prayers and so on. (Sounds like the effect somA drinking had on indrA?) What better example can be given regarding this, than the following passage from aitareya brAhmaNA!
If only we knew how to decode this, we would know why human beings, and in fact most other living beings have two eyes! This statement of the brAhmanA is by no means mythology or superstition. The confidence of the scripture in these matters is an indication of a lost art more than a canonical religion. To ignore this view is a shame of scholarship.
While Vedic Psychophysics is the original subject as seen by the Rsis, Modern Vedic Psychophysics is our understanding of it as we describe it here. Vaidix is the brand name of the school that we will use for time being to distinguish from and leaving room for other schools of thought. Needless to mention, all brand names have to be dropped before we can arrive at the final interpretation of Veda.
The Veda as we have today is a confluence of a variety of subjects including philosophy, logic, anatomy, physiology, cosmology, astronomy, grammar, etymology, music and innumerable other subjects that were known to the Vedic period. With the advancement of science and mathematics more subjects have come into being.
As explained, the convergence of all these subjects into one makes our treatise even more a curious mix of symbolism than less. While I am very much aware it is ridiculous to write a new scripture while trying to interpret an existing scripture, I can't help it. This is the subject that manufactures poets. Try not to get influenced if you can.