Extract:
What is thought? Is it exclusively cerebral chemical, the result of a neural movement or a phenomenon that underlines more subtle energies that utilize the bio-neurological structure as an instrument?
Indovedic science doesn’t reduce psychology to neuro-physiology, like many modern western psychological schools tend to do. They deny the peculiarity of the psyche in comparison with the body and they assimilate the cognitive product with a structure that coincides with the nervous system activity. This responds to physical-biological laws and is restorable in accordance with objective and experimental parameters. Indovedic psychology views psychic objects (ideas, images, emotions, and sentiments) as characterized by their own conformation and function, not less real than the physical ones. They can be observed, however by a methodology different from the one used with tangible bodies. This different methodology is the introspective method, better apt to psychological inquiry than the process defined pratyaksha, which is based on sensorial perception. Modern psychological schools that do not interpret the individual psychic process in a materialistic-positivistic view, differentiate themselves from Indovedic psychology because this psychology recognizes the existence of an additional reality beyond body and mind. This reality is identified with life force and represents the conscious subject, atman, who experiments seeing, thinking and hearing by using psychophysical instruments.
Contents:
Introduction p. 5
The three anthropological levels of the individual p. 12
Thought: a powerful transformation instrument p. 13
The science of the mind p. 14
The nervous system p. 15
Atman, the spark of life p. 16
The three problems of life: knowledge, behaviour, control p. 16
Inferiority complex p. 18
The psychic functions p. 19
Purusha and Prakriti: spirit and matter p. 24
The Master and the Supreme Being p. 28
Man: a project for happiness p. 29
Just like we face life, life faces us p. 29
Reality or imagination? The nervous system sees no difference p. 30
The mind and the power of imagination p. 31
One who does good becomes good p. 32
The subconscious, silent planner of success or failure p. 33
The ego and the subconscious p. 35
The others are us, we are the others p. 36
Happiness: a virtue we create for ourselves p. 37
Equality and equanimity p. 39
Questions and Answers p. 41
Bibliography p. 60
Note on the Author:
"Founder and President of Centro Studi Bhaktivedanta and of its Academic Department of Traditional Indian Sciences is Prof. Marco Ferrini, Ph. D. Psychology. For over thirty years, he has been studying and teaching Vedic culture and his research has taken him in numerous study trips in India and long stays in the sacred Hindu sites. He has designed radio programs and appeared in television broadcasts focused on topics of Vedic culture. He is author of several essays and books on ancient Indian Philosophy, Sciences, Arts and Religion. (continue)
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