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The Promise of a Greater Psychology Integrating Knowledge of the Whole With Understanding of the Parts · Sri Aurobindo Studies

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  The Greek philosopher Plato, after deep consideration,
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  reached the conclusion that some higher principle was real, which
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  he called Forms or Ideas, and that the physical reality we see
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  and experience is the result, not the cause.
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  This concept is in consonance with the Vedic understanding.
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  Even the Christian Bible notes that quote in the beginning was
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  the word End Quote. All of these approaches, and
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  many more from around the world and across numerous traditional,
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  religious, philosophical, and spiritual directions, make it
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  clear that the physical world is a derivative phenomenon of the
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  higher source. Western psychology, in its
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  earliest approaches, tries to define the meaning, direction
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  and motivation for our lives in the external reality based in
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  trauma and various drives of the lower nature, without ever
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  taking into account the implications of the higher
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  wisdom that the sages and thinkers throughout the ages
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  have eventually embraced. The life we lead, the promptings
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  we follow, the thoughts we think.
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  The aspirations we experience do not originate in material
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  substance, somehow trying to survive due to random
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  combinations of chemicals making us what we are.
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  Rather, they come from levels that are currently
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  superconscient to our normal experience, which represent the
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  idea, the Word, the light, or as some define it, God.
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  In his book The Life Divine, Srioro Bindo identifies the
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  basic human aspiration as a seeking after God, light,
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  freedom, immortality. It is these basic drives that
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  define the value and development of human life in general, as
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  well as providing specific motivation to individuals as
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  they awaken to a greater meaning for their existence.
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  Once we recognize the wider range of the human existence,
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  encompassing drives, energies, motivations, aspirations that
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  are conscient to us as well as those that are subconscient and
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  those that are superconscient, we cannot avoid expanding the
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  focus of psychology to not simply try to fit all human life
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  into a small part of the subconscient elements of our
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  existence. Rather, we need to develop what
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  Triorobindo calls a greater psychology that takes all the
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  different planes and parts of our being into account and
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  explores also the impacts of forces subliminal to our
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  conscious awareness. Trying to define humanity by our
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  subconscious animal drives is both unduly limited and a
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  falsification that distorts our search for meaning and our
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  understanding of the significance of life, and of our
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  own lives in particular, Sri Robinto notes quote.
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  I find it difficult to take these psychoanalysts at all
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  seriously when they try to scrutinize spiritual experience
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  by the flicker of their torchlights.
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  Yet perhaps one ought to, for half knowledge is a powerful
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  thing and can be a great obstacle to the coming in front
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  of the true truth. This new psychology looks to me
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  very much like children learning some summary and not very
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  adequate alphabet, exulting and putting their abcd of the
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  subconscious and the mysterious underground superego together,
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  and imagining that their first book of obscure beginnings.
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  CAT, Cat, TREE, Tree is the very heart of the real knowledge.
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  They look from down, up and explain the higher lights by the
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  lower obscurities. But the foundation of these
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  things is above and not below. Upari Butna Isham, the
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  superconscient, not the subconscient, is the true
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  foundation of things. The significance of the Lotus is
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  not to be found by analyzing the secrets of the mud from which it
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  grows. Here.
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  Its secret is to be found in the heavenly archetype of the Lotus
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  that blooms forever in the light above.
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  The self chosen field of these psychologists is besides poor,
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  dark and limited. You must know the whole before
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  you can know the part, and the highest before you can truly
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  understand the lowest. That is the promise of the
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  greater psychology awaiting its hour, before which these poor
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  gropings will disappear and come to nothing.
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  End Quote. Reference Sri Aurobindo, Bases
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  of Yoga, chapter 5. Physical consciousness,
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  subconscious sleep and dream illness.
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  Pages 96 to 97.