I’d like to take some time to talk about “interpersonal neurobiology” (or more simply, IPNB). It’s the “brainchild” (pun intended) of psychiatrist Dan Siegel (who was trained as a pediatric psychiatrist). Why IPNB? I think among all the attempts at understanding the mind and consciousness among modern scientists, IPNB may provide one of the best links to Indian psychology (IP)
For my discussions of IP for this series of blog posts, I’m going to use Sri Aurobindo’s version of IP (or what he called “yogic psychology”, and sometimes ‘the science of consciousness”). Why? Because in 35+ years of studying his writings, I’ve found that among all Indian spiritual/philosophic writings I’m familiar with, Sri Aurobindo’s terminology is probably among the easiest to relate to contemporary neuroscience.
For this post, I’m just going to talk about the “buddhi”. Here are some of Sri Aurobindo’s descriptions of the buddhi (or, “intelligent-will”, as he sometimes referred to it. In the next post, I’ll talk about IPNB and Siegel’s term “the mid prefrontal cortex (or MPFC – for those neurobiologically informed, this is not the same as the medial prefrontal cortex).
The following passages are all taken from “The Synthesis of Yoga.” The entire text is available online at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram website.
First, a definition: The buddhi is, Sri Aurobindo says, “the discerning intelligence and the enlightened will.” In the next post, we’ll see how remarkably close this is to Siegel’s description of the mid prefrontal cortex (MPFC).
In the following passage, Sri Aurobindo first describes what in Indian Psychology has been known as the “manas” (what Sri Aurobindo refers to as the “sensational thought-mind”). He then contrasts with the buddhi, the “separated and partially freed intelligence” which distinguishes human from animal cognition.
This sensational thought-mind which is based upon sense, memory, association, first ideas and resultant generalisations or secondary ideas, is common to all developed animal life and mentality. Man indeed has given it an immense development and range and complexity impossible to the animal, but still, if he stopped there, he would only be a more highly effective animal. He gets beyond the animal range and height because he has been able to disengage and separate to a greater or less extent his thought action from the sense mentality, to draw back from the latter and observe its data and to act on it from above by a separated and partially freed intelligence. The intelligence and will of the animal are involved in the sense-mind and therefore altogether governed by it and carried on its stream of sensations, sense-perceptions, impulses; it is instinctive. Man is able to use a reason and will, a self-observing, thinking and all-observing, an intelligently willing mind which is no longer involved in the sense-mind, but acts from above and behind it in its own right, with a certain separateness and freedom. He is reflective, has a certain relative freedom of intelligent will. He has liberated in himself and has formed into a separate power the buddhi.
Taking this passage alone, we find a remarkable similarity (remarkable given that this was written almost 100 years ago) to the most recent discoveries regarding animal and human intelligence. But we don’t seem to see much that goes beyond conventional contemporary psychology – a psychology which generally views the human being and human consciousness from what Indian psychology would consider a superficial, surface consciousness. In “The Synthesis of Yoga”, Sri Aurobindo touches on a great deal that goes far beyond what contemporary science considers within the bounds of acceptable research, but which has been taken for granted by Indian psychology for millennia. We’ll go into this in later posts.
But for now, keep what Sri Aurobindo wrote in mind as you read the next post, where I’ll describe how Dan Siegel came to discover the various functions of the MPFC, and perhaps more important, how those functions can be further developed. It is here – particularly in the startling similarity between what Siegel refers to as the “hub” of the “wheel of awareness” and what Sri Aurobindo refers to as the “psychic being” (what the Katha Upanishad refers to as the Purusha or being in the heart – portraying it symbolically as the size of a “thumb”) – that IPNB may have the most to offer as a bridge between IP and contemporary psychology and neuroscience.