The biggest and the most refreshing departure from western psychology to Indian psychology, for me, was the shift from trying to understand the other, to ‘know thyself’. This is a process, a journey, an adventure, which entails a dive inside, from our surface knowing of oneself into all the deep, hidden, unbeknown layers of oneself – to discover, to understand, to realize, to know the real Self…to partake of every experience, whether good or bad, happy or sad, right or wrong, as a learning experience on the path of growth and progress. If the aspiration to find the real Self is sincere, everything will be organized by an unseen hand to take one closer to one’s soul’s calling….

In the words of Kahlil Gibran:

“You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.
…
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,
…
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?
And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that builded your city and fashioned all there is in it?
Could you but see the tides of that breath you would cease to see all else,
And if you could hear the whispering of the dream you would hear no other sound.

But you do not see, nor do you hear, and it is well.
The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it,
And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.
And you shall see
And you shall hear.
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf.
For in that day you shall know the hidden purpose in all things,
And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.”
(The Prophet, pp. 108-109)