On the backdrop of - having asked one of my professors “Why are we not taught Patanjali Yog-sutras” under the curriculum of psychology in 2006, and not receiving an answer, I was invited to teach the Indian perspective of psychology to a group of French students studying Ayurveda in 2018! It took 12 years to reach this stage. This made me understand very little about the ocean of knowledge India has to offer to the world, but understood what "तपश्चर्या" means - 12 years of efforts!
Today as I delve into research, teaching, and practice of psychology there is a lot that needs to be practised when it comes to the Indian way of living - that is Indian knowledge. Once you get into the most dynamic way of knowledge process of the Indian way of learning - "गुरू शिष्य" method - curriculum, degree, number of years, process, pedology, examination, everything becomes extremely dynamic. Your real exam is in being able to apply and fix things for oneself and becoming your own “subject” as we use this term in the field of psychology experiments.
The questions you ask, start changing. The mystic nature of many concepts that start becoming non-mystic, the real-life experiences, is then the base and a playfield for your activities.
One of the practices called yadnya "यज्ञ" really attracts my attention and invite all the psychologist to test the theories that teach them the concepts of “learning”. We always study that reinforcement is the factor that shapes behaviour. Whereas our Indian concept of यज्ञ tells us something beyond “Reinforcement”.
When you start bringing the learnings from "यज्ञ - प्रयोग" into real life - you open yourself to a completely new set of experiences!
- Dr Anand Godse