Rta-Psychology Beyond Freud (An Old and Rare Book)

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This book challenges the myths of modern psychology and in that it renders immeasurable help to the modern man, the foundations of whose soul have been ruthlessly shaken by Freud and his legacy. Nirmal Kumar provides a scientific alternative to the gloomy study of Freud and proves that the latter’s study was an exaggeration as it was based on the psychology of a frightened and shell-shocked Europe. It is the first time after Freud that an equally brilliant mind peeps into the depths of the human psyche to discover truth, beauty and love as the essence of its being, not a monster.

Besides being one of the most profound and original thinkers of modern times, Nirmal Kumar are a well known novelist, poet and dramatist in Hindi. His novel “Bin Udgam Ke Srota” (Brooks without Origin) has already become a landmark in modern fiction. It carries the best traditions of Tolstoy, Dickens, Turgnev and Pushkin. The famous novelist Jainendra has characterized his art as fresh and innocent like showers from a wild cataract. In his words “Nirmal is a rare boon to literature.” Regarding his book on “Sikh Philosophy” it has been said: “Nothing on these lines has been attempted before in Sikh learning. This book is a decisive and permanent gain for Sikh studies.”

The author’s earlier work “The Stream of Indian Culture” has been hailed by critics the world over as a highly original and fruitful work that has gone to lit a few steps beyond the impasse before which our generation stands baffled.

In this work I have made an attempt at utilizing the philosophic wisdom of India to derive a theory of psychology. This is by no means a complete system. It could be at best called a beginning. A lot is to be done on these lines and it would require the work of many scholars. While studying the ancient works I have always felt that there lies a psychological system hidden behind the metaphysical and spiritual words. It was not easy to decipher this language of silence, more so because this field is maiden, untouched by thinkers so far. Besides, so much confusion has been created around this ancient wisdom by a right meaning itself required diabolic concentration and alertness.

The old masters did not speak on this subject. The reason for this seems to me to be their insistence on brevity, their habit of speaking in phrases. Human psychology could not be condensed in phrases except for its bare skeleton which they have very clearly reduced into phrases that are well known. There could be several other reasons besides this for their not writing on psychology which are beyond my grasp.

This works puts forth what could be validly called the age-old knowledge about human personality. Only it was not written. If certain scholars consider me the sole originator of these thoughts I would only feel flattered. It would be false modesty on my part to say that this work is nothing but an interpretation. Yet I prefer to call it the wisdom of the seers of yore because it is mostly their treatises and epics that have suggested these ideas to me and because I find these ideas fully relevant to the perennial stream. I have no intention to get rid of the responsibility of putting forth these ideas, however, by calling them mere interpretations. It is not only the texts but also the life of the people from which I have picked these thoughts. And it is not scholarly labour that has produced them but fellow-suffering, sympathy and compassion.

The epics and puranas have proved very useful in understanding the course along which the psychological self has developed in the course of thousands of years. They depict the struggle, adjustment and syntheses of psychical power by presenting them as human, demoniac and divine personages. The evolution of the psyche has been very beautifully shown, though of course in a hidden way, through interesting tales. It is difficult to appreciate the character of man for one who does not study the epics and legends (puranas) with an eye visualizing the play of psychical forces behind stories which tire by their exaggerations those who see them as historical records. All the good and bad points of the modern character can be traced in the archetypes created by the epics.

Those obsessed by the clinical method of Freud might object to the heading, for this book does not employ the Freudian method. They would be disappointed if they search for post- Freudian development in psychoanalysis in it. The word ‘beyond’ in the title does not refer to any time factor. It has been used in the sense, ‘outside the range of the psychoanalytic discipline.’ Indeed as a disciple of Hume would find the works of Immanuel Kant totally beyond him, or as a disciple of Newton would find Einstein incomprehensible, in like manner those who are trained in the habit of thinking on psychology in the Freudian assumptions and conclusions. In any case they are not likely to lose much if for a while they drop the prejudice that whatever does not unfold in the Freudian style in psychology is not scientific. They might recall that this type of hard-lining had deprived the world of the vision of Einstein for several years since the scientists beliefs was no science at all.

To my mind the future of mankind is vitally linked with the discovery of the psychological truth as seen by the ancient seers. The Freudian study of man has disillusioned man about man. It has created a widespread belief among artists, poets and thinkers that man differs from animals only because of his sophisticated cunning and mental powers which have enabled him to satisfy the same appetites, which he shares with animals, more ruthlessly, in total disregard of others. His sublime feelings and passions and idealism are only the impractical and empty, content less part of his nature. They are of the stuff of which dreams are made. They are the tusks of the elephant, i.e. man, whose real teeth are different and perfect in the art of grinding.