Spirituality and Indian Psychology: Lessons from the Bhagavad-Gita
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International and Cultural Psychology For other titles published in this series, go to www.springer.com/series/6089 wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Dharm P.S. Bhawuk Spirituality and Indian Psychology Lessons from the Bhagavad-Gita Dharm P.S. Bhawuk Shidler College of Business University of Hawaii at Manoa 2404 Maile Way Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 USA [email protected] ISSN 1574-0455 ISBN 978-1-4419-8109-7 e-ISBN 978-1-4419-8110-3 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-8110-3 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London Library of Congress Control Number: 2011921339 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Dedication om tatsat I pray constantly with devotion to rukmiNi and kRSNa my parents and the parents of the universe with unalloyed devotion that even devotion wishes for! I offer this book impregnated with sublime devotion at their lotus feet bowing my head with complete devotion! vii wwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Foreword This volume represents an important new direction for our Springer SBM book series on Cultural and International Psychology, and also an important new direc- tion for psychology, in general. The realities of our global era have resulted in an increased awareness of the diversities of people and cultures across the world. This has led to growing efforts to understand, appreciate, and respect the diverse psy- chologies that we are encountering. The challenge, therefore, is no longer to simply study these differences using theories and methodology of cross-cultural psychol- ogy, cultural psychology, minority psychology, or even the current approaches to indigenous psychology, but rather, to approach a group’s unique and distinct “construction of reality,” shaped as this might be across time and circumstance. And with this we are witnessing the struggles to resist the Western-lead homogeni- zation of national, cultural, and individual identities. This resistance is good! This resistance is right! This resistance is needed. Heterogeneity should and must trump homogeneity, because differences are a defining characteristic of life. Thus, each psychology that exists – regardless of whether it is a psychology of a nation, a minority group, or an embattled indigenous people striving for survival – offers us a unique and distinct template for under- standing an alternative view of behavior and experience. Exposure and appreciation of these differences opens our minds to the relativity of our own views, and also to the myriad of alternatives that have evolved across the world. While some may resist the often conflicting and contrary views they are now being compelled to encounter, it is clear that each psychology opens our minds to the endless possibili- ties for pursuing different human purposes and meanings. Differences offer us choices, choices offer us freedoms, and freedoms offer us the possibility to move beyond limited views of who we are, and what we can become, to new horizons of thought and being. With the publication of this volume, Professor Dharm Bhawuk, must be credited with helping to move psychology, as a science and profession, toward new horizons of possibility for understanding human behavior. With his publication, Western psychology has gained access to the complexities of the Asian Indian mind and behavior. For so many in the West, the Asian Indian is seen through a limited prism of stereotypes shaped by encounters with media and popular culture (i.e., movies, food, attire, and so forth). These superficialities, though valuable, do little to reveal ix x Foreword complexities of the historical, religious, cultural, and lived circumstances that have shaped the minds of Asian Indians. And here, it must be noted, that India as a nation, is home to hundreds of different cultural traditions and world views. India is a study of diversity in itself, and Professor Bhawuk introduces us to a spectrum of ideas and values specific to certain Asian Indian population sectors. The fact that India, as a nation, has emerged today as a global economic, political, and cultural power, makes Professor Bhawuk’s volume particularly valuable for our current time, for his volume captures a world view – a culturally shaped reality – that offers insights into a land, history, and people formed across millennia. One has only to read the more than 4000 year old bhagavadgItA, to grasp the wisdom of ages that has been honed by suffering, survival, and also an imaginative and creative quest for meaning and purpose by India’s people. Welcome, then, to pages that are sure to delight, to enlighten, and to expand one’s insights regarding a wondrous people, a complex culture, and an enduring heritage. New York, NY Anthony J. Marsella Preface I think it is important to trace the personal history of researchers while discussing their programs of research because scientists are also human (Hofstede, 1994), and their cultural values not only shape their values and beliefs but also their research questions and methodology they use (Bhawuk, 2008a). I think it would provide the context in which this book was written if I presented some autoethnographic account (Ellis, 2004; Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Anderson, 2006) here. This presents a glimpse of the interaction between the subjective and the objective, where the observer him- self is being observed! It is akin to story-telling of the personal disclosure type (Jounard, 1971), and the message is to be constructed by the reader by reflecting on his or her own journey, as there is no explicit goal of sharing this story. My interest in indigenous psychology started when I was in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign working under the supervision of Professor Harry C. Triandis. While reading one of his papers on individualism and collectivism (Triandis, 1990), I noticed a Kuhnian anomaly (Kuhn, 1962). Triandis observed that individualists are more creative than collectivists, which did not sound right to me. I mulled over it for years, from 1992 to 1998, building my argu- ment that people spend their energy in what is valued in their culture, and the rea- son people in collectivist cultures appeared not to be creative was because they were being evaluated on criteria that were of value to the western or individualist cultures. With my interest in spirituality and observation of the Indian society, it dawned on me that in India people value spirituality and hence much creativity was likely to be found in this domain. As I developed my thought, I recalled meeting people or reading articles or books that supported my conjecture. For example, I recalled meeting a monk in 1979 who was an engineer by training and with a degree in rotor dynamics from Germany. Today he is the head of a successful ashram in Gujarat. The famous Indian journalist, Arun Shourie, who exposed the blinding of prisoners in Bhagalpur and was responsible for many such exposés, was an economist by training but had written a book on Hinduism (1980). One could argue that I was using self-deception, the tendency to use one’s hopes, needs and desires to construct the way we see the world (Triandis, 2009). However, when one is on a spiritual journey the only desid- eratum that matters is honesty, which is also true for research. The researcher has xi xii Preface to constantly question his own intention of crafting a theory or finding something that fits his or her thoughts and ideas. I make conscious effort to be honest, but I could never rule out inadvertent self-deception. When I came across the work of Simonton (1996), I found the literature that allowed me to present my ideas in a full length paper, which I presented at the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) conference in Bellingham in 1998 and published it a few years later (Bhawuk, 2003a). Professor Triandis was concerned because I was in the early phase of my academic career and the paper did not fit the western mold of what were recognized as scholarly publications. Nevertheless, he encouraged me to try the top journals because he saw the paper as original. He wrote to me on September 12, 1998, “I thought that both papers were well done. The culture and creativity is not ‘mainstream,’ so it may be more difficult to publish it. I would think the International Journal of Intercultural Relations might be more lenient than the other journals. But start with Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology and see what they say.” He wrote again on September, 15, 1998, “I looked at the papers again, and did not change my mind. The only problem I see is that the one on spirituality as creativity is unusual, and may not be publishable in a mainstream journal. On the other hand, one could make the case that just because it is original it might be acceptable. Why don’t you try the top journals first? It all depends on the reviewers. Do not get discouraged if they reject it.” My experience with rejection of the paper by the top journals, both Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, led me to write another paper about how science has a culture of its own and the need for cross-cultural researchers to watch how their own culture shapes their research questions and methodology.