Perspectives on the Mind: A Comparative Study of Yogavāsiṣṭha and Western Psychology
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Abstract
The mind is central to both the Yogavāsiṣṭha and Western psychology, but the traditions ask different questions about it. The Yogavāsiṣṭha treats mind as the power of ideation through which bondage, desire, and experienced plurality arise; its final aim is liberation through self-knowledge. Western psychology is a plural scientific and clinical field seeking prediction, adaptation, well-being, or relief from distress. This conceptual article compares their accounts of mental construction, conditioning, selfhood, suffering, emotion regulation, agency, method, and transformation. Both recognise that interpretation shapes experience, patterns acquire causal force, decentring can weaken reactivity, and practice can alter conduct. Their deepest divergence concerns ontology and selfhood. The Yogavāsiṣṭha places mind within non-dual consciousness and aims at de-identification; Western psychology remains methodologically naturalistic and works toward a flexible, functional person. A disciplined dialogue can combine radical phenomenological inquiry with operational definitions, clinical safeguards, and empirical testing without reducing either framework to the other.
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