INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AND MEDITATION: PERSPECTIVES ON CONSCIOUSNESS

India has a rich tradition of meditative practices designed to study the phenomenon of consciousness. From the distant past to the present, India has evolved a unique psychological culture with grand unifying themes and universal modes of meditative practice. This book provides a detailed analysis of classical and modern Indian views on consciousness along with their related meditative methods. It offers a critical analysis of three distinct trends of Indian thought, viz., a dualistic mode of understanding and realizing consciousness in Hindu Sāṃkhya, an interactive mode in early Buddhist abhidhamma, and the evolutionary transformational mode in the teachings of the twentieth-century sage Sri Aurobindo. This book explores the unifying features in Indian first person practices with regard to consciousness and the importance of these applied psychological practices and their associated understanding of our conscious inner lives.