By: Harold Sequeira
promhari@yahoo.com
WILLIAM JAMES -
In Search of ?meaning in life
By: H. Sequeira
A famous yogi was once asked as to who was his guru and he answered ?sinusitis was my guruò. In the case of William James acute depression in his youth led him in the search of finding meaning in life through studies in physiology, psychology, philosophy and mysticism.
In his youth William James suffered from a variety of physical and psycho-somatic problems, including severe depression, which led him to thoughts of committing suicide. His three siblings also suffered from periods of invalidism. William however was able to divert his mind through a scientific expedition; he set sail with a Harvard team, led by Louis Agassiz , to explore the Amazon River.
After his return he joined the Harvard Medical School in 1866. After graduating in 1869, he had to leave for Europe to find a cure for his ?soul sicknessò. After an intense ?philosophical searchingò, for nearly three years he felt more stable. His found his sojourn in Germany fruitful and he writes: "I originally studied medicine in order to be a physiologist, but I drifted into psychology and philosophy from a sort of fatality. I never had any philosophic instruction, the first lecture on psychology I ever heard being the first I ever gave"
He started intense studies of psychology, at a time when psychology was being constituting itself as a science. His acquaintance with the scientific work on human physiology of Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz a German physician and physicist, and Pierre
Janet of France, helped him to lay the foundations of scientific studies in psychology at Harvard. Heestablished one of the first laboratory ofexperimental psychology in the United States in Boylston Hall in 1875.
William James spent his entire academic career at Harvard. He was appointed instructor in physiology (1872), anatomy and physiology (1873), asst. professor of psychology (1876) and professor of philosophy (1897) and emeritus professor of philosophy in 1907. William James wrote voluminously throughout his life; his magnum opus (or great literary undertaking) was the Principles of Psyhology. He gave credence to direct knowledge, what they call in Yoga Psychology as Pratyaksha Jnana
James also did important work in philosophy of
religion. In his Gilford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh he provided a wide ranging account of ?The Varieites of Religious Experienceò and interpreted them according to his pragmatic leanings. He stated that personal religious experience should be the primary topic in the study of religion, rather than religious institutions.
The investigation of mystical experience was constant throughout the life of James. He states that while the revelations of the mystic hold true, for others, they are ideas to be considered but hold no claim to truth without personal experience
H. Sequeira
Bibliography: Wikepedia Encylopedia.
Harold and Promil Jain-Sequeira
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Bio-note: H. Sequeira, born in 1937, in Mangalore India, studied at various universities in India (arts, commerce, law etc) and yoga training (The Yoga Institute) and set up Yoga Centers in Canada, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Spain. He teaches classic Yoga of Patanjali as well as many other traditions of Yoga. He has written many books including Patanjali Yoga Sutra (English and Spanish). He now lives in Bombay but travels extensively conducting yoga workshops.
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