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M. V. Baxt
There is some difficulty in getting clear about the concept of superconscious introduced by Sharma. Superconscious is not superior to or separate from the conscious mind. It is not a part of mind, but mind itself. It is a trapsego reality. It goes beyond Id-ego-superego triangle. Ātman is the superconscious Superconscious is the uncondit goned consciousness. It expresses itself in an urge to be free and full of joy. The source of tremendous creativity in an infant is its superconscious. Sharma not only introduces this concept but belives that sure therapy of neurosis is the revival of the superconcious in the patient. The therapy of course has to be Yoga-therapy because the ""techniques of Yoga aim at rebuilding and strengthening the process of actualization of the superconscious" (PY, P. 30). The unconscious grows out of superconscious and "superconscious, draws freely from the uncong. cious" (p. 30). Superconscious is the source of "experience of being". It sets the goal of life. It is the source of all human values. Sharma also points out that superconscious does not deny sex. Yoga accepts sex as a vital function of life.
Sharma does not accept mind-matter dualism of cartesian origin but he does not mind saying that consciousness has to be accepted as a distinct category. "Consciousness is cetana and cetana is the superconscious". (P Y, p. 37). We wonder whether consciousness is the superconscious, and whether classical Sāṁkhya-Yoga system can bear any further burden of such an additional category. Whether Sharma is constantly revising the classical Yoga system or wbether he is only elaborating it has not been made sufficiently clear throughout his analysis of the concept of superconscious. Superconscious is peace, joy, creativity, freedom, health, light source of values etc. In short, it is worth realizing through Yoga techniques. It can even be used to cure neurotics and psychotics.
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We wonder whether the classical Yoga system had the same concept of montal abnormality which the Western psychologists have advanced on the basis of their clinical practice. We can not also help wondering whether the concept of the superconscious is at all required and whether it can legitimately function at a clinical level.
Western psychologists like Maslow and Rogers have discussed selfactualization without bothering about any category of the superconscious Even the existential psychotherapy has been based on the concepts of human freedom and fulfilment and this shows that psychology can be non-Freudiap, non-mechanistic, non-behaviouristic without bringing in the concept of superconscious. Freudian system might be inadequate but it may not be for all the reasons advanced by Sharma. The alleged inadaquacy of psychology might be overcome by alternative models of phenomenological, exis
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