Haridas Chaudhuri

Haridas Chaudhuri ( _bn. হরিদাস চৌধুরী)(May, 1913-1975), Bengali integral philosopher, was a correspondent with Sri Aurobindo and the founder of the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS). He was born in Kolkata. He studied at the Scottish Church College and later at the University of Calcutta from where he earned his doctorate in Indian philosophy. He became a professor and later the chair of philosophy at the Krishnagar College, a constituent college of the University of Calcutta.

California Institute of Integral Studies

In 1951, Dr. Chaudhuri was invited by Frederic Spiegelberg of Stanford University to join the staff of the newly formed American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. He accepted the invitation, eager to implement in a Western educational institution the integral approach to education that he had developed as a student of Sri Aurobindo. Soon after his arrival in San Francisco, Dr. Chaudhuri and his wife Bina established the Cultural Integration Fellowship, from which emerged an educational branch later to become California Institute of Integral Studies. Over the past 30 years, the Institute's original emphasis on Asian religions and cultures evolved to include comparative and cross-cultural studies in philosophy, religion, psychology, counseling, cultural anthropology, organizational studies, health studies, and the arts.

Integral Psychology

Chaudhuri was the first to publish in the West on Integral psychology, during the 1970s. He postulated a triadic principle of uniqueness, relatedness and transcendence, corresponding to the personal, interpersonal and transpersonal domains of human existence. His version of Integral Psychology has nothing in common with that of Ken Wilber, who has written a book of the same name.

Bahman Shirazi of the California Institute of Integral Studies has defined Integral Psychology as "a psychological system concerned with exploring and understanding the totality of the human phenomenon....(which) at its breadth, covers the entire body-mind-psyche-spirit spectrum, while at its depth...encompasses the previously explored unconscious and the conscious dimensions of the psyche, as well as the supra-conscious dimension traditionally excluded from psychological inquiry". (Shirazi 2001) In a paper on the subject he reviews Indra Sen's, Chaudhuri's, and Wilber's definitions, as well as developing the ideas of Chaudhuri.

Bibliography

*"The philosophy of integralism: The metaphysical synthesis in Sri Aurobindo's teaching", Sri Aurobindo Pathamandir, 1954
*"Prayers of Affirmation: a guide to daily meditation", 1956
*"The Rhythm of Truth", Cultural Integration Fellowship, 1958
*"Integral Yoga: The Concept of Harmonious and Creative Living" Wheaton, Illinois: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1965
*"Philosophy of Meditation", 1965
*"Mastering the problems of living", 1968
*"Modern man's religion", 1984. ISBN 0-916985-00-8
*"Being, Evolution and Immortality", 1988. ISBN 0-8356-0449-7
*"The Philosophy of Love", 1988. ISBN 0-14-019117-8
*"Evolution of Integral Consciousness", 1989. ISBN 0-8356-0494-2
*"The Essence of Spiritual Philosophy", 1990. ISBN 1-85274-074-4
*"Sri Aurobindo: The Prophet of Life Divine"
*"Indian Culture"

Integral Psychology

* Chaudhuri, Haridas. (1975). "Psychology: Humanistic and transpersonal". Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15 (1), 7-15.
* ----- (1977). The Evolution of Integral Consciousness. Wheaton, Illinois: Quest Books. 1989 paperback reprint: ISBN 0-8356-0494-2
* Shirazi, Bahman (2001) "Integral psychology, metaphors and processes of personal integration", Cornelissen, Matthijs (Ed.) Consciousness and Its Transformation, Pondicherry: SAICE online