Is it possible to discuss anything, let alone madness and divinity, in a dichotomous manner? Sudhir Kakar explores the spirit and the psyche and concludes that there is connectivity in these two entities which have fuzzy boundaries that flow into each other. The premise of the book is the wholeness of human beings. The emphasis on the separation of the spirit and the mind as favoured by psychoanalysis is questioned. Similarly, the focus only on the spirit is seen as contempt of the body that makes us human.
Kakar is best known for the juxtaposition and interplay of ideas such as continuums and the circularity of eastern philosophy with the reductionist determinism of the western psychoanalytic thought.
The concept of spirituality that Kakar says he is comfortable with is in seeing it as a “continuum that extends from the moments of transcending oneself marked by a loving connection to objects like nature, art, visions of philosophy, the beloved in a sexual embrace — to the mystical union of saints where the sense of self disappears.” He feels that the spiritual includes the transformative possibilities of the human psyche and is human goodness carved out of the psyche’s normal self-centredness.
Spirituality, he describes, is a sense of fearlessness that is not just an unconscious reactive defence mechanism in response to inherent fears that are part of the human psyche. Spiritual transformation is not a one-time event; such transformation is under a constant threat from the “darker” forces of human psyche.
This collection of essays, however, moves conversations about the mind to a realm that’s removed from one’s day-to-day existence. Kakar weaves an unconnected web of uncommon words through seven essays, which are difficult to understand because you get a feeling that it is presumed that you know more about the people, the context, the language and the concepts than you actually do. You definitely need to know more than what is said if you have to stay with the discourse. The book is a bit like a soliloquy — the performer has only himself to focus on.
The fact that the essays seem unconnected and that at times the conclusions to them are mutually contradictory, probably indicates that they were not meant for a single volume. This makes Mad and Divine a difficult read for people who would want a story to develop.
Even as the essays themselves use the tool of storytelling about such protagonists as Rajneesh and Gandhi, the storyteller in Kakar, on the whole, takes a backseat. Kakar, the analyst, is in the foreground and tries to explain, deconstruct and at times reduce his historical ‘clients’ through reviewing their writing: some known facts, some folklore.
There is sense of incompleteness to this as so much about the people and the concepts described is left out. When one reads what Kakar describes as the Hindu perspective on Freudian thought, it is interesting, but you need to be a regular reader of Freud and fairly aware of Hindu philosophy to be able to nod in an intelligent manner.
At other places, the understanding is simplistic. So, when Rajneesh weaves a myth about himself — he is preoccupied with the number seven (his grandfather’s death, which occurred when he was seven, profoundly affected him) — it’s safe to say it wouldn’t even consume Poirot’s little grey cells.
The best read in the book comes when Kakar uses his own case study. Here, the descriptions are poetic and human. He is transparent as he lets you into his ambivalence about rituals.
I re-read the introduction after reading the chapter on rituals and Kakar’s description of his father as a rationalist who introduced him to enlightenment. It would be simplistic to interpret Kakar’s ambivalence towards rational thought and his exploration of the mystical as denoting an ambivalence towards the father. I would desist from doing so. People and their psyches (Rajneesh, Gandhi or Kakar) do not get formed so easily or logically as to be understood by analysing things that they write. The therapist in me wanted to know more and the reader in me explored together with the writer. I wish the other essays were as spellbinding. I await an autobiography.
The author is Senior Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Apollo Hospital, and Director, Saarthak
MAD AND DIVINE
SPIRIT AND PSYCHE IN THE MODERN WORLD
Sudhir Kakar
Penguin
Rs 325; 188 pages
