Professor William Braud's Work Presented in Pondicherry India
A paper by ITP Professor William Braud recently was presented, in absentia, at a Seminar on Yoga as a Knowledge System in Pondicherry, India. The title and abstract of this invited paper follow:
Braud, W. (2007, January). Integrating Yoga epistemology and ontology into an expanded integral approach to research. Invited paper for a Seminar on Yoga as a Knowledge System, organized by the Indian Psychology Institute, Pondicherry, India, January 14-17, 2007.
Abstract: In this paper, I address ways in which aspects of Yoga epistemology and ontology might be combined and integrated with other approaches to research and disciplined inquiry, especially with certain extended forms of qualitative research. I indicate instances in which we already are beginning to do this at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. One instance involves the inclusion of certain Yoga aspects in my own research approach of integral inquiry. Another instance involves the introduction of certain practices and skills, some of which are actually yogic practices or are closely related to some yogic practices, into a more holistic form of research in our graduate psychological research course, "Integral Research Skills. " In this course, students are taught to identify, practice, and use these skills-which are translations of various personal and "spiritual" practices-in the three major phases of research: planning a study and collecting data, working with the collected data, and presenting the findings that emerged from the data. An expanded form of qualitative research can serve as a kind of bridge between Yoga principles and praxis and more conventional research principles and praxis. The paper describes Rosemarie Anderson's intuitive inquiry and embodied writing contributions to research, as well as Olga Louchakova's work on preparation of the researcher. Other parts of the paper address Sri Aurobindo's treatments of intuition as a form of direct knowing through identity, and indicates its relevance to research.
