Dharma Dynamics brings forward a unique East/West psychology of personality development. While acknowledging the importance and contributions of cognitive science, Dharma Dynamics takes a different tack. Here the infusion of thermodynamics with psychic systems provides a psychology rather than a physiology of human consciousness.
The overall theme is that of a mechanical system applied to the thermal activity within the psyche. This brings the focus upon the usefulness of work by the system and the personal value of the resultant product, behavior. Thus, the indistinct boundary between psychic force and psychic energy disappears within dharma.
Entropy is introduced as an opposing, complementary force to dharma. Together they affect a self-styled decision-making process that assesses value to resultant behavior. Additionally, the theory then extends these psychomechanical principles of individual personality development to groups and even to cognitively created abstract entities such as contractual agreements.
A Personal Journey: The Synthesis of an East/West Psychology with Thermodynamics
Throughout life events occur; some big some small, some life-changing and some barely perceptible if at all. I’m one of those who believe that things do not happen by chance. Indeed, there are times when things do appear happenstance at the outset yet allowing for the passage of time usually clarifies any initial inaccuracy.
This is not to imply that one’s life is predestined. Actually, a predetermined destiny is not strictly possible as long as individual choice remains a main staple of the human life process. Instead, I prefer Jung’s synchronicity – an idiosyncratic and personal meaningful coincidence to explain a seemingly unconnected sequence of events.*
Unaware of Jung’s concept at the time, I took my northeast upbringing and BA, went west and wound up in Long Beach completing a master’s program. Aside from the program’s typical and unadventurous coursework, independently I pursued my mushrooming interests in the study of alter states of consciousness and Eastern philosophy. As a result, my master’s thesis1 became a statistically analyzed, all-volunteer, self-report inventory of various altered states – dream, hypnotic, meditative, and drug-induced states -- a most diligent and respected topic of advanced psychological research at the time.2
My decision to move north to further my graduate studies in San Francisco had nothing at all to do with chance. I knew quite clearly what I was looking for in a doctoral program and the only other acceptable locale was back in New York City. What with centers like Esalen Institute cropping up hosting weekend retreats and workshops, seminars and selected speaking guests at universities, a plethora of bookstores and other resources all catering to the humanistic/transpersonal consciousness movement, the Bay Area was indeed the more opportune of the two venues.
Aside from all of the traditional coursework from my undergrad and MA programs I brought to the California Institute of Asian Studies (CIAS) a fairly extensive, albeit personal, study of the I Ching. Initially I was drawn to the universal dualistic simplicity of yin and yang, the natural imagery ascribed to the eight primary trigrams and the sometimes whimsical allegories offered within the Notes, Commentary and Judgments of the sixty-four hexagrams. The oracular elements inherent to the tome are admittedly hard to neglect since tossing coins or manipulating yarrow stalks is actually integral to utilizing the boundless benefits this great work has to offer.
One of only a very few survivors of Qui Shi Huang’s book burning rampage that began in 213 BCE, the I Ching (or Book of Changes) presents a philosophy of personal and societal rectitude while cryptically revealing the evolution of human consciousness. It speaks directly to you -- the individual (and querent) -- and how to most propitiously navigate social interactivity within varying circumstances presented during the life process.
The social precepts inherent to the tome have been expanded through the millennia within the tenets of Taoism, and later with Confucian and neo-Confucian adaptations. Jung’s forward in the Wilhelm-Baines edition remains a wonderful guide into the subtle, psychological nature of the Book of Changes and a deserved complement to his Depth Psychology.
Such was some of the foundation that spirited my selection of CIAS as the pedigree for my doctoral studies. Chance? Hardly. But then things started getting…how should I say…curious. From the first seminar I instinctively knew I had definitely made the right choice though completely oblivious as to why.
My instructor for that initial toe-dip to test the waters of CIAS was Hilary Anderson, PhD. She offered an introductory class titled Yoga and Psychology. Hilary’s doctoral work on Sri Aurobindo’s Purna Yoga has yet to be surpassed for its academic scholarship.3 Little was I aware that first night of how significant that information was to be.
Hilary was one of three “adopted daughters” of Haridas Chaudhuri, the founder and first president of CIAS. Sri Haridas (the title bestowed posthumously) had been sent by his guru, Sri Aurobindo to found an ashram and educational center in the US. Nobody this side of the Pacific picked up the torch brought by Chaudhuri and knew Aurobindo’s Integral Yoga Psychology better than Hilary. Her time spent at Aurobindo’s ashram in Pondicherry, India profoundly augmented her academic expertise.
And Hilary came to Aurobindo’s yoga with a rich background in Jungian psychology and proficiency with archetypal symbols that she adeptly applied with her teachings of oracular systems of consciousness and creativity. Her particular forte was a seamless integration of astrology, tarot and yoga psychology.
Unavoidably, Aurobindo’s written works are generously sprinkled with Sanskrit4 terminology. The task of transliteration inherent to the subtleties and nuances of the language has to be appreciated through the lens of a contiguous Indian civilization with a deeply rooted religious culture spanning thousands of years. Modern western renditions of Sanskrit words and phrases often lose the universal essence and grit of the history inherent to the language.
I can recall countless hours spent at Hilary’s apartment atop Twin Peaks when she and Dr. Jim would parse and rehash, and then further refine and rehash again, the technical subtleties of how Aurobindo utilized the most recent comprehensive yoga iteration of Tantra into his Integral methodology. Her patience would wear thin with Dr. Jim’s pedantic persistence at times, but her reliance upon his expertise was steadfast, and with good reason.
Dr. James Plaugher received his doctorate from Stanford University in Indian Studies with a focus upon Gandhi’s ahimsa principle under the mentorship of Friedrich Spiegelberg.5 Dr. Jim was a philosophical Sanskritist extraordinaire. His travels in Asia and the wisdom gained from his guru, Swami Ramdas, afforded him gracious insights to the folly of human strife and the divinely inspired virtuous character inherent to all of us.
During the handshake of our initial introduction, Dr. Jim’s first words to me were, “Are you chasing dharma?” followed by a generous and warm basso profondo laugh, a signature characteristic of his for the pure delight of those special moments each of us are presented during the life process. Little did I realize how prophetic his words would soon become. Chance? Hmm!
I was indeed fortunate to have the time to absorb Dr. Jim’s and Hilary’s specialties beyond the classroom setting. There were times I was the student while my mentors instructed, and others when I was another colleague. It’s no small wonder that they both wound up as co-chairs of my dissertation committee and dear friends for life.
Another individual that (synchronistically) appeared and also wound up as a member of my committee was Dr. D.I. Lauf. He was a visiting professor at CIAS from the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. His specialty was archetype symbology and world religions, most notably with Bon religion and Tibetan studies. He was sponsored and brought to CIAS with the advocacy of both Dr. Spiegelberg and Hilary.
Behind his glasses and youthful countenance, Ingo, as he preferred since he hated his given first name of Detlef, epitomized the look, credentials and erudition of a visiting European academic of the late 1970’s. Outside of class he loved to laugh and share anecdotes about the twists and turns of religious studies while stroking his full goatee in between quaffs of Anchor Steam Beer at a couple of favored watering holes he’d ferreted out for himself not far from his downtown hotel.
Bon mysticism and early Buddhism was really not my thrust of interest so I never registered for any of Ingo’s classes. Nonetheless, Ingo’s knowledge and acumen of dharma and the subtle Sanskrit derivations interwoven into Hindu, Buddhist and Jain architecture was invaluable.
Ingo stressed the significance of elevating Dharma as one of Buddhism’s three jewels. Along with the Buddha, and the Sangha (the brotherhood [of priests]) they comprise the three pillars supportive of all Buddhist thought and practice. In this respect, Buddhism epitomizes the value-based nature of reality as the quintessential affirmation of dharma’s role within the individual life process.
Three is a number of procedure or process; it adds dimension and relation to the number two. But was it really just chance occurrence that I would encounter these three individuals, all under the same roof at the same time, all of whom would had a most profound effect upon my academic progress and career?
Early on Hilary was my advocate and credited my previous work with the I Ching to the ease that I apprehended the subtleties of Aurobindo’s yoga psychology. Dr. Jim and Ingo unconditionally trusted Hilary's intuition and both lavished me with their knowledge, anecdotes and wisdom.
But there was something missing, something else was needed; a fourth element to provide strength, durability and cohesion to the process. It needed something to ground all of this high-minded, counterintuitive, abstract psychological yoga methodology. It required a touchstone, some component to provide a cognitive structure with an objective, analytical foundation.
Enter Wing Y. Pon whose rookie listing among the class schedule simply read Physics and Psychology. This seemed a fairly innocuous title and clearly out of place among others offerings like Freud, Reich and the First Chakra in Tantra, Intentional Use of the Dream State, and Shamanism and the Primal Scream. But there it was and I couldn’t resist.
I was only registered for dissertation when Wing showed up at CIAS and didn’t need any more class units. I decided to sit in on his first lecture anyway since I had been struggling to successfully incorporate physical energy dynamics into my East/West psychology framework. Beyond the realm of science fiction, there was little worthwhile academic resource material that ventured out toward those horizons.
Also from Stanford’s graduate school, Wing’s background in mathematics, physics and biology, his personal knowledge of Taoist medicine (his uncle, a Taoist physician, raise him), plus his previous work with NASA, turned out to be an ideal fit for the information I needed. Together we struggled through language barriers attempting to apply thermodynamics and systems theory to Jung’s use of psychological energy and force; then further to have all of that integrated with the dynamics of Hindu and Buddhist yoga traditions and Taoist philosophy.6
With Wing’s help I came to understand and appreciate the dual nature of wave/particle dynamics within quantum field theory, the pivotal importance of Schrödinger’s Cat, and the importance and role of entropy in mechanical systems. In turn, provided him insight to psychological phenomena, archetype symbology and yoga methodology. Like parallel tracks, we learned from and grew together and eventually hammered out a workable dialogue.
Dr. Jim, Hilary and Ingo didn’t quite understand where I was going with Wing’s input in my dissertation proposal. After talking things over directly with Wing, the trio intuitively believed there was something strategically of value, but tactic rationality avoided them all. They finally agreed: “Okay, let’s see what Joe’s got! We can always decline his proposal and provide alternatives.”
My dissertation committee and Wing laid their academic credentials and professional reputations on the line. My eternal gratitude to them all for permitting a theoretical venture into human consciousness to move forward within the rigid strictures of academe.
It took forty-two years for that theoretical formulation to find confirmation. So, was my selection of CIAS and all of the subsequent (meaningful) personalities who fit so neatly into the evolving needs of my academic process merely chance events? Or was it something else? Was it fate or kismet that brought me to read an article8 in financial news that provided the final key to my theory decades later? “The Divine provides.” would be Hilary’s reply.
*See Glossary: Synchronicity
1. Subjective Relationships Between Reported Experience with Psychotropic Agents and Alpha Production, CSULB, 1972
2. Charles Tart, ed.; Altered States of Consciousness, New York, Wiley, 1969. This volume set the academic standard for further psychological and psychiatric research and theory.
(Although not my specialty, I’ve wondered about young children, say ages two to three on up to about eight or nine, and whether excessive repetitive behavior, often deemed aberrant behavior, may actually be a natural behavioral outlet intended to modify some baseline experience of normal consciousness. If, for example, things like repetitive spinning or twirling, running in circles or randomly about to induce dizziness and fatigue, or even mild self-induced pain by incessantly banging a body part on a hard surface or repeatedly tumbling recklessly down a staircase are activities to intentionally create an altered or even disoriented world-reality merely for the experience of it. To date, there is scant research in these areas.)
3. Hilary Anderson, PhD; Sri Aurobindo’s Yoga of Transformation, CIAS, 1977
(I was surprised and flattered to be mentioned as the one “who untiringly checked the final manuscript.” At the time, I simply thought it a privilege to be afforded Hilary’s profound insights of Aurobindo’s yoga psychology.)
4. Sanskrit, known also as the Devanāgarī, and according to custom may be translated as heavenly script of the city or more directly as the language of the gods. Sanskrit is also deemed the Sanatana Dharma, the Eternal Truth that subsumes Hinduism, and by extension both Jainism and Buddhism as well.
5. Dr. Friedrich Spiegelberg joyously brought his decades of experience, knowledge and wisdom of a world class scholar to each of his lectures. The reference notes for his classes were hand-written scrolls from years past, and punctuated with personal episodes with his friend “Carl” during his tenure lecturing at Jung’s institute in Zurich. The man was delightfully erudite, a mentor who both teasingly and lovingly challenged students to contemplate theses like, Is there anything of Metaphysics that Psychology cannot grasp?
6. Wing Y. Pon: Journey into A Science of Reality (1978)and An East West Integrated Framework of Reality – Synopsis (1978).
Jung intuited a necessary connection between physics and his psychology. He and Wolfgang Pauli designed a study involving the astrological charts of married couples. Their work was a dismal failure. There were no statistical correlations found according to the criteria employed. As far as I know, Jung made no further endeavors to connect physics with his Depth Psychology.
7.See Building Blocks: In A Nutshell
Joseph Blofstein, PhD
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Email: dharmadynamics1@gmail.com
C.W. Post College of Long Island University, BA (Psychology/Biology), 1968
California State University, Long Beach, MA program & clinical internship at Norwalk State Hospital, 1972
California Institute of Asian Studies, PhD, East-West Psychology, 1979
(CIAS received its full accreditation the same year along with a formal name change, thus I was also awarded a doctoral degree from CIIS, the California Institute of Integral Studies)
Dharma Dynamics was launched in March, 2022.