Manoj Pavithran
Practitioner
Manoj Pavithran, an Integral Yoga practitioner and educator, is co-founder of Purnam Centre for Integrality in Auroville, India.
Articles by Manoj Pavithran (5)
The Role of Pain and Suffering in our Growth
By Manoj Pavithran - Apr 24, 2025
This article explores the multi-faceted role of pain and suffering in personal growth, offering perspectives from the individual to the universal. It delves into Sri Aurobindo’s insights on evolution, revealing how disruption catalyses transformation. Emphasising an integral view, it suggests pain as a temporary experience within a larger reality of oneness, urging a shift in perception in order to embrace life’s challenges as steps towards realising our highest potential.
Tapasya and Surrender: The Paradoxical Process of Self-Transformation
By Manoj Pavithran - Oct 15, 2025
When considering the concept of tapas, a Sanskrit word often translated into English as austerity, we perceive an active will of concentrated effort. Conversely, the term ‘surrender‘ evokes the notion of a profound receptive passivity. How do these seemingly contradictory movements, one active and the other passive, converge in the process of our self-transformation? A simple analogy to facilitate their integration is to envision surrender as the bridge connecting the human tapas to the divine tapas.
An Integral Psychology Perspective on Bipolar Disorder
By Manoj Pavithran - Oct 15, 2023
This paper is an attempt to use the lens of the Integral Psychology of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother to gain new insights into the nature of the bipolar disorder, a common mental health issue that affects nearly 1-2% of the global population. Bipolar disorder can be seen as a disequilibrium of the vital being, causing an inflated or deflated self-image, bringing with it extreme mood-swings between hyperactivity and depression. While an inflated ego of the central vital contributes to hyperactivity, the depressive periods show the presence of a deflated emotional being, which is more like a wounded child even when chronologically the person is an adult. These parts of the being remain in the realm of their shadow and emerge in the context of progress the individual is attempting in life. My proposition here is that the universal dynamics of the shadow and its opposition to progress, both at an individual and collective level, is the deep struggle that triggers repressed parts of the vital being to emerge to the surface and take over the surface personality of the people, thus causing the bipolar disorder.
Individualisation in Integral Yoga Psychology
By Manoj Pavithran - Jul 15, 2024
This article is a broad overview of individualisation at the causal and instrumental level, from the perspective of Integral Yoga Psychology. What is the process of individualisation according to Integral Yoga Psychology? How does it differ from scientific and conventional psychological perspectives? What is the relationship between the evolving soul and the instrumental layers of the mental, vital, and physical nature? These are the topics explored in this article.
The Third Method of Research in Psychology
By Manoj Pavithran - Jan 15, 2025
Research in psychology, these days, are predominantly following the objective scientific method and its underlying worldview of materialism. While this method has its place, the very method limits the scope of our understanding and the perspectives we can get through it. On the other hand, there are other methods of research, particularly Vedic, that are hardly known or used these days, methods that rely on higher-order cognitive faculties. This paper is an attempt to discern between three different methods of research to show the need for understanding and using the Vedic or Yogic method of research in psychology that can give us a method appropriate for the domain of research.