EMOTION today is found to be intimately related with many problems we face in politics, sociology, education, medicine etc. The growing importance of psychosomatics in medicine is one such indication of the paramount position emotion holds in therapeutics today.
It is likely that cognition, feeling and volition were accepted as distinct mental modes from early times. Thus the Aitareya Upanişad mentions sensation, perception, ideation conception, feeling, desire etc. as different names of prajñāna and the Maitrayaņi regards cognition, desire etc. as the mind itself. Mrs. Rhys Davids believes however, that the psycho-logy of will and desire developed later to that of cognition.
In a way, the Sämkhya and Yoga view about emotion, centres round the theory of guņas. Along with Aristotle, Leibnitz, Hegel and others it would see no difference between the mental and the physical, between thought and feeling. Thus, according to Dasgupta, feelings are things in themselves and guņas are primary feeling substances and that conscious-ness and matter start from the same primal stadium of cosmic consciousness (Mahat). That feelings and their clearer expression in emotions are things in themselves, is also a view shared by modern scientists. In his Modes of Thought, A. N. Whitehead has suggested that "The key position from which such a construction of synthetic metaphysical cosmology should start is that energetic activity constituted in physics is the emotional intensity in life. Ultimately emotion in this view is the very ground reality or the first principle."
In his article 'Can emotion be regarded as Energy', M. Prince argues in favour of this proposition. He says that emotions may emerge as consciousness out of energy in either of two ways (i) kinetic afferent neural energy being immaterial becomes transferred into its like, immaterial psychic energy which in the chain event becomes transformed as immaterial efferent energy, (ii) as discharging complexes of units of energy associated with electrons of the highly complex atomic structures of nervous system. Now this point is closely related to "the strange ability which enables the poets, the writers, the musicians and the artists to gain insight into the true nature of things. If energy were the underlying substance of the universe i.e., the truth, and if the emotions were the way in which it manifested itself in the mind, then the creative artist through his emotions would apprehend the truth from within."
That Spanda is the movement, inner rhythm of the aesthetic experience and that aesthetic experience is itself an inner perception (manaḥkāra) is a point developed by Abhinavagupta. According to the Saiva school of Kashmir, consciousness is vibration, the ceaseless force from which springs everything. This force manifests itself in the instinctive motions of consciousness (fear, joy etc.).
It is suggested that Caraka advocated a distinctly physiological theory of pleasure and pain. Pleasure is organic equilibrium; pain is organic disequilibrium. The isomorphic
theory of emotion is met by us in such statements as "bodily disease is produced by mental disease and that mental disease is produced by bodily." "That dejection is the main cause of the aggravation of a disease; that joy is the chief cause of its decrease" "A mental disease is due to the non-attainment of a desired object; it is due to the non-fulfilment of strong desires." Now whether we could equate some of the Latest psychological theories about emotion born of experimental researches, with very interesting statements met with in works on practical Yoga is a difficult proposition, needing more research than the present work can claim. In the Cannon Board theory, we have the importance of thalamus and the cortex in discharge of impulses. It is also believed that the Diencephalon which is the oldest part of the brain is the seat of the principal emotions. Works of practical Yoga such as the yoga upanișads give in a great detail the governing centres of different emotions in the body. The tantras in fact go into more details.
The vedanas are the objective signs of gunas and the object of senses, the senses, the mind and the entire body are guņas. The use of the word bhāva is very interesting especially in the sense of emotion and stratified states of mind. Guņas are often termed bhāvas and the vedanäs are supposed to be intimately associated with them. It is also said that the memory process works through bhāvas and as Vyāsa has said recollection of all mental modes is possible because of their association to pleasure, pain, delusion feelings. In another way in the Mokşa parvan, bhāva as a stratified existence of karma-impression resides as a separate category in the person. It is also supposed that karman or impressions dwell in ahaṁkāra which when moved by internal desires of intense sort (bhavita) the creation takes place.
The bhāvas themselves constitute svabhāva which represents in the older philosophical literature conglomeration of karma, instincts etc. In the Sämkhya Kärikä too we meet with these uses of bhāva in the sense of past impressions which colour the subtle body. Bhavanga in Buddhism is a subconscious continuity of organic life.
Now the Jungian psychology as well as the Samkhya Yoga philosophy agree to the presence of "Archtypes" or samskaras in the human psyche. "Whereas Jungian 'arche-types are the result of inheritance of the racial unconscious, the samskaras also contain elements of actions of the past lives." Archetypes are the self-portraits of the instincts in the psyche as psychological processes transformed into pictures as primal patterns of human behaviour. According to Dosajh, while the archetypes are due to the actions of our forefathers, samskaras are not only the result of karmas of our forefathers but also result of our own karmas during the past lives and the present one.
After Wundt, the noted European psychologist, emotions are linked with memory. Images as integral part of instincts are regarded as energy transformers. In another way "emotion arises from representation and representation arises from emotion." How representation could help in enjoyment of rasa or aesthetic sentiment has been mentioned by Abhinava Gupta. He explains in his Abhinavabharati how persons who are sahrdayas can enjoy the various emotions by sense perception. In fact, as Viswanatha has said no aesthetic enjoyment is possible without innate capacity for aesthetic enjoyment; this is related to innate disposition, and representation.
Having studied various views in the East and the West about modes of consciousness, the ideal goal of psychology, nature of feeling and emotion e.g., as thing, as bionergy, as physiological process, etc., we may try to understand the signification of emotion and the use it is put to. As Hillman puts it, emotion is the disorder which means creation. According to this view the preferred pleasant state of balance is not creative. "When our psychological field were more calm, our theory of emotion would have to be entirely different", says Koffka. Emotions are then understood as related to the purpose of life through revealing the good. It signifies value. Now this view of emotion is not unknown in Indian philosophy, mysticism and aesthetics. Both pleasure (prīti, ananda) and knowledge (vyutpattim) are fruits of aesthetic experience. The latter by way of 'enriching one's aesthetic sensibility'. In fact, Patañjali, following probably the Brahmavihara of the Buddhists and the different bhāvanā practices of Jainas, recommends in Samprajñāta samādhi meditation on ananda itself. Repeated practice of experiencing nobler emotions brings about excess of sattva, and makes it stable and immobile. In another way, Western psychologists quoted by Hillman would believe in tapping the source of all emotions by living one emotion fully. As Paniero Gnoli says, "Any form of pleasure is an epiphany, even if distant and colourless of the divine beatitude, which is the very essence of consciousness. Aesthetic experience being characterised by disinterestedness and impersonal pleasure is a modality sui generis of the unbounded beatitude that appears to the yogin in his ecstasy." One of the cardinal principles of the Säkta Tantra is to secure by its sädhanā both liberation (mukti) and enjoyment (bhukti). But it seems that this latter aspect is constituted by the collective samskara or vasana. They are produced by desire for worldly enjoyment, and themselves produce such desire. "The world exists", says Woodroff, "because they in their totality will to exist. Each individual exists because his will desires worldly life. This seed is therefore the collective or cosmic will towards manifested life that is the life of form and enjoyment." Thus while it is accepted that 'only through emotions can emotions be cured,' and the Tantrik saying that "as a man who falls on the ground raises himself by means of the same ground so to break worldly bonds the first and the easiest method is to use those bonds as the means of their undoing", yet it seems that in some quarters emotional approach to problems is considered inferior to the intellectual. For example, the stoics blunt and coarsen their emotional life to achieve a kind of negative impossibility.
Advaitists would also regard devotion as inferior method in comparison to knowledge. The Pürva Mimāmsā also takes up a rationalist position and admits only Upaya-jñāna in opposition to pratibhā as a means of valid knowledge. It denies mystic experience. In Patañjali's system too, pratibhä which is regarded in aesthetics as "unconventional expression of passion freed from all distinctions in time and space and therefore from individual relationships and practical interest, in short, the creative intuition is regarded as penultimate knowledge" which precedes final release, like the influence of dawn which announces sunrise. It is in fact equated with siddhis which are an obstacle. According to Guru Dutt, pratibhā is a bridge between the highest siddhi and the lower siddhis which later become obstacles.
Now here the belief in a neutral tone of feeling is very interesting. The Sämkhya Yogas do not believe in a neutral tone; for them pleasure, pain and delusion are the three feelings born of gunas. The Nyaya-Vaišeşika also do not recognise feelings of indifference (upeksa). "Neutrality is an essential attribute of the pure self." In Indian aesthetics the sentiment of quietness (santa) is based on the permanent emotional disposition of desirelessness. Even it is believed that the quiet sentiment is the prakati of other sentiments. As Sinha sums up, "the other sentiments are related to wealth (artha), happiness (kāma), and virtue (dharma), the ends of life. But the quiet sentiment is related to liberation."