Connecting Indian cosmology, Western psychology and AI

“Everything that humans are doing now – gathering, analyzing and processing data – will be done by AI. Ten years from now, consciousness (chitta) will be valued over knowledge. This is the time human beings can focus on consciousness.”

– Indian spiritual teacher Sadhguru

For well over a century, the Indian worldview and Vedic-inspired spirituality have captivated the West. The pioneers of quantum physics were fascinated by Indian cosmology and in recent decades millions of people embraced Indian spiritual practices like yoga and meditation.

Indian spirituality played a key role in the development of New Age and the stage development theory of Ken Wilber, a synthesis of Indian thought and Western psychology. The higher mental stages in Wilber’s development model rely on Indian concepts and Sanskrit terminology.

Curiously, much of the literature on the Indian role in the consciousness-raising practices developed in the West omit the Vedic concept of mind, Antahkarana (the four distinct parts of the mind), and Chidākāśa, translated as “conscious space” or “consciousness field.”

Chidākāśa is a compound term that includes the notion of Akasha, the intangible and invisible substrate of the cosmos, comparable to the Western notion of the ether. The quantum physics community insists that Einstein’s Relativity Theory explained away the ether. The Indian sages would argue that Akasha is the medium that gives access to ultimate reality.

Antahkarana can also shed light on the development of artificial intelligence. As we shall see, AI systems perform only two of the four parts of Antahkarana. It explains why AI can not be conscious and can only simulate consciousness.

Antahkarana

Some 3,000 years ago, Indian (Vedic) sages created