Towards Bridging and Fostering Connections between Ideologies of Prominent Spiritual Awakening Institutions and Positive Psychological Practices

Abstract

Of the many spiritual cults and sects that embrace a well-being enhancement philosophy, we choose the most prominent and active spiritual awakening institutions to elaborate the implicit connections between their operational philosophies and positive psychological practices. The underlying theoretical cum conjunctive analysis unveils the voids in the scientific documents and is a deliberate attempt to forge the connections between standard practices and preachings by taking instances from the philosophy and works of five movements oriented towards (namely the Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Prajapati Bramha Kumaris, Art of Living, Sadhguru and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram) spiritual awakening. The choice of these institutions is justified owing to an increasing congregational membership of their followers. Besides, we attempt to look at their philosophies from a critical realist lens to check as to how their ubiquity and prohumanistic appeal is similar or different from the existing positive psychological practices. Overall, we intend to provide food for thought to researchers by drawing a comparative picture between ideologies of the spiritual awakening institutions and scientific terminologies documented in positive psychology literature.