Arwind Vasavada (1912-1998) was born and raised in India. In the 1950’s, he traveled to Zurich to study at the Jung Institute and to work in analysis with C.G. Jung. Although he had only a few sessions with Jung, he considered him his guru, a title which Jung himself did not accept in the Indian sense but gave Vasavada nevertheless some important “transmissions,” to put it in the terminology of Hindu tradition. After finishing his training in Zurich, Vasavada returned to India to open an analytic practice. June Singer visited him in India in the early 1970’s and invited him to come to Chicago, an invitation that he gladly accepted. Vasavada lived and worked as a Jungian analyst in Chicago through the 1970’s and 1980’s, and he was a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He had a strong and dedicated following of students in Chicago until he retired in the early 1990’s and moved to his son’s home in the state of Washington. After that he visited Chicago intermittently until his death (in India) in 1998.

In the 1980’s, analysts Josip Pasic and Murray Stein held a series of discussions with Vasavada in Pasic’s home, where they were filmed for posterity. The dialogues revolved in general around analytical psychology and its similarities with and differences from the traditions of the East (i.e., India). The following is an excerpt from one of these conversations.

For Arwind Vasavada’s lecture on Hinduism, click here.

To browse Dr. Stein’s lectures, click here.

Music by Michael Chapman