UNDERSTANDING YŪNUS EMRE IN THE CONTEXT OF TRANSPERSONAL PSYCHOLOGY BEN-ÖTESİ PSİKOLOJİNİN İZİNDE YÛNUS EMRE’Yİ ANLAMA

As a poet-hero who was raised by Turkish culture and left his mark on centuries, every step taken to fullygrasp Yūnus Emre is an effort to understand people. The aim of the study is to analyse the psychologicaldynamics and experiences of Yūnus Emre and to reveal a "special" human model. In this direction, the peakexperiences in Yūnus Emre's poetry are discussed in the context of the theories of Abraham Maslow, who isaccepted as the founder of the transpersonal psychology school. The reason why Maslow is suitable for thesubject is that he is one of the founders of "modern health psychology" developed in the West. In relation tothis, when evaluating a ṣūfī-poet like Yūnus Emre who left his mark on the ages, it was deemed appropriateto choose a psychology school that focuses on the potential of human, not on the weaknesses. In the study,it has been determined that the moods described by Maslow are very similar to the “states” that Yūnus livedin depending on ṣūfism. These links are grouped under two main headings. In the first part of the study, themotivations needed to reach the transcendent or peak experiences and their equivalents in Yūnus Emre'spoems were evaluated. It has been observed that deep feelings such as love, pain, devotion and anxiety haveturned into purposeful motivational tools in Yūnus’s poetry. In the second part, the appearance of certaincharacteristics of transcendental experiences in Yūnus Emre's poems is given. The basic features of thesetranscendent experiences have been identified as unity of consciousness, self-cognition and admiration.As a result of the study, it has been seen that a new breath can be brought to the analysis of Yūnus Emre'spoems by utilizing the accumulation of different disciplines. However, it was seen that although Maslowdiscovered the subject of peak experience and meta-motivations with his own efforts, he could not putforward a systematic definition, and ṣūfism is at a much more advanced point in this regard.Keywords: Trans-personal Psychology, Yūnus Emre, Abraham Maslow, Peak Experience.