(May 15,2013) The Mind is Universal

The Mind is Universal

Divine Life Society Publication: Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

What is the special kind of relation (if there is a relation) between the knower and what is to be known?

SWAMIJI: Between the knower and the known there is a knowledge process. Finally, the Atman is the knower, and what It considers as outside is the known. By "knowing," you mean that you become aware of something other than what you are. Generally, when people say that they know something, they don't mean they are knowing themselves. The idea generally in the minds of people when they say they know something is that they know something other than themselves; the knower is different from the known in the ordinary process of knowledge. But if you analyse this whole process, you will realise that the knower and the known are connected by an intelligence, a consciousness; otherwise, the knower cannot come in contact with the object of knowledge. You can know even a mountain in front of you; the mountain is far away from you, yet you know that the mountain is there. How do you know that the object is there in front of you when there is actually no visible connection between you and the object?

If the mind that knows a thing is inside your body, then it is locked up inside the body and cannot know anything outside, beyond its own body. You cannot know another person sitting in front of you if your mind is only inside the body. How do you know?

The mind which appears to be inside your body for all practical purposes is basically a universal pervading intelligence. Your so-called individual mind gets connected with that universal mind in the process of knowledge, as in a broadcasting process, for example. In a broadcasting station, somebody speaks and a sound is made. This sound gets converted into an ethereal universal medium. What travels in space is not sound; it is a mysterious energy content that travels in space and is received by a receiver set somewhere else, where this ethereal thing gets reconverted into sound, and then you hear a sound here. It doesn't mean that the sound is travelling in space. There is a universal principle connecting two terms of relation (the receiver set on one side, and the broadcasting station on another side).

In a similar manner, there is an unknown medium between the subject and the object. You can see the broadcasting station, you can see the receiver set, but you cannot see what is happening in between; it is invisible. In a similar manner, you can see yourself, you can see a mountain, but you cannot know what is happening between them. That "between" is a very important item. The mind that is universal operates between you and the object outside, and connects the individual mind with the object outside through the medium of its universality. If that universal principle is not to operate, you will never know anything outside your body. You would be locked up inside yourself only.

So, there is a universal mind operating everywhere, of which you are a part, of which the object also is a part. Finally, you must say that only one thing exists, which is the Universal Mind. If you can deeply concentrate on this essential fact, you will be thinking like a cosmic man and will no longer be thinking like an individual person. You will become a superman. This is how a yogi or God-man thinks.

Your problem is yourself only; you have no other problem. You require to be saved from yourself. The greatest problem is one's own self. Nobody else gives you trouble. Your ignorance, your foolishness, your individuality, your finitude, these are the problems, and they constitute what you really are. So, you have to be saved from that. One has to be saved from one's lower self, for the sake of attaining the higher Self. In the Bhagavad Gita's sixth chapter, the higher Self is said to save the lower self.

 Continue to read:

Your Questions Answered by Swami Krishnananda

The Mind and Its Functions by Swami Krishnananda

Mind – Its Mysteries and Control by Swami Sivananda

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