The Mind as a Quantum of Energy
Spoken to the
students in the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy on Sept
26,1996 by Swami Krishnananda
Our subject is the yoga of
meditation, which has direct connection with what we call the mind, or the
mind-stuff. The mind is neither inside the body, nor is it outside the body; it
is just what we are.
The quantum of energy,
capacity, and confidence that we have in our own selves is the mind operating.
Our value is not in what we possess as an external commodity from the world,
but is the manner we are thinking in our mind. It is said that we are what we
think we are.
What do we think we are? What
is the opinion that we have about our own selves? The answer would be a bundle
of chaos. Our idea of our own selves is nothing but confusion. It is so because
every moment of time we change the idea about our own selves. Often, we think
that we are well off; often, we think that we are miserable. Many a time we
think that we have everything that we need; and often we think that we do not
have what we actually want.
You must have noticed that
even when a person is, for all practical purposes, confident that he or she has
everything that one needs, still, there will be a persistent lingering thought
that something more is there, beyond what one has already, and it is not under
one’s possession.
The mind is a quantum of
energy that is operating in us. The mind is energy. It is not a thing; it is
not an object. It is just what energy can be defined as. Our power is in our
mind. As strong as our mind is, so strong we ourselves also are. If, for any
reason whatsoever, the mind is not strong, and it feels that it is incomplete
in some way in comparison with somebody else, then the strength diminishes.
The wrong notion that the
quantum of energy called the mind is only inside the body is the cause of our
difficulty. We know very well that energy cannot be bottled up in any
particular place. It is a pervasive reality, which gives meaning and value to
everything in the world. This energy is present in everything in the world.
Animate, inanimate, or whatever it is, everything is a concentrated form of
energy.
Accepting the fact that the
mind is the knowing principle, and it is not outside the individuality of a
person, it becomes difficult to explain how such a mind, which is so limited
and is finite, can become conscious of the existence of anything else at all. A
mysterious operation takes place, due to which we are aware that the world
exists, and there are many things around us. This is a subject, not merely of
general psychology, but of what we may call philosophy.
That thing which does not
require any external demonstration is our own consciousness. We need not have
to prove that we are conscious, because we never doubt that we are conscious.
Always we are conscious of something. Sometimes the mind and consciousness are
considered as identical for certain practical purposes, though in fact the mind
and consciousness are not identical with each other.
Briefly, we may say that the
mind is the operational phenomenon projected by consciousness. Consciousness
does not operate in any particular direction. The reason is that it cannot be
confined to any particular place. The consciousness of being in one particular
spot precludes the consciousness of there being anything at all outside that
particular spot.
Every assertion of
consciousness is involved in subjectivity and objectivity, as they are called.
There is a subjective side of consciousness, which makes one feel that it is
the knower of a particular individual or a thing. But there is an objective
side of it, namely, that it cannot know that it is subjective, unless it is
also objective. The subject and the object are not two different items, but
complementary to each other. The consciousness of knowing implies the necessary
counterpart of there being something which is to be known.
What makes you feel that you
are a whole by yourself is the waking consciousness; you may call it the waking
mind which is a composite inclusiveness of your total personality. When your
waking mind goes into a state of dream, this so-called waking consciousness
splits itself into the knower and the known aspect of the dream world.
The transcendent aspect of the
waking mind is retained intact, in spite of its apparent descent into a
division of the dream subject and the dream object. You appear to have become
somebody else in the dream, but really you are the same person that you were
even before going into the dream. This is the reason why you wake up from the
dream healthily, and without feeling that you have become somebody else.
It appears that King Janaka
once dreamed that he was a butterfly, and this dream continued all whole night.
When he woke up, people greeted him: “Janaka Maharaj, namaskar.” He asked the courtiers,
“Am I Janaka, or a butterfly? Is it Janaka, the king, dreaming that he is a butterfly,
or is the butterfly dreaming that he is a king?”
The Samkhya concludes that
there are only two realities ultimately – consciousness and matter. That which
knows is consciousness, and that which is known is called matter. The
known-ness of matter arises on account of the fact that matter cannot know
itself. The materialist argument that only matter exists is defeated in one
moment by the consequence that follows from this argument that matter cannot
know itself. If matter only exists, according to the materialist doctrine, who
will know that there is matter at all? Matter is that thing which is bereft of
consciousness. Therefore, matter cannot know that it exists. Hence, who is
saying that the matter exists at all? That one which is affirming that there is
such a thing called matter cannot itself be matter. Hence, there must be two
realities at least – namely, consciousness, and that which is known by
consciousness.
The Sanskrit terminological
description of these two principles is purusha and prakriti. Purusha is the conscious, living
principle; prakriti is the matter that is what
is called the whole universe. That which cannot know its own existence, and yet
operates, is matter; and that which knows itself is consciousness.
We are not the physical body;
we are consciousness, and that consciousness is unlimited. It is infinite in its nature, and as you
yourself are the consciousness, you are, at the root of your being, an
unlimited potentiality. The possession of the whole Earth cannot satisfy us
because, in fact, there is no such thing called possession, because one thing
cannot become another thing. That which is not us cannot become us.
Having established the fact
that consciousness is everywhere, it cannot be considered as an active
principle, because activity is a movement of something outside itself. The
externality of a phenomenon is necessary in order that activity is possible. If
there is nothing outside us, we cannot act. But having concluded that
consciousness is everywhere, and it is infinite in its nature, the Samkhya has
to conclude, at the same time, that consciousness is inactive, while prakriti is active. The inactivity
of the illumination of consciousness, combined with the activity of matter,
which does not know itself, is the whole drama of life. It is an admixture of
the inactive infinite consciousness, and the active unconscious material
principle.
Things to ponder: “How
is it possible that consciousness can be associated with matter in any way
whatsoever? How could consciousness know that there is matter, because they are
two different things, qualitatively? If consciousness is infinite, it is
everywhere. If it is everywhere, where does matter exist? Where is the place
for matter to exist at all, because you have already filled the whole space
with consciousness? Does matter exist at all?”
Excerpts from:
The Mind as a
Quantum of Energy by Swami Krishnananda
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