Friday, August 9, 2013

(Aug 9,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Mind as a Quantum of Energy


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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