Let's think : By Dr.King, Swami Satyapriya

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with pre-stored instructions that enables us to boot strap, and go on

with our lives. These instructions are essential for living. But they

become a problem when they somehow get corrupted. Imagine how a

computer would behave if its EPROM is corrupted. It just crashes 😉 That would also be our state, if we have a faulty mental EPROM.

Before we talk about how the practice of Yoga helps in setting right

a corrupted mental EPROM, let us face the fundamental question namely

- 
 

" Is your mental EPROM corrupted?" 
Giving an analogy to our computers, I was talking about an EPROM that

resides in our mind. <<>>Like the EPROM in a computer, this mental EPROM

is also essential for the ‘normal’ functioning of a living being.

It contains instructions that are needed for our day-to-day

functioning. What are those instructions?

What do we need to maintain a normal life? Most basically, we need to

eat good food. Every animal instinctively knows what to eat and how

much to eat. Food that provides nutrition to our body is what we

should be eating. Also, we should eat just sufficient to satiate our

hunger. Any instinct driven animal, does just that.

Just eating is not enough. We need to maintain a family, have a mate,

have children and so on, so that we continue to propagate our likes.

If you are a male, you need to have a female who is capable of

producing children, and bring them up with all the care. If you are a

female, you should look for a male who is capable of fathering your

children, and also providing protection to you as well as your

progeny. These are the most basic instructions in the metal EPROM of

any being.

Just living and reproducing are not enough. You need to continue to

live. For that, you need to have a desire to live. That is also

another instruction in the mental EPROM. All these instructions are

essential for us to exist.

But what happens if these instructions get corrupted or are masked by

faulty ones?

Instead of eating good nutritious food to nourish our body, we become

slaves to our taste buds, and eat all kinds of junk food. The result

is well known – health problems. Similarly, instead of having

control over our eating habits, we consume a bit too much and fall

prey to many diseases – obesity, diabetes, and what not!

When we choose a mate, we look for superficial features like beauty

and not the features that are conducive to procreation and upkeep of

the progeny. Broad hips, big bosoms, tender body, and so on, which

are supposed to be an indication of a right candidate for mothering

our children, they become false notions of beauty. Similarly,

muscular body, tall, hairy figure which are otherwise needed for a

good fatherly candidate, become notions of beauty in a male. The real

purpose of these are over shadowed by superficial and misleading

notions. These are the ‘bugs’ that make our mental EPROM faulty.

Not that eating some tasty food occasionally is completely bad. Nor

falling in love with someone. As long as we are mindful of the real

purpose behind the instructions in our built in EPROM, and we are at

control, things are fine. But, more often than not, many of us

totally forget the basic purpose. That is when the mental EPROM leads

us astray.

Patanjali calls such a condition as false knowledge or Avidya.

Avidya is about mistaking wrong as right, bad as good and so

on. Patanjali says that this Avidya is the mother of all our

problems. What are these problems?

When we forget about the purpose of eating and go totally astray by

indulging in bad food habits, we get into health problems. Similarly,

when physical attraction is the only thing that draws us towards

opposite sex, we get trapped into what Patanjali calls as Raga

or over attachment to someone. Over attachment leads to

possessiveness. And we shudder to even think of anyone snatching our

beloved from us. That leads to Dwesha or hatred to the other

person who attempts any such thing. Both these Raga as well as

Dwesha make our lives miserable.

It is not just possessiveness about opposite sex. But almost about

anything in our lives – money, wealth, and so on.

Why does all these things happen? That is because, we identify

ourselves with the body. It is the body, for whose sake we get into

raga, dwesha and so on. And these raga, dwesha,

are once again generated due to false notions of taste, beauty etc.

Patanjali calls this wrong identification with the body as Asmita.

We should have known that we are not the body, but the souls. But we

fall for the wrong association due to Avidya. We think that

our body is permanent. But it is not. Sooner or later it is going to

perish, and whatever we amassed for its sake, is not going to help us

in any way. That is also part of Avidya.

Wrong association with the body, makes us want to live forever, so

that we can continue to enjoy the pleasures provided by the body.

Patanjali calls it as Abhinivesha. Even this has Avidya

as the root.

So Avidya is the mother of all problems. Since we cannot live

forever, we desire to take rebirth again and again, and enter an

endless trap of pleasure and pain. That is not going to help us in

the long run. But that is what we are forced to, because of our

faulty EPROM!

The ultimate aim of Yoga as per Patanjali, is to set right this

faulty EPROM. That would make us live peacefully when we are alive.

And escape from the endless cycle of births and deaths, when we

finally die.

Patanjali calls Avidya, Raga, Dwesha, Asmita

and Abhinivesha as five troublesome activities of the mind or

Pancha Kleshas. If you recall, in the very beginning,

Patanjali defines Yoga as restrainment of the activities of the mind

– “Yogah Chitta Vritti Nirodha”.

In these Chitta vrittis, Patanjali talks about five ‘normal’ and

five ‘difficult’ – Pancha aklishta and pancha

klishta.

Yoga steps from 1 to 7 are meant to restrain the normal activities.

And later stages of step 8, that is, Asamprajnyata Samadhi are

meant to neutralize even the Klishta activities

of the mind. That is when you set right your mental EPROM 😉.

Patanjali says that repeatedly going

through Asamprajnyata Samadhi, rectifies some of the ‘bugs’

that have crept into our mental EPROM over a period of time. This

‘over a period of time’ could mean several past births. That

can’t be rectified in one go. It has to be done with repeated and

purposeful efforts. Each time you enter Asamprajnyata Samadhi,

some of the bugs get eliminated.

And when all the bugs are eliminated,

you are left with a clean EPROM. A clean EPROM also means giving up

of clinging onto the body and the pleasures provided by it. As I said

earlier, great masters with no desire to cling on to the body, may

still keep taking birth, since they desire to help others who are

suffering because of ‘faulty EPROM syndrome’😉

What will happen if someone has no

such desire to help others? Patanjali says that such a soul attains

Kaivalya. Kaivalya is a state where the soul is completely

free, and all to itself, without any entanglements which could

disturb its ever-blissful state.

Patanjali believes in the Samkhya

model of the world of duality. In that model, there is nature, and

the souls. Coming together of them is bondage, and separation is

freedom. The purpose of Yoga is to attain this state of eternal

freedom.

But Upanishads go even beyond this

Samkhya model of the world. Upanishads talk of realities beyond this

‘matter-soul duality’. How do Upanishads view ultimate reality?

We will see that in the next episode.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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 One goes through a long process of Yoga, following its 8 steps.

And finally, he or she attains the state of Samadhi. Is that the end

of the journey? What exactly happens at that final stage, in

anticipation of which the Yogi had dedicated all his life, going

through the arduous practice of Yoga? That is what we are going to

discuss in this episode.  

In the previous episode, we discussed about the model of mind assumed

by Patanjali while discussing various steps of Yoga. That model has

the sense organs, sense processing or Indriya part of the

mind, sense coordination or the Manas part of the mind, the

individual identity or Ahankara, as well as the intellect or

the Buddhi.

While the sense organs directly interface with the world, Buddhi

provides the interface to the soul.

A few episodes ago, we also discussed stages of Yoga where the mind

gets gradually withdrawn from a completely outward looking state to

an almost restrained state. Let us briefly recall these stages.

When such a transition takes place, first the sense processing parts

or the Indriyas withdraw, attaining the state of Pratyahara.

Then the manas also gradually withdraws. While doing that, the mind

goes through two stages, namely Savitarka Samadhi and

Savichara Samadhi. The mind is still active in these two

stages but restrained to a large extent.

In the next stages, the manas almost withdraws, leaving behind only

the state of bliss. And finally, the mind reaches a stage where there

is only self-awareness, and no other mental activity, not even

experience of bliss. That is the Asmitanugata Samadhi.

In that stage, the Ahankara or the self-awareness part of the

mind is still active. As we said, all this time, there was awareness

of whatever was going on. That is why Patanjali calls these stages as

Samprajnyata Samadhi.

What happens when the meditator goes beyond this stage?

That is the stage where most of activity of the mind stop. As a

result, there would be no awareness. But it is not as if nothing is

happening. Buddhi part of the mind is still active. It is this

Buddhi that is in direct touch with the soul. Patanjali says

that at that stage, the Buddhi acts like a mirror, reflecting back

the soul to itself.

That means, at that stage the soul is cutoff from the external world,

hitherto conveyed by rest of the mind. The soul sees its own image,

reflected by the Buddhi, in the place of the world.

Once the soul sees itself in the mirror of Buddhi, it knows

who it is. It would know that it is not the body/mind with which it

had always identified itself. It becomes like the lost prince brought

up by some robbers in a forest. As long as the prince thinks that he

is the son of some robber, he behaves like one. But when someone

tells him who he really is, he attains the stature of a real prince.

He is no longer confused. He no longer behaves like a wayward

robber. He returns to his kingdom. I am quoting from an Upanishadic

simile.

So, the realized soul too can detach itself from the clutches of the

body/mind.

Two things can happen as a result.

Either the soul disassociates itself from the body/mind never to get

entrapped again. It would no longer like to drown itself in the

worldly mire. It attains its pure, unalloyed, ever blissful state.

Or, in some rare cases, it may choose to continue its association

with the body for the benefit of other trapped souls. It would like

to guide them, so that they could wade through the ocean of the

world. That is the case of great masters. They come back to worldly

life, even after they attain realization. They do it for the sake of

others.

But unfortunately, things are not always that simple.

The Buddhi of a worldly person is always contaminated by various past

impressions. What happens if you stand in front of a dirty mirror and

try to see yourself? You can’t see a clear picture. Similarly, the

soul of such people sees only a blurred image of itself reflected

back by an unclean Buddhi. It only gets partial realization

about its true nature. So, it cannot get completely free from the

entanglement of body/mind.

In such cases, the meditator remains in such a state for some time

before he is pulled back once again into the world, while the mind

traces back its steps.

From the state of complete unawareness, the meditator gradually slips

back into awareness. First, he becomes aware of his own individual

existence as body/mind/soul combination. Next the manas part of the

mind starts working, followed by the Indriyas.

The senses start perceiving the world, and the meditator is finally

back to where he left. He is once again a body/mind dominated person.

He starts identifying himself with whatever his mind shows him.

Now there are some important questions.

Question 1. What is it that which pulls back the person from the

ultimate, though momentary, state of realization, back to the worldly

tangle? In other words, what is it that blemishes the Buddhi in such

a way that the soul cannot see its own clear image?

Question 2. What is the use of getting into the final stage of

Samadhi if one ultimately retraces back his steps?

Question 3. How do we know what happened in the final stage of

Samadhi, since there was no awareness at all?

Let me try to explain the situation by means of a simple day-to-day

analogy.

What happens when you switch on a computer which was OFF. You might

have heard of the word ‘bootstrapping’. The computer bootstraps

itself. It starts doing what its EPROM was programmed to do. EPROM

is a small piece of memory which instructs the computer what it

should do when it is switched on.

But this memory is unlike other memories of the computer. The

instructions written in this memory are almost permanent unless

erased explicitly. It can also be reprogrammed with a different set

of instructions. That is why it is called EPROM – erasable,

programmable, read only memory. It is

some kind of permanent memory, unless it is willfully erased and

reprogrammed. And this memory is essential to bring the computer back

to life, or to boot, in common parlance.

As long as this EPROM is intact, the computer can regain itself after

being shutdown momentarily. Similarly, our mind too has an EPROM

which enables us to function in the world as a combination of

body/mind/soul. As long as we would like to continue in this world as

a ‘normal’ being, we need this EPROM to be functional and intact.

But as I said, this EPROM is reprogrammable. And it could get

reprogrammed into all kinds of wrong things, which we normally call

as a bug in computer jargon. On a positive note, it can be

reprogrammed to eliminate any ‘bugs’ that could have crept in.

And in the extreme case, it can be completely erased. Let us talk

about that extreme case later.

Now what does this EPROM correspond to, in the context of mind?

As we said, these are some preset instructions that keep the soul

associated with the body/mind and keep it active in the world. For a

worldly person, these instructions are essential, to carry out

worldly interactions. At the same time, for a person who would like

to free from the worldly entanglement, these are unnecessary

hindrances.

What are these preset instructions? We will see them in the next

episode.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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familiar, Upanishads are the philosophic parts of the ancient Indian

Vedas. And Vedas are probably, the oldest available scriptures of the

world. While most Indians view Upanishads with lot of reverence, many

westerners, which include well known scientists and intellectuals,

consider them as the peak of human intellectual endeavors.

I have written many books based on the Upanishads.: Ancient wisdom

modern viewpoints, Mom! who is my father? Simple Upanishad

stories that reveal profound truths, Upanishads - A Journey

into the Unknown, and so on. But these Upanishads seem to be

endless storehouse of gems, and one never gets exhausted exploring

them.

teachers have written great many commentaries on these Upanishads.

Even in modern times, there are many swamis who have given hours of

lectures on these sacred texts. Among these, one well known Swami

recently drew my attention. He a swami from a well-known monastic

order. A saintly person, who even has undergone training in top

American schools. He specializes in Advaita philosophy, which is at

the heart of these Upanishads.

Swami is quite popular on YouTube, uploading new lecture videos

almost every other day. A good orator and crowd catcher. With no

disrespect meant to this saintly person, I admit that I am a bit

uncomfortable with many of his lectures. The reason being

seem to contradict the core theme of the Upanishads, which he says

are the basis of his lectures.

Sometimes his

lectures even seem to deviate from the long tradition to which he

belongs.

He appears to

mix disjoint ideas and conflicting views, may be in his eagerness to

make the topic attractive.

sincerely felt that, with all good intentions, the swami’s lectures

can send wrong message in the long run, not to mention about

credibility issues.

like this one, motivated me to write one more book on Upanishads, to

express my own understanding of these great texts. Current book is

part of the series Unsolved mysteries. As the name itself

indicates, I don’t claim to put down the final word about many of

the puzzling things in these books. I only try to iron out many

apparent conflicts, and confusing views of some modern teachers,

which don’t really jell well with the original texts.

The

title of my new book is “Unravelling the hidden mysteries of the

Vedas – Part 2: Amazing Upanishads”.

start off with clearing some misconceptions about monotheism and

apparent polytheism in Hinduism. Hinduism is believed to have

originated in the Vedas. That indirectly implies that the Vedas are

also polytheistic, and many people who are superficially familiar

with the ritual parts of the Vedas, vouch for their being inherently

polytheistic. I show how that is not the fact.

further illustrate how the notion of God is probably a misnomer.

Upanishads give a completely new version of the concept of God, which

has far reaching effects. Upanishads also have their own notion of

ultimate reality.

this ultimate reality is interpreted by various teachers down the

line, in their own way. This has resulted in many ideological

differences subsequently. On one hand, we had masters like Buddha,

who almost dismissed the concept of God or the soul. On the other

hand, there were great teachers like Shankara who stressed on

Advaita, or oneness, which excludes the existence of anything, other

than God or Brahma.

Shankara had to bring in the concept of illusion or Maya to answer

some of the perceived contradictions in these Upanishads. The concept

of Maya has been the Achilles heel of Advaita of Shankara. I feel

that the concept of Maya is nonexistent in the entire Upanishads. It

is a mystery why Shankara had to invent it!

explain how the concept of Maya or illusion can render the lofty

philosophy of the Upanishads, into a nihilistic one. In a step by

step fashion, I show how the Upanishads don’t preach negative view

towards life. In fact, they raise the humanity to heights of

divinity.

rest of my book is about how the main theme of the Upanishads namely

the Advaita or oneness, can be explained without resorting to

concepts like Maya. In doing that, I also show how, the

contradictions in theory and practice of many of the Advaiti swamis

of today can be ironed out, without conflicting with the core theme

of the Upanishads.

these may appear to be just some intellectual exercises without any

practical utility. Towards the end of the book, I show how this

concept of oneness – which I call as Advaita sans Maya –

has several salutary effects and can uplift the entire humanity as a

whole. So, it is neither a purposeless intellectual exercise, nor

some idle pastime, not the least, some speculation of ancient people,

which are irrelevant today.

Upanishads do have profound implications on our life and we

definitely can benefit a lot from them. All that we need to do is, to

relook at the way various thought schools have evolved, and put them

in the proper perspective.

book is currently available both in e-book format as well audio book

format. For audio book, I have used Google’s AI technology, which

makes best use of multiple characters. For people who are perpetually

on the move, I highly recommend the audio version, which is available

in some select stores, at amazingly low price.

have a look at the universal book link

http://books2read.com/VedicMystery2

to see where this book is available, and also to preview/purchase the

book. I can assure that, you will have an altogether new view of

Upanishads, Indian philosophy, and current Hindu practices. Maybe it

will clear out many of the misconceptions created by some modern

teachers.

 

To complete the picture, let me also remind you that, there is a

first part of this series. That part is titled Unraveling the

hidden mysteries of the Vedas – Part 1: Aliens of the Vedic kind.

You may check the Universal book link

http://books2read.com/VedicMystery1

to see where that book is available, and also to preview/purchase

that book. Even that book is available in audio.

will be too glad to receive your feedback through book reviews.

Please make it a point to write one review where you purchased these

books from.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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discussion about Yoga, Patanjali rarely describes this mind nor how

it functions. The reason is that Patanjali assumes the model of the

mind as put forth by Samkhya. So, it becomes necessary to know what

Samkhya says about the mind in order to fully understand Yoga. In

this episode, we will be doing exactly that.

Yoga is a sister school of Samkhya. Samkhya is one of the most

ancient Indian schools of thought which has an elaborate theory of

how the world came into existence. As part of this theory, Samkhya

also talks about mind and its evolution. Samkhya focuses more on how

the mind evolved and its constituent parts, rather than the details

of its working. Patanjali assumes the model of mind, as delineated by

Samkhya.

Upanishads too talk about mind, almost on similar lines as the

Samkhya. It is not clear whether Samkhya based its theory on ideas

borrowed from Upanishads or the other way around. Because of this

similarity of ideas, it is easy to extend Yoga to Upanishadic vision,

beyond what is talked about by Patanjali. We will be doing that later

in our discussions.

What is mind as per the Samkhya?

Samkhya bifurcates the world into insentient and sentient things,

into inert and intelligent things, into material and non-material

things, into objects and subjects. It calls the former as Prakriti

and the latter as Purusha. As per Samkhya, Prakriti

evolved from an insentient primordial substance called Pradhana,

as a result of combining of three fundamental elements called Satwa,

Rajas, and Thamas. Different combination of these three

basic elements, in varying proportions, gave rise to various types of

material things or Prakriti.

This Prakriti comprises of mainly two types of entities – gross

matter or Sthoola Prakriti, and subtle matter or SookShma

Prakriti. While the gross matter is perceptible to our senses,

the subtle matter is not. Neither of these is sentient. Both of them

can go through changes, though they never undergo annihilation.

In contrast, Purusha is sentient, non-perceivable to our senses, not

subject to change or annihilation. There are infinitely many

Purushas. In common parlance these Purushas are sometimes referred to

as souls, though usage of this term can be confusing at times.

Each living being is considered to be a combination of a body and a

soul. Body is part of Prakriti. Body provides the mechanisms for the

soul to interact with the world. Soul undergoes pleasure and pain as

a result of this interaction. The body produces the pleasure and

pain, and the soul experiences them through the interface of mind.

Now, what is this mind?

The Mind is a subtle material entity that acts as a bridge between

the gross material body and the non-material soul. This mind has 4

different components. At the lowest level there are the Indriyas

that interface with various sense and action organs of the gross

body. In a way, it is these Indriyas which make sense of the inputs

provided by the gross sense organs. They also issue commands to the

gross action organs to make them perform physical actions.

Indriyas are coordinated by next higher-level part of the mind called

Manas. This Manas is the controller of the senses. It acts as

a conduit between the gross body and the further higher-level parts

of the mind. In many ways, manas is like the sense and motor

processing regions of the brain. Though these regions of the brain

are gross material entities, Samkhya views them as a combination of

gross and subtle material entities.

There is also a subtle part in the mind called Ahankara. This

ahankara maintains a unique identity to this combination of body,

mind and soul. It is this Ahankara that gives the identity

that “I am this body/mind”, to the soul.

At the upper most level of the mind, there is Buddhi. It holds

various aspects of the mind such as will, knowledge, discrimination,

past mental impressions or the so called Samskara, and so on.

Buddhi gathers the information provided by the Manas and passes it on

to the soul. It also conveys the intents of the soul to the Manas.

So, it is Buddhi that connects the soul to the external world.

This is roughly the model of the mind as put forth by the Samkhya.

Unlike the Buddhist model, the soul has the most prominent part in

this combination of body/mind/soul. It is for the sake of soul that

the body/mind exist. The body/mind combination enables the soul to

enjoy the world. It is the same body/mind that helps the soul to free

from the entanglement with the world, if the soul so wishes. In a

way, the body/mind is an instrument used by the soul to navigate its

worldly journey.

The Upanishads too, implicitly assume this model of body/mind. In one

of the Upanishads namely the Kathopanishad, there is a

beautiful analogy that describes the coming together of body/mind and

the soul. It says that the sense organs are like the horses that

carry the chariot used by the soul. These horses move on the path of

sense inputs. In other words, they run after objects of sense

perception.

These sense horses are controlled by the manas, which acts like the

reins. In this chariot, Buddhi is the charioteer who wields the

reins, and directs the horses in the right direction. It is the soul

that is actually the rider of this chariot. Effectively, the chariot

is the body that is inhabited by the soul in its worldly journey.

Samkhya as well as the Upanishads package indriyas, manas, ahankara,

and the Buddhi as components of a subtle body in which the soul

resides. And this subtle body resides in the gross material body. On

the event of death of an individual, the subtle body along with the

soul leaves the dead body, and migrates to another body in the womb

of the would be mother. That is how the rebirth takes place.

The soul is always associated with a subtle body until it attains

liberation. Patanjali calls this liberation as Kaivalya. We will talk

about Kaivalya later.

Now, where does brain fit in this model of mind put forth by the

Samkhya? The Samkhya does not talk explicitly about the connection

between the mind and the brain. It only says that the mind interfaces

with the gross body.

But we see many parallels between the role of indriyas and sense

processing and motor regions of the brain. We also see the role of

certain parts of the brain as a coordinator between these regions, in

the same way the manas is the coordinator of indriyas. We also see

some parts of the brain working as centers of self-identity as well

as repositories of knowledge.

Further, Yoga as well as Upanishads strongly believe in re-birth.

They also say that when rebirth happens, the soul along with its

subtle body moves from the dying body to the new body. Also, the mind

is supposed to carry memories, impressions of past actions and so on,

across rebirth. This is not possible if the mind were just brain

since the brain perishes with the body.

One way to resolve this, is to view mind as an extension of the

brain. To give a crude analogy, the brain could be acting like the

cache in the memory hierarchy of a computer. Contents of the cache is

a subset of the contents of the main memory. Also, the cache holds

only that part of the memory that are immediately needed by the

processor. The mind is like the main memory. But this caching in the

context of the brain includes all the states of the mind and not just

the memory part of it.

With this model of the mind, in the next episode let us see how Yoga

moves on to states beyond the Samprajnyata samadhi.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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up with various theories about the mind. These theories were not

aimed at understanding the mind, the way our modern neuroscience

does. But they were driven by practical applications.

in the Buddhist scripture, namely the Abhidamma Pitaka. Based on this

theory, Buddhists developed various meditative practices. We will

discuss this Buddhist theory of mind in this episode.

On one occasion, Buddha recollects his early journey on the spiritual

path. He had his initial training under the tutelage of many

well-known Gurus of his times. Some of them were scholarly Brahmins

and some ardent ascetics. Buddha being a sincere student, could

easily grasp whatever his teachers taught him. He was even able to

attain the same peaks, which his teacher had attained. But he was not

quite satisfied with that.

Buddha jovially says that he held his breath “as

long as his ears popped out”, and he starved “as long as his

belly touched his back” 😉. But he did not think he had reached

anywhere. And finally, he gave up all those practices, and immersed

himself in meditation. He kept observing himself – both his body

and mind. And finally attained the realization.

The main part of Buddha’s realization was that

there is nothing that is permanent. Everything, body as well as mind,

is continuously changing. And this continuously changing body and

mind is what actually constitutes our existence as an individual. He

also understood the root cause of all our suffering, and a way of

coming out of that.

Buddha did not talk much about the mind and the

science of it. But later Buddhists recorded some of the comments made

by Buddha, as an elaborate theory of mind. They came up with what

they called Abhidamma. Abhidamma is Buddhist theory of

the mind.

As per Abhidamma, mind is a non-material entity,

which generally co-exists with the material body. But at times, this

mind can exist independent of the body, in certain planes of

existence. Also, this mind is capable of ‘creating’ bodies. It

can also attain certain magical powers, since it has control over the

material things.

Abhidamma calls the mind as Chitta. This

Chitta is momentary and lasts only for 17 ‘thought moments’. A

thought moment is one billionth of the time taken to blink the

eyelids. After this duration, a Chitta gets replaced by another

Chitta. Before that happens, its contents are transferred to the

newly formed Chitta.

There can be as many as 79 different types of

Chitta, each arising on a specific occasion. The contents of the

Chitta are called Chetasika. They may represent emotions,

feelings, pleasure, pain, record of actions taken by the individual,

and so on. Different Chittas coordinate, to process the inputs

provided by the body through the senses. Similarly, different stages

within the lifetime of a Chitta, the Kamma of an individual gets

recorded. The Kamma are the record of actions taken by the

individual.

Just like the Chitta, body is also transient –

arising and perishing with the Chitta. A continuously changing

sequence of body in conjunction with a continuously changing sequence

of Chitta, is what gives rise to the impression of an individual. But

in reality, there is no individual. Abhidamma does not believe in any

soul, that is at the receiving end of the Chitta. It says that there

is nobody who experiences whatever goes on in the Chitta. There is

only experience, but no ‘experiencer’!

Why did the Buddhists arrive at this theory of

mind? Not for the sake of knowing what it is. But to use this theory

to achieve their goal of life. Buddhists believed that root cause of

all the misery gone through by an individual, is the birth as an

individual. Only if you are born, do you undergo miseries. And this

birth happens due to the ‘desire’ to be born! Where is this

desire? Where else, but in the Chitta.

Buddhists theory of mind has detailed description

of how this desire arises in the Chitta and how the corresponding

side effects, or Kamma as they are called, get recorded. These

Buddhists came up with meditative practices, that can prevent these

Kamma being recorded. No Kamma, means no possibility of future birth.

And cessation of birth bestows freedom from suffering.

Strangely, Buddhists believed in rebirth, though

they said that there is no permanent entity called soul! How do they

explain rebirth when there is no transmigrating soul? They say that

the last Chitta of a dying person gets copied into the Chitta of the

fetus in the womb of the would be mother. Then on, the sequence of

Chitta and body continues in another location, as another individual.

The contents of the Chitta, especially the Kamma

related ones, carry forward in the next individual. It is as if the

same individual is continuing in another place with a new sequence of

body and mind. This would go on until the liberation or nirvana is

attained.

Though this Buddhist theory of mind does not

stand anywhere in the light of what we know today as the functioning

of the mind in terms of neuroscience, it seems to be useful in

achieving what the Buddhists meant to achieve, namely freedom from

miseries.

At least to the extent that Buddhist model of the

mind responds to the same input with expected output, we can say that

their model is one of the possible descriptions of the Mind. It may

not be correct in today’s scientific terms, but serves some

purpose. At least that is what Buddhists believe.

As we discussed in the previous episode, in cases

dealing with things beyond our understanding, we may resort to this

criterion for accepting a specific theory.

Vipassana or passive observation of the

mind is one of the powerful techniques of Buddhism. This technique is

based on this theory of Abhidamma. Irrespective of the correctness of

Abhidamma, many modern psychologists believe that Vipassana is a

useful practice. They use this Vipassana as a remedy to many

psychological problems and for minimizing stress. Many Gurus also

offer them by giving scientific sounding names such a ‘insight

meditation’.

Though Buddhists never associated Chitta with the

brain, there are scientific studies conducted, that show that

Buddhist meditative techniques like Vipassana have profound influence

on the functioning of the brain. Some of these are beneficial and

some controversially harmful. But there are no two words that these

methods do modulate the functioning of the brain, though never

anticipated by the original Buddhists who came up with their theory

of mind.

But opponents of Buddhist theories always poked

holes in their theory. These people had their own counter theories.

One of the most prominent one was the Samkhya theory of mind.

Patanjali’s Yoga assumes this Samkhya theory of the mind.

Surprisingly, even this theory does not associate

the mind directly with the brain. All the same, the practices based

on this Samkhya theory, namely Yoga, are believed to take one to the

same end result that Buddhist theory of mind promises to take. We

will see more on this Samkhya theory of the mind in the next episode.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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has always been a point of debate. The more we understand our brain,

more we will be closer to understanding the mind, as well as the

limitations in our scientific methodology. For more than one reason,

it seems that there is something more to the mind than just the

brain.

open mind before arriving at any conclusions.

A few years ago, when I wrote my book “How does the mind work?”,

I received strange responses from some of my readers. Some well known

medical professionals disagreed with my portrayal of brain as mind.

They felt that mind is not brain!

Among them, one hypnotherapist was of the firm opinion that mind is

far beyond brain. Or else, “how does one explain past life

regression studies?” she wondered. As a therapist she often

conducts such studies on her patients. In such studies, one is

supposed to recollect their past life experiences. If mind were just

the brain, how can the memories get carried over to the next birth,

since the brain perishes when the person dies?

But it is a fact that most modern scientists, especially

neuroscientists, view mind as just “the brain in action”, and

nothing more. It is like the operating system, that runs on a

computer after you boot it. Operating system is not the computer, nor

is it what is stored on the hard disk. It is “computer in action”.

To a large extent I agree with this view. But not completely.

When I explained various stages of Yoga in the past episodes, I was

talking as if brain and mind are two faces of the same coin, or that

mind is just “the brain in action”. Some of you probably were not

very convinced. But it is true to a large extent, at least uptil the

final stage of Samadhi, that I discussed in the previous episode.

I took that stand, not just because of my belief in what current

science tells us, but because that view would enable us to study Yoga

to a large extent, using the gadgets available to us today, and using

the insights we have gained about the working of the brain.

But the big question is - “have we really understood the brain

completely?”. Not really. There are many finer details about the

brain that are yet to be unraveled. Does it then mean that once we

unravel those mysteries about the brain, we will be able to

understand everything about Yoga? Can we then explain and

scientifically verify final stages like Asamprajnyata samadhi,

that we discussed in the last episode? Or are there things about Yoga

that remain unanswerable, no matter how much we understand our brain?

That is the question I am going to address in this episode.

I recently watched a video of well-known podcaster Sam Haris talking

about his experiences with one of the Indian Yogis namely Poonja. Sam

says that he disagrees with Poonja in many ways. But he admits that

the kind of experience he had while sitting quietly with Poonja for a

few hours, was something far more intense than what he had, spending

several months in meditation retreats, or even by taking heavy drugs.

Sam is totally puzzled about how this man could impart such an effect

on a person like him, who neither has great respect for this fellow,

nor agrees with him on many issues. In a more recent video, Sam is

even critical about Poonja. Sam has impressive academic

qualifications and he specializes in cognitive neuroscience from top

American universities. He is a skeptic and a self-claimed atheist.

Take another example, Paul Brunton’s experiences with Ramana

Maharshi, the silent Yogi of Arunachal in Southern India. Even

Paul Brunton had a very similar experience with Ramana. And it is

such experiences which made Ramana well known all over the world.

What is it that influences the other person, when there was neither

any communication, nor display of any kind? Definitely it cannot be

done by the brain of the person who emanates such a radiance. It

can’t be any “pheromone emitted by the Yogi that numbs the limbic

system of the onlooker”, as Sam jovially puts it 😉

Buddha gives a long list of psychic powers one

may achieve as a result of prolonged practice of meditation. He says

that one may recollect his or her past lives, may start seeing events

that are going to happen in the future, may read the minds of others,

and so on. Can we explain any of these things, no matter how much we

understand the brain?

It is not just Buddha, many of us who dabble a

bit into meditative practices, would have had such experiences. None

of those things are possible, if the mind were just limited to the

brain. I am not trying to offer this as a proof of mind being beyond

the brain. These kinds of things only suggest a possibility of

limitation of our current notion of science.

Ancient Indians were always fascinated by the

mind. They not only came up with many theories about the mind, but

also techniques to modulate the mind in a productive way. The Samkhya

philosophers had their own theories. The Buddhists had theirs.

Neither of these had much in common. But they were useful in

progressing our understanding about our lives.

Many of the latest discoveries in neuroscience

about the working of our brain is based on computer aided simulation

of the brain. What a simulator does is to implement a theory about

the working of the brain in a computer. This simulator is then fed

with some inputs and its outputs are recorded. If the real brain gives

the same output for the same inputs, then it is assumed that the

theory behind the simulator is correct.

But if you ponder a bit, it is easy to see that

there could be multiple theories and multiple simulators based on

such theories, which all behave the same way. Does it make one theory

right? No, these theories just bring us closer to reality. More we

test such simulators under diverse conditions, closer we would be

towards understanding our brain.

Ancient Indians too did the same way. 

Till

probably a few centuries ago, not just the Indians, nobody in the

world had any idea that mind and brain have any relation. Most

thought mind is in the heart! But still, Indian philosophers came up

with some of the most profound theories about the mind, without even

knowing its anatomical connection.

Buddhists had an elaborate theory about the

working of the mind. Mind you, they came up with it, more than 2000

years ago! In the light of today’s neuroscience, this entire theory

may look baseless. Yet Buddhists could use this theory to make

progress in their meditative practices. They could achieve several

things which cannot be achieved just by the knowledge about the

brain, however detailed it is.

The Samkhya philosophers too had their detailed

theory about the composition and genesis of the mind. Patanjali based

his Yoga on this theory of Samkhya. Irrespective of the correctness

of this theory in the detail, these theories seemed to have practical

utility. The result of a specific practice as predicted by this

theory can be verified today using scientific methodology, even

though the theories by themselves may not exactly match with our

current understanding of the mind.

What I am trying to arrive at, is the fact that

There are many things that we are yet to

understand about the mind.

And these things may not be resolved, no matter

how much progress we make in our understanding of the brain.

Ancient theories may not match the precision

and rigor of our modern theories, but

they may have some aspect that can possibly help us bridge the gap.

It probably pays to look at these ancient

theories with an open mind.

With this kind of open mind, let us discuss some

of the prominent theories about the mind in the next episode.

 

© Dr. King, Swami Satyapriya 2024

You can borrow audio books directly from the author at https://tinyurl.com/mylibrary1234 at highly affordable prices.

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In the previous episode we stopped at ‘stages of samadhi with awareness’ and showed how all the steps of Yoga till that point can be completely explained in terms of neuroscience. That means, all that can be scientifically verified.But beyond that point, when one gets into the ‘stages of samadhi without awareness’, we have to leave behind science since our brain has no direct role in those stages.Does that mean that there is something even beyond brain? That is what I am going to discuss in this episode.

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Contrary to common perception, Yoga has more to do with Meditation than physical exercises. There are lot of misconception about these real aspects of Yoga. Lack of knowledge and willful distortion by many commercially motivated Gurus, have earned the name pseudoscience to Yoga. This is quite unfortunate.In this episode, we will discuss how the entire Yoga, including the meditation, can be scientifically studied and verified. Our current knowledge of neuroscience and the gadgets that we have at our disposal, empower us to undertake such an objective study.

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In the past episodes we saw how yoga helps in minimizing the thought-wars that generally give rise to stress. But mere stress reduction is not the ultimate goal of Yoga.In the previous episode we also saw why it is necessary to minimize the thoughts completely to march towards a completely tranquil mind – an entry point to the final goal.We talked about focusing the mind on specific targets through a process called Dharana – the 6th step of Yoga. Dharana is the precursor to meditation or Dhyana that takes us to the ultimate goal of Yoga.Before we dive deeply into Dhyana, let us look at some interesting aspects of Dhyana or meditation in this episode.

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In the past episodes we saw how yoga helps in minimizing stress. Lesser stress means better health. Most people turn to Yoga with that goal. But Yoga is not really about stress reduction, though that is one of its byproducts. There are far more interesting things that Yoga can achieve. It takes us to an altogether new dimension of our existence far beyond mundane. That is achieved by the advanced steps of Yoga that we are going to discuss in this as well as subsequent episodes.