WITHDRAWING AND UNITING
WITH SOURCE,
THROUGH
FOUR FUNCTIONS OF THE MIND
REASON
Union through reason.
Awakening to Reality through
our power of reason
We can calm our mind and liberate consciousness
through reason and discrimination.
This path is geared toward those who have an intellectual
curiosity, who like to reason and analyze. However,
our ordinary mind can never know the Ultimate Absolute.
Therefore the technique for the philosopher is to
intuit this larger Reality through discrimination between the Real (the Absolute) and this trasitory, every changing world which is fundamentally unreal.
Gradually, our ordinary mind becomes sensitive
to this larger Divine potential that's within ourselves and outside
of ourselves, (it's the same reality) and finally
our mind surrenders to it.
If we can still our mind, this world, of seemingly
rigid definitions and outlines will weaken.
By reasoning about this underlying Reality, and by living
a moral life, consciousness becomes responsive to the divine. Within and
behind the universe will appear omnipresent, ever free,
immortal Reality, Transcendent Awareness.
Is the world we perceive ultimately real?
The world is largely defined by our perceptions as humans.
If we were animals or plants, we'd perceive the
same world in a different way. Our sense organs
would be different, and the ways we mentally respond
to the world would be different.
As we still our mind through discrimination, this
world, of seemingly rigid definitions and outlines
will weaken.
THE MATERIAL BELOW IS TAKEN FROM SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S COMPLETE WORKS
"The only way to reach a sure analysis of
the universe is by the analysis of our own minds.
A proper psychology is essential to the understanding
of religion. To reach Truth by reason alone is impossible,
because imperfect reason can't study its own fundamental
basis. Therefore the only way to study the mind
is to get at facts, and then intellect will arrange
them and deduce the principles. The intellect has
to build the house; but it can't do so without bricks,
and it can't make bricks.
Jnana-Yoga is the surest way of arriving at facts.
First we have the physiology of mind. We have organs
of the senses, which are divided into organs of
action and organs of perception. By organs I don't
mean the external sense-instruments. The ophthalmic
centre in the brain is the organ of sight, not the
eye alone. So with every organ, the function is
internal. Only when the mind reacts, is the object
truly perceived. The sensory and motor nerves are
necessary to perception.
Then there is the mind itself.
It's like a smooth lake which when struck, say by
a stone, vibrates.
The vibrations gather together
and react on the stone, and all through the lake
they'll spread and be felt. The mind is like the
lake; it's constantly being set in vibrations, which
leave an impression on the mind; and the idea of
the Ego, or personal self, the "I", is
the result of these impressions.
This "I" therefore is only the very rapid
transmission of force and is in itself no reality.
The mind-stuff is a very fine material instrument
used for taking up the Prana (energy). When a man
dies, the body dies; but a little bit of the mind,
the seed, is left when all else is shattered; and
this is the seed of the new body called by St. Paul
"the spiritual body". This theory of the
materiality of the mind accords with all modern
theories. The idiot is lacking in intelligence because
his mind-stuff is injured.
Intelligence can't be in matter nor can it be produced
by any combinations of matter. Where then is intelligence?
It's behind matter; it's the Jiva (embodied soul),
the real Self, working through the instrument of
matter.
The Way of the Sage
Union through reason.
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA
How are perceptions made?
The wall sends an impression to me, but I don't
see the wall until my mind reacts, that's to say,
the mind can't know the wall by mere sight. The
reaction that enables the mind to get a perception
of the wall is an intellectual process. In this
way the whole universe is seen through our eyes
plus mind (or perceptive faculty); it's necessarily
colored by our own individual tendencies.
The real wall, or the real universe, is outside
the mind, and is unknown and unknowable.
Call this universe X, and our statement is that
the seen universe is X plus mind. What's true of
the external must also apply to the internal world.
Mind also wants to know itself, but this Self can
only be known through the medium of the mind and
is, like the wall, unknown. We may call this self
Y, and the statement would then be, Y plus mind
is the inner self. Kant was the first to arrive
at this analysis of mind, but it was stated long
ago in the Vedas.
We have thus, as it were, mind standing between
X and Y and reacting on both.
If X is unknown, then any qualities we give to it
are only derived from our own mind. Time, space,
and causation are the three conditions through which
mind perceives. Time is the condition for the transmission
of thought, and space for the vibration of grosser
matter. Causation is the sequence in which vibrations
come. Mind can only cognise through these.
Anything therefore, beyond mind must be beyond
time, space, and causation.
To the blind man the world is perceived by touch
and sound. To us with five senses it's another world.
If any of us developed an electric sense and the
faculty of seeing electric waves, the world would
appear different. Yet the world, as the X to all
of these, is still the same. As each one brings
his own mind, he sees his own world. There is X
plus one sense; X plus two senses, up to five, as
we know humanity. The result is constantly varied,
yet X remains always unchanged. Y is also beyond
our minds and beyond time, space, and causation.
But, you may ask, "How do we know there are
two things (X and Y) beyond time, space, and causation?"
Quite true, time makes differentiation, so that,
as both are really beyond time, they must be really
one. When mind sees this one, it calls it variously-X,
when it is the outside world, and Y, when it is
the inside world. This unit exists and is looked
at through the lens of mind.
The Being of perfect nature, universally appearing
to us, is God, is Absolute. The undifferentiated
is the perfect condition; all others must be lower
and not permanent.
The Self is beyond causation, and It alone is free.
Its light it is which percolates through every form
of mind. With every action I assert I'm free, and
yet every action proves that I'm bound. The real
Self is free, yet when mixed with mind and body,
It's not free. The will is the first manifestation
of the real Self; the first limitation therefore
of this real Self is the will."
