Aum

MOkshasaadhanam (Means of Liberation) – 22

by Krishna Sastri

The mind, Bhagavan Ramana said, is a bundle of thoughts. Therefore thoughts are but parts of the mind.

Only the beginningless has no parts. All that has a beginning has parts. In BrahadhaaranyakOpanishad says: “ThanmanOsrujatha” – It projected the mind. This is its beginning.

A thought is a knowledge brought about by ‘manOvritthi’. Since mind itself is inert this knowledge, unlike the Pure Consciousness, is not sentient (Chaithanyam).

‘Vritthi’ arises with the contact of the organs such as eyes with objects such as a pot. The Vedanthic concept of a thought is that the mind going through a sense organ, envelopes the object and thus gains its impression or thought. This is the process of perception, according to Advaita Vedaantha (as given in Sankara’s UpadEsa Saahasri, Vedaranya’s Panchadasi and Advarindra’s Paribhaasha).This is called the ‘perceptual knowledge’. In this process the Consciousness becomes threefold. They are:

* i) Consciousness limited by the object (prameya-chaitanyam),
* ii) Consciousness limited by the mental mode (vritti) (pramana-chaitanyam) and
* iii) Consciousness limited by the mind (pramatr-chaitanyam).

Now let us understand this process of perception little more closely.
* (1) the mind stretches out through the eye, reaches the object and takes the form of the object. This is called a vrtti or mode of the mind.
* (2) the mental mode removes the veil of ignorance that hides the object.
* (3) Consciousness underlying the object, being manifest through the mental mode, illumines the object.
* (4) the mental mode associates the object-consciousness with the subject-consciousness.
* (5) The subject perceives the object.
As the mind, which is part of the Prakrthi, goes through the above karma in order to obtain the objective knowledgeand it is its ‘phala’ or the fruit.
The perceiver is the ‘pramaathaa’ and the Consciousness associated with him is called ‘pramaatha chaithanya’. The Consciousness associated with the means of knowledge is called ‘pramaana chaithanya’ and the Consciousness associated with the object is known as ‘pramithi chaithanya’ and the object itself is called ‘pramEya’ and therefore in terms of Consciousness it would be ‘pramEya chaithanya’. Thus ‘pramithi chithanya and pramEya chaithanya’ would be identical.

This way the underlying Consciousness brings to light the object that is known.

Among the Vedantins, there are two schools of thoughts, one considering the mind as an organ and the other as not an organ. According the ‘Bhaamathi’ mind is an indhriya but ‘Vivarana’ school does not consider so.

The reason attributed is that thought arises even without the sense organs contacting the sense objects. And the objection to it is that the thought as a knowledge has to be immediate but in the case of inference which is brought about by the function of the mind, there is no immediacy of the knowledge.
(contd.)