Let us today explore whether the unconscious mind, also called the dark night of the soul, belongs to the physical brain, or is it something of the universal mind, the higher mind.
Man is divided into body (the physiology), and the mind (the psychology). The brain is part of the body, and the mind, of psychology. They both belong to a deeper and higher consciousness – a universal consciousness. Mind is the bridge between this universal and the individual consciousness, bridge between the soul and the body.
When the body dies the mind continues as a wavelength of memories with the conscious soul. The soul, when it allows itself to be tyrannized over by the appearances of Nature, the mind, it misses itself and goes whirling about in a cycle of births and deaths of the bodies. Entering new bodies, it gathers more experiences, sufferings, joys. But slowly, slowly, when it repeats the same pain, misery, agony, it becomes habitual and cannot draw back to the possession of its blissful state of its impersonal and unborn self-existence.
The mind also dies one day. Body dies many times, mind dies only once.
And the day the mind dies, one enters into the world of immortality, the universal. That’s what we call enlightenment.
Until the mind dies, it remains the master; it does not accept being a slave. The moment one’s innermost being asserts, that very assertion becomes the death of the mind. Hence meditation is defined as no-mind.
Mahaveera has given a very scientific way to enter inside and come to this assertion. He calls it Swadhyaya, self-study or mind as the subject of study – the mind studying mind. For example somebody abuses you, then there are two kinds of ripples that arise. One, directed at the man who has abused and the other, directed at the self where anger has arisen. If this study is other-oriented, then one starts defining the outer cause, the object of one’s anger. The internal study of the mind, the subjective aspect, remains untouched.
Only by being a witness of one’s self, anger, lust, greed, jealousy etcetera starts evaporating. But it is a very difficult penance (Tapa) to observe because being consumed with anger, the observation can never become a matter of subjective study. This is exactly how we are thrown away from our centre, activated by the mind. If, however, we can remain conscious and do not allow ourselves to be overcome by anger, we get nearer the centre. To get at the centre of the mind is also the state of no-mind.
It does not mean that the mind is not there, it simply means that through awareness, through remaining conscious, the mastery of the mind is no longer there. It can still be used as a vehicle, just like a flute, but the song is not of the flute. And the flute cannot sing on its own – the flute is only a passage; it is an instrument.
One of the most cherished books of the Hindus, Srimad Bagavad-Gita, literally means the song of the Divine. From the very title it means that the words are used not by the mind, but by someone who has no mind. Through Krishna, divinity speaks.
The Western philosophers became too involved with the mechanics of the mind but the East has never bothered about it despite its continuous concern with the inner search. Why be bothered with something that is ephemeral?
That is why, say the Upanishads
The Brahman is truth, infinity and knowledge
That which is indestructible is Truth
And that which does not perish even after the destruction of space,
Time etcetera, is called avinashi, the imperishable.
Source: www.articlesphere.com
