For a long time, scientists believed in only the mind and brain. Whereas the brain is the physical organ that controls all neural activities, the mind is a product of those activities. Most people use the terms brain and mind interchangeably. On the other hand, the term consciousness has always been a challenge to define, mostly reserved for philosophers. Some people view consciousness as a wakeful state of mind. Others associate it with the spiritual awareness of your existence. The soul is mostly dismissed by science as a non-existent entity. Whereas science struggles to describe each of these terms with clarity, our Vedas have defined them extremely well. I will leave it up to you to accept their definition or not.
According to the Vedas, the mind has 4 layers. Manas, Aham, Buddhi, and Chitta. The Manas is the reactive mind that deals with our sense organs. It passes the information we receive through our sense organs and sends it to the brain which then processes the information and reacts accordingly. Manas is responsible for our pain and pleasure. Aham is related to identity which gives rise to both seeking pleasure for oneself or self-defense. We react a certain way because we seek pleasure for ourselves or we feel threatened, but it is always related to our ‘self’. These 2 layers are present in all organisms. Buddhi is related to our intellect. We connect ourselves to the entire world realizing we are a part of it. This layer of mind is capable to view the world from a holistic perspective and has also the power of imagination. We acknowledge our actions will have an impact not only on ourselves but also on others and therefore use this layer to make logical decisions. This is why Buddhi is also called intellect or wisdom. Some western philosophers confuse Buddhi with consciousness. In yogic science, consciousness is synonym with Chitta, the state of ultimate spiritual awakening or ‘Aham Brahmasmi’ and the highest level of mind when we realize our existence is a part of the cosmos. Consciousness being a western terminology not defined properly, cannot be fully mapped with Chitta, but it is the closest terminology. Important to notice that these 4 layers are not different states of mind but can be correlated to different parts of the brain. Scientists have now confirmed pain and pleasure activate the same part of the brain called the Amygdala. Another part of the brain called the Ventral pallidum is responsible for signals that are connected to emotions involving reward or punishment thereby activating the emotions connected to self or ‘Aham’. The prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, temporal lobe, and parietal lobe are responsible for logical thinking or Buddhi. Since consciousness is not a well-defined term in the scientific community, scientists do not know which part of the brain is responsible for it. On the other hand, the Vedas define the Chitta to be associated with the third eye chakra which is connected to the pineal gland, located right in the middle of our eyebrows. This is the same place where Lord Shiva has his third eye. In this same area of the forehead, women wear vermilion as a mark of their marital status and men wear their ‘Tilak’ before starting any important activity. The third eye chakra is believed to act as a sixth sense, strengthening our foresight of the future. How nicely everything fits!.
The Vedas not only elaborate on layers of mind, but they also have well-defined states of the mind. These are recorded in the Mandukya Upanishad which identifies 4 states of mind – the wakeful state (jagrat), the dream state (svapna), the deep sleep state (susupti), and the ‘Turiya’ state which has no counterpart translation in English. Modern psychology also defines 3 states of consciousness – conscious mind, sub-conscious mind, and unconscious mind, coinciding exactly with the wakeful, dream, and deep sleep states as defined in the Mandukya Upanishad. Whether the idea has been borrowed from our philosophy or mere coincidence, it is hard to pin-point, but certainly, the Mandukya Upanishad predates modern psychology for thousands of years. The 4th state Turiya is a very complex state to explain. So I will request you to take a break and read the next paragraph very carefully.
In the wakeful state, our mind interacts with the gross world that we live in today. What we do in our daily life is all done in this state. For an ignorant mind, this state is what deals with ultimate reality. (I call the mind ignorant because what we perceive to be real is an illusion to an enlightened mind. But that topic I will cover in some other blog). The dream state is purely a world of the mind. Whereas modern science dismisses dreams as nothing more than random images from memory colliding with each other, the Upanishad presents a very interesting paradox. How do we conclude the dream world is unreal? The waking world is as much unreal to the dream world as the dream world is to the waking world. In both the world we go through similar emotions. We experience joy, pain, pleasure, fear, and suffering. How then do we perceive one world as real and the other as not?
Let us take a simpler example. How do we conclude what is light and what is darkness? It is the eyes that is the witness and makes the comparison. For a blind person, there is no concept of light and darkness. Our notion of the world is always relative. Every object, every relation, and every entity has a reference. A chair is a chair because we have defined what a chair is. So when we come across a chair, our mind compares it with the definition and concludes it is indeed a chair. Without that reference, there is no chair. So here, it is the mind that is the witness and makes that comparison. However when the mind itself is transitioning from a wakeful state to a dream state and vice versa, who is present in both the state that makes this comparison of real vs unreal? Certainly not the mind, because in the dream state, the mind perceives the dream world to be real and hence the emotions we go through in the dream world are real. When we go into a deep sleep state, we have no recollection of either the real or the dream world. Yet when we wake up we are aware that we had been in deep sleep. What is that within us that is always awake and never goes to sleep even when the mind is sleeping in deep sleep? That is called Atman or soul! It is the soul that witnesses the transition of mind from one state to other. In deep sleep, we are unaware of our existence. It is the state of cosmic silence. So when we are pulled out of deep sleep into the waking world, the first realization that happens to our mind is ‘I exist!’ And we became aware of our existence. This short state of mind is called ‘Turiya’. Turiya is the state of self-awareness, the realization of the existence of the soul or Brahman. No other religion has explained the concept of mind, consciousness, and soul with such clarity!
Science relies on experiments to prove a theory. Spirituality on the other hand relies wholly on personal experiences. What we read in the Vedas is what the sages have experienced. Have you ever wondered why the Vedas left the question of the creation of the universe open-ended? That is because it encourages each of us to be a seeker of truth. Go and experience the world fully living each moment with awareness and discover your own version of the truth!
