Part XXXIX
- Analysis of Mind: Introduction Part 1
Mind has been the subject of analysis both
by psychologists as well as philosophers. There
are books and books dealing with the mind, trying
to unravel the mysteries of the mind. Here I
present my understanding, examining the mind
from various angles along with how Vedanta looks
at the mind.
Those who have been exposed to J. krishnamurti's
lectures will be familiar with his statement
that one's mind is ‘conditioned’ by
one's culture, tradition, religion, up-bringing
or, so to say parental or society's 'brain-washing'.
One is a believer or non-believer, Hindu, Muslim,
Christian or any other denomination, one is a
dvaitin, advaitin, or vishiShTAdvaitin, either
by default or by choice, all due to one's mental
conditionings brought out by where, when or to
whom he is born, and the environment or surroundings
in which he grew up. There is no truth in any
of these conditionings, since they are conditionings
that take one away from the truth. The mind gets
cocooned in a shell or moves from one shell to
another. Even if one makes a choice of selecting
a path or system to follow, say advaita philosophy,
even that choice is influenced by the value system
that has grown out of some conditioning. Subjectivity
gets involved in and through conditioning. My
beliefs or my conditionings become an integral
part of 'i', the individual. All systems of philosophies
that essentially rely on 'belief' systems will
eventually lead to reconditioning of the mind.
The biggest problem that arises as a result of
conditioning is that pure knowledge cannot takes
place in a conditioned state of mind - mind is
not free to learn. Mind can learn only when it
surrenders all its beliefs.
The essence of this teaching is that 'any process
used to uncondition the mind, itself conditions
the mind', since there cannot be any 'process'
that is free from conditioning. Hence krishnamurti
declares 'truth is a path-less land'. Truth is
not a belief; it is a fact. Hence his famous
statement: 'truth is not an understanding as
an understanding as thought, but an understanding
as an understanding as a fact'. In other words,
'truth' is not conceptualization as a thought,
but needs to be assimilated as a fact. Let me
illustrate this by a simple example. If I say
'I am man and not a dog or horse or a floor mat
to step on' - is this a thought or a concept
or an 'idea' that I have to repeat many times
until it sinks into my belief system? It is the
truth, whether I belief it or not, is it not?
That is the understanding as a fact and not a
thought. Once understood, there will never be
a confusion regarding my identity as a man, even
if a hundred theories try to disprove that I
am not a man! That firm abidance in the knowledge
of the truth happens since it is the
truth.
Science deals with facts or truths and therefore
does not rely on 'beliefs', even if it questions
the basis for beliefs. It is purely objective
and therefore independent of whether one believes
it or not. No physics teacher needs to come or
will come to my house on Sunday mornings, like
some of religious fanatics do, to say that I
should belief in Newton’s laws of motion,
otherwise I will go to eternal hell. Scientific
facts are revealed though deductive or inductive
reasoning based on observed experimental data.
Here we are dealing with objectifiable facts
that are distinct from the subject, who is investigating.
Scientific truths are verifiable by controlled
experimentation.
However, philosophies as well as religions are
concerned with the ultimate truth that cannot
be objectively verifiable. For example, the existence
of heaven or hell. Questions such as: ‘is
there life after death or life before the birth?’, ‘is
there a God who is the ruler of this world?’ etc,
cannot be established by objective experimentation.
Objective scientific investigation that relies
on perception and inference as the basis for
establishing scientific truths, cannot be relied
upon to establish the ultimate truth. In addition,
it is also understandable that any truth that
is established based on conditioned mind cannot
necessarily be true. How then can we discover
this ultimate truth, using the mind that is free
from any conditioning? That 'how' question itself
becomes invalid, if one is seeking a methodology
to discover that truth that is pathless.
That ‘the truth is pathless land' can
be true only if that truth is absolute and infinite
and not relative. There cannot be any path for
the infinite. Infinite includes all paths and
cannot be reached by any path. Hence Vedanta
calls the truth 'agrAhyam(incomprehensible),
adRRiShTam (imperceptible), avyapadeshyam (indescribable),
avyavahAryam (non-transactable), achintyam (unthinkable),
aparameyam (unknowable), etc'.
Proceed to the next
essay.
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