Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD. India Herald Houston, USA 25th April 2008
|
|
The mind is the architect of man. The mind builds a man. He is measured by it. A mind that is intelligent is admired; it brings a man pride and makes him the centrepiece of society. A powerful mind nets in power, pride and prestige. The power an intelligent mind has in families, society and the nation is believed to be a necessity so that life can function, be maintained and progress as well in an organised manner. A sophisticated life is a reflection of an intelligent mind and so man believes.
But is the powerful and intelligent mind free of distress, anxiety, anger, hate, jealousy, greed, worries, the need for attention, besides other feelings that man wishes he never had and never wishes to face? Is the powerful and intelligent mind happy, joyful, ecstatic, loving, besides other feelings that man longs for? If man were really powerful and intelligent would he not keep the former feelings at bay and restore the latter to function every moment? If he cannot do so what more intelligence would be required to do so? Does man have that intelligence?
Nobel laureates, great philosophers, scientists, authors, musicians, dancers etc., come in every generation, and they are convinced that the mind is needed, but is that mind free of the unwanted? Yet man is proud of his mind. What value could there be in a mind that can never keep disharmony away?
The mind it appears is indispensable. Man feels that it is needed in every walk of life. It is unthinkable that life could go on without it, but what proof has man that life goes on because of the mind? Could his proof stand up to investigation? What is the mind? What is its relation to the body and to life?
Life is a transformation-process of energy. This transformation-process is expressed as sophistication. Since life is light the sophistication has to be primarily illusory, an optical and an auditory illusion, a reflection of light, so to speak. That life is illusory is the hallmark-declaration of the enlightened beings. This means and can only mean that the mind appeared in the sophistication-process so that this process, no matter how illusory could be known. It must be understood that life was present and happening before the advent of the mind.
If the mind is needed now for life to happen, it would have been needed before too. But the mind was absent in primitive times, and life could not have happened then, although it obviously did. The presence of life now is proof that it did happen without the mind, and continues to do so. Then how is it that the mind is required now to make life happen? Is it not possible for the sophistication-process to sustain itself? It should, for it was life that manifested the mind, which man thinks or is made to think is required to conduct life. Could the mind, which is given birth by life, make life happen? Could a child go back into its mother’s womb?
As part of the sophistication-process, man assumed a vertical posture. He evolved from a four-limbed animal to a two-limbed animal. His initial steps were crude and have sophisticated to the mannerism of the present-day walk. He could not even have known that he was alive before the advent of a functioning mind.
The movement of the body is an optical illusion, as the body is made up of light. Words were present in primitive man in a dormant state and became active at a precise moment, which cannot be identified with any certainty, just as nothing in life can be identified with any accuracy even to the present day. When light moves it produces sound, and these sounds later appeared as a word with a meaning. This was the birth of mind, which took place in man.
Time appeared with the mind of man as a thought, the foundation-stone of the mind. So man began to recognise the day changing. When he recognised day and night his vocabulary began to take shape. One word after the other his vocabulary was built up and so has reached its present, sophisticated form. He became aware of periods when words were absent; though he could not have been aware that life was going on during those periods. Life was surely going on irrespective as to whether he knew it or not.
He was aware initially only of the day and night as thoughts, but not the movements of the body, for life had not formed thoughts of his bodily movements. Slowly and steadily, as man’s first staggering gait shuffled to some sort of decorum, so too did the mind. Words began to form within the mind, every day a few, and they had to as the body was moving. Man’s life was a day with a few words with a singular meaning. As words formed so did sentences and words began to have more meanings than one. The primitive day was filled with the required amount of bodily movements, but the mind never knew them all, nor could it. It was required to store information of all the bodily movements and, hence, word-formation gathered pace. The mind, though a collection of words, recognises only one word at any moment, from the moment of its inception to its present, sophisticated state. So all that man knows where he is alive has always been just a word and will continue to be so.
The description of the bodily movements, however, was a statement and not an accurate commentary of the movement. This statement appeared as an action to the mind. This means that the mind does not move the body, but the moving body produces sounds that appear in the mind as words that suggest an action. A perfect optical illusion was in place. Understand, therefore, that man does not speak neither does his mind. It is life which produces sound that appears as speech.
Man’s speech was initially a stutter of words and, as his movements were sophisticating, his speech too was being sophisticated as a consequence of this movement. So, it is not the mind that controls the body as it is thought to, but it is the body whose movement produces speech. The mind does not speak - it is the body which makes the mind speak. This sophistication was needed for the drama of life to be enacted and it has and will continue to do so. Man eventually believed that he was the doer! And present-day man is aware that when a lie is repeated it becomes the truth. In the same way, the belief that man is the doer became the truth.
Man believes that the mind makes life happen. If the mind makes life happen, then man will make what he likes happen. If life makes thoughts happen to the mind, it will be foolish to request life to happen, for these thoughts need to happen too! This is not possible, for it would mean that the mind makes life happen and, if so, there would be no need for the mind to make requests to life for what should happen. The mind cannot make life happen for the simple reason that life is faster than the mind. Life is light and the mind is sound, which has transformed as words with meanings. This is life’s sophistication.
The mind is a wonderful gift from life. It is the doorway to man’s true identity, if rightly understood. The mind is not in the present where man is alive; therefore, it cannot possibly report what is happening in life or make life happen. As action is absent in life, it could never be present in the past as a reality. It is found in the past as a thought and a thought of an action is purely a statement of a singular movement and not a precise description of an action. That the mind can speak the truth is ignorance and not intelligence; that the mind can practise truth is ignorance and not intelligence. It is a great deception that the mind has the ability to report what is happening in life, enjoy life, love, prevent what is not needed, make what is needed, reject what is not needed and, to top it all, feel depressed, sad, angry, jealous and hateful as a result of what is happening in life. The mind is like a computer; it is the best model there is, for it is made by life. It repeats what is put in it. And it is the mind too that prays to the almighty and thinks of ways to reach the divine and practise techniques that deliver the divine. How true or realistic this could be needs to be understood. Life is intelligent for it preserves ignorance within intelligence.
Aging is all that happens in life and the mind does not recognise this process of aging, as it is absent in life. The aging process is the sophistication-process. Everything grows initially and decays later on: this is the aging process and the mind does not control it for it ages too! Duality is the mind’s function, and duality, being relative, can never deliver anything absolute. It is the absolute that reflects as duality, which makes duality also one but is made to appear as two: one separate from the other, yet joined as one. The good and the bad; the right and the wrong; the sinner and the saint etc., are all one, just a matter of less or more, but appearing as separate from each other. This separateness creates the drama of life.
Reflecting back to primitive times, it must have been a shocking discovery to primitive man to discover eaten food left over from the previous day. It became evident to him that he had eaten the previous day but never knew about it. His state of wonder or shock that he had eaten but never knew about it is left to anyone’s imagination. This is proof that life goes on without the need of the mind or its help. The same wonderment, if not more, happens to an enlightened being who admires that eating happens to him and he does not eat.
Sophistication does not mean only science and its discoveries. Sophistication is science as well, but also the claim that man is the doer - in business, science, academics, sports, art, religion, spirituality and even war. There is no end to his claims, and this is part of the sophistication. Man may claim, but it does not mean that he is the doer unless proved, and man cannot prove it. All that man can do is to claim, but he cannot prove his claims.
He even claims to have achieved God and is experiencing enlightenment too. How true could this be when God and enlightenment are thoughts in the mind? He claims that he can enlighten others if they follow his instructions, while his instructions are just an interpretation of a singular movement which is beginningless and endless - a movement of light that is spontaneous, uncontrollable and unpredictable. Man’s claims remain as a claim without an ounce of truth.
Power, pride, money and prestige all happen to man. The mind is not the cause of it. They all are an auditory illusion of sound. The meeting of human beings, their encounter and every activity of man is just an intelligent movement and, in this movement, is included everything that appears in this world, for example vegetation, animal kingdom and matter. The mind does not control or dictate their movements or existence. How could it, therefore, be responsible for man’s movements or existence alone. His movements and existence happen even before the mind can think of them. Life is light and it is very fast, while the mind is sound and, therefore, slower. The mind does not make life happen; it is life that makes the mind happen.
A man who claims that his efforts and determination have produced results that have brought him pride, power, prestige or enlightenment spells of ignorance rather than intelligence. The eagerness to advise and guide, though well intended, is ignorance rather than intelligence, for it is life which is on the move and the mind does not make man move. The mind is required just to recognise words but not life, and memory is a bank of words with a healthy interest-rate that keeps words growing, to man’s delight.
Life is a singular movement of light that projects an optical and auditory illusion of man and his mind. Life will go on sophisticating in every generation, and what to expect in future generations can only be an imagination but never a certainty, which again is part of the sophistication-process - illusory and never real. Therefore, there cannot be a real or absolute relationship between the mind and the body: the relationship is illusory for the body too is a thought in the mind. There cannot be any real or absolute relationship between the mind and life. The relationship is illusory for life is timeless and thoughtless, while the mind is thought and so is time. The understanding of the illusory nature of the mind is enlightenment. The realisation that man is neither the doer, the speaker nor thinker is enlightenment.
© Copyright V.S. Shankar 2008
|
|