What is the mind? :
What is the mind?
Thoughts cannot be the mind because the quality, nature and identity of our thoughts never remain the same although we feel that our mind is ever the same.
If thoughts were the mind, it would have changed as often as our thoughts! Nor can the mind be 'desire'because desire has no existence apart from thoughts.
Our Sastras are much more direct. For their crystalline clarity of expression, completeness of exposition, thoughtlessness of explanation, no scientific literature in the world has yet come to compete with the perfections gained in these lines by the Bharatheeya Sastras in the hands of our great Rishies of Ancient Bharatham.
According to our Sastras thought is but a manifestation of the mind, but the mind itself is a delusory nothing seemingly conspicuous, a delusory something created when thoughts flow.
This is better understood if we take the example of a river.
The river is there where waters flow; the flowing is the essence of the river. Similarly, thoughts are not the mind. But thoughts flowing one after another in an unbroken continuity create a delusory 'something'called the mind.
And this mind threatens us, nay, even governs over us, persecuting us with its low demands, animal instincts, and vicious urges, or, at some moments with its higher demands of divine calls and spiritual urges.
By Swami Chinmayananda.
Next :- Cultivating the mind.....
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