The Relationship between Brain and Mind : 4.

Discussion : between a devotee with Swamiji ( Q - A )


They are making a muddle. Their idea is not correct. They are not two different things. If the mind and brain were two different things, you would be feeling that you are two persons, like a split personality. But do you feel that you are two persons? You are one whole, integrated, solid being. How did this consciousness arise, if there are two things operating in your personality? Are you two fractions put together? Do you feel that you are a dual individual? Or, do you feel that you are a total whole? What do you say?

Spanish Visitor: I feel like a total.



SWAMIJI: Then, how did these two things come there? You cannot be made of two things, and then feel that you are one. It is impossible, so there is a mistake in the concept of the mind being inside the brain. It is not so. It is a different thing altogether. The mind is not inside the brain.

Actually, the brain is a solidified form of the mind itself; as water looks like ice, the mind looks like the brain, and the body. That is why you are feeling that you are one integrated whole; otherwise, you would have been feeling that you are a split personality – some matter, and some non-matter. You would never be happy for one second, if you are a split personality. The identity consciousness, and the total consciousness that you feel in you, is possible only if there is no distinction vitally between mind and matter. It is one thing appearing as two things. You are from Spain. There was a great philosopher in your country called Spinoza. Have you heard of Spinoza?

Spanish Visitor: Yes.

SWAMIJI: Do you know what he writes? You have not read him. You are a philosopher?

Spanish Visitor: I am not a philosopher, actually.


SWAMIJI: You are teaching philosophy? Spinoza says that mind and matter are like two wings of a bird. The bird is the most important thing; if the bird is not there, the wings will not be there. So, I told you that the mind is vitally inseparable from the brain or matter; but actually, as Spinoza, Plato or Aristotle, or Indian thinkers, mystics, etc., would say, it is one Universal Substance that appears as thought and matter. This is what Spinoza will tell you. And, you are actually Universal Substance, and not either this or that. Due to some peculiar phenomenon that has arisen in the act of creation itself, you have separated yourself from the Cosmic Substance, and are looking like an individual, isolated from the Cosmic Substance.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...