The Double Activity in Mental Cognition :5.

 The purusha,who is supreme and absolute, is the knower of even the vrittis of the mind; therefore, the purusha is all-knowing, while the minds of the individuals are not all-knowing. The minds are limited to the particular vrittis which they are undergoing at different times and, therefore, they have only conditioned knowledge of things limited to the capacity of their own vrittis. But the purusha has omniscience because the purusha is unconditioned. The purusha’s knowledge is not a knowledge through the vrittis or psychoses of the mind.


There is no mind in the purusha. The difference between the individual jiva, or the ordinary mind that cognises things, and the purusha who is aware of all things is that while the purusha is a transcendent being, independent of mental operation, the minds require the help of the purusha in being aware of objects. The light of the purusha is reflected through the minds of individuals, and the reason behind their perception of an object – what we call the illumination of the object in cognition – is the purusha, or we may say the atman, as the Vedanta would put it. But the limitation which is concomitant with the perception of an object, and the absence of omniscience in mental cognition, is due to the character of the mind itself.


Thus, two things happen in the cognition of an object by the mind: there is a limitation imposed upon the cognition, and there is a light that illumines the object. The light comes from the purusha who is supreme but is unknown to the mind – unknown to the mind because it is the background of the mind. The purusha is transcendent in the sense that the mind, which is projected extrovertly, cannot turn back and cognise the presence of the purusha. The purusha is a name that we give to the Universal Subject – very important to remember. The purusha is universal and also subject. The mind cannot cognise the presence of the purusha, who is universal, because the subject cannot be known by the mind, the reason being that the mind is conditioned by the activity of the senses which always try to drag it towards objects outside in space and time.


The mind is not really a subject in the ultimate sense; it stands in the position of an object when it is thoroughly investigated into. It is an object because it is also capable of being known, so that we may know what is happening in our minds. We can think the faculties. We can have an idea of the moods in the mind and the notions occurring in the mind. The movement of the vrittis of the mind is known to us. In the light of this fact that the vrittis of the mind can become objects of cognition, they are objects. In deep contemplation, which is of the nature of an abstrsaction, the mind can be observed as if it is an object. We can stand outside our mind and visualise its movements; this happens in high states of meditation.

To be continued  ....