Mind is superior to the senses, intellect is superior to the mind, Mahat is superior to the intellect and unmanifest is superior to Mahat.
And Purusha is superior to unmanifest. It is all-pervading and attributeless. On knowing That, the mortal is free and attains immortality.
Subtlety can be measured by control and pervasiveness.
Currently, everyone is caught up at the grossest level of managing the mind and senses. Materialistic and sensual people are revelling in the senses amid sense objects. You may be sattvic and yet have to engage your sense organs, eat to sustain the body, smell of incense sticks, bhajans through your ears, etc. But one should not be a slave and get swayed away by the senses.
FANGS OF THE MIND.
Those who have gone beyond the control of senses are caught up in the various fangs of the mind – desires, self-created attachment, worries of past failures or anxiety of the future, etc. The shastras say that to conquer the mind, one must have a powerful buddhi intellect.
The majority of people think that pranayama, control of breath, controls and calms the mind. Pranayama is just regulating the breath and it only becomes conducive for calming the mind. Breath by itself does not control the mind. If the mind is controlled by breathing, then it should annihilate desires, vasanas, cultivate detachment and even give you moksha. The moment your mind is agitated, the breath goes out of control, and you start sweating. The state of mind is expressed and shows symptoms at the physical body level. It is the subtle mind that controls the gross breathing.
So draw a line where the gross can influence the subtle. Pranayama and physical exercises are gross and only becomes conducive to control the mind.
Eg: Just as soil is conducive for the seed to sprout and grow but it is not responsible for the flowers or fruits. It is the quality of seed which determines the quality of the fruit or flower. Yet the seed would not have germinated without the soil.
Physical exercise brings about physical transformation, but does not spiritually transform you. It is only the wisdom of the intellect which can control the senses and the mind.
Q: How is Mahat different from buddhi?
A: Mahat is a totality. We all meet at this satsang studying Kathopanishad. So the mahat of this class is Vedanta. Each one of us has a personality and mind of our own, but at this moment we all are thinking alike of Vedanta. Mahat is responsible for overcoming your personality and influencing you to come to the class. So mahat is superior to intellect, or thought. After the class, we may be at a Carnatic music festival and will not be thinking of Vedanta. The mahat of music will influence your thought.
Q: How do you explain subtlety with reference to pervasiveness?
A: Superiority of subtle over gross by pervasiveness can be clarified from this chart:
- The physical body is available only in the waking state. In the dream state, the physical body is not available. The ill health of the waker does not trouble the dreamer.
- Mind is there in the waking and dream states. Mind is superior to the physical body
- Intellect is available in the waking, dream, and deep-sleep. Deep-sleep is a state of nothingness. The intellect is at a rudimentary stage as a ray of awareness. When you go to deep-sleep, you are aware of the sound sleep, and the intellect communicates it to the waker. This confirms the presence of the intellect in deep-sleep. Thus, Intellect is superior to mind and the body.
- Superior to intellect is the vasanas. It is there in waking, dream, and deep-sleep. A synonym for deep-sleep is vasanas.
- Atman is there in the waking, dream, deep sleep and turiya 4th state. Vasanas are not there in the 4th state. Atman is also known as vasanalessness. Atman is the most superior due to its pervasiveness.
The mind can go to areas known to you, and intellect can go to areas unknown to you. When we say God, we don’t know, as we have had no experience so far. But the mind goes to what we associate with God, either a form, identity, emotion or experience with known faculty. God is an unknown factor. Intellect is the faculty to reach the unknown. We cannot explore God through the mind as it is limited to the known factors. Intellect is a far superior tool than the mind. It can conceive the unknown with the known factors. It projects, postulates, and conceives that God might be That.
Mantra 8 states Purusha as all-pervading and attributeless. Intellect operates on facts and these are factual definitions from men of realisation of what is God. When you use these definitions of Brahman with your intellect, you will be able to conceive Brahman. You take all this knowledge (known factors), then you visualize and conceive that unknown God. In mathematics, we keep the unknown as ‘x’ and then logically conclude ‘x’. But you start with a postulation.
The innovations in the world are the best example of intellect going to unknown areas. Any new inventions like an aeroplane or battery car which did not exist in the past are now available due to the ingenuity of the intellect. The ingenuity in the spiritual field is self-realisation. Only an intellect can conceive it, and a human being can reach that goal. The intellect can project something unknown through known factors. The known factors we are banking on is our Shastras, Upanishads, and Vedas, which is our authority and truth. Based on this, we are projecting that Atman, liberation as a state of immortality.
Q: How can the intellect conceive that which is unknown?
A: Mantra 10 talks of this concept
When the five organs of knowledge are at rest together with the mind, and when the intellect ceases to function, that is said to be the highest.
One reaches the state of Brahman when the intellect ceases to function. Intellect is that which takes you to the pinnacle, one point short of perfection. It takes you to the threshold of the Self and collapses. That is when you experience the Chaitanya, Brahman. We are talking about how intellect is superior to mind in terms of subtlety and pervasiveness, and can go to areas unknown.
Eg: Pole vault – You cannot cross the bar without the pole, nor can you cross the bar with the pole. Similarly, we need the tools of body, mind, and intellect to get to the pinnacle and then drop them. The point of dropping the pole is like intellect ceasing. You have to drop the very pole that got you to the bar. Same way, you have to drop the intellect that helped you to get up to the threshold of experience. Then you realise the Self.
To sleep, you need to have a desire to sleep. But you should drop the anxiety to sleep. If you are anxious, that same anxiety does not allow you to sleep; also, you cannot sleep without the desire. So, you should have the desire to sleep and also drop the desire to sleep.
