Mahat can also be referred to as macro intellect, contrary to micro intellect. Microcosm is the individual, and macrocosm is the totality. Microcosm has no existence without the macrocosm. It is the total mind and intellect around us, and we are influenced by the thoughts of the totality. If you are in an environment that is materialistic and sensual, it will certainly have an impact on your thoughts, and you will be materialistic and sensual. You need an external environment mahat to trigger an existing latent vasana or even to plant a new thought or vasana in you. If there is no existing latent vasana, there will be no reaction within you. Thereafter, you don’t entertain any further thought.
When you are not in a conducive environment, your vasanas will be dormant. The only way you will know if you have a vasana or not is to come out into the world, expose yourself to various stimuli, and check on your reactions to the stimuli. That’s when you will know whether you have a vasana or not, and its strength.
We always tell children to choose the right friends. Your thinking will be based on the company you keep. “As you think so you become.” Your thoughts are influenced by the mahat, although mahat is not everything. Lord Yama says there is something superior to Mahat as well.
Beyond the mahat great is the unmanifest; Purusha is superior to the unmanifest. There is nothing superior to the Purusha, the culmination, the supreme goal.
Unmanifest is the vasana which is superior to mahat and Purusha is superior to unmanifest. Cause is superior to effect. If seed is the cause and effect is the tree, the unmanifest seed is superior to the manifested tree.
Vasana is the seed of our personality. We also influence the mahat. So vasanas become the cause and mahat the effect. Mahat is the total mind/intellect. It is at the level of manifestation. Unmanifest is the total vasanas. Total unmanifest vasanas are superior to total manifested mind/intellect. Therefore, the unmanifest is superior to the manifest. So vasanas are superior to mahat. What takes you to a particular environment is the vasana.
Purusha is the substratum, the cause, and superior to the unmanifest. Nothing is superior to Purusha, which is the culmination of the supreme goal. The highest pursuit one can pursue is the transcendental.
This Atman hidden in all beings is not evident, but is seen by seers of subtle vision and subtle intellect.
The sharp and subtle intellect is the ability to perceive the Atman, which is there everywhere but hidden. Even though Atman is all-pervading, it is hidden because of the power of maya. Maya engulfs through avarana and vikshepa shakti. The ignorance and projection of the world is the maya we are caught up in, so we are not able to see the Reality. If you want to pursue the Atman, the supreme goal, you must have the sukshma drishti, the seer of subtlety. Only a person with a subtle intellect can conceive and perceive Atman. The subtle is gained througha subtle and sharp intellect.
The intellect can be differentiated into gross and subtle. All people in the world falls under these four categories:
Gross intellect Subtle intellect
Blunt Blunt – Majority are without intellect
Sharp Blunt – People here are successful worldly
Blunt Sharp – Spiritual
Sharp Sharp – Very rare spiritual masters
The job of the intellect is to discriminate between right and wrong. Intellect is only one. When the intellect is engaged in all worldly, mundane discrimination, it is termed as gross. Even the minutest, subtlest worldly differentiation of a proton or a neutron is termed gross. All scientific research, even by doctors, is gross intellect. The intellect is confined to the realm of the terrestrial world. Intellect becomes subtle when you can discriminate between the entire terrestrial on one side and the transcendental on the other. The only pair of discrimination for subtle intellect is the terrestrial and transcendental. The majority of people are caught up in worldly discrimination.
Gross intellect can be sharp or subtle.
Eg: For felling a tree, you need an axe. The axe can be sharp or blunt. When you have to shave you need a razor blade, and it can be sharp or blunt. A razor blade is a subtle operation. Cutting a tree is a rough operation that involves using an axe. I cannot use a sharp blade to fell a tree nor a blunt axe to shave. We can compare the gross intellect to an axe and the subtle intellect to the blade. Blunt or sharp can be used for both the axe and the blade.
The majority of people have a blunted gross and subtle intellect. Extremely successful people have a sharp gross intellect. It gives them a superiority over the others. You cannot talk of Brahman or Atman to them as their subtle intellect is blunt.
Atman is everywhere but it becomes evident only in a person of sharp, subtle intellect. The only way to sharpen the subtle intellect is the early morning swadhyaya, self-study and reflection in the Brahma Muhurtam 4 am – 6 am. If you do not do the sravana, manana, and nidhidhyasana, your subtle intellect will become junk. It loses its sharpness and alertness.
Let the wise resolve his speech into the mind, and resolve the mind into intellect and resolve the intellect into the mahat and should resolve the mahat into the peaceful Atman.
The Lord gives the subtlest tool for how one can move inward to Atman. The inward journey from Sravana to Nidhidhyasana – the ultimate goal of self-realisation.
When you are with a guru, it is sravana, and you have to do self-enquiry; without a guru it is manana and nidhidhyasana. The ascent to have the firm resolve implies the concept of knowledge + action. When you act on the ideas that you have learnt, start living the knowledge, it is wisdom.
Knowledge + action = Wisdom
You are able to abide by the values. The resolve is that ‘I rise up to the level of Atman.’
