Question: What is the relation between body and mind?
Answer:
From the absolute point of view, body and mind are same, made up of the same
material. This is what Advaita Vedanta says. (Even modern science says that
matter and energy are one entity. But it does not know yet, the equation
between matter and mind.) According to Vedanta, like body, mind is also subtle
matter. However, from practical viewpoint, matter and mind are different and
influence each other. Mind affects the body, and body affects the mind.
Question:
When I say ‘I’, what does it represent: my body or my mind?
Answer: It
all depends upon what you are referring to at the specific moment. When you
say, I am fat or fair or tall, you are referring to the body as ‘I.’ But when
you say I am happy, I am concentrated, I am unhappy, you refer to the mind as
‘I.’ The pure ‘I’, without any mixing up with body and mind, is Atman.
Question:
In the allegory of Ratha (given in Kathopanishad, where the body is considered
a chariot or ratha—senses as horses, mind as reign and intellect as the
controller of mind and senses), one gets the impression that it is not the
Atman which controls the mind but the way we respond to external influences. Is
this so?
Answer: In
the Ratha allegory, the Atman is the rider. The whole body-mind complex with
the Atman is the embodied soul, the jiva, which is ‘I’. Training to control the
buddhi, is the key issue.
Question: Can you please explain Chitta, Manas, Buddhi, and Ahamkara?
Answer:
Vedanta believes that, intellect or buddhi is that modification of the antaha-karana
or internal instrument which gives a resolute decision about the whole process
of perception. By antahkarana is meant that which in modern terminology
is called mind. The internal instrument has many modifications and each
modification performs a specific function. Manas, for example, is that
modification of the internal instrument which considers the pros and cons of a
subject. Ahankara is that modification of the antahkarana which is
characterized by self-consciousness. And chitta is that modification
which remembers.
Suppose we see an object coming towards us. We start
thinking: what it is? Is it a car or a bull or something else? This state of
our mind is called manas. We soon realize that it is indeed a bull. The mental
function which took the decision that it is a bull is called buddhi. And when
we say that it is coming towards ‘me,’ ahankara comes into play. It was chitta
which had the memory of the bull. The same antahakarana has modified itself
into these four functions.
The internal instrument (antahkarana)
is one but by the function it performs, it is given different names.
