Mind in Yoga
Consciousness & Energy are the dual principles which form the basis of the whole creation. In the Human Mechanism, Consciousness manifests as Mind and Energy as Prana.
Consciousness in the Cosmic & Universal dimension becomes MIND in this Life & Body.
Modern Science says that Mind is just brain which is a disagreement with the definition in Yogic Sciences.
As per Yogic Sciences, Mind is not just brain and there is no particular location of Mind in the body.
It pervades each and every cell of the body. More so Yogic Sciences is concerned more with the function of Mind rather than its location.
In Yogic Sciences, practitioners call Mind Antahkarana or an Inner Instrument to experience life. It is an aid to evolve oneself on the path of Self-Realization of Consciousness.
Four Parts of Mind
Mind is divided into four parts each with its specific function.
Ahamkara: is the self-identity that I exist as THIS body which is different from the rest of the universe. The body also assumes identities such as caste, race, gender, religion, nation etc. on top of that.
Chitta: is the repository of the memories & impressions from the past which determine the present action
Manas: connects with the five senses to receive the sensory information and processes it, which produces thoughts and feelings.
Buddhi: is the discriminatory intellect responsible for analysis, decision-making, and judgment.
How Mind functions?
The four faculties of mind constantly interact with each other to give us an experience of the world around us.
Let us see how does the mind make a decision with a simple example. Suppose you see a Sweet in front of you.
How does the mind make a decision whether to eat it or not?
- As soon as MANAS sees and smells the sweet, it takes the sensory signals as input which produces a thought.
- Next, the Chitta comes into play and searches its memory files to check whether it saw this sweet before. If it does, it checks from previous experience for the choice of like & dislike for the sweet.
- Ahamkara dictates the feeling of self identity, “I like the Sweet” and “I am going to eat this sweet”
- Buddhi is the discriminatory intellect which decides what is good or bad for your well being. Due to the impression of LIKING for the sweet in the Chitta, the LIKING for the SWEET becomes attachment and hijacks the correct decision of not eating the sweet. It is CHITTA which attracts to a sense object but it is Buddhi which attaches to it and clouds our reasoning ability.
Watch the below video from Swami SatyaNanda from Bihar School of Yoga to understand how mind functions and the difference between CHITTA (Sub-Conscious Mind) and CHIT (Pure Intelligence).