consciousness and mind & few more doubts

[drb]

Hello all,
I would appreciate if somebody can clarify this -
In one of the books on Advaita Vedanta by Ramakrishna mission, it is explained that consciousness is not an integral part of mind while describing sleeping/waking state and especially during anaesthesia in surgery.

Could somebody clarify how consciousness is not a part of mind?

Thank you so much,

Rgds,

[wundermonk]

Hi,

There is a short answer to this and a long answer. The long answer requires a guided tour through a substantial portion of Indian metaphysics and epistemology. Good references for these are:

Perceiving in Advaita Vedanta (http://www.amazon.com/Perceiving-Advaita-Vedanta-Bina-Gupta/dp/B00ENS9GS2/)

Classical Indian Philosophy of Mind (http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Indian-Philosophy-Mind-Tradition/dp/0791441725/)

The short answer is that the "mind" in Indian philosophy is considered on the same side of the mind-body divide as body. What Indian philosophers mean when they refer to "mind" is that it is a particular configuration of matter. The mind is insentient, just as matter is.

Now, consciousness is sui generis. It is unlike any matter in two senses:

(a)It is self-affirmed/luminous. The argument for this is that no one doubts whether one is aware. The doubt is always about what one is aware of.

(b)Consciousness is never the object of some other act of awareness. Awareness presupposes the pre-existence of consciousness.

So, consciousness is prior to mind. The thoughts that we have are mediated by the mind and these thoughts are intentional -- i.e. they are always of something else.

Per Advaita, all intentional thoughts are only relatively true/valid and are sublatable.

[ale84]

Hi

Hello all,
I would appreciate if somebody can clarify this -
In one of the books on Advaita Vedanta by Ramakrishna mission, it is explained that consciousness is not an integral part of mind while describing sleeping/waking state and especially during anaesthesia in surgery.

Could somebody clarify how consciousness is not a part of mind?

Thank you so much,

Rgds,

Mind is considered to be at the sukshma sharira/subtle body level, so it's part of maya (dependent reality).
So consciousness can manifest in the form of mind, but the mind is not consciousness. Two different levels of reality, satyam (absolute) and mithya (relative/dependent).

[drb]

Thanks so much for the replies. Very helpful and provided leading points.

Guess, I also have to read more.