Can One Exist in Two places at Once? (universal consciousness and other)

[Eric11235]

Vannakam everybody,

On the way home, I had a thought regarding the Mind/Body problem. for those unaware, the mind/body problem is a philosophical debate as to whether the mind is actually located in the body. I have been thinking about the mind, and have come to the conclusion that it is a separate entity from the vessel known as the body. And thus, one can exist in two places at once. If you don't understand, consider this: You're sitting in class and suddenly enter a very vivid daydream or memory, you become totally unaware of your surroundings and cannot remember what happened for whatever happened in that period of time. My postulate is as such. Your mind is existing in the memory or daydream itself, meaning while you exist in the physical realm, your mind is existing on an astral plane (or otherwise), I have also realized that the mind is really a partition. by this I mean that as some people believe, there is a universal consciousness (otherwise known as brahman) and that the mind is only a separation or partition from this universal consciousness, and when we attain moksha we dissolve back into the universal mind, the partition becoming null. So in conclusion, it is my belief that the mind exists on a separate reality from this one. and that it is a partition of the universal


Post your thoughts in the affirmative if you believe what I believe or contradictory if you think I am wrong.


Namaste

[kallol]

You are right. Body and mind are different. Body belongs to earth but mind is permanent and moves from body to body through birth and death.

Mind can temporarily be detached from body - samadhi, deep meditation, engrossed discussion, engrossed reading, dreaming, etc.

As the mind get detached, the sensory organs, though functioning find the way to the processing area (the intellect) is closed as the way is through the mind. So no feeling, no processing happens and no actions.

But being present in multiple places - though it has been stated in some places (autobiography of an yogi), but it is still difficult to percieve.

My grandmother had direct experience of her guru's virtual presence when her son-in-law was crtically ill.

So I cannot refute it.

Love and best wishes

[saidevo]

namaste Eric.

You said in your OP:
"You're sitting in class and suddenly enter a very vivid daydream or memory, you become totally unaware of your surroundings and cannot remember what happened for whatever happened in that period of time."
=====

01. In this situation, you say you are unaware of your existence in the body since you are having a daydream wherein your consciousness/awareness is focussed. Existence is where the consciousness/awareness is focussed, so here it is a case of existing only in the dream state. However, the body is also alive and its vital organs are functioning, and this is due to its own inherent automated, dull consciousness. Every atom has this local cosciousness or else its parts would simply dissipate.

There are these three mutually exclusive states of existence, namely, waking, dreaming and deep sleep whose substratum is turIya. Once a person obtains the ability to focus sustained awareness on turIya with felicity, he/she will become simultaneously aware of the other states too, but even then the person would exist in only one place, here turIya.

Existence with awareness in two bodies is a possible siddhi that comes through prolonged, sustained and successful meditation. In this case the sAdhaka--seeker, will be creating an astral form of his body (mAyAvirUpa) and deploy it, which will be seen as desired by the seeker.

02. You are right about the mind. Spiritually speaking, it is not part of the body, since the physical brain is only its transmitter/receiver. If you are interested in a Theosophical view of the vehicles of a human soul, you may read the compilations by Arthur E. Powell, downloading it here:

Etheric Double, Astral, Mental and Causal Bodies
http://www.scribd.com/doc/17071064/The-Etheric-Astral-Mental-And-Causal-Bodies-by-Arthur-E-Powell

[upsydownyupsy mv ss]

Vannakam everybody,

On the way home, I had a thought regarding the Mind/Body problem. for those unaware, the mind/body problem is a philosophical debate as to whether the mind is actually located in the body. I have been thinking about the mind, and have come to the conclusion that it is a separate entity from the vessel known as the body. And thus, one can exist in two places at once. If you don't understand, consider this: You're sitting in class and suddenly enter a very vivid daydream or memory, you become totally unaware of your surroundings and cannot remember what happened for whatever happened in that period of time. My postulate is as such. Your mind is existing in the memory or daydream itself, meaning while you exist in the physical realm, your mind is existing on an astral plane (or otherwise), I have also realized that the mind is really a partition. by this I mean that as some people believe, there is a universal consciousness (otherwise known as brahman) and that the mind is only a separation or partition from this universal consciousness, and when we attain moksha we dissolve back into the universal mind, the partition becoming null. So in conclusion, it is my belief that the mind exists on a separate reality from this one. and that it is a partition of the universal


Post your thoughts in the affirmative if you believe what I believe or contradictory if you think I am wrong.


Namaste


Mind, what do 'you' mean by this? Are you referring to 'manas' or 'soul' or 'buddhi' or 'chittah'? Darn, the western scholars confuse me. I dont know what they are referring to when they say 'mind'.
If you mean manas, then it has death and exists within ones buddhi.
If you mean buddhi, then it too has death and exists within the chittah of ones janma. If you mean chittah, then it exists within the realm of consciousness and it too has death. If you mean 'soul', soul doesn't have any physical existence, but metaphysical only. Still if you ask where the soul, is physically present, then from my experience that I had once and from Sri Adi Shankaracharya's view, soul is everywhere (existing everywhere, more than one place), even though nowhere, yet everywhere. Confusing, unless it is experienced through meditation. It may take a second, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, eons or forever...... Its totally under the control of the Kam and Kham Brahmans -> the universal and beyond universal brahmans.

[Adhvagat]

I think more subtle schools of psychology already nailed how the mind (let's read as subtle body) works, with elements like the Self. When I get home I'll post some graphics from Jung's view on the mind and ask some contribution from this community regarding some concepts.

As of now let me post a nice graphic I found sometime ago:

http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4719/4uf1qw.th.jpg (http://img834.imageshack.us/i/4uf1qw.jpg/)

I really like this logical breakdown of elements... Where should I go to study more of this?

Kapila teachings in Bhagavatam? Where else?

[sunyata07]

Namaste Eric,

As the others have already expressed, many of your points are correct according to Vedic philosophy of the nature of mind and body. Long before I was even acquainted with Hinduism and the concept of the layers (kosha) that make up the individual, I had once thought "could it be possible that I am experiencing the mind of X across the room?". Of course, I didn't get it quite right then, but after that, I began to wonder more about what it meant to be aware in a particular time and place.



Mind, what do 'you' mean by this? Are you referring to 'manas' or 'soul' or 'buddhi' or 'chittah'? Darn, the western scholars confuse me. I dont know what they are referring to when they say 'mind'.


Don't worry, they just as confused as you are. The term "mind" as it is understood in the West has been constantly changing for decades, maybe even centuries. In one of my university modules for science, there was a long discussion about two philosophies that are held in western school of thought. One is that mind and body are the same (monist physicalist theory of mind), and one is that mind and body are separate (dualist theory). At the moment, the former stance is the more popular and widely held belief amongst academics, mostly because there is confusion as to how mind and body could possibly interact and not knowing where mind is located if not in the brain. It's all very messy stuff. Gives me a headache just remembering back to it. It's no wonder I went through a quasi-atheistic period during that time. Even I was confused as to how a soul could exist. Thank Ganesha it is all behind me now.

[upsydownyupsy mv ss]

Probably.....
They should sort it out.
Well...
In my definition,
anna or deha = body
prana = life energy, i.e, ATP, carbohydrates, electric impulses (in neurons), etc.
mind = manah
buddhi = intellect (not logic, not one's intelligence)
chitta = consciousness plane
atma = soul

[saidevo]

namaste PI.



I really like this logical breakdown of elements... Where should I go to study more of this?
Kapila teachings in Bhagavatam? Where else?


Perhaps you might try the book 'VedAnta for Beginners' by SvAmi SivAnanda:
http://www.sivanandadlshq.org/download/vedbegin.pdf

And then, IMO, the book 'Science of Peace' by BhagavAn Das has a wealth of information, with its invaluable commentary on the Western philosophy:
http://www.archive.org/details/scienceofpeace029498mbp
http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2598