Mind and Brain

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� devotee

Mind is nothing but Consciousness and it doesn't depend upon the body to function. The body is dependent on mind to function.

Let me as you for your opinion on this...
is the mind influenced by the body ?

praṇām

[devotee]

Namaste AIH,

My thinking was like when Mind end, consciousness starts. It is the same as you said, when mind gets matured it end here and consciousness start, or if I say in other word, it is the same mind whose name is changed to consciousness upon getting knowledge. Mind is covered with maya when maya is removed it becomes consciousness.

There needs a light correction, if I understand your position correctly. Mind too is "Consciousness" alone but not in its primal "pure" form. It is Conditioned Consciousness with desires/past impressions/ego etc. When this conditioning goes, the Mind ends. When the mind ends, "Self" or the Untainted Mind or Pure Consciousness shines forth.

OM

[devotee]

Namaste Yajvan,

Let me as you for your opinion on this...
is the mind influenced by the body ?

praṇām

Answering question to so much knowledgeable member on this forum has filled me with some self-doubts. However, my answer is :

When you use "mind" in lower case, I would assume, "Individualised Consciousness" i.e. "mind of devotee", "mind of Yajvan" etc. If we are talking of that mind, then my answer is "Yes"( to a certain extent depending upon the spiritual evolution of mind). Why ? Because this mind is born due to attachment to individuality (for satisfying its desires etc.). Stronger the attachment, more is the influence of the body on the mind. Let's us picturise some situations : When we are hungry and going to die with hunger, when we are thirsty and going to die due to intense thirst, when we are going to burn in blazing fire, being operated under knife without anesthesia (i.e. unbearable painful conditions) etc. etc. ... do our values remain the same in all situations ? Certainly not. So, the body does influence mind ... the weak mind. However, as a person progresses spiritually, the mind becomes stronger and starts looking itself separate from the body and gets lesser and lesser influenced by changing conditions of the body ... a time comes when mind is not at all influenced by the condition of the body when he person becomes fully detached from the body-mind nexus.

OM

[rkpande]

no body is talking about budhhi.
does budhhi has any control over mind?
OR ahemkara, for that matter.
is budhhi different than brain?

[devotee]

no body is talking about budhhi.
does budhhi has any control over mind?
OR ahemkara, for that matter.
is budhhi different than brain?

Buddhi and AhamkAr have no separate existence from mind. These arise within mind. Actually, "Mun" (pronounced as Sun) is not the correct translation of mind and if someone translates it like hat, I am not talking about "Mun" in this thread.

OM

[silence_speaks]

Hi Friends,
I am new to the forum, so first of all "Hi All ! " .

Brain is basically the physical instrument. When considering mind, we need to include the entire neural system, which is basically the neural network itself.

to understand what mind is, lets first understand whats happening in brain.
Lets say i see a flower. The light from the rose falls on my retina. When this happens a few neurons there get fired [note: light is energy and then it excites these neurons].

The neurons are all in networks. Between two neurons there may be either a positive correspondance or a negative correspondance. That means, imagine a network of nodes , each node representing a neuron. between two nodes there is a weight which is either positive or negative.

so when a neuron n1 is excited, and weight between n1 and n2 is positive, n1 excites n2 also.
if weight between n1 and n2 is negative, n1 inhibits n2 from firing.

so neurons keep exciting some neurons and inhibiting some other neurons... and so on. this goes on for some time until the neural network finally converges to a "Stable State" --- where some neurons are excited and some others are not excited.

this state is when we say "Oh! its a Rose".

The neural state ... which is set of all neurons that are excited is the physical thing... and "Oh! its a rose" is mental recongition. There is a one-one correspondance between these two.

now. neuro scientists dont know what mind is. they only know brain. And then the feeling "i saw a rose" is in some way associated with the neural state. The neural state is simply static and the feeling associated with this is called qualia. neuro scientists still have no clue abt what this is.

While this is so, whats also not clear is ... whether mind functions and its functions are reflected in the physical equipment or vice versa -- or may be both ways !!

The same problem is seen with reference to consciousness also. Science is yet to arrive at what consciousness is.
They are investigating by saying that when a certain portion of the brain is "awake or ignited, ie, the neurons are active", there is consciousness and when they are not, there is no consciousness .

But then, they are not sure as to if the consciousness, when its reflected in brain those areas are active or vice versa

ITs like : there is a bulb, thats on some tiems and off some otehr times. What scientists are saying is when ever the bulb's filament is connected, there is electricity.
what vedantins say is when there is electricity, if the filament is connected there is light, and electricity is not created by the interconnection of the filament.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� devotee

When you use "mind" in lower case, I would assume, "Individualised Consciousness" i.e. "mind of devotee", "mind of Yajvan" etc. If we are talking of that mind, then my answer is "Yes"( to a certain extent depending upon the spiritual evolution of mind). Why ? Because this mind is born due to attachment to individuality (for satisfying its desires etc.). Stronger the attachment, more is the influence of the body on the mind. Let's us picturise some situations : When we are hungry and going to die with hunger, when we are thirsty and going to die due to intense thirst, when we are going to burn in blazing fire, being operated under knife without anesthesia (i.e. unbearable painful conditions) etc. etc. ... do our values remain the same in all situations ? Certainly not. So, the body does influence mind ... the weak mind. However, as a person progresses spiritually, the mind becomes stronger and starts looking itself separate from the body and gets lesser and lesser influenced by changing conditions of the body ... a time comes when mind is not at all influenced by the condition of the body when he person becomes fully detached from the body-mind nexus.

I believe you have done a fine level of reasoning in your answer.. the body affects the mind, and the mind affects the body. This is the human condition. And as you mention, as one evolves the influence becomes less when the person associates and identifies with the Self.

praṇām

[kallol]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast� devotee



Let me as you for your opinion on this...
is the mind influenced by the body ?

praṇām

As all the minds contribute towards the mind of God, the minds of the cells contribute towards the mind of organ and minds of organ contribute towards the mind of Human.

This phenomemnon moves on to society to country to region to world and beyond.

So yes, as per my understanding, mind and body influence each other.

[AmIHindu]

Namaste AIH,



There needs a light correction, if I understand your position correctly. Mind too is "Consciousness" alone but not in its primal "pure" form. It is Conditioned Consciousness with desires/past impressions/ego etc. When this conditioning goes, the Mind ends. When the mind ends, "Self" or the Untainted Mind or Pure Consciousness shines forth.

OM

Till my last post I was thinking that there is only one thing, either mind or consciousness. Let me explain with example. In thermometer when it show -25 degree it is called cold and when it shows 120 degree it is hot. So when it is, we call mind when we are on -25 degree on scale of our spirituality and when it it hits 120 degree it is consciousness. So when -25 - cold it can not be consciousness - hot. so both mind and consciousness do not co-exits

But since today morning I was thinking about this only, now I think mind and consciousness co-exits. I read somewhere that mind has a tremendous power. when we get those power, we also have consciousness. I also read that how our mind should be, if we pour water from one vessel to other, and check the flow of water, now pour oil from one vessel to other and check the flow of water. So our mind should be like flow of water.

But it was nice discussion about mind.

Do we experience mind or do we get to see mind when we get consciousness or realization ? May be this is stupid question.

[devotee]

Till my last post I was thinking that there is only one thing, either mind or consciousness. Let me explain with example. In thermometer when it show -25 degree it is called cold and when it shows 120 degree it is hot. So when it is, we call mind when we are on -25 degree on scale of our spirituality and when it it hits 120 degree it is consciousness. So when -25 - cold it can not be consciousness - hot. so both mind and consciousness do not co-exits

But since today morning I was thinking about this only, now I think mind and consciousness co-exits. I read somewhere that mind has a tremendous power. when we get those power, we also have consciousness. I also read that how our mind should be, if we pour water from one vessel to other, and check the flow of water, now pour oil from one vessel to other and check the flow of water. So our mind should be like flow of water.

But it was nice discussion about mind.

Do we experience mind or do we get to see mind when we get consciousness or realization ? May be this is stupid question.

When you say, I am conscious, what do you really mean ?

OM