What are the facets of Mind
From yoga and upanisadic lore, the mind has four facets - Manas, Buddhi,
Chitta and Ahankara. Manas is often called mind. Sankalapa vikalpatmakah manah,
a changing mind oscillation from one state to another. This is the most
gross state of mind when this randomness gets canalized the energies start
getting useful. Buddhi, the intellect sorts out the information in the form of
thoughts, analyses them and puts them into different bins. Judy as a postman sorts
out letters and sends them to their destinations, the intellect with its power
of discrimination sorts out the thoughts , and connects all thoughts which
are related to a subject. All thoughts which are unconnected are weeded out.
Only those which are connected with the subject are chosen to explain the
subject. This is often called concentration. We all know the importance and usefulness
of concentration for success in all our endeavors. This power of Buddhi -
the intellect called discrimination is the one that is special abut all
human beings.
While the need for food, sleep, and procreation and fear are common to
both animal and human beings, the specially of human beings is the Buddhi.
Without that Buddhi, or power of discrimination, we are equivalent to animals, say
one of the slokas.
The third facet of mind is Smriti or memory. The storehouse of information
is sorted but by the intellect - the Buddhi - and whatever is decided to be
stored is passed on to memory. Not all information needs to be stored - only
those important thoughts which the Buddhi decides will find entry into memory
they will be ready to be unearthed anytime we need. Retrieval of information is
part of memory. The memory is defines as Anubhuta visaya asampramosahsmritih.
The process by which thoughts which have been experienced are retrieved
is called memory.
At the background of all these states of mind is the Aham the "I, often
called Ego. What ever activities we do there is the "I thought " - I am seeing, I
am doing, I am eating , and so on. This is the subtlest aspect of mind. All
these (four) facets of mind come under the broad heading - Antahkarana.
|