Sunday, July 20, 2014. MIND : In India, the most prominent philosophies that took up discussion of this subject are called the Samkhya and the Vedanta philosophies. In basic principles, the Samkhya and the Vedanta agree with each other; only in certain fundamental questions, they differ. Now, let us concentrate ourselves on the Samkhya aspect of the practice of yoga, which studies mind and consciousness. The word ‘Samkhya’ arises on account of it being a categorization or computation of the various degrees of the evolution of reality. How many things are there in this world? The categorization and numbering of these gradational degrees of evolution is the function of the Samkhya philosophy. The word ‘Samkhya’ comes from the word ‘sankhya’, which means numbering. The Samkhya philosophy numbers the categories of creation. It is a deductive philosophy, a little different from the inductive philosophies of Western thought – deductive in the sense that it accepts the existence of some fundamental being, and it does not require any proof that such a fundamental being exists. That thing which does not require any external demonstration is our own consciousness. We need not have to prove that we are conscious, because we never doubt that we are conscious. Always we are conscious of something. Sometimes the mind and consciousness are considered as identical for certain practical purposes, though in fact the mind and consciousness are not identical with each other. Briefly, we may say that the mind is the operational phenomenon projected by consciousness. Consciousness does not operate in any particular direction. The reason is that it cannot be confined to any particular place. We began by saying that the mind appears to be within the body, and it is located within our individuality. Not so is the case of consciousness, because consciousness is something by which everything is known. Without consciousness, knowledge is not possible – knowledge of even one’s own self, apart from the knowledge of any other thing in the world. Continues...
Posted on: Sun, 20 Jul 2014 11:35:48 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015