Are we mind?

Are we mind?

Let us analyse with the help of following facts:

1. The small child has brain but not mind i.e. hardware with operating system but no data and applications programmes.

2. The mind starts developing with the help of inputs from the sense organs. The inputs may be given by others or taken by one’s own efforts. It means the source of whole of the contents of mind is outside. The data and programmes collectively called mind at any given point of time , grow/updated simultaneously. Therefore the mind is continuously changing without us being conscious of that.

3. For survival of the body, the mind is not necessary. To survive this intelligent instrument needs only five things which are:

1. Air (oxygen) , a gift from nature.

2. Water ,a gift from nature.

3. Sleep , also a gift from nature.

4. Food , almost a gift from nature (we get a no of seeds/plants from one seed used for growing) but the body requires to do some labour.

5. The working mind inbuilt in all creatures, also a gift from nature.

Just imagine that if a child is provided all the above four throughout life without being given any mental input. Will he not be able to spend his life without mind as our body spend with mind? May be not so smoothly. The mind is required only for verbal communications. The life as such is not bothered about the mind. Take the example of person lying on bed in coma. The life is present there keeping other vital organs active but mind is not functioning. Hence at a shuttle level or in another sense the mind is nothing less than luxury.

4. Every night this so called mind is almost absent especially in non-REM (no dream) state, but in that absence also the life which one is, survives . If he would have been mind he would have gone/died in the absence of the mind.

5. Nobody has ever created his mind consciously. That is why nobody can control the mind. The creation of mind in early phase of our life i.e. childhood is not in our hand and we as child are handicapped due to absence of any such programme which can decide whether so and so inputs are worth having or not. Therefore so many things are put inside this head without our consent. The tragedy is that we never become aware or alert even when we have fully grown up when something is either put into by others or when we are put in at our own. We behave as an unconscious persons. We never think whether the data going inside has any relation with things needed to support the life as such i.e. air, water, food , sleep and working mind ,which are the only needs for survival of life which we are.

6. Till date the location of mind has not been found by anyone. Sometimes questions have also been raised about the existence of mind itself by so many self-realised persons. Saying are like “ Mind is a myth”, “Mind is an illusion” “Mind is nothing but a sum total of impulsive reactions depending upon the training the body has received”. In search the person searching should be separate and different from the things to be searched. But here the real problem in the search of mind is that the very mind is searching itself. The same is the situation of all the seekers because they are seeking themselves which is naturally not possible. Not only that they are seeking the real with the help of the mind which itself is an illusion or does not exist. In Gita Krishna says I am beyond perceval of mind and the sense organs. But the tragedy is that we have to the mind only as an instrument for search.

7. The artificial intelligence has created a possibility that in future chips with relevant data will be implanted directly into human brain. No need to cram the books to become doctor, engineer, C.A., pundit, padri, mullah, etc. There will be no any vacuum created on the death of a great scientist or a poet or anyone because before he dies all the programmes and data will be copied and as and when required it will be pasted in a healthy person’s brain and he will start from there where the dead one left. Don’t take it as a fiction. It is going to be real in very near future because this idea is based upon the scientific developments in various fields especially artificial intelligence and computing being reported from time to time. Our brain functions exactly like computer or any other creature’s brain but perhaps because of so called self consciousness we consider ourselves better than other creatures.