Mind Sees Things before they appear

[Guest guest]

Guruprasad wrote:

 

I was going through some consciousness research topics done by some

scientists. It was mentioned in one of the research a very

interesting experiment.

Different people were asked to sit in a place and view some images.

Their reactions were measured as they see the pictures. They found

that the mind actually reacts 'before' the actual pictures came into

view!! Looks like the mind sees things even before it has actually

seen things. The time gap was in fractions of seconds. But the gap

was there. It was mentioned that the mind might be constructing the

image before it sees things and when the thing actually comes into

focus, it only compares the two images.

 

Best Regards

Guruprasad

 

Hello Guruprasad,

One of the points of these experiments and why they are so interesting to

behaviourists and materialists (no mind only matter) is that it seems to

explode the idea that consciousness is the end result of a series of events

that have to occur before we attain a mysterious plane called consciousness.

That may be damaging to a dualist view of things but the monist and non-dualist

can very well accomodate them is their psychology.

 

Sankara dismisses the idea that knowledge is an activity i.e. that knowing is

something that is done once in time which is what the experiment would have

held was the conventional wrong view in contrast to the correct one of a series

of little knowings ending in grand knowledge as it demonstrates!

 

He writes: Tai Up.II.i.1 (comm. on Satyam jnanam anantam brahma.)

...it (knowledge) is referred to as an activity by way of courtesy. Knowledge

which the true nature of the Self, is inseperable from the Self, and so it is

everlasting. Still the intellect, which is the limiting adjunct of the Self,

becomes transformed in the shape of the objects while issueing out through the

eyes etc., (for cognising a thing). These configurations of the intellect in

the shape of sound etc., remain objectively illumined by the Consciousness that

is the Self, even when they are in a state of incubation; and when they emerge

as cognitions, they are still enlightened by that Consciousness. Hence these

semblances of Consciousness - a Consciousness that is really the Self - that

are referable by the word knowledge and bear the root meaning (of the verb "to

know") are imagined by the non-discriminating people to be attributes of the

Soul Itself and to be subject to mutation.

 

As Sankara says all knowing is immediate and direct no matter what stage it is

at whether it is still in the egg or fully hatched. The physiological states

and brain processes are time bound. Knowing itself, presenting under whatever

forms (confinguration of the intellect/mental modifications)is immediate and

direct.

 

In Upa.Sah. prose section Chap.2 para.75 he puts this point with great clarity.

#75. The teacher said to him,"your doubt is not justifiable, for you, the

Self, are proved to be free from change, and therefore perpetually the same on

the ground that all the modifications of the mind are (simultaneously) known by

you. You regard this knowledge of all the modifications which is the reason

for the above inference as that for your doubt. If you were changeful like the

mind or the senses (which pervade their objects one after another), you would

not simultaneously know all the mental modifications, the objects of your

knowledge. Nor are you aware of a portion only of the objects of your

knowledge (at a time). You are, therefore, absolutely changeless."

 

The nature of the processes on the way towards full concept acquisition and

recognition is fascinating but does not impinge on that central position of

Advaita. Vedanta Paribhasa in an inscrutable passage asserts that the mind is

not an organ. Let me quote it first before I attempt a decipherment. Sanskrit

knowers will have the benefit of original obscurity.

 

(from Chap.I on Perception pg.12 Sw.Madhavananda tran. Advaita Ash.pub.)

It cannot be thus urged that if the mind thus be not an organ, the perception

of happiness etc. will not be immediate (saksat); because the immediacy of

knowledge does not lie in its being due to an organ; for in this case inference

etc. also being due to the mind would not be immediate, and God's knowledge,

which is not due to any organ, would not be immediate.

 

My Decipherment: I reject the contention that the sensation of happiness can

only be an immediate perception if the mind is an organ. To support my claim I

offer the counterexample of inference which is a mental act. Inference is not

an immediate thing. ((it is a process and proceeds in stages in real time)).

Moreover God's knowledge is an example of a knowledge which is immediate and is

not due to an organ or to a mind.

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

[Guest guest]

advaitin, "v_vedanti" <v_vedanti> wrote:

du> Namaste Sadaji and Sri Michael,

> Thanks for your replies. Here are a few questions I have on

> Michael's post :

 

Still the intellect, which is the limiting adjunct

> of the Self,

> > becomes transformed in the shape of the objects while issueing

out

> through the

> > eyes etc.,

>

> How is intellect considered as a limitant ? Isn't intellect what

> tells us the difference between real and unreal ? I thought this

> would be the one means to right knowledge that would lead us in

the

> right path.

>

> Thanks and Best Regards

> Guruprasad

 

Namaste, Guruprasadji

You are right. It is the intellect that tells the difference between

the real and the non-real. But it should also tell you that the

real is beyond the power of the intellect to grasp. In other words,

by intellect one should be able to understand that Reality is

buddheH param (beyond the intellect) and so intellect has to stop

after telling you that everything comprehended by the intellect

through the senses including itself is non-real. To see the real

thereafter one has to become Reality itself; and this is where we

are all struggling, though we might have 'comprehended' advaita !

 

praNAms to all advaitins

profvk