inert mind

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Namaste Advaitins,

Shankara’s speaks of the mind as being inert. What can that mean? In modern philosophy we hear a great deal of talk about the mind and the brain and psycho-somatic dualism. The majority opinion among monist materialists is that the mind is the brain and at first this seems a strong position until one realises that this is an interpretative view. What I mean is that the data is presented pre-packaged with that view. It creates the data so to speak.

However that is to get away from the business of this list. How is the mind inert if it is referred to regularly as ‘the luminous mind’. (VP pg.188)

As quoted by Sri Sastri in his round up of the schools of vedanta on the subject:

In his bhAshya on this mantra Shri Shankara says: "Getting transformed into the mind-stuff, the subtlest part of the food nourishes the mind. Since the mind is nourished by food, it is certainly made of matter. But it is not considered to be eternal and partless as held by the vaisheShikas".

In VP on pg.188 (trans.) DA writes:

"For instance, the luminous mind, being a transparent substance, can by itself manifest the consciousness that is the individual self, but a jar etc. cannot do so, because they are opaque substances. When, however, they are connected with a mental state of the same form as they, their inertness is overcome by it; and being possessed of a capacity to manifest Consciousness, imparted by the mental state, they manifest that Consciousness after the appearance of the mental state".

To put it succinctly, the mind is subtly inert whereas the object is grossly so. The primal reflection of Consciousness is in the mind. The mind, so to speak, is switched on simply by being . ( Being and Consciousness are convertible.) The object however being purely inert requires the projection of the mind on to it in order that it be revealed.