Does the default setting come from the mind or the brain?
Come from the mind or from the brain? See, it's good to clarify terminology first of all.
Consider inner world, we can compare it to a software or computer system. Computer system, there is the hardware, the software and there is the user. So, the Bhagavad Gita, which is an ancient yoga text, offers us a three-level model of the self, in which there is the body, there is the mind and there is the soul.
The soul is like the user, the mind is like the software and the body is like the hardware. So, now the brain is a part of the physical body and it could be like the CPU of a computer, the central processing unit. And now the mind is like the software.
So, the settings, the default settings, say if I start typing N on my browser and immediately it completes the NY times. Now, if I have visited NY times repeatedly, it will automatically complete that. That default setting, where is it coming from? It is coming from the software.
Even if I change my computer, you know, as soon as I log in with my Gmail ID, my preferences get transferred over there. The default settings are stored in the software. Like that, the mind is like the software within us.
Now, the discerning factor, the soul is the source of consciousness. In Western philosophy, so in this particular model, the word mind is used to refer to the intermediary between the body and the soul. In Western philosophy, the word mind is often used generically to refer to anything non-physical.
That is why we have the idea of mind-matter duality. So, that is, the words also have different meanings in different contexts. So, yes, there is something beyond matter.
But what the Gita explains is that there is also two levels over there. So, there is a mind and there is a soul. So, within this terminology or within this analytical framework, the mind refers to the intermediary between the soul and the body and that is where the default settings are stored.
So, when we practice meditation, when we use the power of conscious intention, then we are reprogramming the mind. And as the reprogramming of the mind happens, then our consciousness by default may also go in healthy directions instead of unhealthy.