Which dictionary meaning of the word ‘mind’ does the Gita refer to?
From Prof Phadnavis:
The Oxford Dictionary gives the following meanings of the mind:
mind |mʌɪnd|
noun
1 the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought: a lot of thoughts ran through my mind.
2 a person’s ability to think and reason; the intellect: his keen mind.
- a person’s memory: the company’s name slips my mind.
- a particular way of thinking, influenced by a person’s profession or environment: he had a deep contempt for the bureaucratic mind.
- a person identified with their intellectual faculties: he was one of the greatest minds of his time.
3 a person’s attention: employees should keep their minds on the job.
- a person’s will or determination to achieve something: anyone can slim if they set their mind to it.
Which of these meanings does the Gita refer to when it says that the mind can be our enemy or friend?
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna. A question from Professor Padnavis. When the Gita says the mind can be our enemy, which meaning of the mind does it refer to? In the Oxford Dictionary, many meanings of the word mind are given.
For example, the faculty of consciousness and thought, the faculty of the intellect, the memory, the faculty, the attention, the determination. So, which meaning of these does the Gita refer to when it says that the mind is our enemy? Answer, the Gita does not refer to any of these meanings. Actually, there is the word mind is often used more in a connotative sense than in a denotative sense.
Connotation means what is brought to mind, what is conveyed somewhat indirectly. Notatively means what it specifically refers to. So, what actually the mind is, is in philosophical circles and even among psychologists, a great mystery to you today.
There was a positivist thinker, who the positivism, positivism doesn’t mean one thought optimistically. Positivism was a philosophy that has been largely out there, refuted. So, logical positivist A.G. Iyer, he said that actually he refused to study the mind because it has no loci.
He said that if you don’t know where it is, what it is, how can we study it? So, just forget it, he said. So, there is a lot of confusion exactly about what the mind is. So, in Western philosophical circles, when the word mind is used, it is often used in contrast with the body.
So, the mind-body problem, it is said. If we have a mind different from the body, then how does the mind interact with the body? This was a question which Descartes could not answer. And that’s why Descartes’ philosophy was later on refuted, his Cartesian dualism, that there is a mind and there is a body, that how you do interact, that was the problem.
So, of course, in his conception, the mind is non-material. The mind is the center of the personality. So, the mind is in a sense the soul.
So, in common parlance, we use the mind in many ways, make up your mind. That means, decide what you want to do, fix up your determination. Or we may use, as I said, keep your mind on the work.
That means, keep your attention on the work. So, these are all different senses in which we use the word mind. But what the Bhagavad Gita explains is, it doesn’t leave mind to merely connotative implications.
It has a very specific denotative denotative sense of the word mind. The Gita explains that there are three levels of our being. In this tripartite typology of the self, the Gita explains that there is the physical level, the mental level, and the spiritual level.
So, the physical is also called the gross material level, the mental is subtle material level, and then the spiritual level. So, the mind in the Gita’s philosophy, in the Gita’s worldview, is not the soul. The mind is different from the soul.
The mind is intermediate between the soul and the body. So, the Gita uses the word in a very specific sense, which is different from the sense in which it is given in the dictionary. So, and the dictionaries give various meanings and the mind is associated in some ways with those functions, but it is not exclusively limited only to those.
It is not exactly identical as is given in the functions. So, let’s look at that now. So, the soul is the root, r-o-o-t root, the origin of consciousness, and the mind is the root, r-o-u-t, the pathway through which the consciousness is passed.
So, for example, say if I’m sitting here and I’m watching a TV, I’m watching a virtual reality show. Then the virtual reality show screen monitor is the mind, and from that, my consciousness gets transported to wherever the movie or the game is being played or whatever is being depicted over there. And if it’s a virtual reality show, then if I am playing a game, then whatever sensors are coming in, whatever changes are happening on the field of the game, they are depicted on the screen for me to respond to.
So, mind is, in that sense, plays the role of integrating, presenting, and acting as a channel for responding for us. So, in a computer device, it will be like, in a computer system, it will be like a IO integrator, like a monitor, not just monitor, integrates everything and brings it for the soul to respond to. So, therefore, the mind has a very specific role in the Gita.
Now, if you say that, as I said, the mind is the doorway of the consciousness. The consciousness comes from the soul, but the mind is the doorway. So, if the door is closed, then I cannot see what is beyond the door.
So, similarly, if the mind is not attentive, that means I may be sitting in a room, but if my mind is elsewhere, if I am thinking of something else, then the door of my consciousness is right now covered. That’s why I can’t see what is outside. So, keep your mind on the work.
That would mean that keep the doorway of the consciousness open. And that way, you will be able to keep, you will be aware of the reality around you. So, make up your mind when we say.
Now, that what does it mean? The mind tends to be sentimental and flip-flops, sankalpa vikalpa. Do should I do this? Should I do that? Because of its flipping, flip-flopping tendency, the mind is often undecisive. Why? Because the mind has its past scripts based on past experiences of pleasures and pains.
The mind has its own ideas of what should be done to gain pleasure and what should be done to avoid trouble. And it pushes us to act according to those scripts. The mind, remember, is unconscious, but like a computer which may give a default program, which acts in particular ways, which prompts us to act in particular ways, the mind also prompts us.
So, in that sense, the mind can be doing flip-flop and we have to decide what we are to do. So, that in that sense, the mind refers to the, we can say, make up your mind. That means, you know, make up a decision.
So, actually, that would mean that we use our intelligence and then fix up mind and this is what I am going to do. And don’t let the mind flip-flop after that. So, make up your mind would mean that at the subtle level, there is the mind and there is the intelligence.
The intelligence makes the decision and then disciplines the mind to execute that decision, that would be making up the mind. And then there is also, there are various meanings, like you are given a person’s memory, that also refers to the mind. Now, yes, but now the memory is a mysterious thing.
The memory is stored partially in the brain, but it is not only in the brain because our brain, all our brain cells keep changing over a period of time and still our memory remains the same. So, the memory is also stored in the mind. Now, in the mind, the memory is stored, but the recollection and the execution is not done by the mind in the sense that actually the soul is the source of consciousness.
So, the mind basically is a memory device. It is not itself the source of consciousness. So, when we remember something, it is actually we as the soul who are remembering and the mind is providing us the substance and the impetus to remember certain things.
So, in one sense, we could say the mind is a partial store of our memories, partially they are stored in the brain also. And then a person’s ability to think and reason, the intellect. Now, this usage of the mind is not correct from the philosophical point of view.
From the philosophical point of view, actually, there is, as I said, there is a gross material level, there is a subtle material level and the spiritual level. So, in the spiritual, in the subtle material level, there is the mind and there is the intelligence. And intelligence is the decision, is the discriminating, discerning, decision-making faculty.
So, the mind focuses more on feelings and impulses. The intelligence focuses more on long-term consequences and deep thinking. So, in that sense, the, what we call, what people call as the mind, if it’s used in this meaning.
So, that, say, his keen mind or this may also be used in a sense, say, Einstein was the greatest mind of the 20th century. So, this means, this is, this word mind usage is, it may be used in a conventional sense, but it is non-precise. So, it was not Einstein’s mind was great, it was intelligence that was great.
And of course, Einstein was not as intelligent, Einstein was a soul beyond all that. And it was a soul who had very good karma because of which he had been given that great intelligence. So, the, Bhagavad Gita uses the word mind in the sense of a software program that interfaces between the soul and the body.
And the software program also has its default scripts. And those default scripts often tend to be destructive. So, they impel us towards short term and undesirable actions.
And when those actions, when we become impelled towards those short term undesirable actions, that’s when the mind acts as an enemy towards us. And basically, when the Gita says that we should be careful of the mind and learn to control the mind, that means, we should not let these default programs, which are there in the mind govern our functioning, but we should deliberate, learn from scripture about the values of living and then mould our behaviour accordingly. And as we keep acting with integrity and with virtue, then these will create fresh impressions.
And as they create fresh impressions, then the mind scripts will get rewritten. And as positive, uplifting scripts get written on the mind, then the mind will become our friend. Thank you.