Categories of Consciousness ‘II’

The individual self, deluded by forgetfulness of his identity with the divine Self, bewildered by his ego, grieves and is sad. But when he recognizes the worshipful Lord as his own true Self, and beholds His glory, he grieves no more. The state of one’s spiritual development does not matter; Vedanta upholds the real nature of every human being as the luminous Self, which is associated with the mind as the onlooker, or witness.

This brings us to the fourth type of consciousness in Advaita Vedanta. The witness-consciousness transcends the changing states of the mind, neither suffering nor enjoying the mental and physical conditions of human existence. After realizing the witness-Self, a person returns to normal consciousness with a transformed mind.

Such a soul perceives itself and the universe through a mind composed of finer matter. Like a sheet of glass, through which sunlight can pass unobstructed, the mind in this state allows the light of consciousness to reach the body and its organs unimpeded.

As the witness, one perceives one’s Self to be distinct from the body and mind, which are clearly recognized as objects of perception. One knows, beyond doubt, that it is the Self that governs one’s entire psycho-physical being. In the mystical language of the Kena Upanishad, the Self is realized as ‘the Ear of the ear, Mind of the mind, Speech of the speech the Breath of the breath, and Eye of the eye.’

This witness-self is known as the ‘inner controller’, and is beautifully described in the Katha Upanishad as the rider within a chariot-body. The charioteer is the intellect (buddhi), and the reins are the mind, endowed with volition and emotion. The senses, say the wise, are the horses; the roads they travel are the mazes of desire. The wise call the Self the enjoyer, when he is united with the body, the senses, and the mind. Once the jiva identifies its real nature, the next step is to locate it.

How and where does pure consciousness dwell within the body?

It is in the heart (essence), of our being. Within it dwells that which is to be sought after, inquired about, and realized. Though old age comes to the body, yet the heart (essence) does not grow old. At the death of the body, it does not die. The heart exists eternally in all its glory.

Consciousness and the Psycho-physical System

In the Upanishads, we find the classic Vedantic model of the threefold body, or fivefold sheath, which elucidates the nature of the gross and subtle layers of consciousness that exist within our psycho-physical being.

Vedanta explains that every human being is comprised of three bodies: the gross, the subtle, and the causal, which are the respective mediums of experience for our waking, dream, and dreamless sleep states. The gross body (annamaya kosha or ‘sheath of food’ is born; it grows, transforms, decays, and dies.

The subtle and causal bodies are what reincarnate from birth to birth.

The subtle body is composed of the vital sheath (pranamaya kosha), mental sheath (manomaya kosha), and sheath of the intellect (Vijnanamaya kosha). The vital sheath is the life force that operates the autonomic nervous system, thus controlling respiration (prāna), excretion (apana), and digestion (samana), and also various functions of the cerebro-spinal system such as exertion (vyana) and growth.

The vital sheath, moreover, mediates the soul’s departure from the body at the time of death (udana). The manomaya kosha comprises the volitional, or deliberative mind, as well as the five organs of perception; whereas the Vijnanamaya kosha (buddhi) is the cognitive or determinative mind, along with the five organs of perception.

Through the buddhi (intellect), or cognitive mind, all other faculties of the mind, whether volitional or emotional, receive their light. However, as already mentioned the buddhi simply permits the passage of the light of the witness-self and thus appears to be self-luminous.

Vedanta claims that though the buddhi is located in the heart within a tiny space ‘about the size of a thumb’, the witness-self dwells even deeper within our being, within the buddhi (intellect) itself. Therefore, the buddhi, only one step away from the witness-self, is still identified with the non-Self and asserts itself as the knower and the doer within the mental and vital sheaths, and functions as the empirical self that reincarnates.

Human cognition exemplifies how the various mental faculties function together within the mental and intelligence sheaths.

According to Vedanta, cognition is a fourfold operation. First, the deliberative faculty of the mind (manas) asks: ‘What is this object?’ The memory (chitta) attempts to recall similar objects. Then, the determinative faculty (buddhi) is able to ascertain: ‘It is a desk.’ Finally, the sense of egoism (ahamkara) makes the association: ‘I am sitting at the desk.’ Throughout the cognitive process, however, whether we know it or not, the light of the Self, shining through the buddhi to the organs of perception, reveals everything that we experience.

This Upanishadic model of the fivefold sheath maintains that consciousness does not originate in the brain, or even in the mind, for that matter, because the mind merely passes on the light of consciousness. The brain, the mind, and the body are merely physical mediums for the expression of consciousness.

Moreover, the Yoga-Vedanta system of psychology asserts that thought, which a specific type of consciousness  is, is a function of the mind, not the brain. ‘In the Vedantic view the mind is not a process;’ Swami Satprakashananda summarizes, ‘nor is it a function, or a state, or an attribute of something else. It is a positive substance, though not ultimately real. It has definite functions and states. It is one of the products of primordial nature, the potential cause of the universe, called prakriti or maya, which has no consciousness inherent in it’.

Yoga-Vedanta uphold the premise that one’s own consciousness disciplined and refined through the path of yoga is the clearest and most reliable lens for perceiving and grasping the nature of human and transcendental consciousness. For thousands of years mind and consciousness have been primary subjects of

introspective investigation. Consequently, the rishis (seers) were able to develop sophisticated techniques for tracing the origin and nature of consciousness, which have been handed down from guru (teacher) to disciple to the present day.