Thought and Consciousness

Conscious Awareness.

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The evolution of human implied the evolution of the faculty of mind in man. The animal and the biological evolution was a movement at the physical level and because of freedom to move about gave the animals the faculty of attention that was not available to the plant kingdom.

However, this attention helped the animals in finding the food, shelter and self-defense, and at the same time of a short-span because of the constantly changing surroundings.

In the case of man, he discovered the language of thought which further developed to a great extent because of the memory and associating the experience and objects with these spoken words, expressive of his experiences. 

Again there was the experience in the form of feeling, while the reaction to it in the form of emotion. The feeling and emotion together were his sentiments, while the physical experience is in the form of pleasure, pain, disturbance and comfort was something really not of the mind, but mixed up with the sentiments.

The development of spoken language enabled him in thinking in terms of imagination and he could distinguish between the assumed past and the imagined future.

This way he was trapped into the past based upon his memory and the anticipated, future in his imagination.

Language arranged this past and future in terms of time projected by his mind.

(शिव-अथर्वशीर्ष points out to this in the following words:

अक्षरात्संजायते कालो कालाद् व्यापकः उच्यते। 

That is, how Time-Space, are though experienced, assume no reality whatsoever.) 

Besides the feelings, emotions (sentiments) he could now also relate in 'time' the events, that seemed to occur in time.

This whole process was but natural evolution of mind in man.

Language was a turning point. 

The parallels in Sanskrit words that describe the same process is in terms of :

चिन्तनं and मननं .

Thus the 'चिन्तनं' is the action of the senses when drawn towards the objects, while the 'मननं' is the reflection upon the feelings or experiences that takes place in the mind. 

With the help of the thought and the language, one had kind of the way of reflecting upon his feeling and experience.

So begins the thinking. 

Thinking could take place in the following three modes :

The Voluntary, 

The Involuntary, and

The Attentive.

So when you have to solve a mathematical problem, your thinking follows the way of the Voluntary. The same thing happens when we converse or discuss, even debate.

But when you are all alone, and nothing to do,  the thoughts stored in memory keep on coming into and fading away from continuously in your consciousness. If you are interested in any way, -say because of hope or fear, they simply haunt you and you are caught in their grip. Then you say :

"Oh! I'm utterly confused, don't know how to put them to rest!"

If you are really tired and sleepy, the nature helps you and you are rid of them. Otherwise you have to engage yourself in some apparently meaning-ful or not so meaning-ful an activity available to you or of your choice.

If you are really very attentive to this whole thing, you can also see that there is this thinking mode of mind, and in the background there is another thought lurking behind, not really a thought but an understanding and the sense of just being, which thought translates into the words : 

"I AM".

If you can detect that this sense prevails over and in all thinking, you at once transcend the  thought and realize what is attention indeed.

Having discovered what exactly is "attention" you could then think attentively and the thought, or the thinking mode of the mind remains in abeyance. This is what we can call the sub-conscious mind.

The word 'निदिध्यासनं' in Sanskrit points out to this state of mind. The same is called "अवधानं", in what Sri Shankaracharya refers to in His lyrical work:

"Bhaj Govindam... "

"कुरु अवधानं महदवधानं...."

In contrast,  there is also a Sanskrit word :

"अनवधानं",

Which is equivalent of 'in-attention' synonymous with 'absentmindedly'.

During waking state, one may be either attentive in-attentive, or just absentmindedly. 

During deep dreamless sleep however, one is quite aware of oneself, though he is really the individual and not apart of his world, he is also conscious of just being and enjoying that bliss as well.

This is the gift of the nature irrespective of who--so-ever or what-so-ever you in you worldly state. 

Then what is "meditation"?

Is meditation an activity a 'karma', or "attention" only?

In comparison, attention is never an activity, but a state in-herent to the mind, which is somehow in oblivion and is not given attention to.

When the attention from the outward objects is withdrawn, and is brought upon the core sense of "I AM", ध्यानं / meditation is spontaneous and natural, where no effort is needed, and even an obstruction to this natural way of being. 

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