Mind and the self.
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This is based upon, and is inspired from a post written by me on Dec. 19th 2021, in my blog हिन्दी-का-ब्लॉग.
This is about Mind and the (individual) self, how and if they are related in any way to one-another.
The point under consideration is :
Mind is sensitivity / attention /consciousness.
The self is / about :
All that is experienced.
Mind and the self are thus related through experience only, how-so-ever gross or subtle.
"Do I think?"
Alternatively, the question may be put also as :
Does "I" think?"
When one says :
I walk, I eat, I come or go it is obvious / trivial that one that performs these actions is no doubt the body only.
But when it is said :
"I think",
Is that an easy problem like saying :
I walk, I eat, I come or I go ?
The body sure performs the actions like walking, eating, coming or going, but does the body do these actions voluntarily or on its own, without being prompted by the consciousness about them? Isn't there also the consciousness of these actions, associated with the body? There is this consciousness / awareness of all these activities that are done by, or by means of the body, and associated with the same. And, in the absence of the same, one can't know or say if anything is being done by Who-so-ever.
The above actions, like walking, eating, coming or going could be said to have been done either voluntarily or involuntarily in a habitual way.
But what about "thinking"?
Is thinking a voluntary or an involuntary activity?
Does thought / thinking takes place because of some unknown reasons or because one allows it done deliberately?
Isn't there the consciousness / attention / mind / awareness behind such an activity like thought / thinking?
In addition sometimes, there could be, what we call the absent-mindedness, the distraction, or the abstraction of the kind.
Is there really something / that, or someone / who, thinks?
How then one can say :
"I think"?
Is this statement logically, rationally correct or valid? Isn't this paradoxical contradictory or even absurd?
Yesterday, while reading this half-written post to a friend, (our!) attention was drawn to the point :
What about the 'thinker'?
Is 'I' as the 'thinker', not again a 'thought' only?
Could thought possibly work upon itself?
Could a thought think independently?
There is this stream of 'thoughts', that is like a river and just as every part of the river is water only, the stream of thoughts and every smaller or a bigger part of this stream is but a thought only.
What about the 'thinker', that crops up while this stream flows?
Is this 'thinker' also a mere thought only when one is engrossed in thinking?
Or, later on, the idea that there is a 'thinker' other than the thinking, emerges out, and is at once takes control over the attention?
In this way, the fact that there is absolutely no independent existence of such a 'thinker', who is distinct and other than 'thinking' is lost sight of, and, the consciousness / attention / mind is the only underlying Reality where-in thought and the 'thinker' emerge in the same moment. The awareness is left out in abeyance.
Therefore the essential nature of this very idea :
'I think',
needs to be enquired into, and examined.
'I think' is the composit of two different things : one of them is - the object of thinking / thought, and another is -the consciousness / attention / mind, which is the underlying impersonal, and the time-less support and principle, where-from and where-in emerges out thought / thinking repeatedly.
Awareness / Mind / consciousness / attention is therefore the only ground, where the assumed 'thinker' comes into play, in its own apparent and independent existence, and then thought is split into 'I' / 'the thinker' and 'my' / 'my thought'.
Such distinction is the only cause how one is caught into the conflict between the 'thinker' and the 'thought'.
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