Mind and understanding

Vyasa said The mind creates innumerable ideas. The Understanding, differentiates things and ascertains their true nature. The heart discriminates which is pleasant and which unpleasant. There are the three forces which produce acts.

The objects of the senses are superior to the senses. The mind is superior to those objects. The Understanding is superior to mind. The Soul is considered superior to Understanding.

as on Ordinarily the Understanding is a man's Soul. When the Understanding, by itself, forms ideas (of objects) within itself, it is then called Mind.

The senses being different from one another, the Understanding presents different aspects account of its different modifications. When it hears, it becomes the organ of hearing, and when it touches, it becomes the organ of touch.

Likewise, when it sees, it becomes the organ of vision, and when it tastes, it becomes the organ of taste and when it smells, it becomes the organs of scent. It is the Understanding which appears under different guises by modification.

These modifications of the Understanding are called the senses. The invisible Soul is placed over them as their presiding chief. Living in the body, the Understanding exists in the three states (of qualities).

Sometimes it acquires cheerfulness, sometimes it yields to grief and sometimes its condition becomes such that it is united with neither joy nor sorrow.

The Understanding, however, whose chief function is to create elements, transcends those three states as the ocean, the king of rivers, stands against the powerful currents of the rivers that fall into it.

When the Understanding desires anything, it is called by the name of Mind. The senses, again, should all be considered as contained within the Understanding. The senses, which are engaged in bearing impressions of form, scent, etc., should all be controlled.

When one sense becomes subordinate to the Understanding, the latter, though really not different, enters the Mind in the form of existent things. Such is the case with the senses one after another with reference to the ideas that are said to be apprehended by them.

All the three states which exist, viz., Sativa, Rajas, and Tamas, attach to those three (viz., Mind, Understanding, and Consciousness), and like the spokes of a car-wheel acting for their attachment, to the circumference of the wheel, they follow the various objects.

The mind must covert the senses into a lamp for removing the darkness which obstructs the knowledge of the Supreme Self. This knowledge which is gained by Yogins with the help of the especial instruments of Yoga, is acquired without any particular exertion by men who abstain from worldly objects.

The universe is of the nature. The man of knowledge, therefore, become never stupefied. Such a man never grieves, never rejoices, and is shorn of envy.

The soul cannot be seen with the help of the senses whose nature is to roam about among all objects of desire. Even pious men, whose senses are pure, cannot see the soul with their help what then should be said of the vicious whose senses are impure.

When, however, a person, with the help of his mind, firmly holds their reins, it is then that his Soul sees itself like an object coming in view on account of the light of a lamp.

As all things are seen when the darkness that covers them is removed, so the soul becomes manifest when the darkness that covers it is dispelled.

As a water fowl, though floating on the water, is never drenched by it, similarly the Yogin of freed soul is never sullied by the imperfections of the three qualities,

Likewise, a wise man by even enjoying all earthly objects without being attached to any of them, is never affected by shortcomings of any kind.

He who avoids acts after having performed them properly, and takes delight in the one really existent, viz., the Soul who has formed hinself the soul of all created beings, and who keeps himself understanding and senses which are created by the soul. The qualities can not apprehend the Soul. The Soul, however, apprehends them always.

The Soul is the witness which sees the qualities and duly works them up. Mark this difference between the Understanding and the Soul both which are highly subtile.

One of them creates the qualities. The other does not create them. Though they are different from each other by nature, they are, however, always united.

The fish residing in the water is different from the element in which it resides. But as the fish and the water forming its residence are always united, likewise the quality of goodness and the individual soul exist in a state of union. The gnat begotten of a rotten fig is really not the fig but different from it. As the gnat and the fig are seen to be united with each other, so are the qualities of goodness and the individual Soul.

As the blade in a clump of grass though distinct from the clump, exists in a state of union with it, so these two, though different from each other and each exists in its own self, are to be seen in a state of perpetual union.