About the Mind

What is the mind? Science, philosophy and religion have been trying for centuries to answer this question, but the explanations are far from being in harmony with each other. Some people think that the mind is the brain or some other part or function of the body, but this is incorrect. The brain is a physical object that can be seen with the eyes, which can be photographed or operated on in surgery. While there is such a thing as brain tumor, have you ever heard of anyone getting ‘mind’ tumor? Clearly not, because the mind is not a physical object. It cannot be seen with the eyes (unless one is clairvoyant) nor can it be photographed or repaired by surgery. The brain, therefore, is not the mind but simply part of the body.

There is nothing within the body that can be identified as being our mind because our body and mind are different entities. Sometimes when our body is relaxed and immobile, our mind can be very busy, darting from one idea to another. This indicates that our body and mind are not quite he same thing.

If the mind is not the brain, nor any other part of the body, what is it? It is a formless continuum that functions to perceive and understand objects. According to Wikipedia, ‘the mind is the aspect of intellect and consciousness experienced as combinations of thought, perception, memory, emotion, will and imagination, including all unconscious cognitive processes. The term is often used to refer, by implication, to the thought processes of reason. Mind manifests itself subjectively as a stream of consciousness’.

Science informs us that the process of thought which is derived from this stream of consciousness is due to chemical and physical phenomena that happen in the brain and in the nervous system at microscopical levels, in other words at a molecular and atomic level. The activity of nature at atomic and sub-atomic levels is governed by the laws of “quantum mechanics”, a theory of physics that was developed around 1900-1930. So quantum physics also has a role in defining the mind.

Psychology is the science of the mind and believes that the human mind, the most complex machine on Earth, is the source of all thought and behavior. At The Third Eye, we are concerned with how thought and behavior play a major role in shaping our realities. Our thoughts impact emotions in our body which have an effect on our energy meridiens and chakras, which eventually affect our physical body via instruction from the brain, creating our internal and external experience of reality. Therefore, by addressing our thoughts, emotions, energies and physical body as one cohesive unit, we can actually change our lives by not only healing illnesses at the physical body level but also transforming our mental outlook from negative to positive and achieving our desired experience of life.

In Buddhist scriptures, the body is explained as a hotel or guesthouse and the mind as a guest dwelling within it.  At death, the mind leaves our body and goes on to its next existence, just like the guest checks out of the hotel and goes forward on his or her journey. Laws of physics state that matter can be neither created nor destroyed, which supports Buddhist philosophy.

Science, philosophy and religion converge at a spiritual junction when one discovers that each somehow supports the tenets of the other. This takes us into the field of the esoteric sciences. It is our endeavor to identify and strengthen our awareness of this convergence. Since the best way to do so is to understand, experience and learn from the vast spread of information and knowledge available to us, we promote and offer meditations, awareness talks, self-empowerment workshops and training programs in the spiritual sciences and various healing modalities at The Third Eye.  The best way to know yourself is to go within and all our activities focus on this inward journey.