How we perceive and make sense of the world is our ‘lived experience.’ This phenomenon of conscious experience appears to us as subjective awareness. But who is the subject? Is it mindful awareness or the various subtle aspects of the mind and the elements of nature coexisting within our complex neurobiological body/mind system?
Ancient Vedic Philosophy outlines:
Ahamkara (Ego): Ahamkara represents the ego or the sense of individual identity. The part of the mind creates the notion of “I” or “self.” Ahamkara can lead to attachment to one’s self-image and desires, hindering spiritual growth.
Buddhi (Intellect): Buddhi represents the intellect or higher intelligence. It is responsible for reasoning, discernment, decision-making, and the ability to discriminate between right and wrong. Buddhi helps in making wise choices and understanding deeper truths.
Manas (Mind): Manas is the ‘ordinary’ mind responsible for thoughts, emotions, and sensory perceptions. It’s the seat of emotions, desires, and mental fluctuations. Manas is often seen as a bridge between the senses and the higher faculties like Buddhi.
Akasha (Ether or Space): Akasha is one of Vedic philosophy’s five elements (pancha mahabhutas). It represents the element of space or ether. It is considered the most subtle and all-pervading element underlying all other elements.
Vayu (Air): Vayu is another of the five elements and represents the element of air. It is associated with movement, circulation, and breath. In the body, it governs activities like respiration and the flow of prana (life force).
Agni (Fire): Agni represents the element of fire. It symbolizes transformation, purification, and the power of digestion, both in the physical and spiritual sense. Agni is also associated with the inner fire of self-discipline and spiritual awakening.
Jala (Water): Another of the five elements represents water. Water symbolizes fluidity, adaptability, and emotions. It is associated with the flow of life and represents the emotional aspect of the human psyche.
Prithivi (Earth): Prithivi is the fifth element, representing the element of Earth. It symbolizes stability, solidity, and the physical realm. It is associated with the material world, the physical body, and the senses.
Our body/mind organism is primarily a sensory instrument. We are instantaneously taking in information from our senses, which is being translated into our minds and creating an image. The sensing comes from far deeper levels than just what is perceived. What you perceive when we look upon the world, what we’re doing is looking in upon our mind.
From the deeper levels of mind lies our past experiences and interpretation of experience through centuries of conditioning and modification of consciousness. This translates into predictable patterns of thought and behavior. And it’s not just personal, it’s collective. Primarily ancestral, but it includes humanity as a whole. It is a recycling of interpreted experience in action known as Karma. This body and environment are a projection of the mind of Karma.
But what is behind the complex human structure we may hold to be ourselves?
Can you see the seeing? Seeing an object or the environment around oneself is the content within perceiving, and the space encapsulating the content is the background or backdrop to seeing. The seeing or perceiving is the context within the content perceived. The context, the perceiving, is the expansive awareness of space and all that is seen within as the content.
Close your eyes; can you hear the hearing? Hearing a sound or sounds coming from the space of awareness is the content; hearing the silence is the space in the background that is the context for any sound. The context is the expansive silence underlying all that is heard.
Awareness is being aware of itself. Consciousness becomes conscious of itself. Consciousness, or awareness, is curving back and knowing itself more and more. And that knowing is not an intellectual understanding; it is a lived experience. Can you see the seeing? Can you hear the hearing?
An overarching ‘completion principle’ guides and propels human activity daily. That sublime feeling of uncomfortableness, knowing or unknowing, is seeded in our consciousness that something must happen or be done to feel satisfied, fulfilled, or complete. It is part of the human condition, whether in an immediate time frame or one that spans our entire life. It is usual for an ego/mind to express this requirement for completeness constantly. It all arises from the apparent reality of separation that one feels is the natural state of existence. The separation feeling, this stand-alone part of the diversity of self-identification, calls for unity. Unity is the natural state of consciousness; consciousness is all that there is, the substratum, the basis and pervading reality of life. We are Consciousness, the Self, and this oneness is blinded, veiled by an ego/mind. We take this for granted from childbirth as we grow through years of conditioning our individuality into patterns of misidentification and behavior to be a fixed and mostly unquestioned normal.