Old ideas of mind

Focusing attention 1
Underlying consciousness 4
Living and learning 6
Levels of experience 7

Focusing attention
In the Mahabharata, there is a story about the focusing of mind. When
the princes have been trained at arms, their teacher Drona puts them to a
test. In the branches of a tree, he fixes a target, which has been crafted to
represent a bird. Then he calls the princes, and says to them:
‘You will be called in turn. When called, take careful aim, to cut the
head clean off the bird. I’ll tell you when to shoot.’
First is Yudhishthira, the eldest. As he stands aiming, with his bow
drawn, Drona asks:
‘Do you see the bird, in the tree?’
‘Yes Sir, I do.’
‘Very well. Now, can you see the tree, or me, or your brothers and
cousins here?’
‘Yes Sir, I see the tree, and you, and all the others here.’
‘Then step aside. You’ve had your turn.’
Duryodhana is next. The same thing happens again. Duryodhana takes
aim, is questioned, and told to step aside. As the princes take their turns,
the same thing keeps happening again. Finally, it is Arjuna’s turn.
Drona asks: ‘Do you see the bird?’
‘Yes Sir.’
‘Well, can you see the tree? Or me? Or the others here?’
‘No Sir. I see the bird.’
‘Then describe it.’
‘Sorry Sir. I don’t see its body. Just the head.’
At last, Drona is satisfied: ‘Shoot!’ he says.
The arrow flies to its target, and the head falls to the ground.
Like many old stories, this one tells a moral tale. But it does something
else, as well. It’s meant to show a truer picture, of how things are.
Nearly all the princes think that they see many things. They look around,
and see a world outside. Most people picture their experience in this way.
2 Old ideas of mind

In this picture, there is a knowing per- Figure 1

son at the centre, surrounded by a world
that’s somehow known. An illustration
is shown in figure 1. K N O W N

This is our usual picture of experi-

ence. As a matter of ingrained habit,
we take it for granted that a person’s KNOWING
mind is a sort of knowing island, in an PERSON
outside world where we know many
things. Our everyday lives are based
on this habitual assumption. And many W O R L D
theories of psychology are also based
on it. That includes most of the psy-
chology which is taught in schools and universities today.
But there is something very wrong with this habitual picture of the
mind, as a knowing island. When one sees one’s own experience like
this, it makes one’s mind and body seem the centre of the world; and so it
gives them an absurdly exaggerated sense of importance. Through spir-
itual disciplines like yoga, our experience is more carefully investigated,
thus opening a fundamental questioning of our habitual assumptions. That
leads to more sophisticated pictures of the mind, in more fundamental
theories of psychology.
This deeper questioning is illustrated in the Mahabharata story of Ar-
juna’s concentration. As he stands aiming at the target, he has left behind
our usual picture of a knowing mind surrounded by an outside world. In
his moment of pure concentration, he sees no world that mixes many
things. Instead, he is quite clear that what he sees is just one object which
appears in mind. He does not see the world at large, nor the princes be-
side him, nor his teacher Drona, nor the tree in front of him, nor even the
body of the bird he’s aiming at. He cannot even describe the bird. For
what he sees is just the head, as a single point on which his attention is
focused.
Outside the single focus of attention, Arjuna sees nothing. All else is
understood, at the background of experience. From that background, all
of his experience is drawn forward, to focus on the object that appears.
This gives us another picture of our subjective experience. It is shown in
figure 2 (next page). Here, the mind is focused upon a limited object: by
drawing attention from an underlying basis of understanding, at the back-
ground of experience. I would put it to you that this second picture is the
 Focusing attention 3

starting point of a spiritual psychology, Figure 2

like that of yoga. FOCUS OF
In the Mahabharata, the second pic- ATTENTION
ture is dramatized as an ideal of men-
tal concentration, in the life of an epic OB-
hero. It’s dramatized that way to make JECT
people take notice of it. But it is more
than a prescribed ideal. It’s also meant
as a more accurate description of our
subjective experience: as we know it
actually, at each moment of time. UNDERSTANDING
In fact, no one sees the whole world,
all at once. Over a period of time, one BACKGROUND OF EXPERIENCE
may see many things; and then think
of them together, in a single thought. Or one may see some single thing;
and then analyse it into many things, in the course of further thoughts. In
either case, it takes time for different things to show up in one’s mind.
In the present moment, as it is immediately experienced, there is no
time for different things to show or to be analysed. What appears is just
one object, in the narrow focus of attention. The narrow focus makes the
object limited. It excludes other objects, at the apparent surface of the
mind. These other things that don’t appear are understood below the sur-
face, at the background of experience.
This does not only happen at rare moments of mental concentration. It
happens everyday, all the time. The old ideal of concentration shows us
how we see things everyday. It shows our common, everyday experi-
ence. That’s what is described in the preceding figure 2.
To make things more concrete, let me give you an everyday example.
Suppose that I am driving a car, and I notice that the engine is sounding a
little odd. At this moment, sound appears, at the tip of my attention. But,
in the attention that I give to the sound, many things are understood. I
hear the sound; but in that hearing I understand how the car was sound-
ing before, what other things have been happening to the car, who else
drives the car, who needs it and for what, the sort of car it is, how it can
be repaired, my previous experiences with cars and machines and me-
chanics, and so on. All these and other things are drawn upon, from the
background of experience.
This background understanding is an inner basis, which supports the
limited perceptions of our minds. At any time, what we see is limited,
4 Old ideas of mind

excluding other things. But we understand it on a broader basis, which

relates it to the rest of our experience. This broader basis is subjective. It
is found by reflecting inward: to what we understand, beneath the ob-
jects that appear in mind.
At the surface of the mind, attention turns from one thing to another.
So there’s a stream of limited perceptions. It is a stream of changing
show, rather like the moving pictures on a video screen. The question is:
what’s underneath this changing stream of mental show? What is there at
the depth of mind, beneath its mental pictures?

Underlying consciousness
When we speak about the depth of our minds, we often use the words
‘unconscious’ or ‘subconscious’. We are then thinking of the mind ob-
jectively, as a sort of computer. The surface show of mind is the compu-
ter screen. Beneath the surface, the mind stores data and makes complex
calculations. The results are shown in changing pictures and appearances,
seen at the surface of the mind. In this conception, the mind is a highly
complex process of activity, which records information and makes use of
it. Most of the mind’s activity is hidden, but it produces the appearances
we see. The hidden part is what we call ‘subconscious’ or ‘unconscious’.
So, beneath the surface of our minds, there seems to be an inner depth
that is both dark and mysterious. In the Upanishads, this dark-seeming
depth is described as ‘antar-hriday-akasha’ or as an ‘inner space within
the heart’. And it is further pictured by the word ‘guha’, which means a
‘cave’ or an ‘inner recess’, with all the sense of hidden mystery that this
picturing suggests.
But the Upanishads don’t stop there. They say that it is not enough to
construct an objective picture of the mind, as we do in the science of
psychology. All such picturing belongs to just the surface of the mind.
And when the depth of mind is viewed thus superficially, from the pic-
tured surface, this depth must of course seem hidden and dark. What’s
actually beneath the surface cannot in the end be found by any objective
psychology or any mental picturing.
It’s not enough to stay at the pictured surface and look down from
there, to what seems hidden and thus dark beneath. Instead, one has to go
down oneself, reflecting back into the depth of one’s own experience.
That subjective reflection is achieved through a relentless enquiry, which
won’t take anything for granted, but asks uncompromising questions about
one’s own pictures and the assumptions on which they are based.
 Underlying consciousness 5

In particular, the Upanishads question our habitual assumption that

consciousness is an activity of mind. Our mental activities – of percep-
tion, thought and feeling – produce a changing stream of apparent ob-
jects that come and go in each person’s experience. At any given mo-
ment, the mind acts so as to make some seeming object appear. The Up-
anishads point out that this mental action can never amount to ‘prajnyana’
or ‘consciousness’.
Without the illumination of consciousness, no object nor any action
could appear. In the course of experience, objects and actions keep ap-
pearing and disappearing. They come and go; but every one of them is lit
by consciousness. Thus, consciousness is always present, illuminating
all appearances and disappearances. It is that principle of knowing light
which is shared in common by all moments of experience, beneath all
differences and changes of appearance.
That’s what is meant by the word ‘consciousness’. ‘Conscious-’ means
‘knowing’. The suffix ‘-ness’ means a ‘common principle’. Putting the
two together, we get the word ‘consciousness’. It thus implies a common
principle that underlies all states of knowing.
In different states, different things are known. But nothing can be known
without the light of consciousness. That light is common to all states that
we experience. It underlies the changing stream of states that come and
go.
That light is consciousness itself. It is not an object, nor an activity.
Instead, it is what lights all objects and activities. And it is found beneath
all changing states, of mind and understanding. In all these changing
states, it is their common background:
remaining always present, while they Figure 3
change and pass. This conception is il- FOCUS OF
lustrated in figure 3. It is much the same ATTENTION
as the previous figure 2, except that the
underlying background is now called OB-
‘consciousness’. JECT
But here, it must be understood that
the word ‘consciousness’ is being used
in a special way that has been clarified
by philosophical reflection. The word
no longer means a ‘knowing’ that is UNDERSTANDING
identified with our changing percep-
CONSCIOUSNESS
tions of apparent objects, nor with our
6 Old ideas of mind

changing thoughts and feelings about such objects. Instead, it is a back-

ground knowing which lights the mind from deep within. Here knowl-
edge carries on, as quiet understanding. This is a knowing which does
not distract attention. Instead, it continues quietly, beneath the clamour-
ing perceptions, thoughts and feelings that keep replacing one another at
the surface of the mind. Through its quiet continuity, it enables us to take
into account what our partial minds don’t make appear. Thus, it is the
source of all co-ordination and integrity.
In this conception, consciousness is treated as something fundamental.
So there are different ways of looking at it. First, it is the knowing light
which illuminates our minds. But it is not a superficial light, found at the
changing surface of appearance. Instead, it’s the unchanging background,
found beneath all appearances that come and go. Thus, it is like a change-
less screen, upon which changing pictures are drawn. It is an ever-present
screen, behind our mental picturing.
But this screen is not an object that transmits or reflects light. Instead,
as consciousness, it is light. In itself, it is just light, unmixed with any-
thing else. But, in the pictures that we see, this light of consciousness
gets mixed with changing qualities and objects.
Beneath the pictures in our minds, consciousness is their unpictured
background, and their unmixed light as well. These are two ways of look-
ing at it.

Living and learning

How are the pictures drawn, upon the screen of consciousness? How
does its light get mixed, to form the pictures that we see? These questions
are answered by the traditional idea of ‘life’ and ‘living energy’, or ‘prana’
as it is called in Sanskrit.
In everyone’s experience, though consciousness is not a changing ac-
tion, it is a self-illuminating presence from which both light and inspira-
tion come. By its mere presence, it illuminates appearances and thus it
inspires the activities of mind and of all living faculties. Prana is the
energy of that living inspiration. It is not an energy that acts from one
object to another. Instead, it comes from consciousness, which it expresses
in all living actions.
That’s what is meant by the word ‘life’. It implies an expression of
underlying consciousness, in what is found to be alive. This idea of liv-
ing energy can be illustrated by adding to our previous diagram. The
addition is a cycle of expression and reflection, as shown in figure 4.
 Living and learning 7

Figure 4
FOCUS OF
ATTENTION

OB-
JECT

E R
ACTION X E FORM
P F
R L
E E
THOUGHT NAME
S C
S T
I I
FEELING O O QUALITY
N N

U N D E R S TA N D I N G

C O N S C I O U S N E S S

From underlying consciousness, our understanding is expressed in what

we feel and think and do. Thus our attention turns to objects that we see.
Then, as each object is perceived, there’s a reflection back. Through the
object’s form and name and quality, its perception is taken back into the
depth of mind. There each perception is assimilated into understanding.
By thus assimilating our perceptions, we learn from experience. As
each perception is absorbed, it brings about a further state of understand-
ing. That is again expressed in further feelings, thoughts and actions:
which turn attention towards further objects. Their perception is again
absorbed, by a reflection back to underlying consciousness. From there,
the cycle keeps repeating, thus enabling us to learn.

Levels of experience
If you look again at figure 4, you will notice that it shows five levels, in
our experience of the world.
• At the top, there is a level of objects, where our limited attention gets
focused.
8 Old ideas of mind

• Next is a second level, of action and form. Here, action turns attention
to various objects, and our experience is given shape.
• Third is a level of thought and name. Here, thoughts direct our actions,
and names are used to describe the forms that we perceive.
• Fourth is a level of feeling and quality. Here, feelings motivate our
thoughts and acts, through an intuitive judgement of qualities and val-
ues.
• And fifth, there is a level of understanding: which expresses knowl-
edge and assimilates what has been learned.
In the Indian tradition, these five levels are conceived through the old
five elements: ‘earth’, ‘water’, ‘fire’, ‘air’ and ‘ether’. Each element de-
scribes a level of appearance, in our experience of the world. And each
level of appearance is perceived through a corresponding layer of per-
sonality. The layers are called ‘koshas’ or ‘coverings’, for each is a cov-
ering of something deeper to be found within. You will find this illus-
trated in figure 5.

Figure 5

Traditional Appearance Perceiving Examining

element of reality instrument disciplines

‘Earth’ Pieces of Physical Physical

matter body sciences

‘Water’ Patterns of Living Biological

energy organism sciences

‘Fire’ Meaningful Conceiving Cultural

information intellect sciences

‘Air’ Conditioned Intuitive Psychological

character judgement sciences

‘Ether’ Continuing Assimilating Philosophical

existence comprehension enquiry

Unchanging consciousness
 Levels of experience 9

• The outermost layer is the material body, called the ‘annamaya kosha’
or the ‘covering of food’. This is the external body, made of matter,
like other objects seen outside by our gross senses. Here, ‘matter’ is
called ‘food’, thus conceiving it organically. It is what gets consumed,
as the body takes it in and uses it, in processes of living functioning.
As the body functions in the world, it takes in perception, as a kind
of food. And this intake of perception is in particular morsels or pieces,
through limited and partial senses that see an outside world. Because
their seeing is limited, the world they see is divided into objects, which
are then pieces of matter. Each object seems made up from divided
matter, like an earthen pot is made by shaping it and baking it from
clay. This is the uppermost level, of material objects, corresponding to
the old element called ‘earth’.
• Proceeding inwards, the second layer of personality is called the ‘prana-
maya kosha’ or the ‘covering of living energy’. Here, the energy of
prana flows in resonating pathways of activity. In Sanskrit, these path-
ways are called ‘nadis’ or ‘channels’. But their energy is not chan-
nelled nor activated by matter. It is not an energy of artificial force,
exerted by one object upon another. Instead, it is a living energy that
rises naturally from underlying consciousness. Thus by its very nature
it expresses consciousness, through an intelligibly ordered function-
ing, in fluid patterns of transforming activity.
As the energy of prana flows through personality, its patterns reso-
nate in sympathy with each other and with the world outside, in a com-
plex reciprocation of subtle influences and effects. That sympathetic
resonance enables our living faculties to observe and interact with the
world.
Thus, we experience action and form, in flowing currents of activity
and happening. And we observe dynamic patterns of energy, through
the organic functioning of our living faculties. This is a second level,
going down. It is associated with the old element called ‘water’. For
this is the fluid and life-giving element, found at the level of dynamic
flow, in changing patterns of energetic functioning.
• The third layer is called the ‘manomaya kosha’, or the ‘covering of
mind’. Here, mind is the conceiving intellect, made up of thoughts
which interpret the patterns of activity that our senses perceive. Thus
interpreted, these patterns are conceived as meaningful information,
telling us about an intelligible world.
10 Old ideas of mind

At this level, we experience thought and names or symbols, whose

meaning we interpret in our minds. Thus, as energy travels from place
to place, its patterns are interpreted as meaningful information, which
represents more distant things that we conceive through it. By its rep-
resentative significance, information throws a particular light on what
it shows us. Its meaning burns it up for us, in order to illuminate what’s
represented. Through that burning illumination of meaning, we inter-
pret more of the world, beyond the narrowness of partial circumstances
that our senses have perceived.
Thus interpreted, through conceiving intellect, information shines:
with a meaningful illumination that energizes and projects our concep-
tions of the world. That energizing and projecting power of illumina-
tion is associated with the old element called ‘fire’.
• The fourth layer is called the ‘vijnyanamaya kosha’ or the ‘covering of
discernment’. This is our discernment of qualities and values, which
we compare and contrast in the information that we perceive and inter-
pret and describe.
The discernment here is essentially intuitive, through an inner sub-
tlety of feeling and quality. As information represents the world, it
shows us different qualities that are contrasted and compared, through
the discernment of our intuitive judgements. Thus we experience a
conditioned character that is found different from place to place: as
for example a map shows how some places are bigger or smaller, or
higher or lower, or hotter or cooler than other places.
At this level, the world is shown conditioned by varying qualities
and characteristics, in much the same way as the atmosphere is condi-
tioned by climate. Hence there’s a correspondence here with the old
element called ‘air’.
• The fifth layer is called the ‘anandamaya kosha’ or the ‘covering of
happiness’. This is the co-ordinating layer of personality, with the word
‘ananda’ or ‘happiness’ implying harmony and integration. The co-
ordination takes place at the depth of understanding, as all our differ-
ing experiences keep getting absorbed into the quiet knowing that con-
tinues in the background. At that depth, we comprehend the continuity
of underlying principles, beneath the contrasts of discerning judge-
ment and the variety of superficial appearances.
In order to contrast and to compare the changing variation of par-
ticular appearances and their distinct characteristics, there has to be
 Levels of experience 11

some kind of continuing existence, which carries on through space and

time. As our limited perceptions show us different things, in different
parts of the world, there must also be connections and relationships,
which our minds and our senses do not see, but which we can under-
stand more deeply. That underlying continuity is associated with the
old element called ‘ether’.
In Sanskrit, the word for ‘ether’ is ‘akasha’, which means ‘pervad-
ing space’ and also ‘clear shining’. This word describes the continuity
of space and time, pervading through all experience of the physical
and mental world. The continuity is both objective and subjective.
Objectively, akasha continues as the background of external space and
time, seen in the world outside. Subjectively, it continues through each
individual’s experience, as the knowing background which persists
through differing appearances that come and go. It thus enables an
understanding of common principles, in the differing phenomena that
nature manifests.
Thus, akasha or ‘ether’ is conceived as the subtlest element, pervad-
ing everything, throughout the entire world and each perceiving per-
sonality.
But then, what underlies the continuity of ‘ether’, as it extends through
space and time? What final ground of plain reality could underlie all
different seeming things, seen by our partial faculties, throughout the
entire universe? This is the question that Gargi asks Yajnyavalkya, in the
third chapter of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.
Yajnyavalkya says that when reality is seen completely, it is called
‘akshara’ or ‘changeless’. It is the same in everything, no matter where
nor when perceived. And then, to identify it in particular, he says: ‘It is
not known; it is the knower.’ In other words, it is just that which knows.
It is pure consciousness, unmixed with any kind of physical or mental
thing. It is the inmost centre of everyone’s experience. That is Yajnyav-
alkya’s conclusion, in response to Gargi’s questioning.
But it must be admitted that this is not an easy conclusion. It identifies
a sole reality which is at once subjective and impersonal. It is the reality
of the entire world; and yet it’s found by going back into one’s own self.
This contradicts some deeply ingrained beliefs which most of us take for
granted: about the world and about ourselves. If this contradiction is taken
seriously, it raises some very unsettling questions.
Such questions are the actual practice of enquiry. The concepts used
12 Old ideas of mind

are meant to raise unsettling questions. It is the questioning that puts the
concepts into actual practice, on the way to clearer understanding. How-
ever, this works only if one’s own beliefs are opened up to genuine ques-
tioning. The attack must be upon one’s own assumptions, not upon what
someone else believes. The reflection back must go into one’s own expe-
rience. Then it concerns the understanding on which one’s attitudes and
actions are based. That makes it practical, inherently. Otherwise it is just
theory, or dogma, or polemics.

Ananda Wood anandawood@[Link]