 Today we are going to discuss the concept of mind in Upanishads. This is in connection with the thesis of transcendental mind that Upanishadic concept of mind also argues for a transcendental theory of mind. Now, this transcendental thesis is indeed quite different from the kind of philosophical theory about mind that we are going to discuss in our later lectures. But, it is very important to talk about the Upanishadic concept of mind precisely because in this thesis we find that the there is a dichotomy between the soul and the mind. There is indeed no dichotomy between the body and the mind. So, in fact, the transcendental thesis argues that there is a harmony between the mind and the mind. Mind, body and the soul. So, what kind of presure positions that the Upanishads make in order to talk about the concept of mind is something very significant. I think we can discuss this in connection with a Plato's notion of mind, in connection with the transcendental thesis that has been argued by the Platonic philosophers of mind. As I mentioned earlier, this notion of transcendental is very much part of the epistemic discourse of the concept of mind. How does one know the mind? How does one comprehend the reality that this reality is one and not two? So, this concept has been the basic question in philosophy of mind. As I also have pointed out that the transcendental thesis talks about the metaphysics of mind. There is a mind which is a metaphysical lirial. So, what kind of metaphysics Upanishads talk about in a connection with the study of reality? We shall try to explore these questions today. So, the transcendental thesis talks about the metaphysics of mind. There is a mind which is a metaphysical lirial. So, what kind of metaphysics Upanishads talk about in a connection with the study of reality? We shall try to explore these questions today. Now, when we talk about reality, when we talk about the creation of the reality, one goes to the cosmology, the cosmological viewpoint that has been put forward by the Upanishads. In Upanishads, there is a concept called Hiranmaya Garva. The reality has evolved from this notion called Hiranmaya Garva. In Chandagya Upanishad, there is a debate between Uddhālaka and Swataketu. Swataketu is the concept of the concept of the reality. He is interested to know that how the reality has been conceptualized, how the reality has come into being and Uddhālaka, his father, tries to explain to Swataketu that this reality, if at all there is a reality, then this reality has not come from a non-being. Therefore, there is some truth behind the existence of the reality. So, there is a being and he gives an example of this, that can we conceptualize the notion of a port, can we conceptualize the reality, can we conceptualize the notion of a port, when we say that there is no clay out of which the port is made. So, when we talk about something, say x and x is a port and x is made out of something, so therefore, when we talk about reality as a whole, we need to talk about the being and this being might have caused the existence of the reality. Now, this debate about the being as the cause of reality is there in Chandagya Upanishad, but what is interesting is the epistemic exercise that one undertakes in order to know what is the true nature of reality. So, it is the epistemological question, which has been significantly addressed in Brihajaranika Upanishad, where there is a debate between Yajnambalaka and Maitreya. Maitreya is asking about the existence of the reality. So, it is the epistemological question, which has been significantly addressed in Brihajaranika Upanishad, where there is a debate between Yajnambalaka and Maitreya. Maitreya is asking about the wealth. She says, what is that? And by possessing that, I can leave a peaceful life. Now, Yajnambalaka tries to address this question with reference to various things. And Yajnambalaka says, by possessing this material wealth, you cannot leave a happy life. So, the ultimate happiness that has been discussed in this epistemic discourse of knowing the self is something very significant, that how does one understand its own being? And by knowing the being, one leaves a immortal happy life, a very blissful life. Maitreya was interested to attend that bliss. Maitreya was not certainly interested to possess the material wealth, because she knew that by possessing this wealth, she will not gain the happiness that she is aspiring to realize. So, Maitreya's aspiration was to bring to us a theme, that is, the notion of immortality of self. The self, which is infinite and immortal, is possessed by me. And how does one understand the self? Me realize that here is an infinite principle and I must know what I possess. So, that is what is the debate, that is what is an epistemic debate, which is there between Yajnambalaka and Maitreya. So, when we talk about the existence of being, we see that we are all embodied being. The being has the soul, which is immortal, infinite and the being also has a body. Now, therefore, I am an embodied being, but how does one understand the identity, the harmonious existence, the harmony that is there between these two, and where we can locate mind, his mind a sense organs, or his mind a sense organs, or his mind a sense organs. Something spiritual at the Descartes would argue, because the western notion of dualism suggest to us that mind is a spiritual entity, whereas the bonusitic concept of mind advocates that mind is not a spiritual entity, rather mind is one of the sense organs, that is what is called Sukhma Sarira. So, there are two varieties of Sariras, one is the Sthula Sarira and another is the Sukhma Sarira, the subtle existence of the body is something one need to understand. When we talk about the mind, we must talk about its subtle existence, and when we talk about the gross existence of the body, we need to see how the body has been operated, how the body is functional, it is functional with the help of various Indriyas, Mana is an Indria. So, Mana is different from Atman, which is a soul, and we need to locate, we need to study what kind of relationship exists and that binds all three things. Atman, mind or Manas and Sarira, the body, the soul, the mind and the body are all connected. So, the kind of connection which probably is presupposed in Spinoza, so for example, who is one of the Cartesian philosophers of mind, where Spinoza talks about the pre-star list harmony, the harmony between the soul and the body. When we talk about embodiment, we need to also locate this harmony existence. So, let us study in detail what is this notion of Atman, and what do we locate the concept of Atman? Is Atman is a kind of an evolved or is mind an evolved or mind is just a mysterious entity? We need to study in detail. Now, let us talk about Atman. The notion of self or Atman is nothing but a conscious being, the self is a conscious being, and this self is also a transcendental reality. So, self is conscious and self is transcendental. Now, as a conscious being, we need to locate what is the role of consciousness, so therefore, there is a cognitive or a psychological function involved when you talk about consciousness, and there is also a transcendental reality. So, self is conscious and self is transcendental. Now, as a conscious being, we need to locate what is the role of consciousness, so therefore, there is a cognitive or a psychological function involved when you talk about consciousness, and there is also a transcendental moral function involved, because the consciousness or chetana has been associated with the notion of agency, that me as an agent acting in the world, the engagement between the self and the world would suppose some kind of a normative function, that the engagement is regulated by a moral principle, a normative principle. So, that is what we need to locate, and we also need to locate that, it is a conscious principle, it is a self reflexive principle, a principle which realizes that what is it, is it good or bad, so that kind of self recognition of one's own action is important when we talk about the agency or when we talk about the self. So, self has two aspects, the psychological aspects and what kind of psychology would one say thus teach us, and what kind of morality they also teach us, we need to locate that. Now, when we talk about consciousness, when say for example, Uddhālaka is explaining to Svetaketu, that from the being everything has come into existence. Now, what is that being which Uddhālaka is conceptualizing here? Uddhālaka certainly conceptualizing about a reality which is pure consciousness, and the phon acidic notion of consciousness refers to Brahman, the notion of Brahman. Now, what is Brahman? It is a Prakāsasvarupa, as I have mentioned here, it is a Prakāsasvarupa, Brahman or a self effulgent being. Now, what is Brahman? It is immortal, eternal and infinite, this Prakāsas, it is a Yothi-svarupa, it has no existence within space and time, it is beyond space and time and therefore, it is transcendent. So, and Brahman acts as a metaphysical principle, so the ultimate metaphysical principle that can explain the nature of reality in Upanishads refers to the existence of Brahman, and Brahman is a pure consciousness. Now, I will talk about the mind little later. Now, what kind of relationship this Brahman and Atman are having? As I mentioned, Brahman is consciousness, Atman is also conscious, Atman is also immortal and Atman is also eternal and finalist. Atman cannot be located in space and time, not to be understood in terms of any binary categories. So, for example, when we talk about binary categories, we refer to that Brahman is a kind of a universal wall and Atman is a part of it, Brahman is very vast and Atman is just a tiny aspect of the Brahman. So, these kind of binaries are not applicable to Brahman-Atman relationship and it is not identical with human bodies, if you say that is it identical with human bodies, it is a product of human bodies. Now, what kind of existence the Atman would have? When we suggest that it is, where all an embodied being, Upanishads, Hood, A Blood, and other  결국,                                        .  這              the consciousness or we can say two kinds of consciousness one kind of consciousness talks about our engagement with the world you see one bird is picking the those fruits trying to eat those fruits another part is just looking at the outside world just gazing it is mere spectator and that is why I said it is a drasta it is a nirapakshya drasta in the sense that it is it has this power of witnessing but this witness is not an involved witness not an intentional witness he is just an unlooker who is witnessing things as they are happening before him so the bird which represents the state of an unlooker a disinterested looker suggest that the soul is just an witnessing principle whereas there is another aspect to this consciousness they said soul is conscious so there is another aspect to this consciousness the consciousness is about the very engagement of an agent who is interacting with the world so how does one transcend this engagement is important so the Upanishadic psychology would suggest the method of transcending from the physical interaction with the world or the intentional interaction with the world transcending from the actions karma and realize what you are that is what is the message we one need to realize the essential identity between jiva and atman so there are two things one I am a jivapuras I am a jivapuras in the sense that I am a living being and all living being are the manifestations of the Brahman and being a living being I have this power of interacting with the world so I have the power of interacting with the world but when I interact with the world I may not realize what I am doing I may be just doing I may not understand the consequence of my interaction through the performance of various actions so that is what is the epistemic aspect of it so when does one realize that I am not supposed to be just engaged with the world when does one withdraw from this engagement now this withdrawal is important and that is what is the moral significance of the Upanishadic notion of consciousness and the withdrawal is about transcending how does the jiva comprehend our grasps that this engagement is not a real engagement the real engagement is what it should have with atman or the soul so that essential identity between jiva and atman is something what you call the true knowledge what Upanishad says the ardent epistemic exercise is to know through art that I am that so that is to be known and that is to be known not through my sense experiences my sense organs would not help me to understand what it is but of course my sense organs would help me when I am engaged with this world so atman is not an object of my perception it cannot be an object of my perception whatever can be an object of my perception are given it is outside me now what is that me then the me is that which is inside so there is an inter rarity to this experience and there is an extra rarity to this experience so this internal external debate that you would find in the western philosophy of mind is something very significant with reference to this Upanishadic notion of self and the experience of the self when the being experiences his own true nature that refers to the inter rarity of one's experience so therefore consciousness has been self reflexive when you say consciousness is self reflexive it reflects on its own being try to understand what is it so the reason it is not that this direction this intentional engagement is just always from mind what we call mind to the world they are all intentionally connected but there is also a kind of intentionality which is directed towards its own existence so it is that kind of intentional directedness provides us some kind of an epistemic structure what you call the structure of inter rarity as intentionality which is directed towards the world provides us a kind of an epistemic intentional structure in which one is engaged with the world and try to understand the content of this engagement etc etc so that is what something interesting now why one has to know what is an interested learner who is a jiggyaso like in my train and Udallaka and Agyamalaka are trying to explain to this jiggyaso now unless you are an interested knower unless you have this jiggyasa unless you have this jiggyasa to know what is truth as Socrates says Aristotle is trying to address this one must have desire to know what it is that is the fundamental primary principle which Aristotle is talking about similarly the Upanishadic concept of mind tries to emphasize this aspect of knowing and the act of knowing is that one must be interested to know one must be willing to know what it is Moitri was willing to know what is that immortality and the power of immortality by possessing which should have lived a very blissful life happy life so the kind of the finest perfect well being that Moitri was trying to conceptualize Amartya Sena has discussed about it now similarly Swetha Kethi was interested to know from his father Udallaka that what is that reality which has created the existence of this entire cosmos or what is that reality which is responsible for the existence of this entire cosmos certainly Udallaka was trying to explain the metaphysical principle and this metaphysical principle needs to be grasped it needs to be comprehended through consciousness because it is not part of the sense organs it cannot be derived through this kind of Indraya and Sarnikarsha that the interaction with the sense organs with the world from which this kind of knowledge does not arise hence we need to talk about this kind of a hidden reality it is always hidden that self which is a disinterested onlooker is not directly given to me it is a hidden reality and I need to unfold its sides I need to remove the values and see its existence that seeing through experiences and this experience is directed towards the inner form of reality because the truth is the truth is not an external one it is something internal Anu Ha one has to realize that so that is why we need to talk about a kind of a reflexive mode of consciousness a consciousness which is directed towards its own reality and we need to look at that now I have also talked about this notion of a harmony kind of a harmonious coexistence between Rivas and Atman because the harmony has to be there between finite and the infinite when they are qualitatively different we need to talk about the relationship and as I said one must realize their coexistence this realization is something important and that comes through the act of knowing as I said that is I had to know one has to be as a gas to know one has to be able to talk about this field of knowing the field is an infinite field when you talk about Brahman a kind of a consciousness which is a kind of a pure consciousness and it has an infinite potential and Atman is a part of Brahman or Atman is like Brahman and we need to talk about the reality not in terms of binaries so therefore, try to understand that Atman is a Swarupa and this Swarupa is a Jyothir Swarupa of this pure consciousness so it is the soul or Atman and not bound by space and time so the soul is not part of the world Jagat it is not the part of the world then when we talk about knowing or the act of knowing the soul creates its own field or this debate between debate of Khetra and Khetragya I said just a few minutes before that the intentionality creates a kind of an epistemic structure epistemic intentional structure of knowledge is what I call Khetra as a karta I am performing karma action and these actions are intentional actions perception is intentional my saying is intentional my experiencing is also intentional experiencing of all the things are also intentional the act of intentionality forms some kind of an intentional epistemic structure this kind of an intentional epistemic structure similarly when I try to know about my own self which talks about the interiority of my experience I am talking about also another kind of an epistemic structure now what is significant is this that this epistemic structure per se constitute what we call Khetra the field of knowledge and Khetragya is the person who is involved in this act of knowing in Bhagavad Gita Krishna talks about this that there is a field in which the agent is interacting with the world and there is also an agent who is trying to know what one is doing he is this knower is a Khetragya so the Khetragya is bound by this normative principle principle that he must know what is reality what is its true identity what is its being a Khetragya must know and therefore as a knower of the field he tries to realize what is truth whether it is engagement with the world or jagat is truth will give him knowledge or the engagement with or the withdrawal or try to understand what is the limitation of this engagement how far this knowledge are tenable so understanding the limitation itself will talk about maybe there is an infinite so that mode of engagement will talk about a kind of the infinite possibilities of knowing knowledge itself is infinite there must be an infinite possibilities of knowing so that Brahman is a universal field includes everything and one who understands that everything is one and there is no difference between them everything is created by one one understands all the qualities of one understands the commonality between them one does not find any distinction between you and me higher and lower poor and this thing reach one does not really differentiate between the pain and the non pain situations the suffering and the bliss everything is one everything is evolving from one or has evolved from one everything is merging into the one so that realization or a knowledge is something significant when we talk about the infinite possibilities of knowing now why one should know because you are the amruta saapatra you are the the jiva as a son of immortality must have this desire to know we are not just simple being you are amruta saapatra so then the jiva must know its true nature in the sense that what is that immortality of its being to understand that we need to talk about the harmony between atman, manas and sarira and how sarira and the mana are coordinated we need to look at that so as I said about sarira it is the totality of the sense organs gross as well as the subtle sense organs now when you talk about subtle sense organs which is a mana I mean it performs various activities thinking, experiencing remembering, knowing etc but is not and last rather it is for spiritual realizations remember the ponesiric notion of body is not supposed to be engaged with pleasure no, this pleasure is not a reality because the body is to be seen as a kind of a spiritual field the body itself is a kattra and the atman is a kattragya so therefore the kattragya must understand the true nature of the bodies understand what is the sorupa of all these indriyas in what way they function and how their functions can be controlled and how one can overcome the limitations of these functions so when this engagement is significantly address it is no more a kind of a space for the attainment of pleasure no, body is therefore a space for realizing or understanding what is spiritually significant so that is what is a kind of a normativity which we need to address to the atman-brahman coordination as brother defines I quote the finite mind is capable of receiving the experience but cannot conceptualize them without the soul which is the seat of thinking and the other creative activities so when we talk about creative activities of the mind we really refer to the soul not the mind the mind is an indria mana is an indria it is a subtle sense organ and what are its function look at this allegory of a chariater in Kathaupanishads I have also mentioned about this allegory of a chariot with reference to Plato and present says I quote in a famous allegory of the chariot the soul is a chariater the mind the reins the sense organs the horse and the body the chariot so in Kathaupanishads this allegory is very significantly explained that each one of them has a function and we need to look at the coordination between them we need to understand their normative significance otherwise we cannot so the dualism that has been proposed here is not the kind of dualism which has been conceptualized in the kind of a western philosophical scenario whether the ponissistic dualism is a dualism between the soul and the mind and the sarira the body the ponissistic mind is not spiritual as in Descartes and other dualist thinkers here the mind is a subtle organ of the physical type and is taken as a part of the subtle body called Sukhma sarira the soul is categorically different from the body and the mind it is being of the nature of consciousness pragyanam the mind is proximity to the soul but it is cannot be identified with the soul therefore mind must remain within the physical limits though it can aspire to get closer to the soul so the mind soul reality the mind and the soul they are nearer to each others but one cannot talk about some kind of relationship between them now when somebody in proximity with the other one tries to understand its true nature the soul takes over soul as control over the entire function of what you called the chariot the reins and the chariots the intellect and the honor of the chariot it is a normative presupposition so hence the kind of dichotomy one finds in western philosophical scenario is not available here because mind is not really a spiritual entity as it has been understood by Descartes and the other it is explained with reference to the puncher courses in Taitre of Upanishad but then refers to the five sets which talks about the evolutionary aspect of the reality it starts with Annamaya at the bottom level and it goes upward so it is kind of a something around the thought we talk about it is about it is something body that we wi six man, which is the principle of life that is. We talk about the body lizard, so this are different layers those pathway from bottom to up. So, this kind of evolution is always kind of an upward change always represents in the kind of upward movement. Now, what is this evolutionary James says, I quote, from the body, life evolves, from life, the mind, from the mind consciousness, from consciousness the supra-consciousness, state of bliss. And that is what my tree was trying to understand. That is what Swetha-Kathu was trying to understand or attain the state of bliss. So, in this scheme of things, neither the body nor the mind nor the atman can be found as totallity, so it is totality as a whole somwell represents reality and it totality is the manifestation of the metaphysical principle which form are consciousness. To know what it is one must transcend these layers of existence . . . . . . . . . . . .