Vedanta and The Human Mind
In Vedanta, the mind is regarded as a conscious force which manifests itself as intellect, will, ego and memory. The mind is called intellect when it is concerned with discrimination, decision or bringing knowledge. The mind is called will when it, via the nervous system, forces the body or senses into activity. The mind is called ego when it identifies itself with the body and senses and takes part in their troubles and pleasures. The mind is called memory when it recalls earlier wishes, thoughts, actions, events etc.
The mind works from five different levels - the unconscious, the subconscious, the conscious, yoga-nidra and the superconscious level. Of these the first three reside in the chitta (or mind-stuff) which is a certain fine manifestation of the kundalini energy. The chitta is the reservoir for all impressions and the mind must always refer to the chitta to recall earlier wishes, thoughts, actions, events etc. The conscious level corresponds to the knowledge that can be recalled without deep thinking. Any active wish or thought leaves an impression in the chitta at the conscious level, but if not repeated the impression sinks down to the subconscious level. Here it remains for a while and can be recalled by deep thinking. If not recalled here, the impression sinks further down to the unconscious level, where it remains in a causal form. In the normal, awaken state the mind cannot recall impressions from the unconscious level but they may be recalled in dreams, instinctive actions, under inspiration or by certain unconscious habits. According to Vedanta, the two remaining levels, yoga-nidra and superconciousness, can only be (intentionally) accessed by those who have practiced the techniques of yoga and meditation. (Yoga-nidra is a state in which one is asleep but nevertheless is fully aware of the surroundings).
Like everything else, the mind is composed of the three gunas and is caused by their interactions. One guna always dominates the other two, and it is the dominating guna that determines the general state of a person's mind. A person, in which the tamas-guna is dominating, is confused and lives in darkness - tendency to anger, greed, hate, laziness etc. is prevailing. If the rajas-guna is the dominating, the person is very active and possesses a mixture of positive and negative tendencies. The rajas-guna person may lie, swindle and commit murder but for each such deed, he or she will feel deep regret and guilt. The rajas-guna either works towards tamas-guna suppressing sattva-guna, or works towards sattva-guna suppressing tamas-guna. When the sattva-guna is the dominating, the person is calm and peaceful and has a pure, powerful and concentrated mind. A sattva-guna person is always unselfish, truthful, fearless and wise.
Now, since the play of the gunas is a dynamical affair, it is always possible to change ones general state of mind. Actually, the various mind improving techniques - be they of ancient Eastern or modern Western origin - are essentially aimed at getting a hold of the rajas-guna and consciously ease it towards the sattva-guna - regardless of whether the originators and practitioners may know it or not.
On the next couple of pages, the classical techniques of Eastern origin will be introduced. We shall not postulate that these are superior to the techniques of modern Western origin, but they certainly do have at least one great advantage - they have been developed and thoroughly tested for millennia by numerous practitioners
