Editorial

Late Professor Amitava Chattopadhyay

(Ritam, Vol.4, No.3, pp.4-7)

Nature of Consciousness

“Each grade of cosmic manifestation, each type of form that can

house the indwelling spirit, is tushed by rebirth into a means for the
individual soul, the psychic entity, to manifest more and more its
concealed consciousness; each life becomes a step in a victory over
Matter by a greater progression of consciousness in it which shall make
eventually Matter itself a means for full manifestation of the Spirit” -
said Sri Aurobindo.

The question arises, what is consciousness? In all human life-

behaviour we notice its presence through manifestations. However, we
cannot denote its location or place of origin in physical, or physical-
vital, or in physical-mental plane. We often speak of consciousness as
equivalent to mind. Mind has a physical location, as in some part of the
brain. In the same vein sensations also have locations in nerve
endings, and at different locations of stimulated brain. But, although,
without consciousness no sensation or perception or so to speak, no
mental function can be evoked.

The Kathopanisad says - The human physical body is considered

as the chariot, the physical-mental as the driver and the psychical-
mental as charioteer. The eyes, the ears and all senses are spoken as
the steeds and the object of senses as the paths to which they move;
and one yoked with self and the mind and the senses, is the enjoyer,
say the Thinkers.

Consciousness, in one sense, means the mind's awareness of its

own processes. Mind is that inner self which thinks, remembers,
chooses, reasons, and directs movement of the body, so is
consciousness the inner knowledge of this Thought and government.
Nevertheless, consciousness is something more than mind; it is the
immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensations and
thoughts. Thus, in another sense, consciousness is identified with
mind. But in True sense, consciousness is division of the mind-stream.
Mind is the sum-total of mental processes occurring in the life-time of
an individual.

According to eastern philosophy all things and events that we

perceive are creations of the mind, arising from a particular state of
consciousness and dissolving again if this state is transcended. All
shapes and structures around us are created by a mind under the spell
of maya, and it regards our tendency to attach deep significance to
them as the basic human illusion. And human consciousness prays for
liberation from this self-created illusion.

The Is’opanisad says – “Covered with a golden pot is the face of

the Truth, Oh Sun of Truth remove it for the seeker of Truth to see it.”
When the oneness of the totality of things are not recognised, then
ignorance as well as particularisation arises and all phases of the
defiled mind are thus developed. All phenomena in the world are
nothing but the illusory manifestation of the mind and have no reality
on their own. Out of mind spring innumerable things, conditioned by
discrimination. These things people accept as an external world. What
appears to be external does not exist in reality; it is indeed mind that is
seen as multiplicity; the body, and above all these are nothing but
mind.

In modern particle physics the world is described as a dynamic

network of events and emphasises change and transformation rather
than fundamental structures and entities. S. Radhakrishnan writes -

“How do we come to think of things, rather than properties in

this absolute flux? By shutting our eyes to the successive events. It is
an artificial attitude that makes sections in the stream of change, and
calls them things...
When we shall know the truth of things, we shall realise how absurd it
is for us to worship isolated products of the
incessant series of transformations as though they were eternal and
real. Life is no thing or a state of a thing, but a continuous movement
or change.”

The philosophical idea of the universe is that the universe is an

interconnected whole in which no part is any more fundamental than
the other, so that the properties of anyone part are determined by
those of all others. In that sense, one might say that every part
contains the others and, indeed, a vision of mutual embodiment seems
to be characteristic of the mystical experience of nature. Said Sri
Aurobindo – “Nothing of the supramental sense is really finite; it is
founded on a feeling of all in each and of each in all.”

Consciousness is not regarded as synonymous to mind. It might

be considered as the prime element of mental functions.
Consciousness may be considered as essentially synonymous to
‘awareness’. It is not simply something that is either or not there, but
is a matter of degree.

In a broader sense mind has certain material location. For all

perceptions, like vision, audition, smell, feelings or so, whatever in
general, we term as mental functioning, has its material location in
brain or nerve endings. The material objects, by their movements, thus
evoke consciousness. Conversely, consciousness by the -action of its
will can influence the (apparently physically determined) motion of
material objects. These are the passive and active aspects of mind-
body problem. It appears that we have, not in mind, but in
consciousness a non-material thing, that is as well, evoked by material
world. It appears that consciousness confer some selection advantage
to those who actually possess it. There must indeed be some mode of
behaviour which is characteristic of consciousness (even though not
always evidenced by consciousness), which are sensitive to our
common-sense intuitions. These are the passive roles of
consciousness.
 Consciousness must have some active roles in our behaviour.
We, conscious beings are sometimes troubled by questions about self.
We can answer to those probings. It is hard to imagine that an
unconscious automation should waste its time with such matters.
Conscious beings, do seem to act in some funny way from time to
time, they are thereby, behaving in a way that is different from the
way that they would if not conscious.

The fully consciousness thinking that can be rationalised as

entirely logical can again (often) be formalised as something
mathematical, but this is at an entirely different level. We are
manipulating entire thoughts. This thought manipulation has a rational
and mathematical character. The judgement-forming is the hallmark of
consciousness.

Conscious contemplation can sometimes enable one to ascertain

the truth of a statement. This ability to divine (or ‘intuit’) truth from
falsity (and beauty from ugliness!) in appropriate circumstances, is
another hallmark of consciousness.

Consciousness is largely related to all types of thinking,

especially, to inspiration and insight. The aesthetic criteria, which is
the hallmark of consciousness, are enormously valuable in our forming
judgements regarding inspiration and insight. The intervention of the
sense of beauty playing its part as an indispensable means of finding
the truth in any discovery. Hadamard said “We have reached the
double conclusion : that invention is choice; that this choice is
imperatively governed by the sense of scientific beauty”.

Such is the nature of physical-mental consciousness which is the

manifestation of the eternal, infinite, ineffable divine consciousness
which is the ultimate essence of all manifested existence.

- Amitabha Chattopadhyay