Whether mind is just the brain or is it something mysterious, has always been a point of debate. The more we understand our brain, more we will be closer to understanding the mind, as well as the limitations in our scientific methodology. For more than one reason, it seems that there is something more to the mind than just the brain.
In this episode, we will see why it is necessary to keep an open mind before arriving at any conclusions.
A few years ago, when I wrote my book “How does the mind work?”, I received strange responses from some of my readers. Some well known medical professionals disagreed with my portrayal of brain as mind. They felt that mind is not brain!
Among them, one hypnotherapist was of the firm opinion that mind is far beyond brain. Or else, “how does one explain past life regression studies?” she wondered. As a therapist she often conducts such studies on her patients. In such studies, one is supposed to recollect their past life experiences. If mind were just the brain, how can the memories get carried over to the next birth, since the brain perishes when the person dies?
But it is a fact that most modern scientists, especially neuroscientists, view mind as just “the brain in action”, and nothing more. It is like the operating system, that runs on a computer after you boot it. Operating system is not the computer, nor is it what is stored on the hard disk. It is “computer in action”.
To a large extent I agree with this view. But not completely.
When I explained various stages of Yoga in the past episodes, I was talking as if brain and mind are two faces of the same coin, or that mind is just “the brain in action”. Some of you probably were not very convinced. But it is true to a large extent, at least uptil the final stage of Samadhi, that I discussed in the previous episode.
I took that stand, not just because of my belief in what current science tells us, but because that view would enable us to study Yoga to a large extent, using the gadgets available to us today, and using the insights we have gained about the working of the brain.
But the big question is - “have we really understood the brain completely?”. Not really. There are many finer details about the brain that are yet to be unraveled. Does it then mean that once we unravel those mysteries about the brain, we will be able to understand everything about Yoga? Can we then explain and scientifically verify final stages like Asamprajnyata samadhi, that we discussed in the last episode? Or are there things about Yoga that remain unanswerable, no matter how much we understand our brain? That is the question I am going to address in this episode.
I recently watched a video of well-known podcaster Sam Haris talking about his experiences with one of the Indian Yogis namely Poonja. Sam says that he disagrees with Poonja in many ways. But he admits that the kind of experience he had while sitting quietly with Poonja for a few hours, was something far more intense than what he had, spending several months in meditation retreats, or even by taking heavy drugs.
Sam is totally puzzled about how this man could impart such an effect on a person like him, who neither has great respect for this fellow, nor agrees with him on many issues. In a more recent video, Sam is even critical about Poonja. Sam has impressive academic qualifications and he specializes in cognitive neuroscience from top American universities. He is a skeptic and a self-claimed atheist.
Take another example, Paul Brunton’s experiences with Ramana Maharshi, the silent Yogi of Arunachal in Southern India. Even Paul Brunton had a very similar experience with Ramana. And it is such experiences which made Ramana well known all over the world.
What is it that influences the other person, when there was neither any communication, nor display of any kind? Definitely it cannot be done by the brain of the person who emanates such a radiance. It can’t be any “pheromone emitted by the Yogi that numbs the limbic system of the onlooker”, as Sam jovially puts it 😉
Buddha gives a long list of psychic powers one may achieve as a result of prolonged practice of meditation. He says that one may recollect his or her past lives, may start seeing events that are going to happen in the future, may read the minds of others, and so on. Can we explain any of these things, no matter how much we understand the brain?
It is not just Buddha, many of us who dabble a bit into meditative practices, would have had such experiences. None of those things are possible, if the mind were just limited to the brain. I am not trying to offer this as a proof of mind being beyond the brain. These kinds of things only suggest a possibility of limitation of our current notion of science.
Ancient Indians were always fascinated by the mind. They not only came up with many theories about the mind, but also techniques to modulate the mind in a productive way. The Samkhya philosophers had their own theories. The Buddhists had theirs. Neither of these had much in common. But they were useful in progressing our understanding about our lives.
Many of the latest discoveries in neuroscience about the working of our brain is based on computer aided simulation of the brain. What a simulator does is to implement a theory about the working of the brain in a computer. This simulator is then fed with some inputs and its outputs are recorded. If the real brain gives the same output for the same inputs, then it is assumed that the theory behind the simulator is correct.
But if you ponder a bit, it is easy to see that there could be multiple theories and multiple simulators based on such theories, which all behave the same way. Does it make one theory right? No, these theories just bring us closer to reality. More we test such simulators under diverse conditions, closer we would be towards understanding our brain.
Ancient Indians too did the same way.
Till probably a few centuries ago, not just the Indians, nobody in the world had any idea that mind and brain have any relation. Most thought mind is in the heart! But still, Indian philosophers came up with some of the most profound theories about the mind, without even knowing its anatomical connection.
Buddhists had an elaborate theory about the working of the mind. Mind you, they came up with it, more than 2000 years ago! In the light of today’s neuroscience, this entire theory may look baseless. Yet Buddhists could use this theory to make progress in their meditative practices. They could achieve several things which cannot be achieved just by the knowledge about the brain, however detailed it is.
The Samkhya philosophers too had their detailed theory about the composition and genesis of the mind. Patanjali based his Yoga on this theory of Samkhya. Irrespective of the correctness of this theory in the detail, these theories seemed to have practical utility. The result of a specific practice as predicted by this theory can be verified today using scientific methodology, even though the theories by themselves may not exactly match with our current understanding of the mind.
What I am trying to arrive at, is the fact that
There are many things that we are yet to understand about the mind.
And these things may not be resolved, no matter how much progress we make in our understanding of the brain.
Ancient theories may not match the precision and rigor of our modern theories, but they may have some aspect that can possibly help us bridge the gap.
It probably pays to look at these ancient theories with an open mind.
With this kind of open mind, let us discuss some of the prominent theories about the mind in the next episode.
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