Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on July 9, 2017.

In this lecture, Swami Bhaskarananda examines the nature and function of the mind according to Vedanta. After introducing Vedanta as the philosophical tradition that teaches the essential divinity of every being, he turns to the mind as a person's closest companion and explains a fundamental distinction between Vedantic and some Western conceptions of it. According to the framework he presents, the mind is not consciousness itself but a subtle form of matter derived from Prakriti, or primordial matter, while consciousness belongs to Purusha and is ultimately divine. Drawing on Sankhya philosophy, he outlines the evolution of creation from Prakriti through cosmic intelligence, ego, mind, the sense and motor organs, subtle elements, and finally the gross elements constituting the physical world. The mind becomes conscious through its association with Purusha, he explains, but consciousness itself remains fundamentally different from matter. He therefore rejects the idea that consciousness originates in the brain, describing the brain and sense organs instead as instruments employed by the mind.

The second half of the lecture explores how the mind acquires knowledge. Swami Bhaskarananda explains that the mind must connect with the sense organs for perception to occur and uses everyday examples to show how a functioning sense organ alone is insufficient when attention is elsewhere. He then presents the Vedantic account of perception in which the mind reaches outward through a sense organ, assumes the form of the object being perceived as a vritti, and knows it through the interplay of consciousness associated with the knower, the means of knowledge, and the object. He also recounts a youthful experiment in thought transference to illustrate his view that the mind is not confined to the physical body. Finally, he describes the antahkarana, or inner instrument, and the different names assigned to it according to its functions: manas when cognition remains uncertain, buddhi when reasoning produces definite knowledge, chitta in connection with memory, and ahankara when the sense of “I” or ego operates. The lecture concludes by emphasizing that these are not separate entities but different functional aspects of the same inner instrument, while acknowledging that the Vedantic concept of mind is extensive enough to warrant further discussion.