Philosophers, physicians, poets, thinkers, scientists, and, of course, lay men were equally perplexed about this enigma called the mind. What is the mind? Where is it? Most of them did feel the presence of their minds, though. Mind is like the wind, which the poet described thus:



“Who has seen the wind?

Neither you, nor I,

When the trees dance and bend,

The wind is passing by!”

Anon.



That is true of the mind as well. People have been trying to fix the mind, like all other cellular structures of the human anatomy, to a particular organ. This organ-based medicine, like the modern so-called scientific medicine, used to believe that the mind resided in the heart, for a very long time. Words like sweet heart, hard hearted, kind hearted, large hearted, you are my heart etc. originated from that wrong impression. Physicians, led by the Canadian brain surgeon, Penfield, tried to locate the mind in some part of the brain. They did succeed temporarily though, as some of the bodily functions were controlled by certain parts of the brain, the latter being the headquarters of the central nervous system.



Brain, or for that matter, any other organ in the body, could not be the seat of the mind. The mind could never be thought of in terms of cellular structures. The human brain, for example, has a billion cells. A small grain of salt has more than ten billion atoms. If the cells of the brain were to be the seat of the mind, the latter would not be in a position even to comprehend a small grain of salt, leave alone this vast Universe. The science of Robotics, which is nearly seventy years old, has not been able to replicate the human mind to be packed inside a human robot.



Sending a man to the moon is a child’s play compared to mimicking the comprehension and enjoyment of the vast blue sky with its rainbow, by the human mind. It would have been a greater scientific feat if we could succeed in sending man, with a smile on his face, to his neighbour’s drawing room to have a cup of tea there. Enjoying Nature’s beauty and loving thy neighbour are both functions of the human mind, which baffles ordinary mortals, including that privileged class called scientists.



New wisdom seems to be dawning on science which now has changed its etymology from that of knowledge to the new Sanskrit root cut into. When you keep cutting the cell into bits and pieces to get at the atoms and beyond, you feel the mind. Oppenheimer (American), Enrico Fermi (Italian), and Neils Bohr (Scandibnavian) together tried to split the atom into smaller particles called hydrons. Their teacher, a Nobel Laureate physicist, Max Bohm, a very wise scientist that he was, had warned them that “this little atom which they were attempting to split would certainly teach mankind a lesson or two.” This proved to be prophetic. Mankind is not only suffering from the atomic fall outs in every sphere of human life on this planet, but we do not even know what to do with the deadly Plutonium waste, which has a half-life of five hundred years! Our future generations could hold us responsible for this “mindless” action of ours.



Take time to watch the word, mindlessness! Indian ancient rishis had prophesied thousands of years ago in the Vedic wisdom about this possibility. Modern science realized this only now that they have been able to split the hydrons further into the lepto-quarks. The latter seem to be the same in all living and non-living things. They seem to be moving freely inside and outside of living things. But they are so small that they defy their study and definition. They could be comprehended by the mind, though. It is beautifully described in the Upanishads:



“ Bahiranthaschya Bhootaanaam, Charam Acharam evacha,

Sookshmavatheth avijneyam; doorastham cha anikethacha tat.”



[It is both inside and outside of all living things-it is moving and could be stationary as well; it is so subtle that it could not be examined and understood, for those who are not aware of its existence it is very far; for those who know it is very close!]



Physics of lepto-quarks and our Upanishads have realized the unitary nature of all things on this planet. Western scientists are looking to the East for inspiration. The mind is a sub-atomic quantum state (quantum physics deals with the subatomic world). Human mind, or otherwise called the human consciousness, is a quantum level thinking. Just as the “seed has the tree” in it, the zygote, that little speck of protein that man is on the day he is conceived inside his mother’s womb, knows all about every other living thing in the Universe! There are no two living things having an identical genetic make-up. Modern science makes out four levels of consciousness-waking consciousness, the dreaming, the sleeping and the quantum consciousness. Similar classification was there in Indian wisdom for thousands of years! Shivam, sundaram, advaitham, and chathurtham were the four stages identical to the latest scientific consciousness.



Quantum physicists realized their mistake only after they could not fathom the nature of lepto-quarks that their reductionist theories could only go that far and not beyond the quantum stage of matter. They also realized that at the quantum level mind and matter were the same and it did not matter what you are talking about! Einstein’s arrogant hypothesis that “ nothing could move faster than light” was quickly proved wrong. With the realization that mind and matter are but the same, the speed of mind at phenomenal rate could be comprehended. “Manovega”( speed of the mind) was an ancient concept, which has been recently discovered by science, not invented! Teleportation is the new name of the game.



Even in the past there were thinking scientists, but their voices were drowned in the more powerful voices of the reductionist scientists. The latter science had money value and was a salable commodity. The more sensible theories of uncertainty principle by Werner Heisenberg and the cat theory of Schrodinger (Schrodinger’s cat) were all but swept under the carpet. People could build bridges across rivers (but not between man and man), they could build sky scrapers, super highways, send rockets into space, and communicate with distant people through wireless means, and even could send man into space with the help of reductionsist science. Powerful Nations made their day with wars, born in the petty minds, resulting in human misery on a very large scale. The fall out of reductionist science has not been for holistic human development. To cap it, science has helped destroy the bounties of Nature; man is threatening to completely destroy Nature.



Is Science Bad?



Not at all! Science, in the correct sense, is the only savior of mankind. Science could make man realize the secrets of Nature to see how he could use science for the good of humanity. It is the mind of the scientist or his financial master, that has created misery for mankind and never science by itself. In fact, without a scientific temper man could sink himself into the valley of illogicalism. Otto Frisch and Rudolf Pearls were responsible for conceiving the formula for the first atom bomb. But it was the mind of Harry Truman and Winston Churchill that resulted in its being dropped on that fateful August morning in 1945 on Hiroshima resulting in instantaneous death of more than 80,000 people within minutes. Thousands have died since all over the world due to atomic weapons! Culprit, then, is not science but the human mind.





How Could We change this?



Both Churchill and Truman were born with a mind with only two natural instincts, that of self-preservation and procreation, like Gautama Budha, Mahaveera or Mahatma Gandhi. At that stage there was no difference at all. How did the minds of Hitler and his ilk become what they were? It was our training the innocent human mind of every child in the bad ways of the world. The latter include competition, one up-manship, hatred, and jealousy, anger, pride, ego and super ego. These are the traits we have inherited from the so-called scientific temper of the reductionist science, where competition is the key word. In the new science of wholism (non-linear and CHAOS science) one looks at the whole with love and co-operation.



With this realization, we should move fast to change the training systems in our primary schools where the seed of all the bad habits are sown in the innocent minds of our little tiny tots.



If you ponder about how innocent children that they were, Churchill, Truman, and Hitler, become warmongers later in adulthood, you would quickly realise the impact of our educational system. One has only to look beyond one’s nose to realize the folly of our modern education system of competition, ranks, prizes, and what have you. This was known to our Indian ancient wisdom when the following was written to train the human mind into tranquility:



“To work alone thou has the right,

But never to the fruits thereof,

Be thou not actuated by the fruits of action,

Nor be thou attached to inaction.”



“Oh Dhananjaya, abandoning attachment

And regarding success and failure alike,

Be steadfast in yoga; perform thy duties,

Even-mindedness is called Yoga.”

Bhagavad Gita.





The stress here is on even-mindedness. A friend of mine, who is very successful in the conventional sense of the word, asked me if this line of thinking were pursued could there be progress in the world? Many in that company naturally agreed with him. He is a very successful doctor in that city, if success could be assessed by the amount of money one makes and also the power that one wields! Unfortunately, all the progress today has only resulted in bringing misery to mankind. There is no peace anywhere. United States of America, which is very successful in that sense, is in the grip of teenage violence where high school students shoot one another. They are now doing a bit of introspection. The innocent children, after studying in the schools become criminals, aping their adults in society. Daily we suffer the subtle white-collar crime in the name of science and technology. The food we eat is almost poison. Today Europe is reeling under the threat of American ban on their meat export because the meat is found to be badly poisoned due to various genetic engineering methods. Tobacco is killing millions while the Best manager Award for 1998 goes to the CEO of the British American Tobacco company! He is successful by my friend’s standards!



Every single killer disease, starting from heart attack to cancer, is now thought to originate in the human Mind. Their cure or otherwise also depends on the Mind. Every human cell, including the heart muscle cell or the cancer cell, has its subatomic mind that either makes or breaks the final outcome! Short-term quick fixes to make money like drugs and surgery are only temporary palliation. Long term gains by way of primordial prevention depend on the mind, the even-mind of yoga!



If I am able to make the reader realize the gravity of the problem and dire need to change the way we live, to have a tranquil mind as the cure for all human ills, I will have achieved some success. Even very successful people in the worldly sense did get better by their philanthropic acts and not by amassing more wealth. Rockefeller Foundation and Ford Foundation are the success stories of their founders who changed with the vision of an even mind.

One could get worldly riches also with having an even mind. One does not have to compete with others to destroy them to build oneself. One could live and let live with co-operation as the motto. The new science of the mind and its quantum consciousness would be able to send man not only to the moon but also to the neighbour’s house with a smile.





“Love thy enemy, love thy neighbour”

Jesus Christ.



Are we not all same on this planet? How then could you compete with your brother? Co-operate with him and love him.



“Allah Ho Akbar!”

Holy Quran.





Where is the mind? Never mind it is everywhere inside and outside! Do not search for it outwith you, having the same all over you in every cell of your body of which there are one hundred thousand billion!