YH December 2018 | Page 31

“When we're born, our brain is completely malleable and experiencing new things all the time,” says Santosh Kesari, MD, PhD, neurologist, neuro- oncologist and neuroscientist. “We’re figuring out positive and negative behaviors, what is good for survival and avoiding consequences that would cause even short-term pain. As we age, our brain learns ways to do things that make us do certain things and behaving accordingly to each context and each stimulus.” Mind is objectified by default-lives outside Whatever we know, think, and work day to day because it is the mind that perceives objects outside. Mind is objectified by default since birth. It is the animal mind that is working in us, always guided by fear, security, pleasure, and food. It is habitual and heavily conditioned that seeks pleasure, security and fear in the world outside in people, place, objects and events. We cannot know the reality when mind is objectified and experiences of the outside world are within. We are fooled by the mind because it claims that we are nothing but experiences of the mind. Problem is in mind, of the world outside All experiences happen in mind. All these experiences, we can say is knowledge about anything and everything. When we say – we experience the problem, or we know the problem, it is awareness- experience- knowledge happening in the mind. I am – neither the experiences nor the world outside When we say – I am aware or know or experience a problem, I am present or witness to a problem, but this I-ness is neither the world nor my experiences. The world outside and experiences are constantly changing. However, I or witness consciousness never changes. Body changes from childhood to adulthood to old age, but witness consciousness or ‘I am’ does not change. When I or ‘witness consciousness’ remain clear that it is separate from the world, and experiences of mind, we are not influenced by the experiences and the world outside. How do we change without changing the world outside and experiences in mind? There are three factors – world, mind and its experiences and I-ness or the experiencer. When we see that the world outside, mind and witness consciousness or to say the experiencer or I am are different and separate from one another. When I or ‘witness consciousness’ remain clear that it is separate from the world, and experiences of mind, we are not influenced by the experiences and the world outside. The wisdom of knowing that I-ness is separate from the experiences in mind and the world outside is the right perception. The right perception removes the wrong notion about- who am I. Still, we experience the pain, but the pain does not touch us. Still, we know the problem, but it does not influence us. Dec. 2018 www.yogicherald.com 29