Our Minds Our Existance

We think, therefore we are. This phrase sums up pretty much everything. What is Mind? Is it simply the ’Grey Matter’? or does it go beyond that. We see the power of mind all around us, literally in everything that we see and do. Our minds distinguishes us from animals. Our minds gives us the capability to ’think’. But besides that what other powers that it posses, that we do not know of.

When I try to think about the human body, I see it as a beautiful machine. A machine that is capable of not only carry out the general tasks dictated by the mind, but at the same time, is able to heal itself too. That is the most wonderful part of it. It takes care of itself. But to an extent, of course. The limits are there, and when we cross those limits, we suffer the consequences.

So we are made of two very important parts, the Mind and the body. I do want to consider the third element, the ’heart’, but the more I think about that, the more I am convinced, that it is a function of Mind too. However, it is pretty interesting that, from time immemorial, heart has always been considered as a separate entity, that also controls our actions and behaviour. For now, I would like to consider ’Heart’ as a sense that can be attributed to a certain part of our brain activity, and thus the ’Mind’.

Coming back to the basic configuration of our ’self’. What is dependent on what? Can we be functional without a body? yes, maybe. And when I say that, I think of those people who are parapelegic ( I hope I got the spellings right!) . They are very much alive and thinking inside their disfunctional body. Dr. Stevens has proved that, he could still achieve a Nobel Prize, while on a support system for his body. I would take this as a proof enough that Mind precedes body. On ther contrary, a body without mind, is almost like live entity, but with no consicous existance.

Lets talk about powers of mind. When I hear about self hypnosis, and the wonders that you can achieve through meditation, I wonder what else is there that we carry on our shoulders, and yet do not make any effort to discover those powers and secrets that we hold. I don’t know if I can state with confidence the truthfulness of the fact that people can actually bend metal objects just by their mind power, but definitely believe that the possibilities are there. While studying physics, I learned that every object has a frequency, and if matched, materials can make or break by simple matching of frequencies. We’ve heard about soldiers breaking their march while crossing bridges, or while tuning a Guitar with a tuning fork. Every object has a frequency. We too have a frequency. Our mind also uses it for hearing senses. It is simply amazing to think about the processing our mind goes through to translate frequencies and light into objects and sounds, and so on. Things that we take for granted, if explained through the science, as we know, can simply be astounding! We cannot even comprehend the amount of information our mind takes in, processes and sends different signals to the body to act or react. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it a fascinating machine? But wait, this machine can think too.....and therefore, it has a mind. I would differentiate a mind with brain, in a way that an animal may have a brain, but not a mind. A mind is more related with consciuosness. Animals act and react with instincts, and we act and react through conscious decisions. Having said that, we too have animal instincts and at times react through our instincts. Can sixth sense be attributed to that? I don’t know. Haven’t thought about that. Our mind assists our brain to make conscious decisions. Does this mean that mind is a separate entity than brain? It may probably be a terminology issue. For arguments sake, lets say mind is different from brain. Brain can be a central and important part of our body as well as animals, not all animals, maybe. But it is mind that differentiates us from the animals.

Here I would like to connect the previous article in which I talked about the question, whether God interferes with our lives or not. As a first step, lets attribute our existance to God. He created us like all other things in this universe, and gave us a unique ability to think. This ability actually gives us the power to make decisions. Decisions are made based on information. So he gave us the ability to gather information, to an extent, where even our genes carry certain data, that, I believe, helps us, or helped us in evolving to a degree of intelligence that we have today. It will get better and better with time, because we are learning more and passing part of that information to our siblings. Our siblings are using their mind power, probably more than we did, and so on. So God has given us the prefect tool. He has given us time too. Millions of years? That is where it gets a bit diffiuclt to percieve. Why did it take millions of years for man to reach where he is today. Why did we learn what we know, only a couple of thousand years ago and developed on it. If the process of evolution was taking place, why did it take so long? Well, now that we are here, where are we heading towards? All these questions are a bit difficult to answer. Someone may have a good logical answer to all this. Yes, Logic. That is another interesting phenomenon. We try to apply logic to every thing, and probably that is how we are trained to think. Lets indulge in logics a little bit. I have a reason to believe that when ever we fail to describe or define anything through logics, we use religion to fill that gap. We have to have a ’faith’ to belive in the un seen. Terms such as Fate, Luck, destiny, more or less have a religious conotation, rather than any logical explanation. These terms are subjective, and are very widely used. Is it our fantasy that leads us to believe in these terms or is it our need?

Science doesn’t want to believe in anything that contradicts reason and logic. On the other hand religion is not dependent on anything. Anything can happen or can conveniently be explained through religion. How convenient it is to stop thinking and finding a reason for any event, if we simply attribute all un explained events to God and religion. God has given us the perfect tool, to do what? I believe to ’Think’ and find our own way through the woods. He has given us the perfect tool, and a great machine, body. He has done his part, and now it is upto us. We have to determine, how do we want to use this gift of his and prevail. If we misuse it, we suffer the consequences, if we make a good use of it, we bear the fruits of it in this life.

Am I contradicting myself? probably, yes. Why contradiction? because if our existance is solely dependent on our ability to use our minds, and be able to reap the benefits or suffer the consequences, then, why is God there, at all? It is again our limitation. We know only so much, and by reasoning, we come to conclusion that yes, God is there, and he has made us, and he has put us on this earth, and like many other heavenly bodies and probably, many earths, we are also part of his domain.

But if we are on our own, then why go through all is religious rigmarole. Why do we need it. Well, as far as my perception is concerned, there are two possibilities. Either we are going to die and we are not going to transition into any other dimension or phase, that is, the ’After Life’, or we are going to transcend into the next phase and continue to live, or become part of the energy, from which we were derived from. A purposeless existance is pretty difficult to understand, and therefore, I would tend to believe that we do have a life after death. What is it like, and how can it be explained? At least I do not have any idea about it. But as much as I have experienced, read, and heard about it, people have experienced the presence of that other dimension. Religion as we know, and I am talking with the understanding of my background of religious beliefs, that is Islamic beliefs, puts a lot of emphasis on ’Good and Evil’, ’Heaven and Hell’, and the day of judgement is pretty neatly tied to these concepts. How much of it is conceptual and how much is actual? I really have a lot of difficulty in comprehending that. However, I have come to my own way of solving these terms. To me ’Evil’ is the absense of ’Goodness’ and is tightly knitted with our conscience. A child, when born, is innocent by birth. As it goes through the process of growth, it acquires all sorts of information and training from its surroundings as it grows. How does it process the information that it collects during that course, merely depends on what kind of environment did it grew in. Learning capability of a child is enhanced during its growing years, and thus the personalilty. So no child is by default ’evil’. But then, there is that gene issue as well. There is some inherent pool of knowlege available for the child to take advantage from, and that, in my opinion, gives it the ability to learn too. Conscience, as we know, becomes the defensive system against the perceived negativity that surrounds the child. It is relative. A child that grows in a society where a certain action is perceived as ’wrong’ will develop an embedded resistance against it. Each time that individual will chose to pick the ’wrong’ element, his consciense is going to raise alarm.

So our consciense also becomes relative. However, there are certain absolutes that every society, no matter where they exist, considers fundamentals of consiencious actions. But having said that, if we consider a pre historic human being, then probably, we may be left with very few fundamentals, that would fall within the instict category. The gene knowledge pool.

Coming back to question of ’Life After Death’. Could it be possible that the only thing that we are going to carry forward is our conscience? However, more questions arise from this presumption. Will we still be able to relate with our life? Or the mind will die with the brain and there will be no memory. The only storage area where we keep our thoughts, is our brain, the physical part. Whereas our mind is the software. Without the hardware, software will not work. So what are we going to take away with us?

Is all this being recorded somewhere else? If it is being ’recorded’ somewhere else, then it does not matter to us? It is more or less like a historic event that is recorded in a book, that can be referred. Who will go back and try to determine, what kind of life did an individual lead? If God is going to carry out the Day of Judgement excercise, then in what form are we going to exist and face the results of actions during our earthly lives. Is the happiness or pain that we get as a result, conceptual? Just like it is in our actual life? Physical pain and feelings are all because of our minds or lets say our physical brains. If a certain part of our brain gets affected or get deseased, we do not feel any pain, and also, because of the same reasons, we can completely be dvoid of any feelings. Its all because of the physical brain. So once we are dead, everything will be left behind with our physical minds?

If these feelings, pains, sufferings, happiness, sorrow, all because of our physical brain. What are we going to carry beyond? The life that we have within our body, is also there when a child is born. How is it different from the time of birth, till the time of death. It is a condition, devoid of any feelings or senses. A body can remain alive, even if the brain is dead.....so life is a condition?

Hope to continue on this topic.