What Is the Essence of Mind?

[Steppingfeet]

Ah, so much in this thread that is quotable! GREAT discussion.

I've heard the idea repeated in my studies that goes something like, "Reality is only as real as the seeker". This idea ties into the discussion happening regarding the nature of the mind, I think. I hope. Below are statements to this end from Ramana Maharshi. Though no longer in incarnation, a living embodiment of the Law of One as far as I'm concerned.

Ramana Maharshi: The sight is from the eye. If you are seeing with gross eyes, you find others gross. If with subtle eyes others appear subtle. If the eyes becomes the Self, the Self being infinite, the eye is infinite.

Ramana Maharshi: Are the objects different from you? There can be no objects without a subject.

Ramana Maharshi: The other worlds require the Self as a spectator or speculator. Their reality is only of the same degrees as that of the spectator or thinker. They cannot exist without the spectator, etc., Therefore, they are not different from the Self. Even the ignorant mans sees only the Self when he sees objects, But he is confused and identifies the Self with the object, i.e., the body and the senses, and plays in the world. Subject and object - all merge in the Self. There is no seer nor objects seen. The seer and the seen are the Self. There are not many selves, either. All are only one Self.

Ramana Maharshi: The state of the object is according to the state of the seer.

Ramana Maharshi: All facts are only as true as the seeker.

Why is this relevant?

If we, from our seemingly limited standpoint, assume that the nature of all things is unbroken unity/infinity. Right here, right now. In our daily lives, in our interactions through this forum. One and one only.

Then what makes it appear otherwise to us?

One of my basic answers is the mind. I see the mind as a diversifying, differentiating mechanism, reflecting experience through the prism of time, of space, and of whatever other personal collection of thoughts and experiences have further diversified and differentiated the one into illusory, separate components. (Including as Ra said, thoughts, emotions, intuition, and various layers of group mind until reaching the cosmic mind.)

Mind is not the Original, undifferentiated, unmanifest light, but reflects that light into innumerable fragmentary pieces.

In that sense, everything in creation is Mind. (Or mind/body.) Our individual minds are reflecting from other mind-reflections, whether it is the mind reflection of a rock, or the complexity of the mind-reflections of an other-self.

This is why I speculate that Ra said, "The mind contains all things".
5.2


Mind - whether personal or collective or cosmic - is the mechanism creating all things by way of reflecting the "world" and the individual "self" and individual other "selves" and time and space themselves into existence. Thus it "contains" all that there is.

This is why Ra I believe recommends the balancing exercises in order to help the student grasp the dual-nature of mind. If the student experiences one half of the balance in their daily ongoings, the balancing exercises help the student to perceive that the mind already "contains" the other half in latency. Thus transcendence of duality is achieved.

And this is why I believe Ra speaks to the virtue of concentration as a prerequisite to work with spirit. In order to sink into and abide within the original, self-luminous, self-emanating light, it is necessary to put the brakes on the diversifying mechanism (i.e., the mind) with its many, many mirrors of reflected light.

This brings the countless fragmented reflections to a standstill; to - as the eastern metaphor goes - a serene, unmoving body of water. In gazing upon this unmoving body of water, ONE reflection is made -- that of the infinite, form-less, bound-less, self-radiant Self.

PS: Everything you all contribute to the forums blows my mind. : )