22: Scribbled Notes — About the Self of Mind, Ātma-Mana
Yogi Aswapati has crossed the Heavens of the Ideal and is climbing into a realm of bare indifferent sky. Here Silence listens to the cosmic Voice but makes not any response to a million calls of the quester. The soul’s endless question remains unanswered. The Yogi is standing alone with the Self of Mind. This is in Book Two Canto Thirteen of Savitri.
He stood on a wide arc of summit Space
Alone with an enormous Self of Mind
Which held all life in a corner of its vasts. ||74.4||
Omnipotent, immobile and aloof,
In the world which sprang from it, it took no part:
It gave no heed to the paeans of victory,
It was indifferent to its own defeats,
It heard the cry of grief and made no sign,
Impartial fell its gaze on evil and good,
It saw destruction come and did not move. ||74.5||
Only a gleam was there of symbol facts
That shroud the mystery lurking in their glow,
And falsehoods based on hidden realities
By which they live until they fall from Time. ||74.23||
Deep peace was there, but not the nameless Force:
Our sweet and mighty Mother was not there
Who gathers to her bosom her children’s lives,
Her clasp that takes the world into her arms
In the fathomless rapture of the Infinite,
The Bliss that is creation’s splendid grain
Or the white passion of God-ecstasy
That laughs in the blaze of the boundless heart of Love. ||74.32||
A greater Spirit than the Self of Mind
Must answer to the questioning of his soul. ||74.33||
Two firmaments of darkness and of light
Opposed their limits to the spirit’s walk;
It moved veiled in from Self’s infinity
In a world of beings and momentary events
Where all must die to live and live to die. ||74.40||
Immortal by renewed mortality,
It wandered in the spiral of its acts
Or ran around the cycles of its thought,
Yet was no more than its original self
And knew no more than when it first began. ||74.41||
To be was a prison, extinction the escape. ||74.42||
This Self of Mind is known to the Indian spirituality which can be called Ātma-Mana. Advaita Vedanta considers the two — Ātma and Mana — fundamentally different from each other. The Self is the pure Witness (Sākshi), and the Mind a part of the subtle body, a “covering” over the soul. Ātman the true Self is the unchanging, eternal essence of an individual. Mana is a process of thinking, perceiving, feeling, and remembering. The mind is “instrumental,” whereas the Self is the observer. Ramana Maharshi explains that there is no fundamental difference between the mind and the Self; the mind turned inward is the Self, while the mind turned outward becomes the ego and the world. The process of enquiring “Who am I?” turns the mind back to its source, the Self. It represents the cognitive aspect of the individual where mental processes occur, but it is distinct from the pure, non-cognitive, and absolute essence of the true Self. How to Realize the Self ? The Vedanta answers that the individual must distinguish the true Self from the body-mind complex, recognising that the “I” is not temporary thoughts, emotions, or memories. When the mind is still and turned inward (antarmukha), the Self shines, and the ego ceases to operate.
In Savitri the two following lines
A greater Spirit than the Self of Mind
Must answer to the questioning of his soul
say that to find real answers to life’s deepest yearnings, a person must evolve beyond the thinking mind and connect with a higher spiritual reality. The mind can ask the question, but only the Spirit can provide the living answer. Is this Self of Mind the Witness Purusha who watches the works of Nature, Apara Prakrit, but does not participate in them?
While the two are related, there is a crucial distinction between the mind as an instrument and the “Witness” who stands behind it.
The Witness Purusha (Sākshi) is the true inner being that has separated itself from the mental activity. When it is said that a “Greater Spirit” must answer the soul, it is saying that Aswapati must go beyond the “Self of Mind” (the involved intellect) to find the Witness Purusha or the even higher Divine Consciousness. To solve the soul’s questions, one must stop “thinking” and start “being” the Witness.
In Sankhya philosophy the concepts of Witness Being (Sākshi) and the Giver of Sanctions (Anumantā) are used to define the unique role of Purusha (pure consciousness) in relation to Prakriti (active nature). While Sankhya establishes these roles, it emphasizes that they remain fundamentally passive to maintain the total distinction between the conscious self and the mechanical material world.
The term Sākshi translates as “witness” or “observer”.
AI tells in the Sankhya system:
Passive Observation: Purusha is the drashtā (seer) that observes the activities of Prakriti without participating in them.
Reflection of Activity: Just as a mirror reflects a scene without being changed by it, Purusha reflects the modifications of the mind and body.
Presence as Activation: Though Purusha does nothing, its mere presence (proximity) is what disturbs the equilibrium of Prakriti’s three gunas (Sattva, Rajas, Tamas), initiating the evolution of the universe.
The Anumantā or “sanction-giver” role represents the passive consent that allows Nature to act:
Passive Consent: So long as the Purusha “sanctions” or consents to look at Prakriti’s play, the evolution and experience of the material world continue.
The Power of Withdrawal: Liberation (Kaivalya) is achieved when the Purusha withdraws its sanction. Once this passive consent is removed, the gunas return to a state of equilibrium, and the individual soul is freed from the cycle of birth and death.
Mastery Through Detachment: By shifting back into the witness mode, a seeker can learn to provide or withdraw sanction consciously, eventually gaining mastery over the mechanical forces of nature within themselves.
It is important to note that while classical Sankhya views these roles as strictly passive, the Bhagavad Gita integrates them into a more active framework. In the Gita, the Purusha (as Ishwara or the Lord) is not just a passive witness but also the bhartā (upholder) and jñātā (knower) who actively governs Nature’s withdrawal and action.
Before the entry into the Self of Mind Aswapati had this in the Heavens of the Ideal:
Onward he passed to a diviner sphere:
There, joined in a common greatness, light and bliss,
All high and beautiful and desirable powers
Forgetting their difference and their separate reign
Become a single multitudinous whole. ||73.41||
Above the parting of the roads of Time,
Above the Silence and its thousandfold Word,
In the immutable and inviolate Truth
For ever united and inseparable,
The radiant children of Eternity dwell
On the wide spirit height where all are one. ||73.42||
And then is he led by a “mysterious sound” into the World-Soul, Swayamprabhā in the luminous sense and not a magical cave of the Dānavas, but representing the “good” archetype:
As if a beckoning finger of secrecy
Outstretched into a crystal mood of air,
Pointing at him from some near hidden depth,
As if a message from the world’s deep soul,
An intimation of a lurking joy
That flowed out from a cup of brooding bliss,
There shimmered stealing out into the Mind
A mute and quivering ecstasy of light,
A passion and delicacy of roseate fire. ||75.5||
He rises out of the sphere of Mind and steps into the Kingdom of Greater Knowledge, with the Supramental now in his very physical, that which started with the Golden Light in it, “His brain was wrapped with in overwhelming Light”:
Above the Witness and his universe
He stood in a realm of boundless silences
Awaiting the Voice that spoke and built the worlds. ||78.3||
A light was round him wide and absolute,
A diamond purity of eternal sight;
A consciousness lay still, devoid of forms,
Free, wordless, uncoerced by sign or rule,
For ever content with only being and bliss;
A sheer existence lived in its own peace
On the single spirit’s bare and infinite ground. ||78.4||
Book 2 Canto 13 – In the Self of Mind
He stood on a wide arc of summit Space
Alone with an enormous Self of Mind
Which held all life in a corner of its vasts. ||74.4||
He stood| on a| wide arc| of sum|+mit Space|
A+lone| with an| e+nor|+mous Self |of Mind|
Which held| all life| in a cor|+ner of| its vasts.|
The featured image is a painting by HUta. Here is the Sketch for it drawn by the Mother
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