Mixing of Elements and Evolution

We have now seen, how Sankhya explains the evolution of all the different senses, organs and Prana. Now let us see how the mind evolved. A receptacle was needed in order to store and process the information gathered by the senses. The mind is basically that receptacle that has unbelievable capabilities of analysis, synthesis and judging—it is the sum total of all the senses combined. The senses offer the mind an option of a possible functioning by collecting relevant information. The mind can’t work without sensory data. The information gathered helps us understand what is happening around us. We have already discussed the theory of creation that “Awareness” attempted to re-establish a union with “Consciousness” once it started feeling miserable about their separation. Based on the view that everything happened towards that end, Awareness had to know whether that end would be met. The system that was created with this purpose was the mind. The function of which was to perform the processes of analysis, discrimination and determination. Awareness couldn’t think of anything else, as Awareness was the instrument of knowing itself. The sum total of all the senses together with the analytical faculty is considered as the mind which is subtler than all the senses. Even though mind is also considered as a sense it is very different from the other senses. It has analytical as well as storage capabilities. The mind is doing discriminatory processes to find out good and bad from the collected information. The faculty of the mind to discriminate and determine based on the facts presented before it is called intellect. When it could discriminate between good and bad, right and wrong, there arose the possibility to enjoy and suffer and the instrument formed for the purpose was the ego. The principle of individuation - the Chit - evolved from this. Mind also has the three qualities—Satwa, Rajas and Tamas. Discrimination based on the information on external appearances is always prejudiced by the information which already exists in synthesized but stagnant form in the mind—we call this previous knowledge. The stagnating function of the mind is the Tamasic quality of the mind. As soon as information registers, the mind picks and chooses the relevant details and analyses it. The analytic function of the mind is its active part called Rajasic quality. While doing the analysis the discriminative aspect of the mind makes judgments based on its accepted norms of right and wrong, good and bad. This synthesizing of knowledge is the Satwic quality of the mind. From the Tamasic quality nothing special evolved