What is mind ?...

D.: What is this mind?

M.: Mind is one form of manifestation of life. A block of wood or a
subtle machine is not called mind. The vital force manifests as life activity
and also as the conscious phenomena known as the mind.

D.: What is the relation between mind and object? Is the mind
contacting something different from it, viz., the world?

M.: The world is sensed in the waking and the dream states or is the
object of perception and thought, both being mental activities.

If
there were no such activities as waking and dreaming thought, there
would be no perception or inference of a world.

In sleep there is
no such activity and objects and world do not exist for us in sleep.

Hence reality of the world may be created by the ego by its act of
emergence from sleep; and that reality may be swallowed up or
disappear by the soul resuming its nature in sleep.

The emergence
and disappearance of the world are like the spider producing a
gossamer web and then withdrawing it.

The spider here underlies all
the three states - waking, dreaming, and sleep; such a spider in the
person is called Atman (Self), whereas the same with reference to
the world (which is considered to issue from the sun) is called
Brahman (Supreme Spirit).

He that is in man is the same as He that
is in the sun. (Sa yaschayam purushe yaschasavaditye sa ekah).

While Self or Spirit is unmanifest and inactive, there are no relative
doubles; e.g., subject and object - drik and drisya.

If the enquiry
into the ultimate cause of manifestation of mind itself is pushed
on, mind will be found to be only the manifestation of the Real
which is otherwise called Atman or Brahman.

The mind is termed
sukshma sarira or subtle-body; and jiva is the individual soul.

The jiva is the essence of the growth of individuality; personality
is referred to as jiva.

Thought or mind is said to be its phase, or
one of the ways in which the jiva manifests itself -

the earlier stage
or phase of such manifestation being vegetative life.

This mind is
always seen as being related to, or acting on, some non-mind or
matter, and never by itself.

Therefore mind and matter co-exist.


From Talks with Ramana Maharshi pp 24-5
talk #25