[Advaita-l] Reconciling current research with Advaitic theory of mind

[Praveen]

praNAms all,

>>Maheshji wrote:... It is important since split-brain persons do not
have multiple personalities like schizophrenics....

praveen: I was just about to bring out this comparison. I feel that
the condition is quite similar, even if not at the same gravity. In
short, split-brain seems to be one way of creating multiple/ dual
personalities (upto an extent).

Nonetheless, the consciousness that comes with a feeling of I in
advaita is not the same that comes with the scientific understanding
of I. What I grasp from Tripura Rahasya is that the consciousness
itself is split, so to say, into a still part of the mind and the
moving part. The moving mind is what is termed as the mind, in
general, and the still mind remains as the consciousness! The
awareness of the object is objectification of this moving mind through
the senses, ergo, resulting in consciousness of the object, or many
objects simultaneously, as the case usually is. I'll try to say this
in other words towards the end of the mail.

Some other points that I'd like to bring up here are that a *similar*
feeling of consciousness being split and a different existence felt
when one recalls on waking up that he dreamt something, but doesn't
know what! Wasn't the brain and thence the mind split then too? IMHO,
multiplicity is a very common feature of all (human) existence, moslty
caused by thoughts; these thoughts make up the mind. Any sadhaka will
find this very feature to be the most difficult hurdle (and the only
one, perhaps) in one's sadhana!

Finally, what I want to say, putting all of this together, is that
humans have something called as *I know* that is akin to the feeling
in all sentient beings. *But*, humans seem to *know that they know*.
Thats a recursive behavior ad infinitum! That makes it impossible for
one to conclusively say that the consciousness is tapped through brain
waves or understood any which way. The very act of scientifically
studying (or witnessing meditatively) the consciousness is creating
duality of mind and witnessing one with the other!

So what is studied can *never* be the consciousness; it has got to be
something other than that! (not mixing sarvam khalvidam brahma)
Atmost, what Maheshji pointed out from the article "They can tell, for
instance, whether a person is thinking about a face or a place or
whether a picture the person is looking at is of a bottle or a shoe."
could be is the *result of* moving (part of) mind, not moving (part
of) mind itself, and definitely not still (part of) mind, that makes
up the consciousness.

Rgds,
--praveen