Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Role of the Mind in the Search for Ultimate Truth

Transcript

The Role of the Mind in the Search for Ultimate Truth · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  As mental beings, we tend to believe that the mind is able to
• 0:05
  determine the truth of things. We soon learn, however, that
• 0:09
  there are many issues that prevent the mind from actually
• 0:12
  ascertaining truth in any ultimate form.
• 0:16
  We rely on the perceptions of our senses, but those senses can
• 0:20
  be misled. Witness the deep fakes we find
• 0:24
  nowadays on the Internet and the photoshopped images.
• 0:29
  We may believe they are true representations, but if we
• 0:33
  examine more closely, we find that they are not only fictional
• 0:37
  but intentionally misleading. There's an old proverb that says
• 0:42
  one should believe only half of what one sees and nothing of
• 0:45
  what one hears. That proverb is, however, long
• 0:49
  outdated. Nowadays we find that we have to
• 0:53
  constantly question what we experience with our senses.
• 0:58
  It is not, however, just misleading data provided to the
• 1:01
  senses, but limited and narrowly framed data that also creates
• 1:07
  false impressions for us. The mind does not generally
• 1:11
  perceive the entirety of the situation, facts, circumstances,
• 1:16
  backgrounds, and direction of the energy, and thus will tend
• 1:21
  to reach inaccurate and skewed conclusions about what is taking
• 1:25
  place. We are also subject to flawed
• 1:28
  reasoning from the observations we make.
• 1:31
  We may leap to conclusions, or we may use a line of reasoning
• 1:36
  that embodies one of the known logic flaws that philosophers
• 1:39
  have identified. Srioro Bindo in The Life Divine
• 1:45
  enumerates the sevenfold ignorance, which identifies not
• 1:49
  just these noted weaknesses in our intellectual process, but
• 1:54
  others as well, including our temporal ignorance where we do
• 1:59
  not take into account the process of time.
• 2:03
  We may conclude from such an analysis that the mind is doomed
• 2:07
  to be a flawed and misleading instrument and thus not able to
• 2:11
  perceive truth. However, we also find that we
• 2:16
  aspire for truth. We seek for truth, and many of
• 2:20
  the flaws we have identified in our perception and in our
• 2:23
  processes of reasoning are the result of our very seeking for
• 2:28
  truth in what we experience. Human beings are not content
• 2:32
  with falsehood, and once they discover it, they seek for ways
• 2:37
  to overcome its influence. It is this aspiration for truth
• 2:42
  that allows the mind to eventually tune itself to a
• 2:46
  higher level of consciousness which cures the very flaws that
• 2:50
  are embedded in the mental domain.
• 2:53
  It can become receptive to truth.
• 2:56
  The lectures on Raji Yoga by Swami Vivekananda describe the
• 3:01
  need for the mind stuff to become still in order to be able
• 3:05
  to reflect the deeper truth of our existence.
• 3:10
  Trior Ovindo describes the silent mind as a receptacle that
• 3:14
  can perceive and express a higher consciousness that is
• 3:18
  based on knowledge by identity, which is the basis of perceiving
• 3:23
  truth. All other forms of knowledge
• 3:26
  described at length in the Life Divine have their limitations
• 3:30
  and flaws. It is only knowledge by identity
• 3:34
  that gives us a true understanding, and it is
• 3:37
  possible that the mind, in its aspiration and seeking for
• 3:42
  something true and real, is an instrument that is intended to
• 3:46
  lead us to the edge of the next stage of conscious evolution.
• 3:52
  Rio Robindo observes quote. Mind has a power also for truth.
• 3:58
  It opens its thought chamber to vidya as well as to avidya.
• 4:03
  And if its starting point is ignorance, if its passage is
• 4:07
  through crooked ways of error, still its goal is always
• 4:12
  knowledge. There is in it an impulse of
• 4:15
  truth seeking, a power, even though secondary and limited, of
• 4:20
  truth finding and truth creation.
• 4:24
  Even if it is only images or representations or abstract
• 4:28
  expressions of truth that it can show us.
• 4:31
  Still, these are in their own manner truth reflections or
• 4:34
  truth formations, and the realities of which they are
• 4:38
  forms are present in their more concrete truth in some deeper
• 4:42
  depth or on some higher level of power of our consciousness.
• 4:49
  End Quote. Reference Srioro Bindo and the
• 4:53
  Mother Powers within, Chapter 18, Mind, page 140.