Mind Matters

How you deal with people, how you interact with them, how you respond or react, all depends on how you see your mind. So perception, observation and expression are all reflections of the mind.

- Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

It is the presence of consciousness that makes the (fetus in the) womb grow. When a child is born, it is the presence of consciousness that is essential for all the activities and growth. Again, it is the consciousness, which helps in growth, in the repair of the body, maintenance and in creativity and learning. It is the mind, which is the instrument of learning. The mind or consciousness functions in four aspects:

One is perception. The first action of the mind is perceiving through ears, eyes nose; through all the five senses. 

The second function having perceived is identification. That aspect which identifies and recognizes is the intellect. When the eyes look at a flower, the mind says, ‘Oh! 

This is a lotus.’ This recognizing of what it is and understanding the words spoken, is the second function of consciousness and that is the intellect.

The third is Memory, storing what it has learned, what it has perceived from all the five senses. It stores all that in the consciousness. They usually say we store things in our brain. No doubt, but the brain is an instrument that reflects the consciousness. But, more than the brain, the memory is stored in the consciousness. That’s why the whole body has memory, not just the brain. It was an old thought in the sixties and the seventies when psychologists thought that the memory was stored in the brain. But today, we know that it is stored in our DNA. And the DNA is connected with our consciousness. It is a lotus, it is pink, I know it and I have seen it; this is Memory.