different activities of the mind (vritti sarupyam
itaratra).
So what are these different activities of the
mind? They are, ‘Pramana-viparyaya-vikalpa-
nidra-smrutayaha’.
The modulation of the mind takes five forms,
some are problematic and some are not
problematic. Five modes of consciousness
arise in you, five modes of the mind. You can
call it the mind or consciousness, it is all the
same.
- Pramana: when the mind is engaged in
wanting proof. When someone thinks, “Is
this correct? How do I know this is correct? I
want some proof for it, it is pramana.
There are three types of pramana
• Pratyaksha: seeing for yourself; your
senses tell you. You see the sun setting and
if someone says that the sun never set, you
say, ‘No, I saw it with my own eyes’.
When the senses give you some knowledge
that is pratyaksha pramana.
• Anumana: guessing from past experiences.
If there is some smoke somewhere, you see
only smoke but then you infer that there
is fire, that is why there is smoke. This is
anumana (guessing). If someone is behaving
funny and you think, “Someone must have
told him or her something about me and
that is why he or she are behaving like this”,
it is anumana.
Someone might be very busy and didn’t
smile at you but in your mind you think,
“That person sat with that guy and that guy
said something to this person and that’s
why this person is not talking to me”. This
is anumana.• Agama: from scriptures. There are
many people who quote the scriptures for
everything. Someone quotes the scriptures
and engages in violence, someone quotes
the scriptures and oppresses women or
poor people. In some scriptures it is written
that women are not authorized to do this or
that.The wrong quoting of scriptures is very
common these days. Today, the cause of
terrorism is the quoting of scriptures. Some
people think they are doing God’s job. Isn’t
this pathetic?- Viparyaya: means wrong understanding.
If you see, your life is full of viparyaya. You
think that somebody, someone is thinking
badly about you, but when you go and ask
them, they will say, “What? I have no time
to think about you. I am busy with my own
stuff.’ But, you thought the other person
was thinking something about you. This is
viparyaya.
Many of you have this judgment and so your
mind gets caught up in judgments.- Vikalpa: means such a thing doesn’t
exist at all. It exists only in the mind and
a beautiful example given is the horn of a
rabbit. Have you ever seen a rabbit with a
horn? Or a flower in the sky? No. This
KNOWLEDGE OF THE MONTH