The Source and Nature of the Mental Substance

How does Mind evolve out of Matter? Some scientists will tell you that through random chance, chemicals and electrical forces and heat led to the development of beings capable of reflecting, thinking and contemplating deep thoughts, exploring the nature of life and the universe, etc. They do not explain how and in what manner the random elements they say are combining randomly actually arose, and how everything fits together in an interlocking, inter-related reality that includes both mathematical precision and inter-dependence to the highest degree.

Thoughtful sages, as well as visionaries and mystics who have experienced various states of consciousness, have a different view. They indicate that Mind must have been ‘involved’ in Matter in order for it to evolve and develop. This implies an independent existence of Mind, a “mind-world”, if you will, that has its own reality, its own method of operations unbounded by its connection here to Matter and Life in our world.

We see in the Taittiriya Upanishad the seeker determining that there is a mind-sheath or plane that is more subtle, and more causative than those of the life-sheath or matter-sheath. The Tibetan Book of the Dead describes the dissolution of the individuality with the death of the body. The life-force departs and after some time of independent existence, it dissolves back into the life-plane. The mind-element departs and after some time of its own independent existence, it too dissolves into the basic elements of the mind-plane. The yoga sutras of Patanjali refer to the ‘mind stuff’ that acts as the substrate into which thoughts arise when the vibrational force interacts with that mind-stuff. Quieting the mind-stuff leads to new powers of understanding and vision.

We tend to treat the brain as some kind of ‘machinery of thought’. We see the thoughts being ‘manufactured’ in the brain. But deeper review shows us that actually the brain is more of a receiver of thought-forms and vibrations that exist on their own in the world and rise up in an individual who is tuned to that channel and receptive to the thought form. This helps explain how multiple individuals can experience the same thought at the same time without sharing any form of language in order to do so.

Great scientists and creative geniuses also weigh in on the fact that the ‘machinery of thought’ is not actually the source of their insights or creativity. Albert Einstein stated “I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.” He continues: “The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, the solution comes to yoou and you don’t know how or why.” Nicola Tesla had similar insights as to how he obtained his brilliant insights into the nature of energy and its interaction with the material world.

The Mother observes: “… people usually think that mind is just a mode of activity, whereas there is a mental substance as there is a vital substance and physical substance. And as there is a substance, there is a corresponding world with an autonomous existence, that is to say, there can be a mind without any physical support. The physical body may disappear and the mind can continue to exist. It is here that it is important to understand that there is a mental substance which, obviously, is much more… (silence) how to put it?… immaterial than physical matter.”

“Some people use a rather unclassical word, ‘rarefied’, but I don’t think it has exactly this sense. Well, you see, we say that substance has different densities, and the more material it becomes, the denser it is, the farther it moves away from matter, the less dense it is. But it is a substance all the same. There is even an etheric substance. I don’t say that this conforms with scientific theories; I don’t guarantee that I am not talking scientific heresies! But this is a cosmic fact. (Mother laughs.) It is exactly — I think I said this when I spoke about occultism — I said the first thing one must know before being able to practice occultism is that the different states of being have a different density, and they have an individual independent existence of their own, that they are existing realities, that they are truly real substances, that it is not just a way of being. There can be a mental being and mental activity and, for instance, a thought that is completely independent of the brain, whereas the materialistic theories say that it is the brain which creates mental activity. But this is not correct. The brain is the material transcription of the mental activity, and mental activity has its own domain; the mental domain has its reality, its own substance. One can think outside one’s brain, think, act, make formations outside one’s brain. One can even live, move, go from one place to another, have a direct knowledge of mental things in the mental world, in a word, absolutely independent of a body which, indeed, can be in a state of complete inertia, not only asleep but also in a cataleptic state. And moreover, it is quite certain that so long as one has not understood that one is made up of different states of being which have their own independent life, one can’t have a complete control over one’s being. There will always be something that escapes you.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Our Many Selves: Practical Yogic Psychology, Chapter 2, Planes and Parts of the Being, pp. 38-40