I know that’s
a “That's a non-answer.” I said so because we can only make
an attempt on answer. We saw universe can cause itself endlessly. And at some
point something immaterial has to start its operation! It is interesting to see
some trying to explain consciousness in terms of the neural network of the
brain, which may remind us about studying a radio but being unaware the power
source, the battery, and coming to the conclusion that the wires generate the
current which makes them function. Or It is like looking at the way the horse occasionally behave independently or disobediently, or stop, and ignoring the
rider who is in control most of the time!
It seems
many things about the mind/consciousness will remain as a mystery! For mind is
not meant to know its own make-up, it is a subject, and all other things—including
the brain which are obviously the object of study by the mind! From where does
the ingenuity of Mind come? Why it thinks the way it does, especially in terms
of time and space? For example we have a sense of past and future! When I remember something, I
explicitly reach out of the present to something that is explicitly past. In
the same way weighing the matters carefully and wisely, I can calculate certain
things into the future! Strictly speaking, the sense of the past cannot exist
in a physical system. This is consistent with the fact that the physics of time
does not allow for tenses: Einstein called the distinction between past,
present and future a “stubbornly persistent illusion”.
At what
point immaterial entity comes into picture to make ‘inert and sterile bubble with life and the
properties” may not be fully understand now. That is
understandable. Yet, how far do we know what really happens within our own
minds. Suppose you went to a shop in a commercial street in the evening, and
are having a dream of it later in the night. And in the dream, you correctly
read the name board of the shop you visited yesterday. However, name boards of
the nearby shop you see in your dream may not match with reality! This means
mind simply recalled what it could and completed the picture with imaginary
details (which obviously means that mind is engaged in some creation work). Not
only in dream, even in real life mind acts in the same manner. Try to remember
a big gathering you attended in the past, and your mind would supply both truth
and fabricated information—picture of some people around you in the gathering will
be correct and others will be mind’s creation. Then there is another
interesting situation. Someone passed a harmful gossip about another, and I
passed it to another. Now unlike we always do, pause for a moment and ask “Why
did I do that?” and listen for the answer. If you put your mind into real
silence, it will tell you: “You passed that harmful information about Mr X
because he did not support your ego sometime back.” From where did come this
godly answer? Not from the mind which joyfully prompted you to pass the gossip
in the first place. But it came from an immaterial part within me which resembles
the Supreme Soul without.
