English
Deutsch
Italiano
Português
Español
简体中文The Mind’s Aspects, Projections and Facets
A Short Review
Man jeetai jag jeet
By conquering your mind, you can conquer the world.
– Guru Nanak, Siri Guru Granth Sahib
Whereas the book The Mind: Its Projections and Multiple Facets brings a collection of eleven lectures from Yogi Bhajan and explores a complete approach, study, and psychology of the mind for human excellence, this deck of cards and complimentary booklet intend to share a short summary of the main concepts about the mind.
The main idea behind Yogi Bhajan’s teachings on the mind’s Facets, Projections and Aspects comes from Guru Nanak’s verse Man jeetai jag jeet, present in the Siri Guru Granth Sahib, which means that whoever controls their mind controls the entire psyche of the universe. In other words, the mind exists as a servant to our soul. When the mind is aligned with the soul, each thought that is stimulated by the intellect to manifest into life is perceived and acted on with clarity and reality.
But first, before you’re able to refine your mind, you need to understand the many elements that influence it and that it is composed of. For instance, we don’t have one mind but three personal minds—the negative, positive, and neutral. And whereas we grasp these three dimensions, or mental bodies, in ourselves, we may also look at Chitta, the Universal Mind, for a better understanding of the science of the mind.
Think of this Universal Mind as a vast ocean, full of waves and vortexes, that stores the impact of every action and thought. Chitta is divided into three major functions that reflect the three gunas, or what is called as Impersonal Minds: Manas, Ahangkar and Buddhi. From the Cosmic Law of Manifestation and Being point of view, these three Impersonal Minds result from the three gunas, tamas, rajas, and sattva, which compose and govern Prakriti (nature). Sattva is subtle, sublime, clear, neutral, and pure. Tamas is heavy, contaminated, confused, concealed, and slow. Rajas is fiery, active, initiating, and has the power of transformation.
Each of the gunas reflects their quality in each of the Impersonal minds. Tamas, for instance, reflects in Manas, which is the lower mind, the sensory mind. Manas stores the images, sounds, feelings, and smells of all the senses and their combinations in reactive and creative sequences. It also includes subconscious reactions, mental entanglements, and commotions. This represents the heavenly activity of the coexistence of totality within the finite.
Ahangkar, which is the part of the mind that gives identity through attachment and boundaries, reflects the qualities of the guna rajas and gives the sense of ego, of boundary, of containment. It represents the heavenly activity of the coexistence of “totality within a vacuum,” for at this point it is unmanifested. The sattva guna is reflected in the Buddhi part of the mind. Buddhi perceives reality, discerns what is real from unreal, assesses neutrally, and makes judgments from the perspective of your infinite identity. It represents heavenly phenomena in the activity of totality as totality.
The soul passes through gradual stages from the unmanifested consciousness to gross manifestation. It finally connects to the densest condensations of those stages—the five last tattvas: ether, air, fire, water, and earth. It is these gross qualities that we can perceive in the qualities of earthly existence. The tattvas give a condition to the mind, and the mind can balance the tattvas. It is a back and forth relationship. These five tattvas give qualities to the manifestation of the mind in our senses, actions, and perceptions.
Now imagine the soul giving a radiant impulse to the mind to have Manas, Ahangkar, and Buddhi activate the intellect to produce a thought. When that thought is released through the intellect, which is part of the mind, it produces feelings, which produce emotions, which then result in desires, which lead to action. This sequence of manifestation is universal.
The intellect is always releasing thoughts. At the same time, the soul has a presence that induces the mind to serve it by releasing thoughts aligned with its intention. However, the mind has biases, attachments, and blends of actions and reactions in the subconscious gathered through experience. When the thought is released, the mind cloaks it with the 81 Facets which are a complex blend of Manas, Ahangkar, and Buddhi, with the Positive, Negative, and Neutral Minds. All your reactions and habits recorded in the subconscious are added to that thought.
Facets of our mind regulate the reactions of the personality, body, and mind to each thought. If the 81 Facets can be controlled so that the mind perceives each thought clearly, then the mind can align with the intention of the soul. The result is effectiveness, inner and outer peace, and awakened intuition.
The other place where will is effective is exactly at the release point of intellect into thought. This is the same place that the Facets of the mind automatically apply themselves. If will is applied at that level, the mind is trained to surrender the cloud around the thought and to bring the color around the thought to clarity or to white so that it can be perceived as it is. When we are not clear and conscious at the release of a thought, we are not conscious of the impact and consequences of that thought.
If we can understand how our personal reactions and feelings create the 81 Facets that cloak our thoughts, then we can find ways to identify our personal patterns of emotions and habits. Then we can use appropriate meditations to strengthen, refine, or balance the parts of the mind that underlie the behaviors we want to change. The key to this is how the three Functional Minds, Negative, Positive, and Neutral, interact with each other and with the three Impersonal Minds, Buddhi, Ahangkar, and Manas. This interaction generates the mind’s Aspects, Projections, and Facets.
May you find these meditations a guiding tool in your journey to serving your soul by conquering your mind and refining its aspects, projections, and facets.