“Everything in the material universe about us had its origin first in thought. From this, it took its form. Every castle, every statue, every painting, every piece of mechanism-in short, everything-had its birth, its origin, first in the mind of the one who formed it before it received its material expression or embodiment.
Mind has got various preoccupations. When an artist begins to draw a picture on the canvas, he draws the picture out of the material preconceived by the mind.
After all, the world is merely an idea or thought. Just as a seed begins to germinate at its proper time and place, so also the seer (knower) appears as the visible through the Sankalpa of the mind (the visible being no other than the seer itself). When the mind ceases to think, the world vanishes and there is bliss indescribable. When the mind begins to think, immediately the world reappears and there is suffering.
“Cogito, ergo sum-I think, therefore I am.” This is Descartes’s fundamental basis of philosophy. This is in accordance with Sri Sankara’s statement that the Atman cannot be illusive; for he who would deny it, even in denying it, witnesses its reality.
The universe is rendered visible by mind. But, it is a pity that nobody has seen the mind save a seer. When you seriously and unceasingly think over the nature of the mind, it is nothing. When you begin to analyse mind, it is nothing. It dwindles to airy nothing. It is a bundle of thoughts and the thought ‘I’ is the root of all thoughts. This ‘I’ is a false idea, a non-entity. When the root of all thoughts vanishes into nothing, where is the boasted mind?
The first thought that arose in your mind was ‘Aham’, ‘I’. The last thought or Vritti that will arise in the mind before it is absorbed in Brahman will be Brahmakara Vritti which is produced by your feeling that you are Infinity.”