The Advaitist

Chitta or Mind is the first birth of consciousness and is associated with awareness. Chitta is divided into three categories in accordance with their functions - they are intelligence (buddhi), ego (ahamkara) and mind (manas). Buddhi is the seat of intelligence, the intuitive capacity of the individual, his means of direct perception. When manas registers objects, buddhi discriminates, determines and recognizes. Ahamkara is the first manifestation of individual consciousness, personal position, individual identity. It is the Individualized Self that arrogates to itself the experience had by manas and passes it on to buddhi to be determined. Manas is the seat of responsible conscious activity and accounts for the process of rationalization. It works in association with the knowing senses (gYAnendriya-s) and working sense (karmendriya-s), and can perceive but cannot conceive like buddhi. The principle of the indriya-s, tanmAtra-s and bhUta-s are the same as Samkhya and have been discus...

The trio of Mahat, Ahamkara and Manas can be understood with respect to the sleep and waking state of individuals. When an individual wakes up, he near simultaneously has the following sensations: a. consciousness b. self-awareness or I-ness or "I exist" c. self-knowledge or "I exist in relation to something else" Similarly when the Universe moves from its unmanifest state to manifest state: a. it first gains consciousness - mahAtattva b. it gains self-awareness - ahaMkAra c. it gains self-knowledge - manas

Given that the Universe contains abstract sense-powers (indriya-s), corresponding elementary matter (tanmAtra) as well as the medium of inherence (mahAbhUta), how does the Universe know how to discriminate between Subject and Object, and where does this discrimination happen? This requires the presence of a higher level of abstraction known as manas or the Cosmic Mind. This Mental Plane is where the discrimination happen - where the Universe variously assumes the form of object and subject. This leads to another question, how does the Universe know that there is an "I" involved? Where does this "I-ness" come from? This again requires an Individuating Principle, which is known as Ahamkara or the Individuating Plane. How is this "I-ness" caused? How does the Universe know that there should be an "I"? This requires the presence of a Cosmic Intelligence or mahAtattva (Great Principle). Thus Mahat (Intelligence) leads to Ahamkara (I-ness) which lead...