Dissolving the Mind into No Mind

Mind, awareness, energy and Self

When all merge and dissolve

Shiva manifests 

Shiva consciousness, consciousness at the highest level of awareness is a product of dissolution of the

mind. As long as we are in the mind, caught by the mind, subject to its vagaries, there is very little

awareness of who we are. Our mind controls us rather than we controlling the mind.

Vedic psychology classifies mind in four parts: senses, memory, ego identity and higher intelligence.

Our senses are our external antennae connecting us to the world at large. Whatever impressions are

received are registered in memory. These sensory preceptors are located on the periphery of our brain

as visual, audio, tactile, odor and savor sensors.

Senses convey what is collected as impressions to the storage space of memory. This space is

analogous to the hippocampus of the brain. Parts of what is collected may get pushed down from an

easily accessible conscious memory space into deeper subconscious and unconscious spaces. This

can happen either because of the volume of impressions, since our sense 50 billions of data bytes every

second, is consciously aware of possibly 250 bytes. The storage space in conscious memory may be

limited to 100 terabytes through the 100 billion neurons. Generally, information that the brain considers

either irrelevant or unsafe get dropped down deep into the unconscious. Though hidden, traumatic

painful memories do tend to affect behavior.

Memories are filtered and conditioned by the ego. In NLP terms ego generalizes, distorts and deletes

information received by our sensors. Memories conditioned by our ego are our perceptions, which

determine how we think, feel and act. Ego formation starts very early in life, initially influenced mostly

by caregivers and over time by other influences such as teachers, peers and other contacts. Ego space

is analogous to the limbic brain and the hypothalamus, which differentiates mammals from reptiles.

Qualities of nurturing, and of aggression as well, stem from this space.

Higher Intelligence is the cognitive part of the brain, which includes discriminative determination of right

and wrong, analogous to Freudian super ego as well as the frontal cortex of the brain. It is known that in
extreme cases on emotion, amygdala, situated near the hypothalamus, enlarges to disconnect the

emotional part of the brain from the cognitive, allowing emotions to take control of the HPA axis of

hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenalin, leading to instinctive fight flight behavior.

Vedic concepts of body sheaths and layers, such as kosha and sareera, as well as energy centers of

chakra, explain how the mind body energy system works. Body sheaths are very similar to the models

of Maslow’s Need Hierarchy and Graves’ Spiral Dynamics, merely came 5000 years earlier, in

representing evolution of consciousness. The sheaths and layers are about movement from the gross

body to subtle, emotional, higher intelligence and blissful states. Chakras connote both the energy state

movement as well emotional state movement from greed, fear, anxiety, invalidation, inferiority, control

and discontent to fulfillment in all these areas.

Our breath energy, Prana, is considered both a point of focus and a vehicle of movement through

meditative practices. Breath energy, both in Tantra and Yoga is the vehicle that sustains the mind body,

which when managed appropriately leads us to the non-dual state of awareness. When the multiple

dualities of these attributes of mind and body merge and dissolve into the infinite Self, atman, we truly

become aware. At each level of body, mind, breath energy, emotional energy, and thought energy, we

need to create the awareness that their functions are creations of the Self. While the Self itself is

unchanging, the duality energy of illusion, Maya, causes changes in perception to allow us to cope with

worldly realities. Maya has a genuine function. Without Maya we cannot exist. However, we can become

aware that we are affected by Maya and keep checking with awareness how we interact with the world

and disengage constantly.

The disengagement is needed because nothing in this world is permanent. We all perish. Every single

thing around us changes and eventually perishes. So, why get engaged?

One of the most powerful paths to disengagement from and dissolution of the mind is Ramana

Maharishi’s Self Inquiry process. Constantly keep inquiring as to where from thought, emotions and

actions arise. If it is the senses, what is behind the senses? If the mind is behind the senses what is

behind the mind? If energy behind the mind, what is that energy? What operates that energy? There is

no answer to this from another person. The answer needs to come from within you. Your Self, atman, is

a holographic piece of the eternal truth of the Universe, Brahman, and yet different from all other

creations of the same Brahman. This is the source of the duality and also its answer and solution.
The four states of awareness in Mandukya Upanishad provide a template of differences between

multiple states of consciousness and what the dissolved state of mind represents. There are other

meditative pathways such as vipassana, yoga nidra etc that can help lead into the dissolution of the

mind.

I am closing my commentaries on Vigyana Bhairava Tantra with this last technique, dharana, very

appropriate. What is left once mind is dissolved?

Mine is a very limited offering, often incomplete. The sources I refer to, from Osho, to Laxman Joo and

Satyasanagananda Saraswati, have been sources of great knowledge. Errors in transmission are mine

alone. The purpose of this commentary is to demystify Shiva. The tools he offers in Vigyana Bhairava

Tantra allow us to glimpse his wisdom. I bow down to his divine wisdom.

The graphic of Krishna with Shiva to close is deliberate. They are not different. They are the same

consciousness. Shiva consciousness is Krishna consciousness. Those who treat them as separate

entities fall into the intellectual trap of duality. They need to evolve into non-dual advaithic awareness

and consciousness to help dissolve the mind.