The document discusses the Vedantic concept of Chidabhasa, or the appearance of consciousness, to explain why subjective experience occurs in living beings but not in lifeless matter. It proposes that a universal consciousness manifests itself in various forms throughout the universe, appearing in the minds of living beings. The mind is part of nature and not inherently conscious. Vedanta uses an analogy of the sun's reflection in water to illustrate how universal consciousness appears in individual living beings through their minds, similar to the sun's reflection. It further explores Vedantic ideas of the relationships between universal consciousness, the individual soul, mind, and body. Key points are that universal consciousness pervades all, the soul draws the mind and senses

1. W E DN E S DA Y , A PR IL 8, 2 0 1 5
Chidabhasa -appearance of consciousness in living beings
One of the hard problems of modern consciousness research is to
scientifically explain why subjective experience occurs in living beings
but not in lifeless matter (including the very intelligent computers of
today). The ancient Indian philosophy, Vedanta solves this problem by
proposing a phenomenon called Chidabhasa which means “appearance of
consciousness”. According to Vedanta, a non-dual (one and only one)
Universal Consciousness manifests itself in various forms in the universe
(which has both living and lifeless beings) and the mind of living beings is
also part of the insentient Nature and hence the mind is not conscious. If
so, how and why do we have so much of conscious experience in our
lives?
Vedanta explains the answer using the following analogy: When sun light
falls in a pot containing water, the light is reflected by the water
creating an image of the sun. The image has some brightness but its
origin is in the sun light and not in the pot nor in the water. If the pot is
broken, water is scattered, the reflection is gone but the sun and his rays
are all still there. In this analogy, a living being is a body with a mind and
similar to a pot containing water; the mind is like water and the body is
like the pot. The consciousness appearing in a living being is like the
image of the sun in water. If there are more than one pot with water,
images of the sun appear in all the different pots. The Supreme knower,
the Ultimate Consciousness who manifests Himself as consciousness of
each individual living being is like the sun light; sun light is just one but
the reflections are many and distinct. Just as there is no reflection in an
empty pot, there is no appearance of consciousness in lifeless matter but

2. only in living beings because they have minds. Just as the water needs a
pot to hold it, and the reflection is gone if the pot is broken, the mind
cannot exhibit the apparently conscious behavior after the death of the
physical body.
Consciousness, mind, and body relations in Vedanta
 There exists Universal Consciousness which is omnipresent,omniscient, and
omnipotent.
 Every living being is associated with its own soul (Jiva) which is a part of
that infinite Consciousness, who draws to itself the senses and the mind that
are part of Nature (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 15, verse 7). Being part of the
eternal Consciousness, the soul is eternal also and survives the death of the
physical body.
 The Self (Atma) is Consciousness seated in the hearts of all beings
(Bhagavad Gita chapter 10, verse 20). Kenopanishad (Swami, 1920) says
that the mind and senses are able to perform their respective functions willed
and initiated by Consciousness and without It, the senses and the mind
cannot function.
 The mind consists of ego (ahankara), ability to think (manas),desires,
aversion, emotions, experiences, etc. (chitta), and intellect (buddhi) which
includes the ability to make decisions based on memory. The five elements
are the earth, water, fire, air and the sky. The five senses are hearing,
touching, seeing, tasting and smelling; objects of the senses are sound,
touch, form and color, taste and smell.
 Bhagavadgita describes the distinctions between the bodymind complex and
the one who ‘knows’ them (shetrajna). The Field (shetra) consists of the
body, the senses and sense objects, the body's environment (Nature), and the
mind.
 All contents of the Field, namely, the body, its environment, and the mind
are said to be insentient (Bhagavad Gita, 7:4).
 The knower of the Field (shetrajna) is Consciousness Himself and His
infinitesimal projection, jiva who assumed this function within this body.
 As to the interaction of the bodyand the mind, in the chapter called Karma
Yoga, Gita says that the senses influence the body,
and manasand chitta influence the senses; buddhiinfluences
the manasand chitta, and jivainfluences buddhi, which is in its turn,
influenced by jiva.

3. Living being-computer analogy
These descriptions of Consciousness, mind, and body, suggest the following
analogy:
 A living being is similar to a computer whose hardware is the physical body.
The bodyis made up of matter. The living being has an accumulation of
experiences, desires, etc. i.e., an accumulation of information in a memory
which we call the mind in this paper. The mind is like a computer memory
containing data and programs.
 Just like a computer's hardware and software do not know what they are
doing, their own existence, and the meaning of their memory contents, both
the body and the mind of a living being also do not “really know” anything
but there is a certain Consciousness (apart from the mind mentioned above)
that "knows". Consciousness is like the computer operator, as it were, and
the one who "really knows" everything that is going on in the living being’s
life.
 Similar to the computer software, the mind being an instrument, cannot act
as an agent and needs initiation from an external agent, which is often, a
desire/purpose (thoughts), or sensory inputs; the soulbeing a part of the
omnipotent Consciousness canalso intervene just like a computer operator
can intervene in the operations of the computer. Thus action of mind on the
bodyis accepted in Vedanta.
The principle of reincarnation - A possible explanation
In a computer, we know that the stored information is not “real information” but a
mapping of some “real information” existing in the programmer’s head because the
programmer assigns meaning to states (bits or qubits) of the computer’s hardware
elements. Hence the information in the computer in a way, exists independently of
the computer. When the hardware of a computer is broken and cannot work in it,
the same software can be loaded into the hardware of another computer and can
run again if the software was copied and stored on a storage device. The
reincarnation principle of Vedanta conveys a very similar scenario for beings that
have mind. This principle states that some of the subtler contents of the mind
calledvasanas survive physical death and are carried by the individual soul (jiva)
into another life and get at another chance for expression in the observable world.
Vedantic theory of the mind is interactive dualismbut NOTCartesianDualism.
 Vedanta affirms the existence of supremeConsciousness and an
individual Jiva who are immaterial and beyond the mind.

4.  According to Vedanta, the ego (the I-feeling called ahankara) is partof the
mind and not conscious.
 Not only the individual soul(Jiva) but the subtle mind also survives physical
death.
 Hence neither Jiva nor the ego is the ‘I’ of Descartes who presumes that the
mind, the ‘I’, and soulare more or less the samething and that it is
conscious.
 Not only does Vedanta accept mind’s action upon the body but Vedanta
accepts also the conversethat the brain/body creates
experience; Sankhyakarika verse40 (Swami1995) states that the world can
be experienced only when bothsthula and sukshma sarira are present.
 Vedanta claims that the senses and the mind cannot perceive
Consciousness, and no scientific theory can describeHim (Kenopanishad),
and therefore no scientific experiments can detect Him either. The same
thing is true about jiva, the individualized Consciousness.
References
1. Mukherjee B D. (2002).The Essence of Bhagavad Gita. Academic Publishers, Kolkata.
2. Raghavendra. (2000). Ishavasya Upanishad. SRG Publishers.
3. Sivananda. Divine life Society, Bases of Vedanta
4. Swami Shravananda. (1920). Kenopanishad. The Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Madras. S
5. wami Virupakshananda. (1995). Sankhyakarika. The Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore, Madras.