Self-knowledge and Mind

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Questioner (Q): Acharya Ji, what is Self-learning and Self-knowing, and how are they connected with the mind?

Acharya Prashant (AP): It is a little different. The mind exists only when you are unnecessarily associated with the brain, otherwise, there is nothing called the mind. There is the brain, and the brain is an instrument of Prakriti. (Indicating various objects kept on the table in front of him) Just like this is there, just like this is there, similarly the brain is there. But when the ego principle — that little self, the little thing that keeps calling itself as the ‘I’ — gets associated with the body, and therefore the brain, then something called the mind comes into being; otherwise, there is nothing called the mind. Otherwise, there is just the brain and the Prakritik activity of the brain.

Mind is not even needed. Mind is when ‘I’ becomes an interloper, an unnecessary trespasser. Leave the brain alone and it will think, it will think without ‘I’; but if you are associated with the brain, identified with the body, then your thoughts will be all I-centred. In the middle of every thought, there would be ‘I’. “So, Israel is fighting Palestine” — even this thought would have a very strong I-center. You would not be able to look at the situation…