Having discussed the way in which the body serves the soul, Haszrat Inayat Khan now begins to explain something about the mind.
The mind is made after the body. It is therefore that its form is that of the body. We read in the Old Testament that the heavens were made after the earth; the real place where the heavens are made is within man. The mind is made of all one learns, one experiences, one loves and one remembers. It is therefore that man is that which his mind contains. If his mind contains a sorrow, a man is sorrowful; if his mind contains joy, he is joyous, if it contains success, he is successful; if it contains failure, failure awaits him, everywhere he moves he finds failure. The mind is an accommodation in which man collects all that he learns and experiences in life. In short, man is his mind. How true therefore the claim of the dervishes when, sitting on the bare earth cloaked in rags, they address one another, ‘O King of Kings, O Monarch of Monarchs!’ That is their usual way of addressing one another. Their voice is that of true democracy, for this claim of theirs is the expression of their being conscious of the Kingdom of God. The mind is not only the treasure-house of all one learns, but it is creative by nature. The mind improvises upon what it learns, and creates not only in imagination, but it finishes its task when the imagination becomes materialized. The heavens and the infernal regions are both the creations of the mind and are experienced in the mind.
But the question arises: is the body not born with a mind? Did the mind not exist before the body? Yes, it did exist; it existed as akasha or accommodation. Was this accommodation formed on any special model or design? The first design of this akasha is molded upon the impression that falls deeply upon the soul, the soul coming towards manifestation from the infinite Spirit. If we picture the infinite Spirit as the sun, the soul is like its ray. The nature of the soul is to gather on its way all that it can gather, and to make a mold out of it.
It is this impression that has helped to form the first mold of the mind. It manifests its original nature and character through the body with which it is connected and identified. The impression of the nature and character of the parents, of the ancestry, of the nation and race, follows after the first impression that the soul has taken on its way. If it happens to be the impression of one personality falling upon the mind going towards manifestation, the distinct characteristics of a certain personality who has lived in the past will show clearly in the life of that person. It is in this that the secret of the doctrine of reincarnation, which the Hindus hold, can be recognized. There are souls that come from the Infinite existence to the finite, and there are souls who return from the finite existence to the Infinite, and their meeting-ground is on the way. It may be one impression or it may be several impressions which help to mold this akasha, which, after it is once connected with the body, becomes the mind; for the mind is not complete until it is filled with the knowledge and experience the soul gains by the help of the physical body.
The mind is not the brain. The mind is a capacity, an akasha, which contains all the experiences we have in life, all the impressions we gain through our five senses. It is not only within the body but also around the body. But the centers of perception reflect every thought and feeling, and then men feels that the mind is within him. In point of fact the body is within the mind, and the mind within the body. As the eye sees an object before it and reflects it, so the centers of perception reflect every thought and feeling. For instance man feels the sensation of joy and depression in the center called solar plexus; however, this does not mean that joy or depression is there, but that this center is sensitive to such experiences.
The mind for the sake of convenience may be called a substance, but a substance quite different from physical matter in its nature and character. There are some objects which give more resonance to sound, and there are other objects which respond less to sound. There are sonorous objects, such as metals of different kinds which reproduce sound clearly, and then there are stones and solid wood which do not respond to sound. Such is the difference between mind and body.
To be continued…