aham vRtti: The “’I’-thought”

basis of all other thougts….. and Mind

In the last post, we have seen the straight path of contemplating “what is mind?” Now, let us take a look at the nature of mind.

vRtti in Sanskrit and talapu in Telugu roughly means thought, desire, intention, livelyhood, ‘primary activity’ and so on… In the context of mind, it means activity of mind. If mind is the noun then thought is the activity of it. So, vRtti or talapu is a kinatic form of potential mind. Due to this motion there are multiple thoughts rise just like waves in the ocean.

To think is Mind. Without thought there is no mind. We identify a bunch of thoughts as mind. The bunch keeps changing by adding new ones and removing some old ones. Mind is filled with thoughts. They rise, they sustain and they merge in the mind. During this process the impressions of these thoughts gets identified as Mind. So, Mind is nothing but the thoughts.

To simplify the searching process, we got to search for the basis of all these thoughts. There must be a holder which holds all these conflicting thoughts together. There should be a nail on which this bunch is hanging. There should be a base on which the stack of thoughts is firmly placed. That is called the ‘I’-thought i.e., aham vRtti or “nEnanE talapu”

Bhagavan describes this in verse 18 of upadesa saram

talapulE manamella dAnanEnanina talapAdi manamanu dAnanE nEnu

Same in Sanskrit

vRttayaH tu aham vRttim ASritAH vRttayO manO viddhi amah manaH

Mind is filled with thoughts alone. The root thought is the “I-thought”. Hence know that the “aham” or I-thought is verily the Mind.

Before any thought rises, there is an “I” — the thinker. That is is the subject. But, there is a “thought of ‘I’” — this is the base idea which holds all the rest of ideas. This thought of I is the one which is continuously re-configuring itself…..

Next Post: https://medium.com/upadesa-saram/nija-vicaranam-true-seeking-58276d7b8577