Q: What is Antahkarana?
Let us understand one important concept called Antahkarana or inner instrument. What is this Antahkarana?
You can say that our body is a vehicle, like a car. The car has to be controlled. So, the controlling function is done by the Antahkarana. Who is the driver? The Consciousness. So, Antahkarana has four aspects. They are manas, buddhi, ahamkara and Chitta.
There are the manas that actually receives the input from sense organs and gives input to the intellect, the buddhi. In between, it passes through the Chitta. Chitta means impressions. Buddhi takes a decision. What happens? Let us say an object is seen. You see a pot. So, the mind conceptualizes, the manas forms an image of the pot and deliberates. What is this? Because the mind or the manas, cannot decide.
So, when it passes through the Chitta, Chitta is the memory or the impressions, where the pot is matched with the object. Then, input is given to the buddhi, saying that, this is the pot. Buddhi will make a decision, buddhi concludes. So, Antahkarana: manas, buddhi, Chitta, these three together function for helping you to operate in the world. Buddhi gives the command to the organs, ‘Do this now!’.
For example, let us say, you see a hundred rupee note on the street. An image of a hundred-rupee note is formed in the mind, manas. Manas itself cannot decide whether it is a hundred rupees or not. Then, it goes to the impressions, memory, Chitta. There, you decide it is a hundred rupees note. Then, it goes to buddhi. Now, buddhi will take a decision, “Oh! I should now pick up, grab that, or leave it”. So, the decision is done by the buddhi.
These three aspects work perfectly well. Please understand that these are not three parts of the mind. They are the three functions of the mind. The same mind functions in three ways. In between, there is one more aspect called ahamkara. Ahamkara means a feeling of ‘I am’ ness. So, this feeling arises in the manas. When there is something seen, the manas also creates an idea or creates a thought process that ‘I am seeing’. This ‘I am’, is the ahamkara or ego.
This ahamkara or ego starts taking control of the buddhi and directs buddhi. Ideally, the Sakshi, or the Witness, should operate on buddhi and buddhi should take decisions in an unbiased way. But the ahamkara, the ego will come up because of the operation of the manas. This ahamkara takes control of the buddhi. When it takes control of the buddhi, the intellect or the buddhi will not operate normally. All your actions become selfish in nature.
The whole of spiritual sadhana is to remove or drop this ahamkara so that your buddhi operates directly under the influence of the Sakshi, or the witness or Atma. That’s all it is the spiritual sadhana is about.
Pranams,
Prabhuji
References:
Self-Knowledge Talks Talk 30 Inner Instrument (Antahkarana) 10th May, 2016
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BybdYqxCzTdmd3lncUJndDBJS00/view?usp=sharing