You use your mind every moment of your life. It helps you think, remember, imagine, make decisions, experience emotions and understand the world around you.

It is involved when you appreciate something beautiful, become angry over a disagreement, recall an incident from childhood or wonder about the meaning of your existence.

Yet, how often do you pause to examine the mind itself? You know when your mind is occupied. You recognise when it is distracted, restless, confused or focused. You may even say, “My mind is not under my control.” But what exactly are you referring to when you speak about your mind?

Is it the brain? Is it the thoughts that appear within you? Is it the faculty that thinks, remembers and makes decisions? Or is it something more comprehensive?

Different traditions have approached this question in different ways. Let us examine three broad perspectives.

The Modern Scientific Understanding

Modern science studies the mind primarily through the functioning of the brain and nervous system. The brain is a complex biological organ containing billions of neurons that communicate through electrical and chemical signals. Through the activity of interconnected neural networks, the brain supports a wide range of processes associated with our mental experience.

These include,

Perception: Receiving and interpreting information from the senses.

Attention: Selecting what receives priority in our awareness.

Memory: Encoding, storing and retrieving information.

Thinking: Processing information, forming ideas and solving problems.

Emotion: Generating and regulating emotional responses.

Learning: Modifying behaviour and neural connections through experience.

Decision-making: Evaluating possibilities and selecting actions.

Consider a simple example. You see a person approaching you. Your brain processes visual information, recognises the face, retrieves memories associated with that person and may produce an emotional response. You then decide how to react.

All of this happens through an extraordinarily complex interaction of biological and cognitive processes.

Modern neuroscience investigates the relationship between brain activity and mental experience. Psychology examines behaviour and mental processes, while cognitive science brings together several disciplines to understand how we perceive, think, remember, learn and make decisions.

However, one important distinction remains, the brain is a physical organ that can be studied directly, whereas the mind refers to mental processes and experiences associated with its functioning. The relationship between brain activity and subjective experience remains an important area of scientific and philosophical investigation.

Modern science has made considerable progress in understanding how mental processes operate. Yet the question of what subjective experience actually is remains open.

The Ancient Indian Understanding

Ancient Indian philosophical traditions approached the mind through a detailed examination of human experience. In the Samkhya and Yoga traditions, the mind is not generally treated as a single, indivisible faculty. Instead, several interconnected functions are examined to understand how experience takes place.

Four important terms help us understand this framework,

Manas – The Mind That Processes and Coordinates

Manas is commonly translated as mind. It receives and coordinates sensory information and is involved in attention, thought, comparison, doubt and the movement of mental activity.

For example, when you hear a sound, Manas is involved in attending to it and processing the sensory information. It can also move from one thought to another, consider alternatives and become occupied with different objects.

Buddhi – The Faculty of Discernment

Buddhi refers to the faculty of intelligence, understanding, determination and discrimination. While Manas may consider different possibilities, Buddhi is associated with reaching a judgement or making a determination.

Imagine that someone offers you an opportunity that promises immediate pleasure but may have long-term consequences. Manas may entertain the possibility, while Buddhi examines the situation and helps you determine what is appropriate.

In the context of Yoga, Buddhi has a particularly important role because discernment is essential to understanding the difference between what appears to be true and what can be understood through careful examination.

Ahamkara – The Sense of ‘I’

Ahamkara is commonly translated as ego or the I-maker. It is the principle through which experiences, thoughts and actions become associated with a sense of individuality.

Consider the difference between these two statements, “There is anger.” “I am angry.”

The second statement connects the experience of anger with the sense of “I.” Ahamkara is involved in this identification, through which experiences are understood in relation to oneself.

Chitta – The Field of Mental Activity

Chitta is a particularly important term in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. It is often translated as mind-stuff or the field of consciousness, although neither expression captures its full meaning.

In the Samkhya-Yoga framework, Chitta is understood as the broader mental field within which the functions of Manas, Buddhi and Ahamkara operate.

It is also associated with the impressions and tendencies formed through experience, often discussed in terms of Samskaras.

Chitta is not Purusha (Consciousness). In the Samkhya-Yoga framework, Chitta belongs to Prakriti (ever changing phenomenon), the domain of nature and its changing processes. Purusha refers to pure consciousness, the principle of the seer or observer.

Thoughts change. Emotions change. Memories change. Even our sense of identity can change. But what is the nature of the consciousness in whose presence these changes are experienced? This distinction is central to Patanjali’s understanding of Yoga.

Where Does This Leave Us?

Modern science examines the brain and the processes associated with mental activity.  Ancient Indian philosophy offers a detailed framework for examining the different functions of the mind and distinguishing them from Purusha.

Each perspective gives us a different way to investigate human experience. But perhaps the most useful starting point is much closer to your everyday life.

Observe your mind. What happens when you become angry? How does a memory influence your present response? Why does attention wander? How do desires shape your decisions? And who, or what, is aware of these movements?

Before attempting to control the mind, perhaps we should first understand how it functions.

After all, how can you understand yourself without examining the very instrument through which you experience yourself?