A Comprehensive Collection - Swami Vivekananda

120 IMMORTALITY.under certainconditions, a man who had never learned aV ^."particular language, was found able to speaii that language.Subsequent inquiries proved that the man had, whert achild, lived among people who spoke that language and theimpressions were left on his brain. These impressions remained stored up there, until through some cause themind reacted, and illumination came, and then the manwas able to speak the language. This show* that the mindalone is not sufficient, that the mind itself is an instrumentin the hands of some one. In the case of that boy the mindwas full of that language, yet he did not know it,but laterthere came a time when he did. It shows that there is someone besides the mind, and when the boy was a baby thatsome one did not use the power, but when he grew up, tookadvantage of it,and used it. First, here is the body, secondthe mind, or instrument of thought, and third behind thismind is the Self of man. The Sanskrit word is Atman. Asmodern philosophers have identified thought with molecularchanges in the brain, they do not know how to explain sucha case, and they generally denyit. The mind is intimatelyconnected with the brain, and dies every time the bodychanges. Self is the illuminator, and the mind is theinstrument in its hands, and through that instrument itgets hold of the external instrument, and thus comes perception. The external instrument gets hold of the impression, and carries it to the organs, for you must rememberalways that the eyes and ears are only receivers, it is theinternal organs, the brain centres which act. In Sanskritthese centres are called indriyas, and they carry sensationsto the mind, and the mind presents them further back toother states of the mind, which in Sanskrit is called chitta,and there they are organised into will, and all these things,which place it before the King of Kings inside, the Ruler