According to Vedanta,do people have their own mind or sharing one mind?

[Jack]

According to Advaita Vedanta,do people have their own mind or is there just one mind?(universal mind)

[Misuto]

I think people have their own mind. I think those mind have been generated in a same process with random values of parameters. This process may be developed from an idea which comes from a mind, an universal mind. Some "people minds" may have ideas about processes of generating "sub-minds" ....

[Ariel Bravy]

It seems that an "individual mind" is nothing more than a portion of the "collective mind."

[Antarananda]

Glad to see you're exploring Advaita Vedanta. I recommend study of the classical works (Upanishads, primarily) to understand. The subject matter of mind as explored by Vedanta is so deep that it would be difficult to answer your question here completely.

However, to get you started a few concepts: Mind as such is not defined by Vedanta seperately, but rather through several functions which sentient beings perform. These functions are performed by the faculties manas (conscious analytical decision making part, also includes the sensory organs), chitta (memory), ahamkara (that which gives rise to the perception of "I"-ness) and buddhi (integrative pure intelligence).

To answer your question succinctly, truly speaking, there is no such thing as "mind", because the realm of mind is not the truth. The single substratum which is reality of all beings and all matter is beyond mind. Mind and thoughts are like static on the radio. Even a good signal, no matter how pleasing, is not the truth. So, the real connection experienced with other forms of embodied consciousness (humans, animals etc) doesn't happen through the mind, but when the mind dissolves and consciousness recognizes itself.

I like what U.G Krishnamurti said: There is no such thing as your mind and my mind. There is only mind -- the totality of all that has been known, felt, and experienced by man, handed down from generation to generation. We are all thinking and functioning in that "thought sphere", just as we all share the same atmosphere for breathing. The thoughts are there to function and communicate in this world sanely and intelligently.

Explore Swami J's website. He covers the Vedantic concept of Mind.

[Jack]

Thanks for your answers.

[ginkgo]

It is like this. Some people have Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). They have many personalities inside of them. It is a disorder. The cure is to get therapy so that the person has only one personality.

So this island was feeling lonely. It was all alone in the middle of a vast ocean. But then it looked within itself (meditation). It saw that it was really the top of a huge mountain. It continued looking within and found that it was really the earth and it was one with the other islands with a thin layering of water on top of it. The Vedanta was written in Sanskrit and is different than English.

Many foreign words have no direct translation. People have many bodies, but there is a consciousness in the body. It was there before the body and will be there after the body and when there is no physical universe. Yoga means union. People with MPD are supposed to join the personalites to heal this disorder. Almost everyone has the disorder of not knowing what they are so they feel misery. Some say the union is of the person and God.

Another way of looking at it is the goal of the person is to become one with the oneness. That is his true nature just like the MPD guy is really only one person. When you find out that only this oneness exists then that is the end of suffering. That is how Buddha defined Enlightenment.

The oldest writings known to man are the Vedas and Upanishads from India. The Katha Upanishad is about the one thing that everyone knows exists, but everyone pretends does not exist-- death. In it, the god of death explains to Nachiketa all about life and death. Here are 2 paragraphs quoted from it:

They say yoga is this complete stillness
In which one enters the unitive state,
Never to become separate again.
If one is not established in this state,
The sense of unity will come and go.

The Self cannot be known by anyone
Who desists not from unrighteous ways,
Controls not his senses, stills not his mind,
And practices not meditation.

Sigmund Freud described an "oceanic feeling" as a sense of limitless and unbounded oneness with the universe. When you become one with what you truly are, then you feel what you have always wanted to feel-- perfect peace, endless love and unlimited happiness. When one feels this for a few seconds, he never wants to leave this state. Buddhism also calls it the original mind in another language.

[Jack]

Thanks for your answer.

[miksob]

Answers lie within you. In a moment of self-talk or contemplation - the more you have learned - assure yourself it is your own voice, because you are that smart and observant. However, when there is no answers, perhaps there is God. I believe that is what Frederick Nietzsche suggested (Thus Spoke Zarathustra).

Best Wishes.

[miksob]

Originally Posted by ginkgo

It is like this. Some people have Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD). They have many personalities inside of them. It is a disorder. The cure is to get therapy so that the person has only one personality.

So this island was feeling lonely. It was all alone in the middle of a vast ocean. But then it looked within itself (meditation). It saw that it was really the top of a huge mountain. It continued looking within and found that it was really the earth and it was one with the other islands with a thin layering of water on top of it. The Vedanta was written in Sanskrit and is different than English.

Many foreign words have no direct translation. People have many bodies, but there is a consciousness in the body. It was there before the body and will be there after the body and when there is no physical universe. Yoga means union. People with MPD are supposed to join the personalites to heal this disorder. Almost everyone has the disorder of not knowing what they are so they feel misery. Some say the union is of the person and God.

Another way of looking at it is the goal of the person is to become one with the oneness. That is his true nature just like the MPD guy is really only one person. When you find out that only this oneness exists then that is the end of suffering. That is how Buddha defined Enlightenment.

The oldest writings known to man are the Vedas and Upanishads from India. The Katha Upanishad is about the one thing that everyone knows exists, but everyone pretends does not exist-- death. In it, the god of death explains to Nachiketa all about life and death. Here are 2 paragraphs quoted from it:

They say yoga is this complete stillness
In which one enters the unitive state,
Never to become separate again.
If one is not established in this state,
The sense of unity will come and go.

The Self cannot be known by anyone
Who desists not from unrighteous ways,
Controls not his senses, stills not his mind,
And practices not meditation.

Sigmund Freud described an "oceanic feeling" as a sense of limitless and unbounded oneness with the universe. When you become one with what you truly are, then you feel what you have always wanted to feel-- perfect peace, endless love and unlimited happiness. When one feels this for a few seconds, he never wants to leave this state. Buddhism also calls it the original mind in another language.

Its a psychosis, sometimes it can get psychotic. However, there are a lot of people that believe in spirituality: God namely. And how can an army of spiritual leaders (E.G. Catholic priests and the Pope, Gandhi, Cesar Chavez in prose, or Jesus Christ) leading or have lead millions upon million upon millions more - talking to God - be wrong? 'less you are a philosopher.

[Mounds]

Humans have a hive mind.
Look at an office building! You got your security guards at the front (warriors), people working inside in tiny cubicles (drones), you got a few doing errands outside of the hive (more drones) and one CEO overseeing the whole operation (queen).

[eputkonen]

Originally Posted by Jack

According to Advaita Vedanta,do people have their own mind or is there just one mind?(universal mind)

This body/mind has its own thoughts...the thoughts depend on the body/mind. But there is no "me - individual person" having "my own" thoughts.

There is no indentification with this body/mind...this body/mind is not me. So all body/mind and all thoughts are not separate...they are all Consciousness...they are all the Self.

[nicbrahms]

We each have our mind and we are all part of the one mind.

Simples.