The Mind, we may say, is a mysterious power of the Self (called Atma in Sanskrit). If all thoughts are eliminated, there remains nothing which can be called the ‘mind’. So thoughts are the ‘mind’. Again there is no such thing as the ‘world’, independent of and apart from the thoughts. In dreamless sleep, there are no thoughts and hence there is no ‘world’ too. In waking and dreaming states, there is the play of thought and hence the ‘world’ as well. The mind projects this world from out of itself, and again

absorbs it into itself, just as the spider projects the web out of itself and withdraws the same after a time. When the mind manifests itself through its thought-forms, it creates the world, which covers the Atma. Therefore when the world is seen, the Atma is not seen; and when the Atma is seen or realised, the world vanishes. Mind always attaches itself to something objective (sthula). It cannot stand by itself. It is only this mind that constitutes the subtle (sukshma) body, jiva or ego. In this body,