Manas

Manas

मनस manas, mānasa

Sensual, logical or instinctive mind, the sphere of desires and the ruler of the sensory and motor organs (indriyas). It is part of the antahkaran. The undisciplined, empirical mind, manas, operates with the available information coming through the organs of perception, as well as one, stored in the memory. It is characterized by desire, impatience, doubt, faith, disbelief, rigidity, instability, shame and fear.

This is one of the capabilities of the manomaya-kosha, the instinctive-intellectual shell.

In ordinary human consciousness, manas depends on the physical sensory organs for receiving information, and on the organs of the body for performing actions directed towards the objects of the senses. The very same abilities of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, sensing taste - in reality are the abilities of the mind, and not the physical body.

In "Siddha-siddhanta paddhati" (I.45) the following qualities of manas are given:

"Desire, thought, unconsciousness, inertia, thinking - such is the five-quality mind."

Manas, or undisciplined empirical mind, according to Gorakshanath, has the following qualities:

• Sankalpa (desire) – firm intention and will, aimed at identifying what is most important to you.
• Vikalpa (thought) – doubts, fluctuations of the mind, unfounded fantasies, that which is usually rejected by the sankalpa.
• Murchha (unconsciousness) – fainting or recklessness, occurs in a state of confusion of the mind.
• Jadata (inertia) – rigidity, lifelessness, numbness are inherent in the nature of the mind.
• Manana (thinking) – reflective thinking, which turns on when thinking about something.