One of the predominant themes in Indian mythology, art and literature has been that of the conquering of demons- external and internal. It is always easier to conquer or fight something that is visible or Dristeya. To conquer the invisible or Adristeya of which only inference is possible poses the real challenge. We as humans have the distinction of intellect and ability to make decisions that separates us from the animals which are driven by instinct. Our ability to choose is what makes us human and since we are able to choose, our actions which have consequences are our sheer responsibility. No action is without a consequence. You cannot throw a pebble into the still water and not expect a ripple. There will be one, no matter how minute and beyond perception.

Perception has been given primordial importance in Indian school of thought. It is claimed to be a reliable source of truth or Sat. although perception has its own limitation of delusion and misperception.  The standard example of seeing a snake in a rope is the most popular. We are limited by this misunderstanding, for however small amount of time. But the end of this misperception is another perception only. You go back and check to realize that it was just a rope and not a snake as you have perceived it to be. A lot of philosophers have claimed that whatever is perceivable is what exists or whatever exists must be perceivable. How do you know that a certain land exists or does not if you haven’t perceived it? Dristeya, at the end, becomes a reliable source of knowledge- of good and of bad.

As much as Dristeya is important, the Indian school retracts no hands when it comes to the Adristeya. Both are important to understand the cosmos holistically. We cannot see a lot of things but that does not negate their existence. Philosophy and science then needs to work in tandem to enquire into them. Similarly, the Indian School also places a great deal of importance on the concept of Abhaav or not-present. A pot that exists at your place is not-present at my place and hence I know of its presence by its absence. Its presence is conceivable even when it is not present. The theory of Cause-effect relationship says that a lot of things are present in latent form that is they are present by their sense of absence. Like a pot is not present in the clay at the moment but there is a potentiality and that’s what makes it present in the clay which when molded will form into a pot. Without Abhaav it is very difficult to know what to look for. What you lack is more important than what you need to acquire. We are directionless without this sense of missing. But as Emanuel Kant has put, “our knowledge of what we cannot and do not know is limited”, it is very difficult to always point out what is missing.

Sankhya and Yoga School of philosophy claim that we could find liberation (freedom) by Gyaan only that is knowledge about what is true. When you realise who exactly you are, you are free. Nothing can bring you down or disturb your equanimity. The School obviously put a lot of emphasis on realising the essential or spiritual you free of the Prakriti (or Maya) but that can be narrowed down in the modern times to understanding who exactly are you? This has been a very difficult to answer but the source of the problem and the solution to the same lies in what the western philosophers have claimed to be the Mind.

Indian School of thought does not classify brain or mind as a single entity working in tandem with the physical body to exist and perform action in the world. The Indian school divides the thinking seat into atleast four categories.

.Buddhi or Intellect which helps in analysis

.Manas or Memory

.Ahankara or Identity or personalistic ego  

.Chitta or the eternally pure thought or intellect

Our Buddhi or intellect allows us to make decisions and analyse situation. Manas, which is a bundle of memory of experiences from the past acts as feed data to Intellect. These are value neutral. They have a cause-effect relationship. Like you touch the surface of a hot lid. The sense of heat is fed into intellect and Manas provides the information that this has been hurtful in the past and you take the decision of stop touching it. But what if you are a psychopath who loves to burn himself. You will experience this pain as pleasure. This is a where the Ahankara comes as the locus of your interests, likes and dislikes. Whatever you identify yourself as, your actions or thoughts will produce an effect on your chitta or the locus of sensitivity. You will either like or dislike a certain thing depending on the identity we create or have. When our thoughts or actions (through manas and buddhi) are aligned with Ahankara, we feel satisfied but when it does not then there will be conflict of conscience. This conflict of conscience is the source of internal turmoil which is nothing but an enhancement of Dvesha or dislike in Chitta which always tries to be in equilibrium. When you are clear about your identity or what you identify yourself with, any kind of action in the environment that does not align with your personality will not bother you. Picture this, if you are teetotaler and were standing in front of a liquor outlet, the bottles will create no ripple of craving in you. This certainty of self is difficult. We are almost always sure about the gross nature of substance or things that can affect us. The external things. But what about the subtle ones? Which feelings or thoughts align with my identity or the professional, personal identity I want to have. We have often never pondered about them. Most of us haven’t. And the day we figure out this at the subtle level that is at the most internal levels of self-identity, we will know what will and what will not affect us. We will stop being reactive and start being proactive. All those thoughts or feelings that don’t align with our identity, we will treat them as agents of the great “Mara” who sent his army to distract Buddha from attaining Nirvana or Enlightenment.

The Bhumi-Sparsha Mudra (Touching the earth) of Buddha is the epitome of Enlightenment proof where Buddha is seen touching the earth which quakes as a proof of Buddha’s enlightenment. Mara and his agents which are nothing but agents of worldly pleasures and sensual cravings are seen standing on one side of the Bodhi tree unable to falter the reaches of Buddha’s enlightenment. Buddha, in the simplest of terms, was certain about what he wants to be or had his Ahankara fixed. And when that has been achieved no matter of Mara’s distraction can destabilize him.

We are all trying to align our thoughts and actions with our identity every day since we gained conscience. The agents of Mara have presented themselves in several ways of sense pleasures along the years and rather than we shaping their existence according to our self-identity, we have somehow allowed them to shape our identity. If we have not been very cautious about what we acknowledge, for how long we acknowledge them, we are always at a great risk of finding our identity being shaped by external factors and alien thoughts. Forming a strong personal identity is the root essence of an authentic existence.

Jaina philosophy talks about two kinds of influx of karmic matter (or karma). One when the action is performed and the other when the thought of the action arises in the mind. The sense experience feeds information into the intellect and the manas tries to associate a sense of pleasure or pain as a future feed data depending on how we allow our identity or self to be shaped by that experience. Jaina says that the real withdrawal begins in the mind and then it happens in the action. The karmic influx ends in the head. If we remove the austerity of spirituality from the philosophy and look at it objectively trying to figure out a way to explain our habits and choices and associations, we will all come to a conclusion that we allow certain things to happen to us, knowingly or unknowingly, because we have over the years started to believe in a certain kind of self-identity. This keeps changing, as it always has been but we feel that the intellect or buddhi takes precedence in forming a certain attitude but in reality their agreement with Ahankara is what makes the difference. We will never be contented till we have a conflict of conscience and when Shankya and other schools of thought claimed knowledge to be the source of liberation, they probably meant this that realizing the reality of our identity automatically helps us filter the influx of experiences of the world and their effect on us.

As Buddha has rightly pointed out, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world”