Mind-body Relationship
(02 This article is one of a series on Ayurvedic Psychology)
From the Vedic perspective, the functional aspects of mind exist with the subtle body (sūkṣma śarīra). This surrounds the physical body and permeates it. A partial analogy is that the body is like a radio that receives the radio waves of the mental body. When the biological structures of the brain are blocked or damaged they are no longer able to receive their subtle counterpart.
Carl Jung described how the subtle body directs the physical body from the standpoint of Platonic philosophy, where there is a causal structure which engineers the development of the physical. A mother solution begins crystallization when it reaches the highest degree of saturation according to the pre-existing patterns of the chemicals of the process.[i] In a similar way, the body is created by the nature of the subtle body, which is composed of the non-local mind with all its subtle anatomy. Traumas damage elements of the subtle body which create a malfunction of behavior in the individual and show up in how the body functions.
In the Cartesian biological model, the mind is a mechanism of the physical body. In a unitative model there is a mind-body unity where the mind is collapsed into the body and multi-referentiality is lost. In a multi-level model, there is a relationship between the mind and body, though various systems define this relationship differently. A biological approach has the mind existing within a physical body, or consciousness as a result of physical existence. The Vedic system, and other spiritual approaches, see the body as manifest from the mind; there is a subtle body surrounding the physical like an aura. This subtle body incarnates a physical body and directs how its structure evolves.
The mind/subtle body is a separate entity in that two twins can be born and raised in the same family and have different thoughts, desires, dreams and different characters. This aspect of the person which cannot be accounted for within the physical nature is the mind or psyche. To see the mind as a mechanism of the body is to lose the deeper nature and therefore understanding of the psyche. No blood test will be able to show the character type, or the sexual preference, or the career path. No blood test will show the individual is living an unfulfilled life, nor will physical medicine be able to correct that level. From a biological perspective, the mind is seen in the body, while the spiritual perspective sees the body inside the mind-field.
To collapse the body and mind as one from a unitive perspective is to lose a certain level of diagnosis. Physical and mental illness can be caused by mental and emotional states reflected in the body. A cut on the foot causing mental anguish is directly related to the body. A medication that causes anxiety is directly related to the physical body. Wrong diet, lack of exercise, allergies, toxins and imbalances in the body system cause mental disturbances that require physical treatment.
Diagnosis of the root cause is important for creating the most efficient healing approach. A sore back can be caused by incorrect lifting at a heavy labor job, or improper chair support at a desk job or caused by developmental deficiencies from early childhood or too much financial emotional stress. A mind and body differentiation is necessary to determine the root cause of the issue.
[i] Carl Jung. 1984. Dream Analysis: Notes of the Seminar given in 1928-1930. Ed. William McQuire. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 450. Quoted in John Conger, Jung and Reich: The Body as Shadow (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2005).
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