Madhudvisa dasa

Thus far, in line with the traditional West­ern approach, we have considered the conscious self and the mind to be synonymous and have distinguished between them and the body. Here we would like to briefly men­tion that in Bhagavad-gita a further dis­tinction is made between the conscious self and the mind. According to the Gita, the mind is composed of subtle material ele­ments that are capable of interacting with the brain. In this conception, the mind is really a part of the material body, and in­deed can be referred to loosely as the subtle body. 

The Bhagavad-gita explains that the conscious self is higher than both the mind and the body because it possesses an im­perishable, nonphysieal nature. When we say that the Supersoul is the link between the conscious self and the body, what we really mean is that the Supersoul is the link between the conscious self and both the subtle and gross material bodies. The inter­action between the Supersoul and the con­scious self is, undoubtedly, difficult to evaluate experimentally, but the two are so intimately connected there is full potential within each person for direct awareness of the Supersoul