Buddhi awareness (Hinduism)

In Hindu psychology, buddhi (wisdom or clear discrimination) emerges when the distortions of the lower-mind are suppressed. Through buddhi, the divine self (atman) is known to be present. Buddhi is sometimes called [the witness]

as the consciousness shifted to this level allows the individual to regard his mental phenomena from "outside", without becoming identified with them. This permits a new level of "I-ness" to evolve which is associated with the subtle bodies (koshas). Normally, buddhi functions through citta, and the mind is helped to know and understand objects, for the buddhi illuminates citta. However, while buddhi is functioning through the mind it is not possible to know pure consciousness. In samadhi, however, free from association of citta, it turns in on itself and illuminates consciousness, its own nature. This is sva-buddhi.

The understanding which is buddhi is of a thing as a whole and not as the sum of its parts. When all the data one knows about a given matter come together in integral knowledge there is a flash of perception and this is the action of buddhi. There is a sense of wonder and delight; even "I", although not absent, is forgotten. There is an understanding of what beauty is.

Some refer to buddhi as the generic being consciousness, being the first to evolve from the unmanifest core of the world and from which ahankara and the rest of development arises. This is [mahat]

, the great, mediating between the unmanifest "world-ground" and the world of differentiated phenomena.