The mind chakra, which is connected with most of the head (especially the brain), is a combination of sensing and intellect. That’s the ability to see and hear the world, to make sense of things, sort them out, and figure out how they all fit together. The Tantric and Waidika traditions both divide this region into three parts. In the Tantric system the top chakra of the three seems to deal with positive emotional states and the middle one is concerned with the senses. My best thought for the lowest, two-petal chakra in the set is that it is concerned with the regulation of energy flowing to and from the mind.

Western interpretations of this chakra seem to focus on the intuition aspect of the third eye. When New Age thought began to consider the possibilities of Eastern ideas, the concept of mystically understanding the “deep connectedness between all things” was a striking concept. The mystery of using the eyes to see, the ears to hear, or the skin to feel was somehow looked on as less wonderful. I think the difference is that the senses were viewed as one of those mundane physical things while the “third eye” was seen as totally spiritual and, somehow, more special. I suggest that all the senses are special and represent aspects of our souls.

Some traditions, including Zen Buddhism, say that the consciousness is actually a sixth sense organ. If we accept this point of view, it is clear why this chakra contains at least some aspects of what we call mind.

I believe that the one other important aspect of this chakra, beyond the five or six senses, is that it is involved in the more complicated process we call thought. We have a very powerful physical brain, which we have worked for billions of years to evolve. In addition, we have the part of the soul many people call the mind that connects the soul with the physical brain.

Yet another aspect of the mind chakra is its role in memory. Western belief is that memories are stored in the brain. Scientists do a lot of hand waving about ideas like holographic fields and neural networks to explain how memories are stored. People who have created artificial neural networks are extremely dubious of any claims that the physical brain and/or the neural connections in it are responsible for memories. They, and I, prefer the idea that the mind chakra plays a significant part in memory by providing a place where memories can be stored.