Mind must be distinguished from the states of mind, as the object must be separated from knowing it, the act of knowledge. Spinoza opposed the phenomenal world to the substantial, phenomena to substance; what others call relative to absolute; what the Hindus call illusion to reality; and what the religionists call matter to spirit. But all these statements can only be made because the mind originally makes them, for the mind is the witness of both. We must give the primacy to mind, for it Is. Whether illusion exists or not, whether the absolute exists or not, Mind IS. If the world is constantly present to me, it is a mind which is making it present, for awareness is a power of mind. It is mind which makes the thought of material objects possible for us; and to make mind a by-product of an alleged matter is a contradiction in itself.
-- Notebooks Category 21: Mentalism > Chapter 5 : The Key To the Spiritual World > # 169
