Question: Is the mind itself a kind of machine? A sort of machine between the higher and the lower?

Sri Chinmoy: The mind is a link. Through the mind you can go to the regions far above the mind. But at the same time, through the mind, you can come to your vital being, your lower vital, etc. So the mind is a channel that links us with what is above it and what is below it.
Sri Chinmoy, AUM — Vol. 2, No. 7,8, Feb. — 27 Mar. 1967, Boro Park Printers -- Brooklyn, N. Y, 1967