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Thread: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

  1. #1

    Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    I grew up understanding that each of us have a part of God which is our Atma that eventually joins up with Paramatma upon Moksha.

    A question that came from the kids that I could not clearly answer and would appreciate assistance on:

    Assuming the above is true, why did Atma separate from Paramatma only to work its way back to Paramatma via yoga.

    Alternately, what is the start/origin of the Atma? How does it get separated from the Paramatma?

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    Quote Originally Posted by awaraarawa View Post
    I grew up understanding that each of us have a part of God which is our Atma that eventually joins up with Paramatma upon Moksha.

    A question that came from the kids that I could not clearly answer and would appreciate assistance on:

    Assuming the above is true, why did Atma separate from Paramatma only to work its way back to Paramatma via yoga.

    Alternately, what is the start/origin of the Atma? How does it get separated from the Paramatma?
    Namaste.

    I grew up believing this too, but what they didn't tell us back then, is it's only Maya which makes this distinction between the Jivatman and Paramatman.

    If you want to view it another way, Jivatman doesn't get 'separated' from Paramatman (being that nothing really can) and so, how do the ISKCON people say it?...the Jivatman is 'part and parcel' of the Paramatman.

    'Working its way up' is the Laya...it is absorption from singular existence into Brahman-state.

    I can only explain the rest of it from a rather Judeo-Christian standpoint.

    We were each given 'Free Will' to perform Yoga and to inquire into the nature of the Soul.....or not to.

    At birth, each Soul was attached to this Will...so it will always remain as 'separate' for those who will believe that it remains so.

    Aum Namah Shivaya

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    This is a very good question and there are a variety of responses that require further fundamental analysis.

    The very first analysis would be on the nature of time. There are broadly two ways of thinking about time. One is that it is an independent ontological real existent that serves as the receptacle of change. So, time can exist independent of change. Time never began. That is, time has an infinite past. Second view is that positing the existence of time is superfluous because everything can be explained in terms of change. In this case also, change is considered beginningless.

    In either case time/change is beginningless so the universe never began to exist. The universe always was. i.e. the universe has an infinite past.

    Next, one has to consider the nature of knowledge. If knowledge is always intentional - i.e. it is OF something else, then one can imagine that we are part of God's knowledge. Now, God's knowledge can either be his attribute or his essence. In either case, God's essence or his attributes are co-eternal with. Furthermore, God is omniscient. All past, future and present events are part of God's knowledge. God's knowledge is eternal if God is eternal. Objects of God's knowledge are likewise eternal if God's knowledge is eternal. We, our atmans, our family, friends, etc. all being objects of God's eternal knowledge are likewise eternal.

    Another view on knowledge is that it is pure consciousness itself. Any purported object of knowledge distinct from knowledge is illusory. So, in the play that God engages in, there is only God. There is no other to God. Our earthly life of duality is in reality monistic. God is simply amusing himself and engaging in sport. Only God exists.

    In summary, we (our atmans) never began to exist. There is no time t = 0 in Hinduism when suddenly things emerge or begin to exist. We can keep going back and back and will never reach a starting point.

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    Namaste. Then of course there's the story that goes (I forget exactly how it does now) the Jivatman separates from the Paratman and comes down from heaven in raindrops...then it waters the vegetation and Jiva is stored in the leaves of plants...then man eats the leaves and the Jiva gets stored in his semen....something like that.

    Aum Namah Shivaya

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    hari o
    ~~~~~~
    namasté

    One needs to be mindful how to explain the relationship of jīva to parātman without introducing confusion. I have found the best way is by stories¹ and analogies.

    By analogy I think the relationship of a wave to the ocean can be understood. The wave seems separate, yet it is connected all the time to the ocean. It rises up, but could not do so without the ocean as its base.

    iti śiva

    1. stories - here is one: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2861
    यतसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤µà¤‚ शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṠśivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    awaraarawa,

    This is a subject widely analysed and theories of different kinds have come up. The advaita, visistadvaita, dvaita and other theories have different takes on this.

    I will try to take a few example to explain this.

    1. Electricity - unknown to the user lights up bulbs, rotates fans, makes the fridge, washing machine and other gadgets work. These all gadgets have different forms, characteristics, etc.
    Each have their own power supply points. Outwardly these all look different to a layman. These all are driven by power - which seems different for different gadgets.

    But as a learned human, we know all these powers driving the gadgets are part of the same power which is running across all of these and others.

    2. Sun is shining. There are plenty of broken mirrors lying on the ground. Different shapes, sizes, some coloured, some dusted, etc. They are reflecting lights. The reflected lights have different shapes, sizes, colours or intensity. These reflected lights - inturn is lighting up some dark rooms. The rooms then get varied quantum of lights.

    Compare the rooms with bodies, mirror with minds and the reflected light with atman.

    What is the reflected light ? - it is the light from sun. The same sun - now getting reflected through the mirror in different rooms. The same consciousness reflected through the minds to different bodies. Depending on the nature of the minds the reflected consciousness lights up the other parts.
    Love and best wishes:hug:

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    Quote Originally Posted by yajvan View Post
    By analogy I think the relationship of a wave to the ocean can be understood. The wave seems separate, yet it is connected all the time to the ocean. It rises up, but could not do so without the ocean as its base.
    Analogy is interesting. But doesn't the wave (avidhya/illusory identification/individual jiva) have a starting point here?

  8. #8

    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    Namaste.

    The Upanishads tell us that God reflected, "Let me be many."

    The simplest answer is that the soul is not a part of God, but is God himself with limiting conditions, known as malas, applied to him by his power of Maya. God undertakes these limitations of his own free will, in order to experience multiplicity, which can only come by limitation. When these limitations are removed, by God's Grace, the soul realizes its advaitic union with God. This philosophy is aupadhika bhedabhedavada, or a philosophy of difference and non-difference qualified by the existence of limiting conditions.

    In more detail, these limited conditions are reductions of God's eternal perfection. The first condition, anava-mala, is the limited self-identity, the ego, which perceives itself as limited and separate from all other differentiated forms. This is the reduction of God's power of will, which in his eternal state is eternally and instantly fulfilled, but which in this limited state goes unfulfilled and leaves a sense of limitation and helplessness. The second condition, mayiya-mala, is the attachment to the apparent reality as the supreme, as if the world is more permanent than the Absolute. This is the reduction of God's power of absolute knowledge, by which he knows all that exists, but in this limited state depends on only the most apparent forms for his understanding. The final condition, karma-mala, is the attachment to limited actions and their results. This is the reduction of God's power of action, by which every will is fulfilled; because God is not now, in this limited state, omnipotent, he attaches to those actions that he performs, and allows their successes or failures to shape him and define him. God's power of Maya, by which this temporary reduction is possible, is also reduced within the differentiated soul, and becomes the power to deceive oneself and others, and to only thicken the cloud of the other conditions.

    As Yajvan said, analogies help with understanding, so I'll use a few I often do: A bubble forms in water. While the bubble exists, it is different from the water, though resting within it and supported by it. When the bubble bursts, only the water remains. A cloud forms over the sea. While the cloud exists, it is different from the sea from which it formed, though dependent upon it for the water it condenses. But when it rains, all that remains is the sea. A river forms from an ocean. While river runs separately, it is different from the ocean, though dependent on it for its source. But when the river once again reaches the ocean, only the ocean remains. So it is with the soul and God. When the soul emerges, it is a distinct, individual being, different from God though dependent on him, identical to him in quality though different in quantity, like unto him by character, but distinct by degree. But when the soul attains liberation from death and rebirth, by the Grace of the Lord alone, the soul and God become perfectly one in the undifferentiated Divine Nature.

    All of this is nothing more than God's lila or play, of course, entering into the world by self-limitation to know himself as many, but in this limitation longing for what he has lost in his eternal state and therefore seeking to know himself as One once again. This is the greatness of bhakti: for the One God beholding himself in multiplicity, and for the multiplicity beholding their eternity as the One God, the love exists eternally. It is a beautiful, continual exchange of grace and love by which God relates to himself as one and as all through which he expresses himself, and by which those expressions relate to him.

    Aum Namah Shivaya!
    Last edited by Shivbhakta; 29 April 2013 at 08:46 AM. Reason: Adding analogy for understanding.

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    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    hari o
    ~~~~~~
    namasté


    Quote Originally Posted by jignyAsu View Post
    Analogy is interesting. But doesn't the wave (avidhya/illusory identification/individual jiva) have a starting point here?
    Remember that when we are dealing with the young ( spiritually or chronologically) it is best to keep things simple. Yet as the story continues of the wave and the ocean, we ~hope~ that the person thinks , 'Hey wait a minute. This wave is water and so is the ocean , where then is the difference ?' Then the conversation continues. Why did the wave rise up ? under whose power ? Where does the wave go when it settles down ? This begins the growth process.

    iti śivaṁ
    यतसà¥à¤¤à¥à¤µà¤‚ शिवसमोऽसि
    yatastvaṠśivasamo'si
    because you are identical with śiva

    _

  10. #10

    Re: Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

    In semitic beliefs, the soul has exactly one life (always as a human). The point of creation of the soul = time of birth. However, the soul , once created, never dies and survives past the point of material death, retaining memory of this single life, forever.

    In Vedanta, the soul is beginningless and so is its Karma. Obviously, it follows that the number of souls must be finite. These souls go through several lives, not all as human. Depending on the specific school of Vedanta, all of these souls or some of these souls will eventually attain liberation, again, the nature of liberation varying from school to school.

    Even if some souls will attain liberation, we have a paradox because

    1) The soul is beginningless.
    2. Liberation is a specific point in time (happens utmost once).

    and therefore, it may be argued that any period of time required for liberation should already have passed, in which case, all souls that can be liberated should be liberated by now. But clearly they are not and hence, the paradox.
    Last edited by shiv.somashekhar; 29 April 2013 at 04:51 PM.
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