Start of the 'Atma'/Soul

[TrikonaBindu]

Namaskaram to all.

Putting to one side the varied theories of rebirth and karmic recompense, the situation as we actually find it is such:

Though stars are countless, when we gaze at the vast night sky, most of it is black. Similarly, mahatmas are like the stars of this world, shining in the vast darkness of spiritual ignorance. Clearly for those who take birth on this planet there is but a tiny probability to achieve the level of the mahatmas.

Does that mean life is meaningless unless we are or will become mahatmas? Rather I believe our Creator values all of us just as we are, whether we belong to the species of plankton or whether we are paramahamsas.

Within this culture of Sanatana Dharma, Sri Rudram is a recitation held in highest appreciation. Is it merely empty sounds or can we understand something from that? Parameshwara is absolutely independent. Unaffected by complaints and criticisms concerning His work, He creates according to His own divine sensibility. According to Sri Rudram, His quiver is full of deadly arrows, devastating to human life and human potential. Yet also He is the sun, the forests, the healer, the guardian of the herds, the auspicious one. Human civic ideals and ethical ideals are no doubt indispensable for us who are fragile and interdependent. However, we cannot bind to our own laws and limits the One whose nature of uninhibited Self-expression has made the human condition what it is.

Shivarpanamastu.

[Twilightdance]

Again, it has already been offered. In your own words, go back and read it again, till you understand it.

He has read it, understood it but like any other apologist instead of an honest discussion decides to NITPICK on rigour of your and mine framing of statements about infinity, or stuffing words in our mouths by purposefully misunderstanding or not understanding what you write, or simply making false accusions of "circular logic" when there are none. All of this are tools of the apologist to drive the discussion from the original question to another territory or better establish that the original point raised is not sound or meaningful enough to warrant discussion, so as to avoid giving an honest answer and simultaneously pretend to win debates. He is just mini hindu version of william lane craig, best way to deal with him in online forums when one has no interest in wrangling with logic and language for pages to establish a simple statement, is to ignore after the main point is made, which you are doing.

[shiv.somashekhar]

Nice argument, but we can only stop with the conclusion that every jiva needs infinite time for liberation which itself is a death blow to concept of liberation for those who can think, BUT, this does not exclude the possibility of liberation in future in finite time.

1. Time is either cyclic or linear. Per the former, the present point of time T0 will repeat several times. However, Moksha is not subject to cycles and will happen exactly once, at Tm.

2. Moksha has spiritual progress as a necessary prerequisite and spiritual progress takes time. More importantly, this progress is not subject to cyclical time as stated in the Gita about how the effort resumes in a subsequent life. In other words, if a soul has progressed to a certain level, there is no dropping down to a lower level later; it has to either stay at the same level or progress upwards.

This period of spiritual progress is finite or infinite. The problem with the former is, no start point can be assigned to it (explained earlier) and therefore, is not an option. If it is infinite, then obviously, there is no end to it and hence, either way, we have a paradox.

[Twilightdance]

1. Time is either cyclic or linear. Per the former, the present point of time T0 will repeat several times. However, Moksha is not subject to cycles and will happen exactly once, at Tm.

2. Moksha has spiritual progress as a necessary prerequisite and spiritual progress takes time. More importantly, this progress is not subject to cyclical time as stated in the Gita about how the effort resumes in a subsequent life. In other words, if a soul has progressed to a certain level, there is no dropping down to a lower level later; it has to either stay at the same level or progress upwards.

This period of spiritual progress is finite or infinite. The problem with the former is, no start point can be assigned to it (explained earlier) and therefore, is not an option. If it is infinite, then obviously, there is no end to it and hence, either way, we have a paradox.

I would think cyclic/linear time is unnecessary consideration - events in time may be cyclic, we can w/o loss of generality take time to be linear in the beginning less creation model. Your argument is obvious but your definition of "time taken for liberation" is not rigorous.

Let's measure Tt = forward time to liberation from a point in time t in Jiva's life. t can be measure as NOW +/- L, i.e any reference point from NOW in Jiva's life. So it is well defined. Let T be an upper bound for series Tt for all t>=0. With a mild assumption that conditions of liberation would be same for infinite number of L>=0 we can see T has no finite convergence and is infinite (T>L for all L>0). i.e so starting now, any point with reference to now, there is no finite bound to time taken for liberation. The mild assumption is important. As I said, if advent of Adi Sankara changed the eternity of the past and created a cosmic discontinuity w.r.t liberation , then our theist friends are ok. Absurd beliefs can always be made logically ok, no matter how absurd they may be.

[wundermonk]

How to solve the problem of evil in Hinduism? I am quoting from Sri Vallabhacharya.

God is One and He became every one.
A person can be cruel only if there is a second one. God being One cannot be cruel. You cannot be cruel to yourself.
A person can be partial if only there were three people. God being alone cannot be partial. You cannot be partial to yourself.

Which cruelty and partiality of God are we talking about? God sees himself every where.

Case Closed!

To redefine evil as an illusion in some sense which is what your solution above amounts to is OK. Different people have different solutions to the Problem of Evil. The argument from the Brahmasutras I quoted above tries to tackle the more difficult problem where evil is assumed to be real and existent and not an illusion. An unlimited number of previous lives DOES solve the problem in this scenario.

Poor logicians, they coined the illogical doctrine of infinite lives

Why is infinite lives illogical? More specifically, please point out what contradiction ensues on positing an unlimited number of prior lives. That omnipotence/mercy of God somehow gets constricted by positing this is not an argument. The reason why I object to that is that you assume that within each lifetime, there is a limit on how much mercy God can shower on a jivatman if you allow for an unlimited number of prior lives. That is NOT the case. Even with an unlimited number of prior lives, in any given lifetime, a jivatman can be rescued from samsara by God's mercy. Given an infinite past, the number of jivatmans that have attained moksha is unlimited and thus we have established infinite number of times when God's mercy has lifted a suffering jiva.

By positing the doctrine of infinite lives, what we have actually achieved is to make God look like a dummy, helpless to save souls in samsara even after infinite duration. The doctrine of the merciful omnipotent God has been finally replaced with the law of eternally sufferings souls.

No!!! See above!

[wundermonk]

Our samsaric journey may be very long. I am only arguing for the finiteness of this journey. I don't care if we take a million or a billion lives, as long it is not infinite, which is entirely different from any finite number.

This assumes that there is a number just like any other finite number that is "infinitely" distant from 0. There is no such number.

Any number is only a finite distance from 0. But, and this is important, any number has a successor and a predecessor BOTH of which are still only a finite distance away from 0. There is no limit on the number of such successors or predecessors.

So, when you go about responding to a purvapaksha who you charge with arguing :

Saying that we take infinite lives is like saying we really have no idea and that God has no role in our bondage or liberation.

you are setting up a strawman. Of course, beginning now, if I say it will take infinite more lives for a jiva to get moksha, moksha will be unattainable. No disagreement there. No one argues for such a position. But what I am arguing for is that there was no point in time in the past when the jiva was infinitely away from now/today/here/t=0. Any point in time in the past, the jiva was only a finite distance away from now/today/here/t=0 BUT, there is no upper bound to that point in time in the past for the jiva. Do you not see the difference between the two cases?

[wundermonk]

In other words, if a soul has progressed to a certain level, there is no dropping down to a lower level later

Where are you getting this from? This contradicts the Gita and even normal understanding of spiritual progress/regress!

This period of spiritual progress is finite or infinite. The problem with the former is, no start point can be assigned to it (explained earlier) and therefore, is not an option. If it is infinite, then obviously, there is no end to it and hence, either way, we have a paradox.

First of all, there are different types of infinities.

(1)No beginning, finite end at time t.

For e.g.

------------------->t

e.g. our samsaric lives.

(2)Finite beginning, no end.

For e.g.

t->----------------

e.g. Moksha.

(3)No beginning, no end.

--->>------------------------>>-----

For e.g.

the universe/God.

There is also the concept of simultaneously infinity. Examples would be statements like "At any particular point in time, the number of atoms in the world is infinite."

So, when you attempt to provide me with a dichotomy of the type, "This period of spiritual progress is finite or infinite." do you realize that you need to be clear about the type of infinite period you are referring to? Which of the above types (1)-(3) do you have in mind that is the opposite of the "finite" horn of the dilemma?

Also, why is the inability to assign a starting point to anything a problem?

[wundermonk]

So, per the Advaita view, we are just an extension of the universal consciousness aka God?

Perhaps I may at this point ask you for what your understanding of God is?

Many more journeys to complete, much more knowledge to gain (and hopefully wisdom). Any suggestions on where I can source this material (at a layman's level) would be appreciated.

There are plenty of beginners' books on Hindu philosophy. Theos Bernand's book on Hindu philosophy got me started a couple of years ago. It is available on amazon.

So what drives the blissful jivatman to undertake this journey when it was blissful and enlightened in the first place?

There was no "first place"! Let me try another method. Take a look at the graph below:



The X axis can be considered time where 0 corresponds to now and points to its left are the past. Could you provide me with the number in the "first place" (as you understand and use the term) along the X axis?

But what causes the blissful extension (jivatman) to migrate/degrade into a state of 'Avidya' The start here was inquiring about the jivatman migrating/degrading into a state of Avidya (or in the original proposition, the atma seperating from paramatma)

If you have followed me thus far, you should know the answers to the above.

[Ra K Sankar]

Namaste

Our mind, according to its temperaments talks of 3 different types of liberation,
"Formful Liberation", "Formless Liberation", and "Formful-Formless Liberation".

It is the ego or the body-consciousness that talks about 3 liberation types.
If the ego investigates wherefrom it arose during waking (after having arisen from deep dreamless sleep),
all form ceases and that is Liberation.

Bhagawan Sri Ramana Maharshi says like this in verse 40 of Existence Forty
or 40 Verses on Reality composed in classical Tamil.

Regards
Ra K Sankar

[jthomasnaz]

I think the main focus is not suppose to be differences in our awareness but how our awareness sees reality in non dual oneness. For example, when you become aware of Atman - you should be able to see all in Atman and Atman in all. Any thoughts of separation from oneness is only distraction.