Re: Soul vs Self
namaste Moonlight and others.
Whatever way the words 'soul, spirit, self and consciousness' are used in English today, they had these meanings originally:
• soul: spiritual and emotional part of a person, animate existence; the seat of the animating principle.
• spirit: animating or vital principle in man and animals.
• self: one's own person, same.
[Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth. [Alan Watts]]
• consciousness: internal knowledge.
(Ref: http://www.etymonline.com/)
In an electric bulb, electricity passes through the wire in the filament. So, if we call electricity the spirit, as the animating principle, we would then call the filament soul and the bulb (individual) self. What about the light-switch here? We might perhaps call it the state of consciousness (on/off) of the individual bulb.
Unlike the western religions, Hinduism associates consciousness--prajna, with Brahman aka Atman or Self, which is the animating principle. Indidualizations of this universal Self with the limitations of physical and subtle bodies give rise to individual souls--jIvas and places their consciousness in one of three states: wakefulness, dreamy sleep and deep sleep.
In the case of the electric bulb, the animating principle is just a form of physical energy which has no consciousness of its own. Whereas with the individual soul, the animating principle is a single entity (Brahman) whose nature is consciousness, so the individual souls are enabled to know and experience their source and ultimately merge with it.
रत्नाकरधौतपदां हिमालयकिरीटिनीम् ।
ब्रह्मराजर्षिररत्नाढ्यां वन्दे भारतमातरम् ॥
To her whose feet are washed by the ocean, who wears the Himalayas as her crown, and is adorned with the gems of rishis and kings, to Mother India, do I bow down in respect.
--viShNu purANam
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