Episode 01 - Essential Gita - Chapter 2 - Atma(n) and the Body.

CHAPTER 2  - (Sankya Yoga) – Verse 7

 

 kārpaṇya-doṣhopahata-svabhāvaḥ

pṛichchhāmi tvāṁ dharma-sammūḍha-chetāḥ

yach-chhreyaḥ syānniśhchitaṁ brūhi tanme

śhiṣhyaste ’haṁ śhādhi māṁ tvāṁ prapannam

 

 “I am confused about my duty, and am besieged with anxiety and faintheartedness. I am your disciple and I surrender to you. Please instruct what is best for me.”

 

 “prapannam” – surrender is an inadequate translation; it is surrender in totality, without any reserve or inhibitions or ego, a declaration of  one’s utter helpless state and the faith that the entity to whom he surrenders shall be THE ONE AND FINAL RESORT.

 

 Verse 11:

 

śhrī bhagavān uvācha:

 

aśhochyān-anvaśhochas-tvaṁ prajñā-vādānśh cha bhāṣhase

gatāsūn-agatāsūnśh-cha nānuśhochanti paṇḍitāḥ

 

 Sri Krishna said: While you speak words of wisdom, you are grieving for something which is not worthy of grief. The wise lament not - for the living nor for the dead.

 

 

CHAPTER 2:   THE SOUL (ATMA(N) AND THE BODY

 

 

A life after death – a rebirth, a journey towards heaven or hell, whatever – has long been the projected thought searches of humanity since ancient times. While the Indian philosophy and spiritual discussions invested intensively and copiously on this, even western philosophies (including the Greek) – heavily centered on the here and now - had found that question bewildering and inviting.

 

A number of underlying phenomena in human life that were otherwise not rationally and convincingly explained, triggered these thought searches into realms unknown to the human mind – why do different beings experience different fates and destinies though at birth they may have shared the same parentage or social circumstance, why is there such a discernible disparity in the mental architecture of beings, given that they relate with comparable family or social backgrounds, why are pleasures and pains impacting people differently .. and a lot else that eluded definition within the mental reaches of humans in the material, earthly contexts known to them.

 

 (Rare exceptions to this belief of an ‘after-life’ and its form and potential were philosophical propositions like the Epicurean one (third century BC), hedonism – an ancient (BCE) philosophy that focusses on the central issue of pursuit of happiness and the problems related with it; related philosophies are Charvaka of the immediate post-Vedic times,  Utilitariansm of Jeremy Bentham of which John Stuart Mill David Hume were votaries of.

 

 Even Sankhya** philosophy – one of the six derived from the vedhic era (the others being Vaiseshika, Meemamsa, Vedanta, Yoga and Nyaya), concedes that when the biological body perishes, a ‘subtle’ counterpart thereof subsists and migrates to another biological body.)

 

 **Sankhya rejects the principle of a Supreme Being – the Creator/Controller; it recognizes two eternal entities – the ‘purusha’ (the equivalent of ‘atma’) and ‘prakriti’.

 

Added to this search matrix was the moralistic extensions of even the Abrahamic religions that proffered rewards and punishments after this life for deeds – good and bad – in this one, - a heaven for the do-gooders and a hell for the wicked - hoping to drive and channelize human endeavour into what these religions defined as good and exemplary.

 

 

We see an amazingly consistent overarching of thoughts across different faiths of the world, including the paganistic ones –

 

1.    The (cosmic, moralistic) results of actions (‘karma’ in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) were not always instantaneous, proportional and discernible; there was an inexplicable temporal distancing of the two;  there was an unseen system of the effect of one’s actions being accumulated and carried forward;  as a life ends and since the carried forward aggregate – OR SUM -  of effect of one’s actions in one life could not be exhausted at that point, and as these effects have to play out with that very entity being the actor, that being is either consigned to a higher realm (heavens) if the sum of what is carried forward is all ‘good’ or to a lower realm (hell) if the sum is bad (as in the main Abrahamic religions); in short, death is not the final end to a life and something subtler than the physical remains -which are destroyed or would decay - survives death and has an ‘after-life’

 

2.    In most other religions (including some denominations of the Abrahaic ones), that being takes another life – transmigrates, reincarnates, - in order to ‘enjoy’ or ‘suffer’ those accumulated effects. And, as humans are unaware, shrouded as they are in ignorance about what bags of merits or demerits they are born with, they go on to accumulate more and more of these ‘causes’ with effects to follow in later births. The rebirths thus become an inescapable, eternal, cycle – till wisdom dawns and the beings seek to break free through true knowledge.

 

3.    A deliverance from the unending cycle of births - ‘sansara’ – is offered (‘moksha’ or ‘mukti’ or ‘nirvana’ or ‘nibanna’) as the sole hope for lives that regard the unending cycle of ‘sukha’ (pleasures) and ‘dukha’ (pains) as most frustrating and undeserving for a ‘high-born’ human. That ‘moksha’ is the union with the Almighty and there never is a return from that deliverance.

 

While (3) is the hallmark of most indic faiths and philosophies, (Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism) some western faiths also venture to project that proposition in their understanding of the larger phenomenon of rebirths/reincarnation: e.g.

 

In the Celtic religion (Iron Age of Europe), there was belief in a life after death, for they buried food, weapons, and ornaments with the dead. The Druids, roughly the equivalent of Brahmins in early Hindu society, taught the doctrine of transmigration of souls and discussed the nature and power of the gods.

 

 In ‘Orphisim’ faith (pre-Socratic Greek philosophy) the human soul was of divine origin but had fallen into sin. As a consequence, it was obliged to

 

transmigrate through various forms of life, human and animal. The soul can liberate itself through purification, renunciation and non-killing. At a certain period between two lives on earth, the soul was tortured in hell or lived in bliss among the gods, according to its deeds and endeavours during its life on earth. The ‘liberation’ was the ‘soul’s’ unification with God.

 

Phythagoras (570–500 B.C.) took over the Orphic doctrine and, refining it, attached the greatest importance to the right way of living. He founded an Order with a discipline based on renunciation, aimed at gaining liberation from the cycle of births.

 

Plato’s take on cycle of rebirths and eventual deliverance was wholesomely inspired by this Orphic line of thinking: The soul was once in the exalted state of divine being, but in course of time became unable to maintain the inner balance of its qualities and due to this lack of mindfulness fell into the material world and according to its level took birth among humans.  After death, the soul of a bad man would suffer in a nether world and that of a good man shall rejoice in a heavenly abode. After a thousand years every soul takes birth on earth again, possibly also in some animals. The soul chose its own rebirth and during the next life it lived to acquire virtuous merits for better insight and earn the better choice when further rebirth would take place. After ten lives on earth the soul becomes purified and regains the state of a divine being, but a new fall again is possible.

 

In the later Attic age of Greek history, this thought about rebirth-soul-salvation gets even more refined: This refined system held that souls

 

were once in unity with the universal principle called the “One.” As a consequence of some inexplicable course of necessity and, possibly, due to their own fault, the souls fell from their blissful state into empirical, temporal exigency. There they had to transmigrate, according to the strength of their sensual attachments, through successive lives in celestial, human, animal and even vegetable forms. Their fate

 

exactly corresponded to their previous deeds. If they succeeded in purifying themselves from sensuality and attachment to material objects of pleasure, they will become re-unified with the One and thus gain liberation.

 

 Medieval European philosophy, while inclined to further these Greek-inspired thoughts on ‘soul’, transmigration, liberation, etc., had, however to contend with the punitive sanctions of conservative Christianity that found and punished anything overreaching the biblical thoughts as heresy. The sterling example of this was Giordano Bruno (Italian, 1548 to 1600 C.E.), whose philosophical thoughts are startlingly close to the proclamations of the Upanishads, the Gita and other Indian philosophical thoughts:

 

BRUNO: “Every soul and spirit have some degree of connectivity with the universal spirit, which is recognized to be located not only where the individual soul is situate and perceives, but also to be spread out everywhere in its essence and substance, as many Platonists and Pythagoreans have taught.”

 

(Resonates with the Gita – Chapter 15, verse 15: sarvasya chāhaṁ hṛidi sanniviṣhṭo. I am seated in the hearts of every being.)

 

BRUNO: “The soul is not the body and it may be in one body or in another, and pass from body to body.”

 

BRUNO: “All things are in the Universe, and the universe is in all things: we in it, and it in us; in this way everything concurs in a perfect unity.”

 

 (Resonates with Mantra 6 of Isopanishad:

 

 yas tu sarvāṇi bhūtāny ātmany vānupaśyati

 

sarva-bhūteṣu cātmānaṁ tato na vijugupsate

 

“He who sees everything in relation to the Supreme Lord, who sees all living entities as aspects of Him, and who sees the Supreme Lord within everything. never hates anything or any being.”

 

BRUNO: “God is the universal substance in existing things. He comprises all things. He is the fountain of all being. In Him exists everything that is.”

 

BRUNO: “God is infinite, so His universe must be too. Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of His kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds.”

 

BRUNO:  “The universe is then one, infinite, immobile.... It is not capable of comprehension and therefore is endless and limitless, and to that extent infinite and indeterminable, and consequently immobile. “

 

– Resonates with the Isopanishad mantra 4 –

 

anejad ekaṁ manaso javīyo

nainad devā āpnuvan pūrvam arṣat

tad dhāvato ’nyān atyeti tiṣṭhat

tasminn apo mātariśvā dadhāti.

 

 “The ONE that moveth not, the Supreme Being is (also) swifter than the mind and can overcome all others running. The powerful devas cannot approach Him. Although (seemingly seated in one place), He controls those elements - the air and rain. He surpasses all in excellence.”

 

(Bruno was subjected to a cruel inquisition by the Roman Catholic Church in Rome for seven and a half years and, was burnt publicly at the stakes – his infraction from Christian faith was found more heretic with regard to his cosmological thoughts – what the universe was like, asserting that there were so many suns and planets orbiting them in the universe – that upset the catholic faith.)

 

(These could be out of any of India’s Upanishadic texts, couldn’t these? Let us see what Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, one of the earliest upanishads, has to say on this – ‘soul’ and its cycle of births:

 

tad eṣa śloko bhavati: tad eva saktaḥ saha karmaṇaiti liṅgam mano yatra niṣaktam asya; prāpyāntaṁ karmaṇas tasya yat kiṁ ceha karoty ayam. tasmāl lokāt punar aiti asmai lokāya karmaṇe iti nu kāmayamānaḥ; athākāmayamānaḥ, yo'kāmo niṣkāma āpta-kāma ātmā-kāmaḥ, na tasya prāṇā utkrāmanti, brahmaiva san brahmāpyeti.

 

 1.    Tad eva saktaḥ saha karmaṇaiti prāpyāntaṁ karmaṇas tasya yat kiṁ ceha karoty ayam. tasmāl lokāt punar aiti asmai lokāya karmaṇe:

 

 The individual sheds his/her physical body, casts off the mortal remains and with those remains, all the associations, physical or social – the individual leaves alone; but like an encrustation that has grown into us and could not be shed or dislodged, the forces of ‘karma’ cling to our ‘astral’ remains – as we leave.

 

2.    ‘Lingam mano yatra nisaktam asya’ – The mind, which is the ruler of the astral body, has attached to it – like a leech - the aggregate of the results of actions ‘karma phala’; we may go anywhere, any corner of the creation, this will not leave us;

 

3.    Where does it go? Those features of the world, those conditions or that type of atmosphere where its unfulfilled desires can be fulfilled, there the astral body (Linga-sharira), is destined. Like a rocket the subtle body moves and finds its place. The cosmic law operates in such a just, precise and inexorable manner that the subtle body is taken to the exact spot where it can fulfil all its wishes. Then what happens further?

 

4.    prāpyāntaṁ karmaṇas tasya - "Those Karmas which have to be exhausted by experience in that particular place find their completion through experience in that very place. Whatever we have done here, the result of it we experience there. Then what happens?

 

5.    Tasmāl lokāt punar aiti: Asmai lokāya karmaṇe. From that place (where you have exhausted your experiences), you come again. To this world, for the purpose of further actions. You shall have to engage in further action because your desires have not yet been  fulfilled; and the residue of the ‘karmas’ has to be experienced as well.

 

6.    Can desires by fulfilled – ever? na jātu kāmah kāmanam upabhogena śāmyati; haviṣā knṣṇavartmeva bhūya eva-abhivardhate – It is like trying to douse a roaring flame with butter oil. The more one feeds it, the more intense is the flame of desires fired up. That is the fate of anyone who desires for things – objects of the senses.

 

7.    Is there no way out of this?

 

athākāmayamānaḥ, yo'kāmo niṣkāma āpta-kāma ātmā-kāmaḥ, na tasya prāṇā utkrāmanti, brahmaiva san brahmāpyeti.  … Brihadaranyaka Upanishad – Verse 6

 

A person who has no desires left, whose desires have all gone, (niṣkāma) whose desires are centered only on his ‘soul’ (ātmā-kāmaḥ) and nothing else, one who has that exclusive desire alone, becomes ‘Apta-kamah’, (all desires fulfilled) then on to ‘nishkama’ (without desires) , on to ‘Akama’ (desireless)  and then on to ‘AkAmyamAnah’ (one who does not desire any more).

 

8.   What happens, then, to this rare ‘vyakti’ – individual – who has vanquished desires – when the end comes? This is so glowingly, divinely, inviting! There is no usual tussle of the ‘pranas’ on their departure. There is no destination forward. The pranas and senses just dissolve – then and there! na tasya prāṇā utkrāmanti, brahmaiva san brahmāpyeti. 'He has been contemplating on the Brahman. He gets identified with the Brahman then and there – ‘sadya mukti’ in vedantic terms.

 

Where and how did this journey start?

 

Mantra 5 of the same Upanishad:

 

“sa vā ayamātmā brahma”

 

 “That Atman is indeed Brahman.”. (one of the four maha vakyas in the Upanishads.)

 

Of the modern-day western philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778 CE) had an unshakable faith in the proposition of the soul and its immortality:

 

“Not all the subtleties of metaphysics can make me doubt for a moment  the immortality of the soul, and of a beneficent Providence. I feel it, I believe it, I desire it, I hope it, and will defend it to my last breath.”

 

But Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) seemed to trivialize that concept. “Nevertheless, modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul or mind as an entity.

 

Buddhism firmly denies ‘atman’ aka ‘soul’. For reinforcing that assertion, it calls the proposition ‘anatta’ (Pali .. Sanskrit equivalent – Anatma). But Buddhism does assert that there is an after-life. Buddhists believe our consciousness is like a flame on the candle of our body. At the moment of death, we, in the form of a ‘stream of consciousness’ (vijnana-sottam) leave the body but this flame, made of moral credit or debit (‘papa’ and ‘punya’ in Hindu terms), goes into a new body.

 

Thus, Buddhism has the same view as Hinduism on the cycle of births; it even concedes that beings earning great merits could be elevated to the heavens and become ‘devas’ – gods; but that status is terminable and co-extensive with the corpus of good merits to be expended – just as in Hinduism. In Buddhism, this “karmic flame of consciousness” plays the same role as the “soul” in other religions.

 

And, ‘Nibbana’ (in Pali, Sanskrit equivalent ‘Nirvana’) – the ultimate deliverance is accomplishing identity with the universal impermanence that Buddhism advocates; in other worlds, that entity ceases to exist, just evaporates into nothingness, delivered of all the ‘dukha’ (grief) that the unending cycle of births entailed for it.

 

(According to Hinduism, the ‘soul’ (and the Supreme Soul – Paramatma) are imperishable. According to Buddhism, nothing is permanent, everything is perishable – or, as the ‘Maya’ theory of Hinduism would assert, about the material world – everything is an illusion.)

 

Jainsim accepts three features of the Hindu theistic core: the existence of a ‘soul’ and its imperishability; the continuing cycle of rebirths that could be terminated only when one attains salvation or deliverance; immediately as a person dies, the soul seeks and enters another (appropriate for the karmic sum) body.

 

Also, that delivered souls do not return to the cycle of births; they are installed in a state of elevation – ‘Sidhdhas’ – in a god-like status but not gods; they are disenfranchised of any (divine) power or functionality like the demi-gods in Hinduism like Yakshas, Kinnaras, Pitrus, Devas etc. who could confer both rewards and punishments on humans paying obeisance to them or erring them.

 

The other congruent part of Jain philosophy – compared with Hinduism – is its assertion that the material world – the universe i.e. ‘prakiriti - is permanent – as it is with the soul.

 

(The Jain philosophy would seem to be inspired significantly by the ‘Sankya’ segment of Hindu philosophy.)

 

NOW TO ‘ATMAN’ (SOUL) AND ITS ‘ATTRIBUTES’ – IN THE GITA:

 

 Chapter 2. verse 12

 

na tvevāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ

na chaiva na bhaviṣhyāmaḥ sarve vayamataḥ param

 

“Never was there a time when I did not exist; nor you, nor all the royalty arraigned in front of us here; and, all these ever cease to exist either.”

 

 

 

Sri Krishna begins the core tenet of the Gita here – the Atma(n) aka the Soul or the Self, is a divinity that is not part of the material attributes of the prakriti – the universe – nor the body that is wrought of that prakriti’s material, subject to decay and renewal, birth and death.

 

 The Supreme Being says – ‘I, the Supreme Being, the Paramatma am without a beginning and without an end – and not subject to change (imperishable, immutable). You, the Atman, the individual soul, are similarly without a beginning and without an end – and not subject to change (imperishable, immutable).”

 

Then what is the difference between the Supreme Being (Paramatma) and the individual soul? Are these different entities?

 

Let us see Swami Vivekananda’s take on these questions:

 

“there are three different stages of ideas with regard to the soul and God. In the first place, all religions admit that, apart from the body which perishes, there is a certain part or something which does not change like the body, a part that is immutable, eternal, that never dies; but some of the later religions teach that although there is a part of us that never dies, it had a beginning. But anything that has a beginning must necessarily have an end. We — the essential part of us — never had a beginning and will never have an end. And above us all, above this eternal nature, there is another eternal Being, without (a beginning and an) end — God.

 

“People talk about the beginning of the world, the beginning of man. The word beginning simply means the beginning of the cycle. It nowhere means the beginning of the whole Cosmos. It is impossible that creation could have a beginning. No one of you can imagine a time of beginning. That which has a beginning must have an end. “Never did I not exist, nor you, nor will any of us ever hereafter cease to be,” says the Bhagavad-Gita. Wherever the beginning of creation is mentioned, it means the beginning of a cycle. Your body will meet with death, but your soul, never.”

 

The vastly different streams of spiritual thoughts seem to converge on one issue: the Supreme Being is One without a second.. He Himself asserts: ‘maam ekam’. Then how do we have individual souls and the Supreme Soul differentiated? Are these two distinct – independent – entities? For an entity to enjoy its individuality, it needs to be independent. Are the individual souls independent? In origin, sustenance, dissolution? No, these are all unquestionably inseparable parts of that Supreme Being, aren’t they?

 

 

The Supreme Being Himself puts it beyond debate:

 

mamaivāṃśo jīvaloke jīvabhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ

manaḥṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi prakṛtisthāni karṣati  .. Chapter 15, Verse 7

 

“The Jivatmas that relate with this material world (prakriti) are My eternal fragmental parts (mamaivAmshO). But bound by material nature, they are struggling with the six senses including the mind.”

 

We pick Sri Ramanuja’s commentary on this verse, for the specific reason that he established the Visishtadvaita Sidhaanta which postulates that the jivatmas never lose their ‘I’ness, their individuality and so does the ‘achit’ component of the Supreme Being – the ‘prakriti’.  Let us see what Sri Ramanuja sees in this verse:

 

 “Lord Krishna is revealing the essence of reality by stating ‘mayi sarvam idam’ meaning everything there is - either chit sentient or achit insentient, everything that exists as the aggregate of causes and effects, is constituted from Him as He is the original source of all.”

 

Brahma-Sutra 2.3.41: - The Soul (‘Atman’) is not independent-is dependent on the Supreme Being that resides within it.

 

 परात्तु तच्छ्रुतेः ॥ ४१ ॥ parāttu tacchruteḥ ||

 

The soul in its activity is dependent on the Supreme Lord; so declares the Sruti.

 

Which Sruti declaration that the sutra relies on here? – The great principle of ‘Antaryami’ is explained by Yajnavalkya to Uddalaka:

 

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad – Chapter III – vii – verse 22

 

yo vijñāne tiṣṭhanvijñānādantaraḥ, yaṃ vijñānaṃ na veda, yasya vijñānaṃ śarīram, yo vijñānamantaro yamayati, eṣa ta ātmāntaryāmyamṛtaḥ ||

 

 “He who inhabits the intellect, but is within it, whom the intellect does not know, whose body is the intellect, and who controls the intellect from within, is the Internal Ruler, your own immortal self.”

 

 The Gita also affirms this –

 

Chapter 18 Verse 61

 

 īśvaraḥ sarvabhūtānāṃ hṛddeśe’rjuna tiṣṭhati

bhrāmayansarvabhūtāni yantrārūḍhāni māyayā

 

 “The Lord dwells in the hearts of all beings, O Arjuna, causing all beings, by His unknowable power, to revolve, as if helplessly mounted on a ‘merry -go-round.’”

 

Chapter 2. Verse 19:

 

ya enaṁ vetti hantāraṁ yaśh chainaṁ manyate hatam

ubhau tau na vijānīto nāyaṁ hanti na hanyate

 

“Neither of them knows—the one who thinks that the soul can slay and the one who thinks that the soul can be slain. For truly, the soul neither kills nor can it be killed.”

 

 The illusion of death is created because we identify ourselves with the body. The Tulsi Ramayana explains:

 

jauṅ sapaneṅ sira kāṭai koī, binu jāgeṅ na dūri dukh hoī.

 

 “If we dream of our head getting cut, we will perceive its pain until we wake up.” The incident in the dream is an illusion, but the experience of the pain continues to torment until we wake up and the illusion is dispelled. Similarly, in the illusion that we are the body, or the body is ‘I’, we fear the experience of death, as the mind cannot perceive the Soul and its imperishability. For the enlightened soul whose illusion has been dispelled, this fear of death vanishes.

 

In order to make the distinction sink well, Hindu philosophy uses the nomenclature ‘anatma’ - (this is not the “I”, not the Soul) - for the body. (Buddhism calls the term ‘anatta’ which in Pali does mean ‘Anatma’.)

 

One may ask: if nobody can kill anyone, then why is murder considered a punishable offense? The answer is that the body is the vehicle of the soul, and destroying any living being’s vehicle is violence, which is forbidden. The Vedhas clearly instruct: mā hinsyāt sarva bhūtāni  “Do not commit violence toward anyone.” In fact, the Vedhas even consider killing of animals as a crime. However, there are occasions where the rules change and even violence becomes necessary. For example, in cases where a snake is approaching to bite, or if one is attacked with lethal weapons, or one’s life sustenance is being snatched away, then violence is permitted for soul-protection. In the present situation, what is appropriate for Arjuna, violence, or non-violence, and why? Shree Krishna will explain this to him in great, exquisitely reasoned, detail, as the dialogue in this chapter and the next progresses. And in the course of that dialogue, priceless divine knowledge will be revealed to shed light on this question.

 

Chapter 2. Verse 20:

 

na jāyate mriyate vā kadāchin

nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ

 

ajo nityaḥ śhāśhvato ’yaṁ purāṇo

na hanyate hanyamāne śharīre

 

“The soul is neither born, nor does it ever perish; nor, having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is, therefore, without birth, is eternal, immortal, ageless. (Words connoting the same thing – for emphasis.) It remains - undestroyed - when the body is destroyed.”

 

The eternal nature of the soul is asserted in this verse. The soul aka Atma,  is ever-existing and beyond birth and death. Consequently, it is devoid of the six types of earthly transformations: asti, jāyate, vardhate, vipariṇamate, apakṣhīyate, and vinaśhyati viz. “Existence in the womb, birth, growth, procreation, diminution, and death.” These are transformations of the body, not of the soul. What we call as death is merely the destruction (dissolution, as nothing is actually really destroyed, or dissembling, as the elements the body is made of revert there?) of the body, but the immortal soul remains unaffected by all bodily changes – including the final determinant for the body - death. This concept has been repeatedly emphasized in the Srutis.

 

The Kaṭhopaniṣhad contains a mantra almost identical to the above verse of the Bhagavad Gita:

 

 na jāyate mriyate vā vipaśhchin nāyaṁ kutaśhchin na babhūva kaśhchit

ajo nityaḥ śhāśhvato ’yaṁ purāṇo na hanyate hanyamāne śharīre ( Katopanishad 1.2.18)

 

 “The soul is not born, nor does it die; it did not spring from something, and nothing sprang from it. It is unborn, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.”

 

 The Upanishad goes on to elaborate:

 

 anor aniyan mahato mahiyan

atmasya jantor nihito guhayam

tam akratuh pasyati vita-soko

dhatuh prasadan mahimanam atmanah

 

“Both the Supreme Being [Paramatma] and the atomic soul [jivatma] are situated within the same heart of the living being.

 

“The one who has discarded desires, helped by the peace in his sense organs, realizes the glory of the Atma and is released from sorrow.”

 

Sri Narayana Sooktham of the Rig Veda affirms these two truths in more elaborate physiologically picturesque terms:

 

pa̠dma̠kō̠śa-pra̍tīkā̠śa̠g̠ṃ hṛ̠daya̍-ñchāpya̠dhōmu̍kham ।

adhō̍ ni̠ṣṭyā vi̍tasyāṃ̠tē̠ nā̠bhyāmu̍pari̠ tiṣṭha̍ti ।

 

The heart (hrdayam) stands like an inverted lotus bud

 

one span of hand - equidistant – below the neck bone (cervical vertebrae c.1?) and above the navel.

...

tasyāntē̍ suṣi̠ragṃ sū̠kṣma-ntasmin̎ sa̠rvam prati̍ṣṭhitam

 

In there (in the hridayam), in a space smaller than the point of a needle, everything (in this universe) is established (microcosmically.)

 

tasyā̎-śśikhā̠yā ma̍dhyē pa̠ramā̎tmā vya̠vasthi̍taḥ

 

In there (in the hridayam), in the midst of a self-effulgent flame, Paramatma is established.

 

 

 

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad –

 

Chapter 4 – 3.7

 

katama ātmeti; yo'yaṃ vijñānamayaḥ prāṇeṣu hṛdyantarjyotiḥ puruṣaḥ;

 

“Which is ‘atma’?’ ‘This infinite entity (Puruṣha) is identified with the intellect - the self-effulgent light within the heart. “

 

Chapter 4 – 4.25

 

sa vā eṣha mahān aja ātmājaro ’maro ’mṛito ’bhayaḥ (4.4.25)

 

 “The soul is glorious, unborn, deathless, free from old age, immortal, and fearless.”

 

 Back to the Gita –

 

 Chapter 2 Verse 23

 

nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ

 

na cainaṁ kledayanty āpo na śoṣayati mārutaḥ

 

 “The soul can never be cut into pieces by any weapon, nor can it be burned by fire,  moistened by water,  withered by the wind.”

 

What does Sri Krishna convey in this?

 

 Consciousness, which is the nature of the soul, can be ‘perceived’ by material instruments – like manas or buddhi, but the soul itself cannot be contacted by any material object or instrument like sense organs. This is so because the soul is divine and hence beyond the interactions of material objects. Shree Krishna illustrates this vividly by saying that wind cannot wither the soul, nor can water moisten it nor fire sear it.

 

 

 

 

APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS BETWEEN SOME HINDU SPIRITUAL TENETS AS PROCLAIMED IN ‘SRUTI VAAKYAS’ I.E. UPANISHADS AND THE BRIDGING OF THOSE APPARENT CONTRADICTIONS.

 

 Let us try and handle the apparently conflicting Sruti assertions with reference to the ‘Soul’ aka ‘Atman’ – one asserting that “Brahman” is only One – without a second (and therefore both the individual soul ‘Jivatma’ or ‘Atma’ and the material world ‘prakriti’ are none other than the Brahman Itself). The other, like in the Visishtadvaita siddhanta, asserting that the ‘jivatma’ (chit), ‘pakriti’ (achit) and Brahman, the Supreme Being co-existed and are without a beginning and without an end.

 

CONTRADICTION 1.

 

• POINT:  

 

• The Atma is nothing other than the Bahman Itself – proclaim the Maha Vakyas:

 

• ‘Tat tvam asi’** – Thou art that – in Chandogya Upanishad Chapter VI, mantra xv - 3 – sa ya eṣo'ṇimaitadātmyamidaṃ sarvaṃ tat satyaṃ sa ātmā tattvamasi śvetaketo - That which is the subtlest of all is the Self of all this. It is the Truth. It is the Self. That thou art, O Śvetaketu

 

• You are That One, Svetaketu! Meaning that the Atman indwelling Svetaketu, (Svetaketu was the son as well as disciple of Aruni) as Uddalaka the teacher concludes after demonstrating that principle to the young student through illustrations. ** (Regarded as ‘AdEsa Vakya’ – Command Statement.)

 

• “Aham Brahmasmi’ – ‘I am That Brahman’ – Another Maha Vakya - Brihadaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.1

 

• This soul was indeed Brahman in the beginning. It knew itself only as “I am The Absolute Reality.” Therefore, it became all. And whoever among the gods had this enlightenment, also became That Brahman.

 

• “Ayam Atma Brahma” – “This Atman is Brahman” – Another Maha Vakya - Mandukya Upanishad – Mantra 2. “sarvaṁ hyetad brahma ayamātmā brahma” – All this Universe is Brahman, the Atma (Soul) is Brahman.

 

• “Prajnanam Brahma” – “Consciousness is Brahman’ – The fourth Maha Vakya –

 

• Aitareya Upanishad 3.3 –

 

• Ca yacca sthavaram Sarvam tat-prajna-netram prajnane pratishtitham
• Prajna-netro lokah prajna pratistha prajnanam brahma.

 

• All the breathing things that are here – the moving or flying or immovable – all these are guided by Consciousness (prajna) and are supported by Consciousness. The Universe has Consciousness as its guide (eye). Consciousness is the basis of all; verily, Consciousness (Prajnanam) is Brahman.

 

• ("Prajnanam iti Brahman" - wisdom is the Self. Prajnanam refers to the intuitive truth which can be verified/tested by reason. It is a higher function of the intellect that ascertains the Sat or Truth/Existent in the Sat-Chit-Ananda A truly wise person [...] is known as Prajna - who has attained Brahman-hood itself; thus, testifying to the  "Maha Vakya"  "Prajnanam iti Brahman".)

 

• Other ‘maha vakyas’ on Brahman (being the only one – without a second):

 

• “Ekam ekadvitiyam Brahma” – “Brahman is One – without a second” –

 

• Chandogya Upanishad -  6.2.1

 

• sadeva somyedamagra āsīdekamevādvitīyam | taddhaika āhurasadevedamagra āsīdekamevādvitīyaṃ tasmādasataḥ sajjāyata ||

 

• Somya! (The disciple addressed: Before this universe (‘prakriti’) was manifest, there was only existence, one without a second. On this subject, some maintain that before this world was manifest there was only non-existence, one without a second. Out of that non-existence, (they would argue), existence emerged.

 

• ‘Sarvam Kalvidham Brahma’ -  Chandogya Upanishad 3.14.1

 

• sarvaṃ khalvidaṃ brahma tajjalāniti śānta upāsīta |

 

• All this is (khalu – without doubt) Brahman. Everything comes from Brahman, everything goes back to Brahman, and everything is sustained by Brahman. One should therefore quietly meditate on Brahman.

 

• (Vishnu Purana – 1.22.53 -  would elaborate this:

 

• eka-deśa-sthitasyāgner
• jyotsnā vistāriṇī yathā
• parasya brahmaṇaḥ śaktis
• tathedam akhilaṁ jagat

 

• “Whatever we see in this world is but an expansion of various energies of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, who is like a fire that spreads illumination for a long distance although it is situated in one place.” 

 

• Brihadaranyaka Upanishad – 4.4.25

 

• sa vā eṣa mahānaja ātmājaro'maro'mṛto'bhayo brahma; abhayaṃ vai brahma; abhayaṃ hi vai brahma bhavati ya evaṃ veda ||

 

• That great, birthless Soul is nondecaying, immortal, undying, fearless and that infinite Brahman itself. Brahman is indeed fearless. He who knows It as such becomes the fearless Brahman.

 

• COUNTER-POINT:  

 

• Atma (the individual Soul) is unborn; so is ‘Prakriti’ the Universe. (Implying that these two entities are as eternal as the Supreme Being is – somewhat lessening the functionality of the Supreme Being; also, that the individual Atma and the Prakiriti are ‘independent’ of the Supreme Being:

 

• Svetasvatara Upanishad – I.9:

 

• jñājñau dvāvajāvīśanīśāvajā hyekā bhoktṛbhogyārthayuktā;
• anantaścātmā viśvarūpo hyakartā trayaṃ yadā vindate brahmametat.

 

• There are two unborn: the wise and the beginner, the omnipotent and the impotent. She (Prakriti), also unborn, establishes the enjoyer's connection with the objects of pleasure. Brahman with the form of the universe is infinite and inactive. Whoever knows that these three are Brahman attains liberation.

 

• Svetasvatara Upanishad – IV-6:

 

• dvā suparṇā sayujā sakhāyā samānaṁ vṛkṣaṁ pariṣasvajāte |
• tayoranyaḥ pippalaṁ svādvattyanaśnannanyo abhicākaśīti  -

 

• “Two birds, beautiful of wing, close companions, cling to one common tree: of the two one eats the sweet fruit of the tree, the other eats not but watches his fellow.”

 

• Svetasvatara Upanishad - IV.7

 

• samāne vṛkṣe puruṣo nimagno'nīśayā śocati muhyamānaḥ |
• juṣṭaṁ yadā paśyatyanyamīśamasya mahimānamiti vītaśokaḥ ||

 

• The Jivatma,  (perched) on the same tree, is absorbed (and because he is not the Lord (aneesaaya), grieves and is bewildered; but when he sees and cleaves to that other who is the Lord, (Isah), he knows that all is His greatness (asya mahimaanam) and his sorrow passes away from him.

 

• (The Mundaka Upanishad – mantras 3.1 & 2 – have an exactly identical wording.)

 

• (This mantra