Soul ? What soul ?

[vasanthakokilam]

r-t, if I need to associate my leanings towards anyone, I would like to call myself a Wittgensteinian though I tend to ramble a lot Not that I know much about Wittgenstein or my thoughts are based on his ideas, not at all, but the goals are similar: clarity, minimalism and 'simple but no simpler'. His famous quote you provided above is not about silence, btw, it is about setting the limits on what questions you can and can not ask in the context of western philosophy. In fact, one can argue that the whole goal of western philosophers is just that, defining the boundaries of Western Philosophy ( what questions are allowed to be asked etc. ). Rest are just details.

What you say about language and linguistics are 100% true. I assume you are talking about natural languages. Goedel's proof is a mathematical proof, his language is mathematical symbols, phrases and sentences, I do not think the linguists theorize about such language as innate to humans or not. They should but I am not sure if they do. But that does not matter to this discussion.

Modern science is all about language I agree, but it is mathematical language. Modern science has disassociated itself from natural language long time back.

Another favorite mental technique of mine in model building is 'reversal of cause and effect'. In that sense, I have an immediate liking to what Uday wrote "(instead of )...events and experiences taking place in space and time, we have moved on to interpreting space and time as taking place in awareness.".

I may be deluding myself but the above stuff is what gets my fancy from a purely scientific point of view too and so I can gobble such stuff with the most rational part of my brain I know Uday mentioned it no uncertain terms that this is there to satisfy some deep psychological need humans have about their own self-reality and belongs in the world of 'Atma VichArA'... but in my mind modern science is also a product of such 'vichArA'. That vichArA is not about 'Self' but about the world out there alright but if it it so happens that they need a theory that requires a concept of 'Self' to be introduced, they would not hesitate a second. It is also a mental quest for whatever reason. We have the CERN super collider spent with billions of dollars. It is to verify a theory and to know where the concept of mass comes from. No one is expecting that it will help us materially but it is a mental quest to understand nature using a simple set of rules, a set of rules that do not make sense to us intuitively. I would even term it as 'the combined psychological need of a whole host of people'. Why are people looking for a unified theory of quantum physics and Einstein's GTR, as in the creation of string theories? String theories are the most abstract things ever invented, reality is described using a model of 10, 11 or 26 dimensions. The explanation that the most fundamental thing is like a vibrating string is all a metaphor. It is just scientists' attempt to describe it in terms we understand. I would consider it again as a mental quest. There are many string theories that achieve the objective and each one says 'Oh my... my theory is mathematically consistent, minimal and beautiful than yours.'. Now it is all looking like various schools of spiritual philosophy. ( BTW, Ramanujam's modular functions are the basic tools of string theorists )

The axioms and tools of science do not have to make intuitive sense any more. Anything can be used. For it to be thought of as explaining reality, we just need it to do a a couple of things. It should of course be consistent and explain the things we already know. On top of that, it should make a few extra observations which are verifiable by us using our 'physical intuition'. We do not have to necessarily start at postulating about the world out there, we can definitely start at 'Self'. We can definitely start where Mandookya Upanishad starts and derive the rest of what we see using any type of math we invent. That would be completely rational and scientific. If it predicts a few extra things that we can verify consistently for ourselves while living in this world, it trumps any other scientific theory.

[vasanthakokilam]

I think "Nothing ever happened" can be the greatest axiom of Science. How simple and minimal it is! One has to define 'Nothing', 'Ever' and 'Happen' ( entity, time and event ) and at every step of the derivation to the things we all observe, this basic axiom has to be satisfied ('they all have to cancel each other' in some multi-dimensional space-time ). Wittgenstein might complain that languge gets in the way in defining those three terms, but that can be gotten around by using strict mathematical formalisms in defining those three things.

[cmlover]

Mathematics is nothing but another language! It is the underlying logic which gives it the strength. Ultimately it is 'binary' or call it 'trinary', if you include the undecidables which can be handled somewhat in the Fuzzy Logic. Perhaps Philosophical sytems should be analyzed using Fuzzy Logic!

[vidya]

Uday,
Coming back to your original question, I think an important qualifier here is missing. When someone says 'May her/his soul rest in peace' does it automatically imply the 'eternal' adjective to the resting process? Why do you assume that qualifier and interpret to mean 'rest eternally'?

All of these systems - be it Sankara Advaita,Shuddhadvaita, Saiva advaita, dvaitAdvaita, dvaita or vishishTAdhvaita all approve and sanction a theological base and belief system in addition to the epistemology. According to these belief systems and texts the soul after death is said to be in an extremely disturbed state of unrest going through various stages seeing screenshots of its life and wandering around in netherness and darknesses in search of the next body to inhabit based on its residual karma. Infact it is considered that the soulgoes through various states of acquiring subtler and subtler bodies over the course of the first 10 days and hence the death rituals programmed around it. In the realm of the ritual people read the Garuda purana and consider that it helps guide the soul along in its journey and relieve its distress in the transit phase.This belief is not entirely puranic but even in one of the upanishads there are mentioned the paths of devayana and pitrayana and the soul's journey is mentioned there According to these systems it is customary to pray for the soul to be at peace while in that 'transit state. Even in the Tibetan Buddhism the monks pray for the 'wandering souls of the dead' to help them along their transmigratory path. So when someone says May her/his soul rest in peace' why should one understand or interpret to mean eternal peace? It can be interpreted to mean May the soul be at peace with itself and chart its next course on the transmigratory path? So the statement in itself is certainly not at odds with the Hindu belief system as such (perhaps an epistemological oddity no doubt) and does not need to be decried as a 'Western import".

[vasanthakokilam]

CML, Science has long moved away from binary or trinary logic as we commonly know it. A piece of matter is there or not is no longer a true or false thing, it is described by a probability curve. The little knob on the light-switch we rotate to dim the light... its operation ( rather the operation of the tunnel diode that is in there ) can not be explained by true or false switch logic, you need that probability curve. It is not fuzzy logic as we understand it which is useful in deciding how much water to pump into a washing machine, that is all child play in the midst of all this. All we have are a set of mathematical equations and a set of operations you can perform on them. If you still want a separation from math and logic, you can call those operations 'logic' but that is all about how you want to speak about it. It is all one and the same in Modern Science, you are not allowed to assign physical meaning to the entities or operations ( you can do that as a metaphorical tool, that is about it ).

[VK RAMAN]

Vidya's course correction is a welcome sign

[cmlover]

VK
You are now moving into meta-mathematics. The probabilistic approach perhaps is the answer which is precisely exploited in the Fuzzy Logic system. Our Hindu philosophy is primarily deterministic based on 'cause and effect'. Perhaps it is time to generalize the system with the advent of a new 'Sankara'. The karma theory is iron-clad; you have to settle the accounts to be liberated. If it is probability based then there may be a chance of getting out of Samsara cycle without settling the accounts. Perhaps you can cheat 'God' The famous Nasaadiya suktam does cast doubts on the ability of God himself! Unfortunately the idea was not further investigated in our philosophical systems!

[knandago2001]

Despite being criticized and being told by others that as a sanyasi he had no "right"

[uday_shankar]

vidya

Interesting observatiion. I probably didn't consider the various strains of loosely held popular beliefs, based on puranas, popular practice, etc.., as well as the portion of the vedas that I find harder to digest - the karma kaanda and the upasana portions (I don't believe the true gnyana-kaanda speaks about pitrayana/devayana, I may be wrong). Certainly even the most ardent of advaitists doesn't belittle the sincere upasaka so I would be a complete fool to do so. So my assertions probably stem from a "my Hinduism is better than yours" standpoint and therefore untenable.

I sense the danger of becoming a half-baked epistemologinazi ! I am reminded of a Will Smith quote, paraphrasing "there are many amazing things about me, most of all my humility" . Therefore, I take back my earlier assertions about using "may his soul rest in peace"...I think it is OK to use those phrases, even in Hinduism.

That said, what exactly does the english word "soul" translate to in Indian languages ? If it is Atma/Atman it means that word denotes entirely different things to advaitic epistemology and popular beliefs sanctioned by advaita. The Atman of advaitic epistemology does not need any special "rest" or "peace" - it is the embodiment of both! Which brings us to ragam-talam's observartion of the role of words/language.

[VK RAMAN]

We all can hold on to our belief.

[coolkarni]

..

[vasanthakokilam]

Cool, that is quite funny. I now have a good justification when I slack-off on exercise!!

>The Atman of advaitic epistemology does not need any special "rest" or "peace" - it is the embodiment of both!

Uday, speaking strictly of Advaita, and ignoring what Soul maps to in Advaitic terms, can we get a clarification on these epistemological items as far as you know.

- By Atman, I assume you mean 'jIvAtmA' (since it can not be 'paramAtmA'. ), Or that is something else?

- I assume you say that this Atman is an embodiment of "rest" and "peace" because it is an aspect of paramatma. Only when actuated inside a living body, the karmic equation, peace, rest, unrest, joy, suffering etc. begin. Am I on the right track here?

- Back to the question: What is it that reincarnates? Is it this jivAtmA or something else?

- In between births, is the karmic data, marshalled in some form, get attached to the thing that reincarnates?

[uday_shankar]

vk

I am an epistemological minimalist, usually sticking to the strictly utilitarian mysticism. Hence the appeal of Bhagavan Ramana, whose use for doctrine is minimal. I have no personal use for theories of rebirth and such. I am quite happy listening to Ramana's exhortation to self enquiry and let all other questions rest. So my attempts to answer your questions may be a little sloppy...

By Atman, I assume you mean 'jIvAtmA' (since it can not be 'paramAtmA'. ), Or that is something else?

No I mean Atman which is the only substratum ... Atman = brhman. "parama" and "jiva" are qualifiers. In discourse, jivAtma is used to denote the totality of a personality.

- I assume you say that this Atman is an embodiment of "rest" and "peace" because it is an aspect of paramatma. Only when actuated inside a living body, the karmic equation, peace, rest, unrest, joy, suffering etc. begin. Am I on the right track here?

I am not sure! Paramatma is only a construct for the sake of the discourse, analysis and worship in the jAgrat state. In self-realization it has no reality. Hence Atma is just Atma.

- Back to the question: What is it that reincarnates? Is it this jivAtmA or something else?

That's a good question that has been asked before. I have to do something that I dislike...introduce jArgon and pile up more doctrine that will spawn more questions . Generally, it is said there are three kinds of bodies...kArana sharira (causal), sUkshma sharira (subtle body) and sthUla sharira (the gross body). The sthUla sharira is the one familiar to our everyday jAgrat experience...it's the one sitting on the "stool" if I may . It is the one that is born and dies. The subtle/pranic body or the sUkshma sharira is the one that reincarnates. The suKshma sharira is supposed to consist of 18 or 19 components including the "subtle aspect" of the 5 sense organs, the 5 organs of action, buddhi, chitta, ahankAra and so on. Basically all that distilled mental stuff. Essentially, it undergoes constant Karmic modification throughout a life until the sthula sharira it is attached to decays and dies. Thereafter it gets thrust into another suitable physical body in the next birth.

- In between births, is the karmic data, marshalled in some form, get attached to the thing that reincarnates?

The answer to this question is embedded in the previous one. The "karmic data" is constantly being programmed into the sUkshma sharira, so that no new programming needs to take place between births. The sUkshma sharira automatically attaches to a suitable sthula sharira that has the right qualifications. Not all the qualifications may be fulfilled in the next sthula sharira and a birth may be acquired just to discharge a strong impulse and thereafter a new birth for the rest. An interesting aspect is that non-human sthUla shariras "freeze" the sUkshma sharira till the next human sthUla sharira. That is, animals don't have any accumulated karma. For example - just a silly imperfect example that I don't believe in - a strong agressive carnivorous instinct acquired in some human birth may have to be worked out as a tiger in the next birth after which the sUkshma sharira moves on to acquire the next suitable body, none the better or worse.

So what the heck is the karana sharira or causal body ? As I understand it, it is the seed or original body. In the "beginning", all karana shariras were created equal. Then random walks created various karmic imbalances that are being worked out in the form of sUkshma and sthUla shariras. Thus viewed statistically over countless incarnations, nothing ever happened. The mean free path of every karana sharira is the same. Hence the entire vessel full of kArana shariras can further be aggregated since nothing differentiates them. That aggregate is Brahman. This is just my attempt at a vasanthakokilamism .

[cmlover]

coolkarni
your joke reminds me of 'Chendil's famous two-banana joke

[uday_shankar]

cool,
Sorry :p ! There was no intentional misleading - just over zealous posturing.

[VK RAMAN]

By reading VK's write up I am going bananas

[vasanthakokilam]

Uday: Thanks. It all makes perfect sense to me. I was wondering why and your last sentence provided the answer

When I was reading your post, I was reminded of what we sometimes do at work these days. When a computer is about to die or needs to be upgraded, we save ('freeze') an image of the current run time state of the system, take it to another box and reactivate it there. Everything reappears there as is, including the documents and programs that were open in the first machine.

[cienu]

Cool ,

That was a great (half) banana joke

[ragam-talam]

Thus viewed statistically over countless incarnations, nothing ever happened.

Yes, and that is the cosmic joke!

Is it possible that the transfer of vaasanas acquired in one life to the next may be linked to the genetic code? Because the non-physical soul has to be 'actualized' in a physical body. We also have the saying that a soul looks for the right family to be born into. Perhaps this is because it requires the physical (and spiritual?) substrate to be prepared for it to be transformed into a physical body again?

Two children born to the same parents may share a few characteristics, but may differ substantially in other ways. For e.g. one may be tone deaf while the other may be very musical. Perhaps this is because the souls are coming from quite different sources, with different genetic 'imprints', but overlap somewhat because of some shared genes?

Has there been done any work on linking genetic research to spirituality?

[Shivadasan]

Transmigration of the soul does not appear to be random or by chance. It is said that the soul takes birth in a family where members of the family had relationship with the soul in their previous birth, not the usual blood relationship but Karmic relationship (give and take of good and bad karmas - in other words, settle their account with them). It is also said that whomever you meet or get contacted with has a past karma relationship with you.

A tortured parent might be born as his son’s offspring and give him enough trouble in this life. A bully in the earlier life might get a wife ( a victim in previous birth) who would make his life miserable in the present life. A person who had helped others a great deal in a previous life might get a son who supports him whole heartedly. A person who was a terror and was hunting down people in his earlier life might be hunted down and tortured by the police in the present life. It is considered that the forefathers are born in the same family again to experience the fruits of their deeds. That is why it is believed that the sins of the parents visit the families of descendents.

While reading the lives of great saints we come across interesting information about many such incidents. It is said that Akkalkot Maharaj used to explain how the present crisis of a person is related to the deeds of that person in his previous birth. Many of them have expounded that whatever happens in this life through another person is the repayment of what you had done to that person in his previous life.

By the way, the dictionary defines ‘soul’ "The spiritual or immaterial part of human, regarded as immortal.’ When a vibrant living thing dies suddenly we are forced to conclude that something must have left that body. What name is given to it depends on the language.

[uday_shankar]

A person who had helped others a great deal in a previous life might get a son who supports him whole heartedly.

And not a daughter, I suppose ? After all a woman is inferior to man ? Needless to say, good deeds in a lower caste propels a person to a superior caste, right ? Now my mind is at rest. I know why somebody is poor and destitute and female, i.e., the epitome of all that is undesirable. She screwed up the previous birth ! I loathe such "localized" theories of rebirth. This brand of Hinduism sucks for sure.


cool,

A forumite and mutual friend sent me a rebuke via email for "taking back" my earlier assertion about souls resting in peace.

So don't get me wrong. I would actively discourage any family member or close friend from using inane and meaningless phrases like "may his soul rest in peace" and exhort them to say more meaningful things. But one size of "Hinduism" does not fit all and popular discourse does permit the use of "Atma shanti", etc.. In my books al those things will always be meaningless phrases.

[coolkarni]

..

[uday_shankar]

It is my belief that this janma is a great blessing in itself.One who cannot see peace with all these blessings , will not find it elsewhere , or rest in peace.
With the passing away of each of these personalities, what is of concern , is our own lives...
Our lives .With a Void.

Amen. Wonderful perspective and I totally agree.

[R2]

Can someone explain this anomaly in the following para (by the way, I have personally witnessed 2 deaths at close quarters over the past few years - literally holding the person as they passed away - and have been deeply affected by these events):
Many people have said 'the soul is released and goes to the next birth or is reunited with the Godhead' etc. People said, in one of these two cases 'his mother passed away 10 years ago on the same day, and she called him' --now my question is:
1. in the case where the earlier soul (of the mother) goes to another birth, then it would be part of the new birth and life and would not try to 'call' the son, right?
2. In the case where the soul reunited with the Godhead, again, it is now completely free from attachment, that is why it is reunited with the paramatma, so why would it 'call' the son?

Are we fooling ourselves? Is there no such thing as soul, and is created by humans to console themselves on being bereaved? Let us look at the whole issue with a completely open and fair mind, unfettered by baggage of philosophy and religion.

[uday_shankar]

R2
What you believe is all that counts. Coolkarni's wonderful post above sums it up - all we have is our own lives, with a void. Soul or no soul, love is worthwhile. Love for the dear departed must find expression in our own lives.

[arasi]

I take it that the topic of discussion can now rest in peace.
"Love for the dear departed must find expression in our own lives."
And may I say, here on earth, in our own life time?
Yes, indeed yes...

[coolkarni]

..

[Shivadasan]

Dear Uday,
The intriguing post from such an erudite scholarly person as you has surprised me. None of posts of mine can even be remotely lead to the conclusions you had taken so much pains to arrive at.

You say, "And not a daughter, I suppose ?"

[uday_shankar]

Shivadasan sir,

Ooops...terribly sorry to give you wrong the impression. No doubt I harbor some deep "kaduppu" against some Hindu practices and I am so sorry to give the impression that I had something against your post...I feel really awful now. I hope you don't hold it against me and in fact one of your previous posts was the inspiration for me to participate again in this thread !

I have a theory that the notion rebirth has prevented Hinduism from addressing social issue like poverty, etc..Something in what you wrote triggered off this latent anger. Sorry again for the foolishness.

[knandago2001]

The Weavers Studio Centre for the Arts in Kolkata organized an evening (yesterday) with Girish Karnad in conversation with Sangeeta Datta, film historian and director of the film, 'Life Goes On', in which Girish Karnad plays the protagonist. The film is yet to be released. More details are given below:

http://stormglassproductions.com/Stormg ... es_On.html

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090519/j ... 985840.jsp

[arasi]

Nandagopal,
Thank you.

[Shivadasan]

Dear Uday,
Thank you for your reply. I was a little surprised at your reply and now I understand your concern about our society. I had also gone through such a mental state but after understanding a little about the mystery behind this world I am now reconciled with the situation.

Coolji wrote, "What happens in times of death is similar to what happens when we are forced to stand near the door of a railway carriage , on a fast moving train. In those shaky moments , one is more likely to realise the gravity of the momentum carried by the train. Back at the comfort of our seats , This essence of travel is less forceful."

[rajesh_rs]

In those days people used to walk everywhere and thus the feet (particularly the bottom side) are bruised, aching. Once dead, of course no walking. So I think this was meant to be "May his sole(s) rest in peace"

Arun

Haha. Unless you have dead men walking.