From ignorance. Our material mind's perception creates the idea of individuality. There are many minds, but they as well as everything else in reality exist in you, your inner self called atman. You are acting through them, they are in you, this is your personal universe or reality. It is similar to how only an eternal instant exists, but due to our memory we create the ideas of the past, present, and future.
If we are the absolute in our original state then how did ignorance affect the absolute truth? In otherwords if ignorance can bear an effect on the absolute, that must make ignorance absolute since it is stronger than atman (as you call it)
VitalOne, "this is your personal universe or reality." It's funny when you say that to someone else. Wouldn't THIS be YOUR personal universe? Why not mine? How come people can disagree with each other without anyone else (since their just figments of your imagination)? Or rather, not know about someone, or what someone thinks? And please define individuality... MetaKron, Ah, some misconceptions, I should read more closely... (I assumed parasitic was a general trait in all souls..) So, you ask wether a soul can be parasitic instead of being symbiotic (to the body)? And assume soul is an addon.. I suppose so. But if, as you say, we assume the body lives independent of a soul, then the body should think as well. And, "person doesn't have exactly that soul, he ain't right?", then it would stand to reason that the body is rather more parasitic than the soul. By those definitions. If soul is sent by god, how can it err? (And I do agree that god acts through the laws of physics.) And perplexity, "Children have more soul than adults." Not all adults, that is to say not all adults seem to "lose soul". Hence I think it's more like the souls own fault for running in the highway (if we assume again that the soul is the seat of all thought). The world moves; Get in it's way and get hammered. It's like a room with hundreds of fast moving, heavy things. Act stupid and it'll hurt. Stay smart and you might have enough time to get smarter. Ultimately you'll no longer get hit.
perplexity To make sense we reject nonsense. To misperceive and to misinterpret is to filter input. If our absolute state was tuly supremely absolute, wouldn't we have absolute wisdom? Then how was the information of our supremely absolute state thrown away? How did we lose information if our absolute state is supreme? If man truly has an absolute irreducable state that is supreme, how did it get reduced? Seems to indicate that we are not absolute then Then how did variables emmanate from something that has no variables?
heh the fog scary ashby is easy to critique "All wisdom is wisdom after the event." hindsight? nothing but a simple recollection of a sequence. quite undeserving of such a grandiose attribute how about predications based on either logic or experience? more like wisdom, ja? "Pattern-recognition is a throwing away of information." mindlessly ambiguous. easy to agree with and equally easy to disagree with "Any device that can lose information can generalize." hmm. butts and broomsticks? "Man adapts by conquering the reducible; the irreducible is impregnable." such self importance. absolutism is the province of fools. "No man knows what to do against the really new." heh. as opposed the just new? or new? or new new? oh! newer than new. newest of the new? hmm kinda stoned "A System is a set of variables sufficiently isolated to stay discussable while we discuss it." bitch slaps ashby ps: new is old. in with the new and out with the old. unnew is young
When people disagree with each other they are really arguing with a part of their own self, their own doubt, insecurity, etc... You can know what others think, the reason you don't is because of ignorance And thats just the point, "this is your personal universe or reality", there is no individual, get it? This is my personal universe, this is your personal universe, etc....get it? Ignorance does not affect the absolute truth. The absolute truth remains unchanged, unaffected, at all times. Ignorance is just like a veil, an illusion, a covering. If I believe lies it won't change the absolute truth. Believing in lies or false information is ignorance. It doesn't in anyway affect the absolute truth You are atman whether you realize it or not. Conditioning yourself towards ignorance makes you believe that you are not, so you are like a dreaming person who believes a nightmare is real, when its not, you are the source of the nightmare in all respects whether you realize it or not. Just as a dreaming person upon realizing that its just a dream is freed from all suffering, similarly when a person realizes that they truly are atman, they too are freed from all suffering.
What happens to the soul if the body is comatose, perhaps from brain damage? If a person loses most of his body and his head is left over kept alive in a jar, where does the soul go?
If the soul is 100% immaterial and the body is 100% material, what mechanism bridges the two in order for the soul to interact with the body?
Even trying to ask the question is perplexing. I tried to keep the complexity of the original question down so that I could sound at all coherent. What is "the soul" anyway? The Christians paint a very clear picture that tells you almost nothing. It's a point to start from. More than one religion considers only a limited range of "types" of souls to be valid. The "right" kind of soul "comes from God" and the other kind comes from the devil, supposedly. Then people act as if those labels are meaningful. Then they act as if they know what that means. We've become familiar with the results, I think. They do tell us that the soul is an add-on. If the body does live independent of this soul, then I think it proves the parasitism theory. If we get into different kinds of souls that work on the same body at different levels, then the question gets a lot more complicated. You might have souls that are perfectly adequate for the functioning of body and intelligence that aren't this "add-on." This is the possibility that I find most interesting and which might explain a lot of irrational behavior in humans that you don't see in animals. Of course, we also have the fact of life forms known to microbiology that parasitized and became symbiotes and became integral parts of every genome on the planet. I suspect that there is naturally an incarnate soul that does not require a reincarnated soul to function correctly. The reincarnated soul may even be less functional than what might develop without it. Many philosophers presume otherwise but does the evidence truly support this? Could we be becoming more confused and increasingly neurotic because of the burden of memories and emotional trauma?
The interactions between brain matter and the electromagnetic fields that are part of the soul form the bridge. The brain is a lot like a very complex interface between body and soul. Has anyone felt that they have to change their physical shape in some manner in order to think?
In Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic philosophy, we see a dual definition of the soul: one, which is the corporal or individual soul, also defined as the self; second, which is the celestial or supreme soul, also defined as the impersonal consciousness. According to Islamic philosophy, the rational soul (nafs) requires a body for definition until it separates from matter and reaches a state of purity. In Hindu philosophy, the jiva (or individual soul) is limited from complete freedom by the three bonds of ego, action and illusion (so may be said to need a body for definition, as well). In Buddhism, the atman (soul) is described as a mundane impermanent ego (attachment to which must be overcome) in order to attain Nirvana (or the pure blissful Self of the Buddha). In all cases, the individual soul may be said to require a body for definition. PS *lightgigantic, perplexity, pls correct any errors*
The same thing that makes a person scream "SNAKE!!" when they see a rope that happens to look like a snake. Illusion
samcdkey At least as far as vedic analysis goes there are three aspects of the absolute truth (inother words three aspects of god) - (to use the xample of the sun) the impersonal is one (the sunshine, ie homogenous), the localised is another (seeing the sun disc in the sky, ie recognising the locality from which the sunshine emmanates) and the personality of god (equivelant to taking a side to enter the sun planet, minus the burning up of course) Distinct from God is the living entity, sometimes also refered to as atma - three definitions for atma - body, mind and soul - just like if you take a coconut from a tree it is called a coconut, if you take off the husk of the coconut you still call it coconut (ie take away the body), and if you break open the shell it is still called cocout (ie take away the mind) - in other words the essence and value of a coconut is the white flesh inside, similarly, body and mind are coverings of the soul, and it is the presence of the soul that gives any value to the mind or body. In otherwords we have false ego and real ego - false ego is identifying with the body and mind and real ego is identifying with the soul - when one becomes sufficiently qualified by identifying with the soul, distinct from body and mind, one is qualified to enter the spiritual world, which ..... is a whole different subject again The self does not require a material body, but material life covers the self in a material body - just like we don't actually require a shirt to be living in this world, but most people are seen to be wearing one. (in other words there is a distinction between our body and the clothes we wear, the clothes are never really merged with our body because they are lifeless coverings - the same of the mind and body) I guess I am just a stickler for details Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! But to get to Q's original query about a living person bereft of their body, the fact that a person is living indicates tat the soul hasn't left the premises of the body - th emoment a person is dead is the moment that the soul has left, and no amount of material restoration will bring it back. Did you know that Walt Disney's Head is in some deep freezer somewhere in the states because he wanted in his will that his head be frozen so that science could revive him sometime in the future - the poor guy - he has probably been reincarnated as some Mickey Mouse by now
I think that a person becomes advanced when he sees that there is just as much enlightenment to be found while shovelling out a barn as there is in the highest centers of learning. "Purity" is bullshit. It forces mind into attenuated physical forms that do not function right. What does "purity" even mean? Do we try to reach "essence" that is so pure that it does not even contain information encoded in the form of De Broglie waves? Do we view all of the lessons of life as "contamination" and try to wash that contamination away to become pure? If so, what for? If the exposure to the dirty lower realms does something for the soul, let the soul respect this reality and love it. It isn't like hating to take out the trash. It's like hating to have to try, or to think, or to replace the energy that is naturally lost to the surroundings. Just about anything that I could see a soul being composed of would require some sort of association with physical events to replenish it. I have a firm belief that there is some sort of electromagnetic phenomenon, a set of more or less stable standing waves, that are more physical than some would like to admit, that makes up the "soul." Little packets of energy gathered over a physical lifetime are food for the soul. It has to process that energy using the body as the intermediary. The form is important if the soul wants to be anything but an undifferentiated blob that doesn't know anything. Still, I think that for the soul to be worth having, it has to bring something to the table.
Coming from an area where it is considered OK to sexually penetrate a 9 year old girl when she is married to you, what the H does "defilement" even mean?
I think defilement would mean an attachment to desire. In Indian philosophy, desire is believed to be the cause of all strife; whether it is desire for land, power or women (which are three of the worst forms of desire and the causes of war). So the ability to reach a state of consciousness where you neither love nor hate, but are detached from all desire, that is a state of purity.
The google link I supplied comes up with 157 hits to explain that. Should keep you going for a while! You could also try these: http://www.virtuescience.com/defilements.html http://www.ordinarymind.net/Feature/feature1_jan2003.htm It is like a hobby, identifying the various difilements. --- Ron.
Then, the soul is NOT 100% immaterial, it is in fact material, hence we should be able to detect it, especially if there are electromagnetic fields. Yet, nothing, nada, ziltch.
