yes manas or mind is the 6th sense, it cannot be perceived by it either. As I said, atma is YOU, the fact that you are existing is proof of atman. Because, when the body becomes dead, one day then what is missing ? It is atma. No part of the body has any form of intelligence/Knowledge (brain will be there when you are dead too) except atma which is knowledge personified. Everyone say My Body(no one says I am body ) but what they are not realising is when you My CAR , car and you are different, so they are indirectly acknowledging the atma without knowing it when they say My body
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Dharmic traditions only: How would you know if you had an Atman?
- Thread starter Rick O'Shez
- Start date
Disgust of body, I meant in a sense, there are 2 ways in one can avoid cycles of birth and death in vedic dharmaPersonally I would be careful to not be so literal in having a "disgust" of the body. While I agree one needs to be constantly aware we are more than our body, as well as more than the thoughts of our own minds, to be "disgusted" with oneself can in fact lead to a dissociation and sickness. There is validity in understanding that the impulses of the body, or the habits of the mind are not where our gaze should be held exclusively, learning to "overcome" that exclusivity is what liberates, but the body and the mind are still our own! It's the skin-sack we live in, and to literally hate that is to deny what the Atman lives in!
But to "hate" it in a metaphoric sense, as a point of comparison to loving the pursuit of Self knowledge, has value. It would be like what the Buddha said that we should seek Enlightenment like a man whose hair is on fire seeks the river. At best I see this as metaphor, not to be taken literally, lighting your hair on fire and hating the body. The Buddha became Enlightened only after he quit starving himself to death and embraced being a human.
1. attain himself (attain atma)
2. Attain bhagawan or God
2nd path is natural and is easy and 1st path is tough, disgust of body means at all times he is focused on inner atma which is eternal and sat-chit-ananda(bliss) and he should be afraid of coming again into the physical bodies which is full OF dirt and constantly try to attain atma which is Pure and unchanging and eternal and full of bliss and Infinite knowledge ,....Only because of Karma when it gets itself into bodies, the self -luminous nature of atma is hidden by outside projections
I like this saying I heard some time ago that we are not humans on a spiritual journey, but Spirit on a human journey.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
A realisation of what though? We can have all sorts of realisations and meditative experiences and shifts in perception, but here I am asking specifically about how one would recognise an experience of Atman.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
I like this saying I heard some time ago that we are not humans on a spiritual journey, but Spirit on a human journey.
So how would you recognise an experience of "Spirit"?
I personally see harm in dissociating ourselves from our own body in the pursuit of Self knowledge, as I said earlier. I would identify much more with later tantric points of view that through the experience of the world one comes to know Atman in the world, in this body. Rather than escaping the world, we embrace it as a manifestation of that Emptiness and find Emptiness in everything, in our own bodies. This is the nondual, where it is not Atman is true and the world false, but that Brahman ultimately is the world. The illusion, the false self, is the self that sees that these are separate things.
I like what it says in the Taittiriya Upanishad,
"5 - He who knows this, as described above, after dying to (i.e. withdrawing from) this world, attains the self which consists of food, attains the self which consists of the vital breath, attains the self which consists of the mind, attains the self which consists of the intellect, attains the self which consists of bliss. Then he goes up and down these worlds, eating the food he desires, assuming the forms he likes. He sits, singing the chant of the non—duality of Brahman: "Ah! Ah! Ah!"
6 - "I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food! I am the uniter, I am the uniter, I am the uniter! "I am the first—born of the true, prior to the gods and the navel of Immortality. He who gives me away, he alone preserves me. He who eats food—I, as food, eat him. "I, as the Supreme Lord, overpower the whole world. I am radiant as the sun." Whosoever knows this, attains Liberation. Such, indeed, is the Upanishad."
6 - "I am food, I am food, I am food! I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food, I am the eater of food! I am the uniter, I am the uniter, I am the uniter! "I am the first—born of the true, prior to the gods and the navel of Immortality. He who gives me away, he alone preserves me. He who eats food—I, as food, eat him. "I, as the Supreme Lord, overpower the whole world. I am radiant as the sun." Whosoever knows this, attains Liberation. Such, indeed, is the Upanishad."
The path of renunciation, the path of ascension has its value, but to literally "hate" to body, to be disgusted with it, to me is like hating Brahman's body. As Sri Ramana Maharshi said,
The world is illusory;
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world.
Brahman alone is real;
Brahman is the world.
The goal is to realize that Reality is what is here the whole time. Hating what is here is another form of not seeing it, another form of illusion.
Everything drops away. You are simply Awareness itself looking out through your eyes. Judgment of good versus bad, this versus that, are features of the relative. I like the statement "I AM" to describe it. Who are you beyond and before all the objects of our self-identifications, before and beyond all our thoughts, impressions, and senses. Though that is not separate, nor dissociated from those things, it is that those things are not in themselves Truth. They are relative. Again, not separate, not "this, but not that". The Absolute and the relative are "not two", as well as "not one". You are the One, and the Many. You are not the body, as well as not-not the body.
I suppose you can describe it as being who you truly are, within who you relatively are. Realizing that.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Saying "my body" implies an assumption of self, or you could say it's an expression of self-view. It doesn't seem all that conclusive to me.
Are you saying that atman is eternal and just "inhabits" our body while we're alive? Something like that?
Yes atma is eternal and is atomic(paramAnu swaroopa, that which is not divisible) and is non-materialistic entity.
Sri Krushna says in BhagawadGita (Atma is I/we)
Atma(I) is never born, never dies, and is everlasting. Our body takes birth and dies, but not Atma. Atma supports the body. Without Atma, the body becomes dead. Atma supplies the energy to our body, mind, and senses which are insentient and does not contain any knowledge. Weapons cannot cut Atma, fire cannot burn it, wind cannot dry it, and water cannot make it wet. Therefore, we should not grieve over death of the body because the Atma inside the body never dies. (Gita 2.23-24)
Yes body is just a vehicle that we/atma travel in. Just like you live in the house but you are not the house. When the physical body is dead, atma along with 5 Jnana indriyas(5 subtle senses) and manas(mind) transmigrates and occupies a different body based on the karmic burden it carries. Atma/we is Pure and no impurity can touch it. So you might question, how the karmic burden gets formed on atma? Karmic records or Karma samskAras are formed at various levels 1. Body 2. 5 senses 3. Manas(mind) and some others. Subtle senses and manas gets carried along with atma after death and these have the karmic records which determine the next birth. This is one of the reasons the vedantins/vedics burn the body after death because karmic records will be written at body level also and when the jIva/atma/I go to a different body, these karmic records on the earlier body show effect on us.....When you become fully enlightened and erase all of the karmic records, these manas and 5 senses gets released from atma and pure atma is liberated or attains liberation. What happens to atma after death of body and what place it goes is a BIG topic which I do not want to mention here. Also how atma depending on good virtues/bad virtues attain swargam(heaven) or naraka(hell) for brief amounts of time and on what paths and process again it falls down to earth to take a body is also a complex and vast subject. One might have a question here, atma needs a body to enjoy pleasures/pain in heaven/hell, so it is given a Yaathana Shareera(different body) where it is subject to punishments/pleasures. One has to remember at this point, heaven/hell is just a temporary place in Sanatana dharma, one who goes to heaven/hell has to fall back to earth where he is subjected to same process. The concept of atma/soul(a corrupted word) across the world comes from Vedam because it is the primary source which mentioned it in first place. Last point is atma is also called as jIva and jIva/we is not a male/female. Male or female is only due to karma.
Also @Windwalker yes body is important only because it is only the source through which we/I could attain liberation/mOksham. It has to be cared for and treated good, my point was more inclined to people who follow a rigorous practice called Átma sAkshAtkAram. These people are called Jnana Yogis and they don't care for the bodily pleasures and their focus is always directed inwards.
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That may or may not be true, but it does not change my answer to the question asked by the OP. I understand that it is not meant to try, either.
Yes that is the actual nature of atma/I. The suddha atma is full of bliss, Knowledge and is pure consciousness. But when it forms the karmic records on it due to its leaning/attracted to the Prakriti/Nature/Materialistic things, it gets caught up in the cycles of life and death.
Karmic records are established through multiple ways, one example being when you expect the result of any Karma/activity, it forms a record on you. Why? Because that result could give you either Punya(good virtue) or pApa(bad virtue) and for experiencing that you would have to again go through numerous births. That record won't get wiped off until it is experienced.
That is why Sri Krushna clearly says in BG, put the burden on me and do the work because it is your duty but don't get attached to the results and remember that I am giving you the energy to accomplish the task, so don't think you are the doer either.
So does Atman somehow exist more for some people than for others?
Some Indian Yogic traditions point to the stage of meditative experience that has bare awareness without intentionality as evidence for the presence of the Atman as the metaphysical basis (adhara) of all general subject-object based conscious experience. I think that the Buddhists consider it to be one of the jhanas, but not the ultimate one.
Other than that it could be argued for by inference or through belief in scriptures.
I think you got me wrong, atma is same for everyone and is identical but unique, but when it is associated with different types of bodies the differences begin to show. Depending on the karmic burden it(I) could take the body of human, an animal , a plant or even a stone.
You or the atma in this birth is a human Male or more exactly occupied the ,body of human male. Depending on the Karmic stock that is lying with you in the numerous previous births plus this birth, your next birth will be decided.
So in your next birth (assuming you did not attain liberation) could be anything like you could be a girl, an animal. Hope this is clear
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
You are the Atman. It is here and now. It is not something that is hidden to be uncovered later. Not something external that would require identification.
Very true. But it is hidden in the sense as we hide it from our own eyes. It truly is simply a matter of pulling back the curtains we put in front of our own eyes to see what has never been anywhere but always here.
Papoon
Active Member
I have found there is no need for specialist jargon.
All jargon results in reification, fabrication and utterly futile debate.
In the end there is an inexplicable experience. What you call it is irrelevant.
This thread is a good example of why Gautama warned against being obsessed by imponderables.
The process of calm introspection will produce results which in no way need external confirmation.
The need for confirmation is merely a sign that realisation is weak or absent.
Don't be so quick to judge. Though I am more than sympathetic with the complaint how many take what is an internal truth once spoken by those who realize it into a facade of itself by making it an object of belief, don't mistake those who speaking from experience point to the moon with their fingers with those who argue the finger pointing is the all important truth. What is symbols in the mouths of those who know, become "jargon" in the hands of those who don't. In other words, don't be so quick to throw out the baby with the bathwater because you're annoyed with those who are still searching.
Again, don't be so quick to judge others for being "weaker" than you, even in bumbling about with words in search of truth.
shivsomashekhar
Well-Known Member
How can you hide yourself from yourself? This would imply that there another version of you that you do not know and will discover - at some later point.
But there can be no other version. Whatever is now, is all there can be.
My opinion on this - The problem is we have been led to believe that there is a grand secret to be unraveled after a certain period of time and effort; a wonderful revelation with fireworks and the like. Having conditioned ourselves to such expectations, the fact that the Atman is none than our own selves and there is nothing hidden, is just too simple to accept. Is that all? What was all the ado about? Some find it easier to ignore this and continue to hold on to the grandiose vision of a future awakening. There is no denying that such an expectation is more exciting.
Do all people realize their true Self? No? Why? Of course it's not because it's not there. But being Aware is not something everyone realizes. Again, why?
Yes that is true, but it is still nonetheless "hidden" to our own awareness because of this, and many other factors. It is after all a realization of That, which leads people to understand that what they had been living in was a dream, an illusion. Again, the illusion hides the Truth. That's all I was saying. It is simply our own belief in separation, the separate self that hides our true Face from us. Remove the illusion, realize our Self.