[Image][Image][Image][Image]          [Image]

                     The Nature of the Self
                     A Gaudiya Vaisnava Understanding

              [Image]

              Prepared for the Vaisnava-Christian Conference
              (January 20-21, 1996; Buckland Hall, Powys, Wales)

              The Sparks of God

              The soul, or self (atma), is described as a separated,
              minute fragment of God, the Supersoul (paramatma). God
              is like a fire; the individual souls, sparks of the
              fire. As the analogy suggests, the self and the
              Superself are simultaneously one with and different
              from each other. They are the same in quality, for both
              the soul and the Supersoul are brahman. spirit. Yet
              they differ in quantity, since the Superself (param
              brahman--supreme brahman--in Bhagavad-gita 10.12) is
              infinitely great while the individual selves are
              infinitesimally small.

              In the Upanishads some texts assert the identity
              between the individual soul and the Supreme Soul, while
              others speak of the difference between them. The way
              the Vaisnava Vedanta resolves this apparent
              contradiction recognizes identity and difference as
              equally real.

              Such a reconciliation is conveyed in the Katha
              Upanishad (2.2.13) in the words nityo nityanam cetannas
              cetananam eko bahunam yo vidadhati kaman. (There is
              one eternal being out of many eternals, one conscious
              being out of many conscious beings. It is the one who
              provides for the needs of the many.) This text states,
              in effect, that there is a class division in
              transcendence. It says that there are two categorically
              different types of eternal, conscious--hence,
              spiritual--beings. One category is singular in number
              (nityo), a set with only one member. This, then, is the
              category of God, who is one without a second. The other
              class is plural (nityanam), containing innumerable
              members. This is the category of the souls. The members
              of both classes are brahman, spirit. Yet one of them is
              unique, peerless, in a class by Himself, for He is the
              singular, independent self-sustaining sustainer of all
              others. Each of the others possesses a multitude of
              peers, and all of them alike are intrinsically
              dependent upon the one. The one is the absolute, the
              many are relative.

              The Energies of the Absolute

              Fundamental to the Vaisnava Vedanta is the doctrine
              that the Absolute Truth possesses energies. (The
              impersonalistic Advaita Vedanta, in contrast, denies
              the reality of the energies.) The energies are divided
              into different categories; one of them is comprised of
              the innumerable individual souls.

              The Absolute Truth denotes that from which everything
              emanates, by which it is sustained, and to which it
              finally returns. The products of the Absolute are
              thought of as its shakti, its energy or potency. Heat
              and light, for example, are considered the energies
              of fire. Just as the sun projects itself everywhere by
              its radiation yet remains apart, so the Absolute
              expands its own energies to produce (and, in a fashion,
              to become) the world while remaining separate from it.
              Unlike the sun, the Absolute can emanate unlimited
              energy and remain undiminished. (The arithmetic of the
              Absolute: One minus one equals one.) In short, while
              nothing is different from God, God is different from
              everything.

              The host of souls makes up the category of divine
              energy called the tatastha-shakti. Tata means bank,
              as of a river or lake. Tatastha means situated on the
              bank. The souls are characterized as marginal or
              borderline energy because they are, as it were, between
              two worlds. They can dwell within either of the other
              two major energies, the internal (antaranga-shakti) and
              the external (bahiranga-shakti). The internal potency
              is also known as the spiritual energy (cit-shakti), and
              the external potency is also called the material energy
              (maya-shakti). The internal potency expands as the
              transcendental realm, the eternal Kingdom of God. The
              external potency expands as the material world, which
              is sometimes manifest and sometimes unmanifest.

              Because souls are spiritual, their original home is the
              spiritual kingdom. Almost all souls dwell there. These
              are called eternally liberated souls. Only a tiny
              minority of souls inhabit this material world. These
              are called fallen, or conditioned, souls.

              Souls are small samples of God. Hence they possess a
              minute quantity of that freedom which God possesses in
              full. Although they are eternal, full of knowledge and
              bliss, and although their dharma, or essential nature,
              is to serve God, they may still, in the exercise of
              that freedom, willfully turn away from divine service.
              Thereupon these souls fall into the inhospitable realm
              of the external, material energy.

              Because souls are constitutionally servants, even the
              rebellious souls remain under Gods control, but that
              control is now exercised indirectly and unfavorably
              through the agency of material nature. Souls do not
              have the freedom not to be controlled by God, but they
              do choose freely how they wish to be controlled. Those
              who will not voluntarily be controlled by the Lord are
              controlled involuntarily by material nature. For this
              reason, spiritual souls become incarcerated within
              matter. Under the superintendence of the Lord, there is
              a confluence of the marginal and the external energies,
              and the creation arises.

              Spirits in the Material World

              The presence of spirit within the material world is
              disclosed immediately to us by consciousness.
              Consciousness is the symptom of the soul. It is the
              current or the energy of the soul. Consciousness does
              not arise as a by-product of the material energy. A
              material object like a table or chair is entirely an
              object and in no way a subject. It does not undergo
              experiences. It has no significance for itself. An
              embodied soul, a living being, on the other hand, is a
              subject; it has significance for itself as well as for
              others; it undergoes experiences. The claim that the
              soul is an unknowable metaphysical entity beyond all
              possible experience is simply false. Not only do we
              experience the soul; the soul is the very condition for
              our having any experiences at all.

              Thus, souls are fundamental, irreducible entities in
              the world. Each living, conscious being is of a
              different category from the material energy which
              embodies and surrounds it. The Upanishads declare: aham
              brahmasmi, I am brahman, I am spirit. The corollary is:
              I am not matter. And further: I am not this body. Human
              beings achieve their full potential when they realize
              this.

              The material elements, of which living bodies are made,
              are traditionally given as eight: earth, water, fire,
              air, ether, mind, intelligence, and false ego. They are
              arranged in sequence from the grossest to the subtlest,
              that is, from the most apparent to our senses to the
              least. The first five are the gross elements
              (maha-bhutas); the last three, the subtle elements
              (suksma-bhutas). The gross elements become more
              intelligible to us when translated as: solids, liquids,
              gases, radiant energy, and space. The subtle elements,
              taken together, make up what we in the West generally
              call the mind. The subtle element manas, or mind, is
              the locus of habit, of normal thinking, feeling, and
              willing according to ones established mind-set.
              Buddhi, or intelligence, is the higher faculty of
              discrimination and judgment; it determines mind-sets
              and comes to the fore when we undergo conversions or
              paradigm shifts. Ahankara, or the sense of self,  is
              the faculty by which the embodied soul assumes a false
              or illusory identity in the material world.

              Conditioned souls attain human form after
              transmigrating upward through the scale of beings;
              thereupon they become capable of self-realization and
              liberation. Liberation means giving up the false
              identification of the self with the gross and subtle
              material coils and regaining ones original spiritual
              form as a servant of God.

              Even in the conditioned state, the soul always remains
              a spiritual being. Like a dreamer who projects his
              identity onto an illusory, dream-self, the conditioned
              soul acquires a false self of matter. Although the self
              is by nature eternal, full of knowledge and full of
              bliss, this nature becomes covered by illusion.
              Identifying with the material body, the soul is plunged
              into the nightmare of history, trapped in the whirlpool
              of repeated birth and death (mrtyu-samsara). This false
              identification by the embodied souls with their
              psychophysical coverings is the cause of all their
              suffering.

              The quest by conditioned souls for happiness in this
              world inevitably fails. The eternal souls naturally
              seek eternal happiness, yet they seek it where all
              happiness is temporary. The fulfillment of the most
              common and basic desire, that of self-preservation, has
              not once met with success. Indeed, the deluded souls do
              not know that matters are just the opposite of the way
              they seem. Gratification of the senses is in fact the
              generator of suffering, not happiness. This is because
              each act of sense gratification intensifies the souls
              false identification with the body. Consequently, when
              the body undergoes disease, senescence, and death, the
              materially absorbed living beings experience all these
              as happening to themselves. Death is an illusion they
              have imposed upon themselves owing to their desire to
              enjoy in this world. So enjoying, their  agony
              continues unabated. A mind brimming with unfulfilled
              yearnings propels them, at the time of death, into new
              material bodies, to begin another round.

              Recovering the Authentic Self

              Fallen souls have been granted a false material
              identity because they reject their authentic spiritual
              identity. The traces of that rejection are found
              everywhere. We see that all organisms, from microbes on
              up, are driven by the mechanism of desire and hate, by
              approach and avoidance. This duality is the
              reverberation of the original sinful will that
              propelled them into this world. The original sinful
              desire is: Why cant I be God? And the original
              sinful hate, Why should Krishna be God?

              When souls evince the desire to become the Lord, the
              Lord responds by granting them the illusion of
              independent lordship. They enter the material kingdom,
              to be provided with a sequence of false
              identities--costumes fabricated out of material
              energy--along with an inventory of objects which they
              think they can dominate and enjoy. Even so, the Lord
              accompanies them in their wanderings, dwelling in their
              hearts as He works to bring about their eventual
              rectification and return from exile. When the soul in
              the depth of his being again turns to God, the Lord
              makes all arrangements for his inauthentic, illusory
              life to end.

              The renovation of real life is called
              bhakti-yoga--reconnecting the soul with the Supersoul
              (yoga) by loving devotional service (bhakti). Bhakti
              rests upon the principle that desire and activity are
              not in themselves bad. The soul itself is the source of
              desire and activity. The original, pure desire of the
              soul is to satisfy the senses of the Lord. This is
              called prema, or love. When souls contact matter, their
              love becomes transformed into lust (kama), which is the
              desire to satisfy ones own senses. The practice of
              bhakti-yoga reconverts lust into love. Desire is not
              suppressed or repressed; it is purified. One may call
              this sublimation, but it should be understood that
              when desire is thus sublimated it rests in its natural
              and aboriginal state.

              The world, the body with its senses, the sense objects
              are not to be enjoyed, but neither are they to be
              renounced. The world is Gods energy, and it should not
              be decried as false or evil. Rather, the elements of
              this world are to be engaged in divine service. When
              that is done, the veil of illusion is lifted, and
              everything and everyone are seen in their true
              identity: in relationship to God. The way to see
              divinity everywhere and in everything is to utilize
              everything in the Lords service. God is the first of
              fact, but our materially contaminated senses cannot
              perceive Him. When, however, the senses become purified
              by being engaged in the Lords service, they regain
              their capacity to perceive God directly.

              Such purified souls are fully joyful. They neither
              hanker nor lament. Their happiness does not depend upon
              the course of circumstance. They see all living beings
              as the same. They see that all the agony and
              hopelessness of the world is exorcised when the
              illusion that has rendered us oblivious to our own
              identity is dispelled, and they engage themselves in
              the highest welfare work of rousing sleeping souls from
              their nightmare. For themselves, they take no mind of
              what becomes of the future of their lives.

              Because they have no material desires, there is no
              further birth for them in this world. Instead, they
              attain their original spiritual forms in the kingdom of
              God, spiritual bodies suitable for pastimes of love
              with the Lord.

              Spirits in the Spiritual World

              The Absolute Truth has both an impersonal and a
              personal feature, but the personal feature is the last
              word in Godhead. To say the Absolute is a person is to
              say that it has senses (indriya-s). Traditionally, the
              senses are ten: those through which the world acts upon
              us (instruments of hearing, touching, seeing, tasting,
              and smelling), and those through which we act upon the
              world (instruments of manipulation, locomotion, sound
              production, reproduction, and evacuation). The mind is
              often considered the eleventh sense. A body,
              accordingly, may be thought of as an array of senses
              organized around a center of consciousness. Thus, to
              say that the Absolute is a person is to say that the
              Absolute has body or form.

              The body of God is not material. It is a spiritual or
              transcendental form--sad-cit-ananda-vigraha, an eternal
              form of bliss and knowledge. Though differentiated by
              limbs or parts, a spiritual body is nevertheless
              completely unified and identical with its own
              possessor. Therefore, in God, there is no difference
              between body and soul, mind and body, soul and mind.
              Every limb or part of that body can perform all
              functions of every other limb.

              Because the Absolute is a person, the souls, the
              offspring of God, are also persons, and they fully
              manifest their authentic identity only in relationship
              with the Supreme Person. When conditioned souls act
              under the impetus of sense gratification, their bodies
              evolve materially. But when the souls act in their
              constitutional position, their love toward God displays
              itself as the souls proper spiritual bodies. Thus, the
              selves achieve their full personal identity  and
              self-expression as lovers of God.

              All relationships in this world are dim and perverted
              reflections of their real prototypes in the kingdom of
              God. The taste or flavor of a relationship is called
              rasa (literally, juice). It is said that there are
              five primary rasa-s a soul can have toward the Lord. In
              order of increasing intimacy, they are passive
              adoration, servitorship, fraternal, parental, and
              conjugal.

              God and His devotees engage in eternal pastimes of
              loving exchanges in spiritual forms that are sheer
              embodiments of rasa. Such bodies are the unmediated
              concrete expressions of spiritual ecstasies. These
              unceasing, uninterrupted, ever-increasing variegated
              ecstasies are nondifferent from the souls and from the
              spiritual bodies that bear them. The forms and
              activities of the Lord and His devotees all possess
              transcendental specificity and variegatedness. The
              forms of love are not abstractions and their relations
              are not allegories. In the kingdom of God life is
              infinitely more full, vivid, and real than anything of
              the thin shadows that flicker here, on and off. Here,
              we are not what we are. There, we are truly ourselves
              again because we are truly Gods.



       PUBLICATIONS

http://www.rsdtm.com/PUBLICATIONS/SELF/self.htm
