So let us have a look at this soul that is called athma here. What is it? What is it composed of? What way one could distinguish between a soul and non-soul? There are too many that need answer when talking about soul. The dictionary meaning is ‘Spiritual or Immaterial part of man, moral or emotional or intellectual nature of person’ …. And spirit meaning: ‘concerned with spirit, religion, divine, inspired’…. In short, the soul is not material, that could be perceived by your five senses. You cannot see it, cannot smell it, cannot taste it, cannot hear it and you cannot touch it. Since all these material could be known thru sense organs. Since, soul is not material, it could be perceived in minds which again are not material. Mind is an imaginary construct of the brain. All sensations and perceptions are sent to the brain, are real material object, which in turn co-ordinates the sensations and recognise each and all and send back signals or messages to react or respond appropriately. This is enough and sufficient to know and acknowledge yourself for everything connected with the affairs of life and living. The knowledge of a soul does not in any way alter the fact of life.
A soul is postulated by all religions from primitive days along with a supernatural god. In ancient times man did not understand so many of the natural phenomena whether good or bad weather, the monsoon, the cycle of seasons, thousands or millions of the blinking spots in the sky even behaviour of animals and humans. God and souls tried to answer the unknown. All unknown phenomena was attributed to the two unknown i.e. god and soul. Arousing out of these are heaven and hell and all the paraphernalia constructed by religion. However, religion could be seen as an effort to understand the worldly or natural phenomena at that early days of mankind. But it imparted knowledge, much that was not true because it did not device the methods and tools for testing. All these developed slowly and science took its shape. As the times past religion and science got separated one as false and other as true. There are a good lot of literatures from ancient times that argues and explain both. Among the Semitic religions i.e. Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Soul is postulated only to humans and not to animals and also inanimates. It is science that tells, man also is an animal. Killing animals for food was justified on the basis that animals has no souls to suffer. Both the movements for vegetarianism and animal are of too recent origins that almost recognise a soul for animals.
The Semitic religion also believes on a judgement day in some future. The souls of all the dead are to wait for the day when god will appear and pronounce his judgements, conviction in hell or happy day in heaven. I don’t know whether the judgement is permanent or temporary whether there will be release and if so when and what happens afterward. The subject might have been discussed and answered in their literature but my knowledge is limited. The athmas of the Hindus and soul of the others are not synonymous. For them both animates and in-animates poses souls. This necessitated an assumption of innumerable number of divine souls i.e. gods in many varied form and worship. The Upanishads and philosophy of Vedanta negatived. The concept of many souls or athmas and postulated an all pervasive and composite athma a great one Paramatma. All animate and in-animate beings hold a tiny portion of this Paramathma in the form of an individual athma or self or I. This athma is different from body and mind. The individual athma goes the cycle of birth, life and death and then re-birth in another form or body. This is little complicated to understand. But the belief is strong. It is assumed that the acts- good, bad, indifferent performed in life i.e. Karma govern present, future and in re-birth. One carries the Karma from past births into present life. Accordingly it is an immutable law of life that one has to live thru the effects of past actions or Karma. Relief will come thru the realisation or knowledge of the Paramathma. He becomes one with Paramathma and there is an end to the cycle of birth, death and re-birth. People believe seriously as fact the concept of actions, in past life ‘JANMANTARAM’, written in HEAD-SIROLIKHITAM, punya and paapa i.e. good and evil so on and so forth, and last destiny. Religion has ordered all kinds of rituals at home, in temples, pilgrimages etc. in order to invade and please gods so that the effects of Karma softened and nullified.
The athma Paramathma concept does not recognise or accept a god governing your destiny. Then how does the Hindu accept an innumerable number of gods? The answer is: The ADVAITA concept of an immutable undifferentiated and non-dual Paramathma signifies a higher level of knowledge. There are several at lower levels where appropriate gods are recognised and revered. The BHAGWAT GITA incorporates all these ideas in sufficient manner.
My view in all that is said above is a complete disbelief. All the concepts are permeated with contradictions and confusions. No credible evidence except one’s own blind beliefs and fear of future and uncertainties in present. The proponents themselves claim that minds trained in a particular way like yoga and meditation only are eligible to realise god or Paramathma. That means no ordinary mortal is fated to reach.
To me there is no soul or any athma or any other manifestation that resides in our body and escapes out on death. Matter organised in particular ways thru evolution become both inanimate and animate beings.
There are problems here but they are completely different. The theory of evolution has not yet established all connections. There are recognised gap in knowledge. But whatever is known today show evidence of evolution. Possibly science may discover facts that might fill the gaps or they may not. Such knowledge gap could not be taken for the existence of a god, Atma or Paramatma.
Let us look once again at the phenomena. If there was or is an all pervasive one, how did the material universe manifest? The answer is that ‘One’, willed. If the ‘One’. Willed, it should have a body, mind and brain. When the ‘One’, willed there could not be an ADVAITA or NON-DUAL. After the willing there are more than one being. When beings manifested there was no past life or karma. The past was the undivided ‘one’, were the beings were endowed with minds of their own to act good or bad. How did each being ventured to act since there was no past for any analogy? The life that came out of the ‘ONE’, are so opposed to each other are contradictory in themselves, whoever has willed it must be a mindless moron, a mad and cruel one. Obviously, by manifesting in this he acted. Then what happens to his own Karma i.e. the ‘One’s’? We could go on with more and more questions with no answers forthcoming. Yes, there is an answer says the Advaita Vedanta philosopher. It is all ‘MAYA’ ‘HALLUCINATION’ in our mind. It is a contradiction by itself. Only because we have a mind all things are hallucinations. If mind itself is ‘maya’ how did it create another ‘maya’? There is an apt story in SANSKRIT illustrating this ‘Maya’.
The teacher was teaching students the essence of Vedanta that everything perceived is ‘maya’ that has no reality, existence. Where one day a mad elephant was running thru the street. The teacher and disciples were walking. On seeing the mad elephant all ran for safety. Later the students confronted the teacher about his running away since the elephant was only hallucination not reality. The teacher answered ‘GAJOPI MAYA, PALAYANA MAPI MAYA’, meaning that the elephant was a hallucination, the running (away from) it also hallucination. So life goes on to the HINDUS inspite of all higher philosophy.
There is one aspect about the soul that needs mention. The SEMITIC tradition is that god created the world and all the objects in it in 6 days and took rest on the 7th day. Did he start again on the 8thday? We have no idea. But the power of creation is in him. Or did he transfer this power to the man ADAM and the woman EVE? There were only two souls at the beginning. These two beget more as their offsprings and they in turn beget more. From two souls to millions and billions. It seems that the first couples were punished for sex. They sinned and so they were cursed to procreate more sinners. Generations of sinners. Why not stop from giving birth to more sinners? But the same religions that consider birth itself as sin say children are gifts of god. Why not refrain from procreation and stop more and more sinning soul to be born and also reduce the burden of God in making judgements on the day of judgement to come? These dilemmas could not be resolved thru religion.
In case of Hindus it is different. Souls are not born and neither are they to die. Only the body dies while soul remain the same but carrying a luggage of Karma. It may sound that the Hindu has only a finite number of souls and they should decrease since at least some will attain Brahma or Paramatma in one’s life and they will not return according to Bhagawat Gita. Generally after one life the souls take a new birth or form of existence. The logic is that if certain species decline in number that will be because the souls living in those bodies migrated to other higher bodies after death based on their Karma. Similarly, it might also be true that souls living in lower bodies did not do any Karma that makes them to take birth into the decreasing species. It will be purely logical and accords with the Karma of souls if some species get extinct in the process of ‘SAMSARA’. Apply this thought to the recently found decline in the tiger population in
Also my view is that the Karma theory combined with the ADVAITA’S ‘MAYA’ S blocked progress towards scientific thinking in the history of
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