Tat Tvam Asi!

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

The Upanishads are ancient philosophical texts of Hinduism dating from around 1000 BCE. Many earlier ones are lost to us.

The Vedanta philosophy is derived from these texts.  There were literally hundreds of Upanishads written over the centuries...but 108 of them have come down to us. Of these 12 are well known because of commentaries by people like Adi Sankara. 

The Upanishads contain the simple message that the Ultimate Truth is within oneself. There are four Mahavakyas (great sayings) culled out of the Upanishads which summarize their teachings. 

One of these mahavakyas  from the Chandogya Upanishad is 'Tat Tvam Asi' in sanskrit, which translates as 'Thou art That'. 

This means that that the Ultimate Truth that we search for is hidden within ourselves and is a natural part of us. This is what we Hindus normally call the Higher Self.  There are two messages......

1. We are not the body...we are Atma (spirit). We occupy the body like a person wears a  piece of cloth. 

2. The atma  is in turn the Brahman itself. The Brahman is the Universal Spirit that forms the substratum of all creation. 

In other words, according to the Upanishads, we are spirit and ultimately.... the Universal Spirit itself.  (The Oracle of Delphi and Socrates also taught the same message of 'Know Thyself).

Realizing this truth is the goal of life....because of which we go through birth after birth in different bodies to experience life.  Once all karmic energies are released....we realize our own eternal nature and we are born no more. The journey is complete.

The subconscious/unconscious mind that we all are aware of is one part of this inner reality. The more we discipline the ego connected to the conscious mind, the more we realize our own inner nature.

For information.

Cheers.

Sriram
 

[torridon]

Realizing this truth is the goal of life....because of which we go through birth after birth in different bodies to experience life.  Once all karmic energies are released....we realize our own eternal nature and we are born no more. The journey is complete.

With no evidence for reincarnation, this is bound to remain a notion that is quaint, fanciful and indulgent, not something to be taken seriously.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Realizing this truth is the goal of life....because of which we go through birth after birth in different bodies to experience life.  Once all karmic energies are released....we realize our own eternal nature and we are born no more. The journey is complete.

With no evidence for reincarnation, this is bound to remain a notion that is quaint, fanciful and indulgent, not something to be taken seriously.

Since we don't KNOW that there isn't such a thing as a soul how ''not seriously'' are we to take it's future state?

The theory though does give the idea of something spiritual whizzing about looking for a material home.

Quite different from resurrection from death into a new body/type of substance? I would have thought

[L.A.]

Quite different from resurrection from death into a new body/type of substance? I would have thought

Which has always seemed one of the sillier aspects of Christianity

[torridon]

Quite different from resurrection from death into a new body/type of substance? I would have thought

Which has always seemed one of the sillier aspects of Christianity

As are most ideas that aren't evidence-led.

[Sriram]

Quite different from resurrection from death into a new body/type of substance? I would have thought

Which has always seemed one of the sillier aspects of Christianity

As are most ideas that aren't evidence-led.

OK...what according to you would be sufficient evidence for what is said in the OP?

[L.A.]

Through meditation we can certainly explore the 'Self' and recognise the Ego . Also, we know that we exist, but there is no good science to explain what our consciousness actually is.

[torridon]

Quite different from resurrection from death into a new body/type of substance? I would have thought

Which has always seemed one of the sillier aspects of Christianity

As are most ideas that aren't evidence-led.

OK...what according to you would be sufficient evidence for what is said in the OP?

For reincarnation, depending on how you define what exactly it is that is getting incarnated, most likely there never could be any evidence, and hence never any reason to take the idea seriously.

[Sriram]

Through meditation we can certainly explore the 'Self' and recognise the Ego . Also, we know that we exist, but there is no good science to explain what our consciousness actually is.

LA,

It should not really be about explaining anything. We can possibly explain in some detail what we can see, hear and feel....because that''s what our brain and logic are evolved for.

Experiences and other abstract matters cannot be explained...but only indicated  through analogies and allegories. This is why anthropomorphic ideas and myths come about.

For the vedantic ideas as in the OP, there is significant evidence...

1. As I have tried to discuss in the threads on 'Unconscious', 'Faith' and recently on the 'Living with hope...' thread .....the findings regarding the capabilities of the unconscious mind offer sufficient evidence that we have hidden inside us much greater capabilities than the conscious mind is capable of. This is indicative of a much larger 'self' than is apparent through the conscious mind.

2. NDE's are sufficient evidence that the 'self' lives on after death and.... in some cases there is evidence even of reincarnation.

No more evidence is possible nor necessary.   As I have argued in the thread on 'Evidence'....everyone comes with a programmed (almost automated) response to any argument.  It is not possible to change this response unless there is sufficient pressure on that person through direct experience. Arguments and discussions are not sufficient IMO.

[L.A.]

When you think about it, we can't prove most of the really important things. The only thing we observe directly is ourselves - everything else comes to us as a stream of nerve impulses. It might all be an illusion or a fabrication.

[Sriram]

Actually Rhiannon...this is not a Eastern Religions topic......merely because I have quoted from the Upanishads.  It is about  the Self present in all of us. It is more about philosophy than religion....and relevant to everyone.

[Udayana]

When you think about it, we can't prove most of the really important things. The only thing we observe directly is ourselves - everything else comes to us as a stream of nerve impulses. It might all be an illusion or a fabrication.

Ah well ... that is "Cogito ergo sum" - "I think therefore I am", rather than "Tat Tvam Asi" - "Thou art that" or "That thou art" - a similar insight but including an understanding that you are not something separate from what you thought was the rest of the universe.

Descartes starts with "cogito ergo sum" but then invents god as can't go any further with only that.

[torridon]

2. NDE's are sufficient evidence that the 'self' lives on after death and.... in some cases there is evidence even of reincarnation.

No they aren't; at least not without doing grevious and gratuitous insult to the words 'evidence' and 'sufficient'

[cyberman]

Actually Rhiannon...this is not a Eastern Religions topic......merely because I have quoted from the Upanishads.  It is about  the Self present in all of us. It is more about philosophy than religion....and relevant to everyone.

hmmm. I think anyone of any faith could say that more or less any aspect of their faith touched on universal questions which are relevant to everyone, couldn't they?

[trippymonkey]

WELL Some of THESE posts have successfully dragged this interesting question into the usual shithouse !!!!

Nick

[cyberman]

WELL Some of THESE posts have successfully dragged this interesting question into the usual shithouse !!!!

Nick

Thanks for your contribution...

[trippymonkey]

You beat me to it, as usual.
Well Done.

[Sriram]

2. NDE's are sufficient evidence that the 'self' lives on after death and.... in some cases there is evidence even of reincarnation.

No they aren't; at least not without doing grevious and gratuitous insult to the words 'evidence' and 'sufficient'

You keep saying things like that.....but what according to you would be sufficient evidence of the self living on after death?!

[torridon]

2. NDE's are sufficient evidence that the 'self' lives on after death and.... in some cases there is evidence even of reincarnation.

No they aren't; at least not without doing grevious and gratuitous insult to the words 'evidence' and 'sufficient'

You keep saying things like that.....but what according to you would be sufficient evidence of the self living on after death?!

I doubt there could ever be any such evidence; for a start we'd need a clear definition of what this 'self' is and how it could be recognised if it somehow did reappear in some other form after individual death. I doubt we could even get a clear definition. Even your personal genome is not a fixed thing, it changes continually through life as we are bombarded by the cosmos and replication errors build up.  There is no yardstick by which a 'self' could be measured, defined, recognised.

[ekim]

2. NDE's are sufficient evidence that the 'self' lives on after death and.... in some cases there is evidence even of reincarnation.

No they aren't; at least not without doing grevious and gratuitous insult to the words 'evidence' and 'sufficient'

You keep saying things like that.....but what according to you would be sufficient evidence of the self living on after death?!

I doubt there could ever be any such evidence; for a start we'd need a clear definition of what this 'self' is and how it could be recognised if it somehow did reappear in some other form after individual death. I doubt we could even get a clear definition. Even your personal genome is not a fixed thing, it changes continually through life as we are bombarded by the cosmos and replication errors build up.  There is no yardstick by which a 'self' could be measured, defined, recognised.

for a start we'd need a clear definition of what this 'self' is

That is quite likely what the topic heading (Tat tvam asi) implies, a vague .... thou art that ... there is no objective definition, just an invitation to 'self' discovery or the realisation of the subject 'I', but not as an object.  In fact, if I remember correctly, within the Vedanta tradition there is an expression used ... 'neti, neti' .... not this, not this..., which is an intention to negate any efforts to conceptualise the so called 'Self'.  There is a certain strain of Christianity ... the Via Negativa ... which employs a similar idea about God.

[Sriram]

That is quite likely what the topic heading (Tat tvam asi) implies, a vague .... thou art that ... there is no objective definition, just an invitation to 'self' discovery or the realisation of the subject 'I', but not as an object.  In fact, if I remember correctly, within the Vedanta tradition there is an expression used ... 'neti, neti' .... not this, not this..., which is an intention to negate any efforts to conceptualise the so called 'Self'.  There is a certain strain of Christianity ... the Via Negativa ... which employs a similar idea about God.

Yes...that's true.  Neti , Neti .....is a way of subjectively eliminating everything that is not the self.....including thoughts and impressions of the self.  In other words...anything that the self can see and analyse is not the self. When all objects get eliminated....and only the subject is left....that is the Self. 

The Self cannot be seen objectively because it is the source of all subjectivity! It is what sees and observes. It itself cannot be seen and observed.

That is the idea in the Upanishads.

[torridon]

That is quite likely what the topic heading (Tat tvam asi) implies, a vague .... thou art that ... there is no objective definition, just an invitation to 'self' discovery or the realisation of the subject 'I', but not as an object.  In fact, if I remember correctly, within the Vedanta tradition there is an expression used ... 'neti, neti' .... not this, not this..., which is an intention to negate any efforts to conceptualise the so called 'Self'.  There is a certain strain of Christianity ... the Via Negativa ... which employs a similar idea about God.

Yes...that's true.  Neti , Neti .....is a way of subjectively eliminating everything that is not the self.....including thoughts and impressions of the self.  In other words...anything that the self can see and analyse is not the self. When all objects get eliminated....and only the subject is left....that is the Self. 

The Self cannot be seen objectively because it is the source of all subjectivity! It is what sees and observes. It itself cannot be seen and observed.

That is the idea in the Upanishads.

If you define the self as something that cannot be observed then you eliminate all possible grounds for justifying a belief in the self through empirical investigation.

But notwithstanding that, the idea of an observer that cannot itself be observed has no justification. Observer/observed implies multiple participants. If something observes, then it must also be a 'thing' and so could itself be observed by other observers.

[ekim]

That is quite likely what the topic heading (Tat tvam asi) implies, a vague .... thou art that ... there is no objective definition, just an invitation to 'self' discovery or the realisation of the subject 'I', but not as an object.  In fact, if I remember correctly, within the Vedanta tradition there is an expression used ... 'neti, neti' .... not this, not this..., which is an intention to negate any efforts to conceptualise the so called 'Self'.  There is a certain strain of Christianity ... the Via Negativa ... which employs a similar idea about God.

Yes...that's true.  Neti , Neti .....is a way of subjectively eliminating everything that is not the self.....including thoughts and impressions of the self.  In other words...anything that the self can see and analyse is not the self. When all objects get eliminated....and only the subject is left....that is the Self. 

The Self cannot be seen objectively because it is the source of all subjectivity! It is what sees and observes. It itself cannot be seen and observed.

That is the idea in the Upanishads.

1.....If you define the self as something that cannot be observed then you eliminate all possible grounds for justifying a belief in the self through empirical investigation.

2.....But notwithstanding that, the idea of an observer that cannot itself be observed has no justification. Observer/observed implies multiple participants. If something observes, then it must also be a 'thing' and so could itself be observed by other observers.

1....Yes, because 'justification' and 'belief' are seen as functions of the mind.  If you wish to authenticate the claim then the idea is that you follow a prescribed method to do so.  The outcome is 'experiential' to the individual and unlike science it cannot be communicated to others as gathered information nor can it be demonstrated to others.  It is a 'self' realisation rather than an ego/philosophical demonstration.
2.... Yes, that is the difficulty when the mind is engaged in discussion, it needs to conceptualise e.g. 'If some thing observes, then it must be a thing and could itself be observed', which is why many methods emphasise inner stillness rather than mental activity.