103
See also: Animism in early societies 24–25 ■ Man and the cosmos 48–49 ■ Seeing with pure consciousness 116–21
■ Man as a manifestation of God 188 ■ Mystical experience in Christianity 238 ■ Sufism and the mystic tradition 282–83
“I” that experiences the world. It
is this “I” that absorbs sensory data
and makes sense of it. Materialists
(or physicalists), on the other hand,
argue that only physical things
exist, therefore the self is no more
than a way of describing the
activity of the brain.
Within Hinduism, however, the
Upanishads explored a view that
differs from both of these Western
approaches. In these texts, the self
is described as having three parts:
a material body; a more subtle body,
which is made up of thoughts,
feelings, and experiences; and
a pure consciousness, called
the atman. The atman, it is claimed,
is identical with the absolute,
impersonal reality, Brahman.
Therefore, although we may
experience ourselves as separate,
small, and vulnerable individuals,
our true selves are actually at one
with the fundamental reality
of the universe.The self as nothing
The Upanishads express the idea
of atman by way of dialogues and
images. One of the most famous is
from the Chandogya Upanishad.
It is a dialogue between the sage
Uddalaka Aruni and his son,
Svetaketu. The sage asks the boy
to bring and cut open a fig. When
his father asks him what he sees
inside it, the son replies, “Seeds.”HINDUISM
Conventionally, we tend
to think of ourselves as
distinct from our bodies
and separate from the
rest of the world.But if we analyze
material objects in
terms of their smallest
elements, we end up with
an absolute reality
that is invisible to
even the largest
of microscopes.Therefore our true self
is identical with
the invisible, absolute
reality, Brahman.If this is true of
all objects in the
world, it must also be
true of ourselves.The sage then asks his son to
divide one of those seeds, and
describe what he sees inside
that. The answer is “nothing.”
The sage then points out that the
whole great fig tree is made of
just such “nothingness.” That is
its essence, its soul, its reality.
And, the dialogue concludes,
“That is you, Svetaketu!”
The statement, “That is you!”
(in Sanskrit, “Tat tvam asi!”), is
probably the most famous in all
Hindu philosophy. It rests on the
idea that analysis of any apparently
solid object will eventually arrive
at an invisible essence, present
everywhere, which is Brahman.
This applies to everything, from a
fig to the human self. Beyond the
physical and mental aspects of
the self, Hinduism says there is
something greater, the atman, which
can be nothing other than Brahman,
the single, absolute reality. There
is no distinction between us and
this ultimate divine reality. ❯❯Microscopy has helped science to
conclude that an entire human being is
made from DNA—but does this include
what we think of as our self?