Dharmic traditions only: How would you know if you had an Atman?

[shivsomashekhar]

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?

This implies there is a self and then a "true self", which is somehow different from the former.

Here is my take on this -

I am real now. When this is so, what is there to realize again? The only realization then can be that there is nothing new or hidden to be found. This knowledge will stop one from searching.

 

[kalyan]

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.

At last .....but to realize that you need to establish the logic as @Windwalker was saying..(although he does not explain how that illusion can be removed) only very few can make distinction between atma and physical body while the vast rest are NOT?

The logic should be established from the same source that mentioned the atma in the first place to the whole universe and that is Vedam which has NO beginning. If you know as why atma/jIva/I is eternal and atleast few points about it, applying those points would make you feel the distinction. Just by saying I am atma would NOT make you to properly distunguish b/w physical body and atma. You have to borrow the information from Supreme authority the VEDAM

 

[Rick O'Shez]

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.

Yes, I see. I think you could read all sorts of things into the experience of jhana.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I suppose you can describe it as being who you truly are, within who you relatively are. Realizing that.

That's an interesting way of looking at it.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

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.

That sounds rather like Buddha Nature.

 

[Papoon]

Again, don't be so quick to judge others for being "weaker" than you, even in bumbling about with words in search of truth.

My remarks were aimed at those who claim or imply that they have a stable self realisation, and yet wish to engage one another in arguments about .terminology and sundry irrelevant imponderables.

Particularly, why would someone who is aware of Gautama's sutras about the pointless crazy-making of such notions actively engage in them ?

 

[Terese]

That sounds rather like Buddha Nature.

Could you give me a brief explanation of 'Buddha nature'?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Could you give me a brief explanation of 'Buddha nature'?

Interpretation varies according to school, but I think of it as the innate potential for enlightenment.

 

[Terese]

Interpretation varies according to school, but I think of it as the innate potential for enlightenment.

Well, that's rather different from an atman. Our atma is our engine, the reason we are alive, and have consciousness. A tree is alive, and has basic consciousness, compared to us.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Well, that's rather different from an atman. Our atma is our engine, the reason we are alive, and have consciousness. A tree is alive, and has basic consciousness, compared to us.

So a tree doesn't have an atman?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Remove the illusion, realize our Self.

But atman is said to be impersonal, so references to "Self" seem inappropriate.

 

[kalyan]

So a tree doesn't have an atman?

Depends on what you treat as tree, when you call 'tree', it could refer to its outer form with root, leaves, branches etc or it could refer to the inner atma without which there would be no outer form existing. So basically, Tree is Atma and outer form is just an appearance....

You could remember this HARD rule, anything with a form and name is because of atma inside it. When I say Spiny, it refers to Atma/You and this is the correct understanding because without you driving the body or basically when the body is dead, the body which you assumed is you is not called with your name but called with a name called 'Shavam'/Corpse

get it ?

 

[Terese]

So a tree doesn't have an atman?

No it does. A tree is alive. Anything alive has an atma. Even blood cells.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Depends on what you treat as tree, when you call 'tree', it could refer to its outer form with root, leaves, branches etc or it could refer to the inner atma without which there would be no outer form existing. So basically, Tree is Atma and outer form is just an appearance....
You could remember this HARD rule, anything with a form and name is because of atma inside it. When I say Spiny, it refers to Atma/You and this is the correct understanding because without you driving the body or basically when the body is dead, the body which you assumed is you is not called with your name but called with a name called 'Shavam'/Corpse
get it ?

So anything which lives "has" an atman? And the outer appearance is maya-kosha?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I might have missed it, but I still don't think I've seen a clear answer to the OP question.

 

[shivsomashekhar]

I might have missed it, but I still don't think I've seen a clear answer to the OP question.

The OP question presumes that the Atman is something to be found - and therefore would require identification/recognition.

My take is that it is not something to be found newly and hence, the questions do not apply.

 

[kalyan]

So anything which lives "has" an atman? And the outer appearance is maya-kosha?

Nope...... anything which is considered existing is because of atma inside it....Outer appearance is not Maya, outer appearance is real, I think you are close to getting it, atma is YOU and without it and god behind it another level, the outer appearance collapses

 

[Windwalker]

This implies there is a self and then a "true self", which is somehow different from the former.

The only thing different is our perceptions. If we are locked in the egoic self, it is the set of eyes we look out through and reflect upon ourselves with. It sees only through that set of eyes. If we are able perceive with the eyes beyond that, then we are not locked in the egoic self, but recognize our true Face, which includes, but is not limited to the egoic self. You are correct that the ego self is not "other" to the Self, but how we perceive it from the ego self sees Self as other, as long as the eyes of the egoic self are the only ones we understand and are operating out of.

A simple analogy is to understand how a child when asked to point to himself will point to his body an exclaim, "This is me!". But if you as the same question of a teen they will point to the things they like, the friends they have, and a list of ideas. They may point to their head, their mind and say "This is me". The more consciousness self-aware, the more inclusive. They realize their body is not "other" to themselves, but the seat, the locus of their self-identity transcends but includes the body. Their center of gravity shifts from the body as the child understood "me" to be, to their minds, their ego-self they now self-identify with and as.

To know and to shift the center of gravity from the ego-self to Self, does not make ego-self or body-self other to it either. But when you are living only in the ego, the Self is perceived as other, and yourself other to it. It is unknown to you, asleep as it were, or "hidden" from the self that is actively and exclusively identifying with only the ego-mind. Once awakened, then we see it is none other that who we have been all along. But not before then.

Here is my take on this -

I am real now. When this is so, what is there to realize again? The only realization then can be that there is nothing new or hidden to be found. This knowledge will stop one from searching.

And this is very true. But you are aware that you are in fact seeking in a sense? I'm fully in agreement that we need to stop looking for it as though it is something other to us. The real key is to "seek to not seek". The effort to find it, it to make an effort to make no effort. And so forth. To be searching for it is to looking outside yourself to find your own eyes. "Where are they," cries the person looking everywhere outside himself for his own eyes which are the ones he's looking through to find themselves. The seeker seeking to find needs to not seek to find, but seek to realize. Realization is a much better word because it is the "ah hah" moment of awakening to what has always already been what and who we have been all along.

But to "not seek" in the sense of being purely apathetic, turning on the TV and drinking beer without an eye to anything but comfort and security will not result in awakening to Self. But seeking to not seek, learning how to simply allow what is to be realized by a deliberate action of opening oneself to one's Self will. Actually, to me the "not seeking" you describe comes later, once we have exhausted all our Atman projects, all our substitute for that actual Realization. It comes at the end of all our efforts to "attain". Another reason I rebuff at the use of "attain", or "achieve" in regards to Enlightenment. One does not attain their own eyes, or achieve their lungs. You simply realize that the one sought after is the one seeking, and you rest it that, as that.

I really think we are saying the same thing, and this is more an exercise in finding language than any real conceptual difference.

 

[Windwalker]

My remarks were aimed at those who claim or imply that they have a stable self realisation, and yet wish to engage one another in arguments about .terminology and sundry irrelevant imponderables.

Particularly, why would someone who is aware of Gautama's sutras about the pointless crazy-making of such notions actively engage in them ?

This brings to mind this quote someone made about mystics I think captures this. "Theologians may quarrel, but mystics the world over speak the same language". It doesn't necessarily mean mystics may not struggle to communicate with one another because of how words are far from perfect to describe the experience. But there is a difference between those who argue concepts against each other without any understanding from experience. The latter describes the theological quarrels. Straining at the gnats, as it were while swallowing camels. If someone does have some actual experience to speak from however, to work out language that helps communicate is not fruitless exercise. It's about helpful communication, versus "being right". Two different motivations and directions.

 

[atanu]

How would you recognise an Atman? How would you know it was an Atman?

Atman (self) is self evident.