Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
How would you recognise an Atman? How would you know it was an Atman?
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Dharmic traditions only: How would you know if you had an Atman?
- Thread starter Rick O'Shez
- Start date
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
So Atman is a belief rather than something to be discovered or revealed?
I would assume so, yes.
The question is kind of absurd because 'you are the atma' , you exist right ? Physical body is just a vehicle and it will be there after death also. None of the organs in the body including the brain are sentient, the only sentient one operating behind is us/atma. No one has the capability to see atma but it can be known or recognized from shastras or from deepest levels of meditation.
Jedster
Flying through space
It all depends of where you are at, man.
(poor humour, but couldn't resist)
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
There are all kinds of meditative experiences, but how would you know if a particular experience was anything to do with atman? How would you recognise it? How would you know? What are the distinguishing features of an "atman experience"?
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I expect that if Atman existed, people would be a lot less voluble, more ethical, more certain of themselves.
Which is probably why the belief exists in the first place, come to think of it. It certainly isn't due to the weight of the evidence.
Which is probably why the belief exists in the first place, come to think of it. It certainly isn't due to the weight of the evidence.
There are practices given by Sri Krushna in BhagawadGita, the first 6 chapters of BhagawadGita combined are called as 'Atma sAkshAtkAram' (meaning the knowing/making a clear distinction between atma and shareera(physical body) and attaining atma . The practices start from knowing what is atma in reality and what are the attributes of atma and how does atma experience the cycles of birth and death and how does it wander after death and how difficult it is for atma/us again to obtain human body, by knowing all these kinds of stuff, atma is said to be known and a constant sAdhana is required and for attaining this one has to have a complete disgust of body and only focused innerwards. Atma is a non-materialistic thing which cannot be known through your 6 physical senses
Also, Atma has knowledge as an attribute and it is also knowledge itself, just like a salt crystal is complete salt(every granule) and its attribute is saltiness, just like that. Self-evident or Self-Luminous character of Knowledge is proved on the ground that it is the cause of revelation of other things
Papoon
Active Member
Good question, and a question which reminds me of a post I made in Atanu's 'A Dharmic Question ' thread.
Which was -
"Buddha said that asserting there is a self and asserting there is not a self are both errors, declaring the question imponderable.
Regardless of the conceptual framework, or lack of it, the nature of mind, observation, meditation and 'benefits' are the same."
In other words, the only difference belief in Atman makes is - belief in Atman. Which could be said of many of the hairs split on RF.
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Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
So how can it be known? I assume you're including mind as the 6th sense base here?
It is in those that realize it. Just because a majority doesn't realize it and doesn't live in Peace, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It means we should do whatever it takes to realize it since most don't realize Peace. The weight of the evidence of its validity is the reports of those who realize it and the quality of their lives before and after.
Papoon
Active Member
The same could be said for the LSD experience.
Think of it like love. You ask yourself how will you know when you actually know love when you have yet to experience it. Then after you do the answer is obvious. You know it by knowing it. You can't look for it as it presupposes it's something outside yourself, rather than something you fully have already, but simply haven't yet realized. Love does not exist outside you that "comes" to you. Same with Atman. The only thing that happens is you pull back the curtain of illusion and it becomes revealed.
Ataman is not an idea. It's also not magic. It's simply a realization which shifts our ideas about ourselves and reality. It shifts the center of gravity from where we are looking out from.
Papoon
Active Member
And again ...
LSD, DMT, and the like can certainly have that effect the same way meditation practices open one to that realization. It's not the drug itself, nor the practice of mediation itself that produces it, but rather they simply aid in pulling back the veil of illusion allowing you to realize this world of "reality" we normally live in isn't all it's cracked up to be. Realizing that, opens one to knowing Peace, in ever-increasing depths of realization, or "attainment" in themselves. (I prefer the word realize over attain as it's nothing one finds outside themselves anymore than one 'attains' their own eyes).
Papoon
Active Member
Yep. And all without any need for jargon or orthodoxy of any kind. That's the take-home lesson.
Personally I would be careful to not be so literal in having a "disgust" of the body. While I agree one needs to be constantly aware we are more than our body, as well as more than the thoughts of our own minds, to be "disgusted" with oneself can in fact lead to a dissociation and sickness. There is validity in understanding that the impulses of the body, or the habits of the mind are not where our gaze should be held exclusively, learning to "overcome" that exclusivity is what liberates, but the body and the mind are still our own! It's the skin-sack we live in, and to literally hate that is to deny what the Atman lives in!
But to "hate" it in a metaphoric sense, as a point of comparison to loving the pursuit of Self knowledge, has value. It would be like what the Buddha said that we should seek Enlightenment like a man whose hair is on fire seeks the river. At best I see this as metaphor, not to be taken literally, lighting your hair on fire and hating the body. The Buddha became Enlightened only after he quit starving himself to death and embraced being a human.
What "jargon" would you propose instead to talk about it?