Is Atma eternal

[rkpande]

Advaitin believe that soul has no beginning and no end. They also believe that any thing which has a beginning also has an end. further jeevatma is in fact atma which is Brahma.

firstly let me make it clear i belong to no sub sect, i am neither advaitin or follower of dvaita philosophy. i am just a seeker.



jivatma after having realised that it was avidya which was responsible for the veil of maya and in fact he himself is pure Brahma, and this realisation frees him from maya and he merges with Brahma and does not reincarnate.

The above gives me to believe that this particular jivatama ceases to exist. That is the end of his journey and he does not reincarnate.
This implies, he has an end. if that be so, he had a beginning.
meaning that atama is not eternal.

Any thing wrong in the above assumption???

[Mana]

Namaste rkpande,

If I might add a few thoughts for your consideration:

Why should Brahma be assumed to be linear and uniform with no form? in nirguNa brahman (Thank you saidevo), could we not consider that many reflected forms of that jiva may manifest in other beautiful ways, Nature loves to repeat her self, changing very slightly her forms as if moved by a gentle breeze or eddies or bubbles in a flowing stream.

praNAma

mana

[wundermonk]

Originally Posted by rkpande

The above gives me to believe that this particular jivatama ceases to exist. That is the end of his journey and he does not reincarnate.

Why is "no reincarnation" the same as "ceases to exist"?

[devotee]

Namaste RK,

Let me try to clarify the points you have raised :

a) JeevAtma has no "real" existence. It is a false character arising in the Pure Consciousness under the influence of MAyA in the first two states.
b) Mahopanishad tells us that JeevAtmA are created and dissolve back into pure Consciousness. So, there are new JeevAtmA and old JeevAtmA.
c) However, Bhagwad Gita tells us that "There is no time when I was not, you were not and these Kings were not and in future also they would exist". Which tells us that JeevAtmA is not totally obliterated.

So, how to solve this puzzle ?

Let's remember that JeevAtmA is not a separate "thing" and it has no real existence of its own. It is like a dream character of the dreamer which exists within the Dream realm but in reality it has no real existence. Now, this JeevAtmA loses its existence on Self-realisation (like the dream character on awakening of the dreamer). However, the mind can have the memory of the dream character even after awakening. Sometimes we see some extraordinary dream character which we can recall even after awakening from the dream. Similarly, the JeevAtmA as memory of the dream character resides in PraJnAnghana (the third state of Self i.e. the God-state) as the third state is Omniscient. With this memory, that character can arise any time, so it is not completely eradicated. In fact, The PraJnAnghana "knows" all JeeVas of the Past, Present and also the Future.

OM

[Maya3]

Originally Posted by rkpande

Advaitin believe that soul has no beginning and no end. They also believe that any thing which has a beginning also has an end. further jeevatma is in fact atma which is Brahma.

firstly let me make it clear i belong to no sub sect, i am neither advaitin or follower of dvaita philosophy. i am just a seeker.



jivatma after having realised that it was avidya which was responsible for the veil of maya and in fact he himself is pure Brahma, and this realisation frees him from maya and he merges with Brahma and does not reincarnate.

The above gives me to believe that this particular jivatama ceases to exist. That is the end of his journey and he does not reincarnate.
This implies, he has an end. if that be so, he had a beginning.
meaning that atama is not eternal.

Any thing wrong in the above assumption???

It is not that something disappears, it´s that you understand who you really are and that you have been this whole the whole time.
Imagine that you thought you were your finger, for years you thought you were only two inches tall, then suddenly you realize that you are a whole body who has a finger, you (and the finger) are still there, but you now know that you are not only a finger.

Maya

[MahaHrada]

Originally Posted by rkpande

[font=Arial Black]The above gives me to believe that this particular jivatama ceases to exist. That is the end of his journey and he does not reincarnate
Any thing wrong in the above assumption???

Moksha is freedom from rebirth but that means not that rebirth has happened in the past and now it ends.

This realisation when it happens to you will be: "This limited " I " is an illusion, i thought i was born and died countless times, but now i see that i was mistaken."

Second that will happen to you is a bit of a shock, you realise: "I have not been born nor did i die in the past, so clearly it is impossible now for me to mistakenly assume this wrong idea in the future"

Thats why Saints are worshipped by their footprints or padukas, only the moment of impression or mark he left while staying amongst the living forawhile, that is what is worshipped because it is considered to be the higher reality, therefore only the footprint is worshipped, not the person, the person has not been real in the past and also will not be real or existing in the future. So what we worship when we remember the padukas is the ultimate deathless and birthless reality not the limited reality. The only way to overcome death and be immortal is to overcome birth first, because everything that has a beginning will also have an end. If you realise you have no beginning, that this was an erroneus idea, how can you have an end, but still you are there, in this very moment, you also made an impression in the past, in countless incarnations, even if there never was a limited self, nonetheless you left a footprint. In a strict sense nothing changed with the dawning of your Realisation, since the one who realised, only realised that he (or his idea of himself) is erroneus, so all all just remains as it ever was. No one ever was born and no one ever will die, no one is going, no one is coming.