While in the contemporary world almost every aspect of our life, nature, and cosmos is being scrutinized through the mechanistic scientific paradigms; while we have witnessed an emergence of the so-called a new world order—a technological global society—which could provide a cyberspace for intercommunication and redefinition of ourselves and our place in the cosmos; many of us at the same time experience a deep sense of fragmentation, conflict, confusion, meaninglessness, purposelessness and emptiness in our very existence. This sense of despair and fear seems to pervade the whole spectrum of our worldly activities—academics, intellectual, professional, personal, interpersonal, social, national, international, as well as intergalectical. Moreover, in recent times many first-rate thinkers in many areas of basic/applied sciences have been expressing a kind of anxiety due to potentially reaching the limits of knowledge. As a result some visionaries, especially those trained in the areas of depth-psychology, sociology, religious philosophy, and medical sciences are in search of bringing new paradigms into our understanding and practice so that the above bleak situation can be dealt with. The ideas like soul; spirit, spirit-soul and spiritualism have re-emerged as the new paradigms to be re-examined for this so-called New Age. Some strong connections/parallels between the quantum physics and Vedic worldview are also being discussed.
The above background forms the basis of my attempt to critically inquire about the meaning of the important terms atman, soul, and spirit and their potential inter-relationship, if any. The primary concepts associated with the terms soul and spirit are examined on the basis of Judeo-Christian and the Greek traditions, while the term atman is examined on the basis of Vedic traditions through Upanishads, including Bhagavadgita and Mahapurana Bhagavatam. An emphasis is placed on bringing forth some of the essential elements of these key terms as they are understood by intellectuals and theologians in the academic disciplines such as philosophy, religion, psychology, and mechanistic sciences as well as by popular writers. The tools used are multi-dimensional and include my own training and experience in modern mechanistic applied sciences as well as my personal contemplative yogic experiences. This attempt is not intended to be an academic exercise caught up in semantic games or philosophical jargon, but is aimed at unfolding some new insights by using non-traditional approaches.
Let us begin our pilgrimage to the world of atman, soul, and spirit by taking the first step toward defining the technical term ‘spirit’ as it appears in the concise Oxford English Dictionary:
1a. The vital animating essence of a person or animal.
b. Intelligent non-physical part of a person; soul.
2a. A rational or intelligent being without a material body.
b. A supernatural being such as a ghost, fairy, etc.;
3a. A prevailing mental or moral condition or attitude; a mood; a
tendency.
5a. A person’s mental or moral nature or qualities.
c. (in full high spirit) courage, energy, vivacity, dash (played
with spirit).
6. The real meaning as opposed to lip service or verbal expression
(the spirit of the law).
7. Archaic an immaterial principle thought to govern vital phenomena
(animal spirits).
I have used the word pilgrimage with a specific meaning of it in my mind. The conceptual exercise that we wish to follow here through linguistic terms, definitions, and meanings embodies a kind of directed inquiry—a meditation— as we go along and finally come back to the starting point but with a sense of enlightenment. It is also important to avoid the potential new danger of being caught up in the philosophy of the word ‘definition’ because contemporary philosophers speak of many kinds of definitions, such as implicit definition, recursive definition, operational definition, contextual definition, metaphorical definition, and so on. We will restrict ourselves to a definition that helps us to (i) bring out most of the ‘unique characteristics’ of the terms, and to (ii) their inter-relationship to other ideas about the physical world.
In order to understand various meanings associated with the word spirit, it appears necessary to first go back to the root metaphors that occur in the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin languages. These are: in Hebrew, ruach; in Latin, anima and spiritus; and in Greek, psyche and pneuma. These ancient words simply apply to the phenomenon of moving wind, breath, or air, or in essence, the vitality. These descriptions lead us to think of spirit as a life-principle that brings a distinction between the animate and inanimate objects. It should be pointed out here that other similar words for spirit historically rooted in the tradition of the West (both Judeo-Christian as well as Greek) came to be defined and understood in the way different communities used them in their religious, philosophical, and cultural discourses.
The Biblical Conception of Spirit and Soul
The notion of spirit as breath, life, or vitality appears most distinctively in the book of Genesis as can be seen from the following passage:
“God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”
(Genesis 2:7)
“At death the soul ceases to think or feel and returns to the dust from which it was made.”
(Genesis3:19; Psalm 146:3, 4; Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20; 9:5, 10; Ezekiel 18, 20; Matt. 10:28)
According to John McKenzie, another word for spirit, nepes, occurs no less than 754 times in the Old Testament. This word has multiple yet interrelated meanings with no single word that can be assigned in modern languages; however, all of them lead to infer nepes as the ‘life-force’ or totality of a person, including his or her psychological and mental life. McKenzie concludes that nepes is the word which comes nearest to the person in the psychological sense; i.e., a conscious subject [1].
If we turn to the New Testament, a newer term ‘soul’ for the Greek term ‘psyche’ appears along with the old spirit, though much less frequent in its occurrence. Although the notion of soul appears synonymous with the spirit, a few modern thinkers like Joel Kovel prefer to make some distinction. “The chief distinction between spirit and soul for our purposes is that soul is the aspect taken by the person viewed spiritually and spirit is the more general term, connoting a relation between the person and the universe. Soul is the more self-referential term, connoting the kind of person who undergoes that relation. In a sense, soul cuts even closer to home than spirit, because while spirits can be—and are—seen everywhere, soul refers to who we are, and, necessarily, to what we make of ourselves. We may define soul, therefore, as the spiritual form taken by the self. If spirit is a relation of the self to what is beyond itself, soul is the self insofar as it partakes of that relationship.” [2]
It is interesting to note from the above definition of the ‘soul’ that the soul is some kind of a spiritual relationship or spiritual transformation of the self (i.e. total personality). In reality, the above construction defining the relationship between the self-soul-spirit is circular in nature, which has also been used by many other theologians and philosophers. In essence, the words ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ are synonymous, with a preference for the word ‘spirit’ as the real term in the New Testament and, as Thomas Hobbes pointed out, with the meaning simply ‘life’ or a ‘living creature’.
As regards the conception of a ‘soul’ capable of existing in separation from the body, some church leaders often single out the following quotation from the New Testament as the proof of the immortality of the ‘soul’.
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul (psyche), but rather be afraid of him who is able to destroy both in hell.”
(Matt. 10:28)
The above scriptural statement is self contradictory with regard to the alleged immortality of the ‘soul’. This statement simply refers to a state of human psyche, which can be destroyed in a hellish situation, but which can live in just like some loved one lives in one’s memories after his or her death. This is in essence a metaphorical statement, which could incorrectly be singled out as a proof of the potential separation of body and soul. Technically speaking, even the above statement does not necessarily imply the immortality of ‘soul’. This situation can best be summarized in the words of Richard Taylor [3].
“- – – there is rather little scriptural basis for the view that man uniquely possesses a separable, spiritual soul, or that any such soul elevates him above the rest of material creation. It is possible that man is possessed of some unique worth, deriving from his special relationship to God, as has been the teaching of the church, but if so, then there is little basis in scripture for supposing that such worth attaches to a divine soul.”
Richard Taylor [3]
Greek and Other Western Conceptions of Spirit
There has been a long and ancient tradition of thinkers and philosophers who have developed various ideas, terms and theories about human nature, especially about spirit or living force. The Pythagoreans used the terms pneuma and psyche to define spirit or soul, which causes the whole organism movement and life through breathing. In search of giving a special position to human beings, among other things, the term nous or mind occupied the most fundamental position within the human personality in the works of Anaxagoras to Aristotle-to Plato. Although the soul is still recognized as the moving force and its quality as the cause of quality of motion in Plato’s books of the Laws, but the mind is immaterial, divinely given and an immortal part of soul. The philosophical position of Plato and Aristotle on mind-soul relationship, which played a decisive role for all further philosophical ideas in the West, gave primordial significance to the mindover soul.
“Mind is alive, although under the conditions of physical existence it requires a soul in which to be implanted; it is at least capable of being free of the influences of physical existence, although it can be wrongly subordinated to the lowest, mortal parts of the soul—.”
Steven Smith [4]
The German word Geist came to be recognized as the ‘spirit-word’ in the works of German philosophers like Kant, Herder, Hegel and Kiekegaard. Each of these thinkers defined it differently, but in the process of designing the linguistic constructs, they shifted their attention toward relationships of spirit with mind, body, and the world. Hegel, for example, postulates three stages of a spiritual being: subjective, objective, and absolute. Steven Smith points out that the objective spiritrelates itself to the objective world around it with a demand on the universal freedom through the moral and political agencies, while the subjective spirit takes in all the phenomena of soul and consciousness, as they are experienced. Hegel’s idea of absolute spirit achieves a kind of mental state, which can be actualized in unlimited thinking-through.
“The ‘absolute spirit’ supersedes the externality that separates individuals from themselves, from each other, and from nature; here, the spirit attained an unlimited being-in-and-for-itself, perfect actuality, no form of subjectivity or objectivity lacking from the synthesis.”
[5]
Other significant attempts to define “spirit” are focused more on its relationships with others, which may be persons, thoughts, state of mind, intellect, moral, and social obligations. I cite here two such conceptions that are based on the works of Martin Buber and Bertrand Russell.
“Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe”.
Martin Buber [6]
“The life of the spirit centers around impersonal feeling, as the life of the mind centers round impersonal thought . . .. Reverence and worship, the sense of an obligation to mankind, the feeling of imperativeness and acting under orders which traditional religion has interpreted as divine inspiration, all belong to the life of the spirit.
“Spirit is an antidote to the cynicism of mind: it universalized the emotions that spring from instinct, and by universalizing them makes them impervious to mental criticism. And when thought is informed by spirit it loses its cruel, destructive quality; it no longer promotes the death of instinct, but only its purification from insistence and ruthlessness . . .. It is instinct that gives force, mind that gives the means of directing force to desired ends, and spirit that suggests impersonal uses for force.”
Bertrand Russell [7]
If one can actually go on and on in search of something more fundamental, something more unique than relationships, one may be totally disappointed. Even within the most contemporary scholarship coming from thinkers with wide varieties of background and expertise—such as sociology, religious philosophies and psychology—the terms spirit, soul or spiritual mean nothing more than some ambiguous inter-relationships with others, with this variegated, diversified Nature. In regard to the qualities of ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’, one can easily find all kinds of souls, such as good souls, beautiful souls, or deep souls, large souls, wicked souls, wounded souls, foolish souls, and so on. Steven Smith (philosopher) and Joel Kovel (sociologist) have adequately summed the modern search for comprehensive understanding of these terms
“Spirit is made of care or personal commitment, reverence, devotion, and so forth, instead of detached curiosity. Spiritual beings do more than know about others, they care for others. In the correspondence between knowing about others and caring about others lives the salvific experience —.”
Steven Smith [4]
“Spirituality responds to spirit, but also produces spirit. Wherever a state of being open to spirit occurs, spiritual desire can seize it and, through spiritual practice, create spirit as a new form of relationship. Spirit so produced will then become the basis for the next occasion of spirituality, and so on. This is a way to account for the extraordinary array of spiritualities and their vastly different values.
“Just as natural selection leads to the evolution of species, “spiritual selection” mediates spiritual evolution. But spiritual evolution is also history. Spiritualities that succeed bind together a historical project and ensure its survival. A successful spirituality must ensure material development, group cohesion, and cultural continuity, and provide a practical basis for individual spiritual experience.”
Joel Kovel [2]
Vedic Conception of Atman
In this discourse the term ‘Vedic’ includes the fundamental ideas found in the Scriptures such as Vedas, Upanishads, Epics (Ramayana and Mahabharat), Bhagavat Mahapurana, Bhagavadgita and Samkhya Yoga. It is intended here not to describe and discuss comprehensively the multidimensional meanings associated with the term atman because such a venture will require a separate monograph. Instead, we will focus on the ideas that most directly serve our purpose of clarity and directness, and which are found in the Scriptures such as Katha Upanishad, Bhagavadgita and Snkhyak
rik
. It should be clarified in advance, however, that besides the term Atman another almost synonymous term, Purusha, is also found in these Scriptures. The term Atman is more often used in the genitive sense, while Purusha in the locative sense.
Let us begin to define the term Atman by presenting ideas directly from Katha Upanishad, and Bhagavadgita.
“The Atman is neither born nor does It die. Coming into being and ceasing to be do not take place in It. Unborn, eternal, constant and ancient, It is not killed when the body is slain.”
(Bhagavadgita 2:20-21)
“He who cognizes the Atman as indestructible, eternal, unborn, and changeless, how can he slay, O Partha, or cause another to slay?“
“Know that to be verily indestructible by which all this is pervaded. None can effect the destruction of the Immutable.”
(Bhagavadgita 2:17)
“Weapons do not cleave the Atman, fire burns It not, water wets It not, and wind dries It not.”
(Bhagavadgita 2:23-24)
“This Self (Atman) is uncleavable, incombustible, and neither wetted or dried. It is eternal, all pervading, stable, immovable, and everlasting.”
Additional attributes can further be noted.
“While sitting, It travels far away; while sleeping, It goes everywhere. Who but I can know that Deity who is both joyful and joyless?”
(Katha Upanishad 1:2:21)
“The Atman that is subtler than the subtle and greater than the great is lodged in the heart of (every) creature. A desireless man sees that glory of the Self through the serenity of the organs, and (thereby he becomes) free from sorrow.”
(Katha Upanishad 1:2:20)
“One becomes freed from the jaws of death by knowing that which is soundless, touchless, colourless, undiminishing, and also tasteless, eternal, odorless, without beginning, and without end, distinct from Mahat, and ever constant.”
(Katha Upanishad 1:3:15)
Can it be defined with reference to body, mind, and intellect?
“The sense- objects are higher then the senses, and the mind is higher than the sense-objects; but the intellect is higher than the mind, and the great atman is higher than the intellect.”
(Katha Upanishad 1:3:10)
“As a human being casting off worn-out garments puts on new ones, so the embodied, casting off worn-out bodies enters into others that are new.”
(Bhagavadgita 2:22)
If this atman is so wonderful, so strange, so unique, and so fundamentally different from the material modes of Nature, can it be known? Or how can it be known through our cognitive faculty?
“One beholds the Atman as wonderful; another mentions of It as marvelous; another again hears of It as strange; though hearing yet another knows It not at all.”
(Bhagavadgita 2:29)
“This Atman cannot be known through much study, or through intellect, or through much hearing. It can be known through the Atman alone that the aspirant prays to; this Atman of that seeker reveals Its true nature.”
(Katha Upanishad 1:2:23)
Some Critical Observations and Comments
By critically examining various meanings of the terms atman, spirit, or soul discussed in this paper, it is not too difficult to discern key distinguishing features between atman (a Vedic concept) and spirit or soul (a Western concept). These distinguishing features can be summarized as follows:
- The term “spirit” is found to be in the state of constant flux of evolution and change since the ancient Greek and Judeo-Christian traditions. The myriad of meanings given to this term—although centered on breathing, life force, psyche, ego, mind, rationality, and various social, cultural, and other relationships (among the objects of nature)—could not yet reach to a definitive universally acceptable and non-ambiguous state of understanding. One can find lots of linguistic structures and conceptual frameworks built around the above ideas, many of which are circular in nature and lack clarity. In essence, it can be said that it is not an independent entity, which can be defined in its own terms. From the Vedic point of view, the concept of spirit can best be considered to somewhat related to Prana,(remember, the entity Prana has a more definitive, deeper and broader meaning), while the adjective “spiritual” is sometimes related to the sattvic mode or mode of goodness of human nature (which is a mode of Prakriti or nature).
- The Vedic concept of atman is the most wonderful, strange, unique, and fundamentally so different from anything that we are aware of including our own physical, psychical, mental, material, or natural world. The kind of language used to define the Vedic concept is very definitive, powerful, logical, and crystal clear. The approach to arrive at this understanding embodies both the contextual as well as seemingly paradoxical frameworks. This means that the defining frameworks give us an understanding as to what it is and what it is not.
- Unlike “spirit”, atman (part and parcel of Parmatman) is an independent entity with its own attributes (e.g. self-knowing, effulgence, universal supra consciousness, bliss, eternal, nonmutable, etc.) is of a radically different degree and kind than that available within the natural world, living world or cosmos).
- Our sense objects, cognitive faculty, ego, or other material modes of inquiry and experimentation are totally inadequate to actually know it, to measure it or to experience it. However, our own mind (manas) and heart (hridaya), if properly tuned-in-yoga, can lead us to the doorstep of this entity. The atmanexperiences itself by itself. This is the ultimate reality, which is localized as well as non-localized and also at the same times all pervading(Brahman). It is objectively and exclusively an independent observer, seer and knower, and pure supra-consciousness. This entity being an independent observer-independent of all means, of all the apparatuses including mind, of all that is to be observed- has also found a ground breaking application in addressing one of the central paradoxes of the quantum mechanics, as discussed by Robert Mills [10]. Its manifestation transcends our physical space-time continuum; yet it remains hidden within all the living and non-living entities. It is the very foundation and source of the manifested as well as hidden modes of Prakriti (universe), and it is a part and parcel of Parmataman, Paramabrahman, and Bhagavan.
- I wish to suggest that this entity can be isolated from the Prakritic or material body and the material world; it can be objective; it can achieve its complete autonomy and freedom; it can exercise its full control over material nature; and it can have instant communication and universal connectivity. From Yogic experiences, there is ample evidence to suggest the above unique characteristics of this entity atman which is part and parcel of Parmatman.
- Being an independent entity, it is logical to see that the Atman coupled with the karmic residues contained within our causal and subtle bodies can have an inner capacity to transmigrate within the multidimensional spaces. This unique characteristic then forms the basis for the endless bonded birth and death cycles within our world, and a potential for the liberation or emancipation from the material bondage.
Concluding Remarks
The mainstream modern scientific thinking, caught up in the materialism (An assertion that the material entity-biological as well as non-biological- is the ultimate reality behind the cosmos, can be called “materialism”), does not accept yet any possibility of an entity, which can be so different from that of material. Consequently, the spirit-like concept is accepted as only symbolic in the phenomenon of the human psyche, which appears to be justified since the concept and meanings behind “spirit” lack the basic support necessary for it to be taken seriously. However, on the other hand, the unique entity Atman along with its dwelling in the field Prakriti (nature) has a necessary scientific framework that could become an excellent candidate for the exploration of the very phenomenon of consciousness and existence.
In view of this critical inquiry and/or interpretation, I would assert that the translation and interpretation of the term Atman as ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’ is a corruption; it is pollution, and it is an uprooting of the Atman entity and the associated conceptual ground. Furthermore, this fundamentally incorrect translation and/or interpretation of such an important technical term introduces not only a high degree of conflict, confusion, and ignorance in inter-cultural dialogues, but creates also a formidable barrier for further inquiry and understanding into the potentially hidden phenomena relating to the very foundation of microcosm and macrocosm.
References
[1] John McKenzie, 1965. Dictionary of the Bible, Milwaukee: Bruce.
[2] Joel Kovel, 1991. History and Spirit, Beacon Press, Boston, MA, p.34.
[3] Richard Taylor, 1989. Reflective Wisdom, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, New York, p. 175.
[4] Steven G. Smith, 1988. The Concept of the Spiritual, Temple University Press, PA, p. 17.
[5] Ibid. P.28.
[6] Martin Buber, 1970. Thou, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Scribner’s, NY, p.89.
[7] Bertrand Russell, 1916. Principles of Social Reconstruction, Allen & Unwin, London, p. 210.
[8] Bhagavadgita
[9] Katha Upanishad
[10] Robert Mills, 1994, Space Time and Quanta, W.H.Freeman and Company New York, pp. 370-371. (My personal discussion and review of the relevant chapter in the book before its publication)
