Ishwar / Soul / Brahman

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Oct 18, 2016

MiBeloved 3 years ago

Question of Pradip from LinkedIn:

What is the difference between Ishwara, SOUL, and BRAMHAN?

MiBeloved's Response:

Ishvara is free from afflictions (kleshas) and is the ancient teacher even of the great yogins of antiquity, at least that is what Patanjali said.

Souls are in two categories according to the Bhagavad Gita, as ksara puruṣaḥ or influenced person and aksara puruṣaḥ, un-influence person in respect to material nature which the ksar puruṣaḥ cannot fully resist.

Brahman is a genus or the environment in which the brahman genus exists.

As a genus, the soul and the supersoul are brahman.

The environment of the divine world is brahman

However in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna lists even the prakriti as brahman. In that usage prakriti is defined as being eternal.

In its unmanifest stage the prakriti is categorised as brahman type because that state is eternal. In its manifest stage, the prakriti is listed as asat which means that in its manifested state it is temporarily manifested and is always under alteration.

If something exists but it is temporary, then it is asat.

If something exist but it is permanent and eternal, then it is sat.

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Email correspondence:

If you want know about soul, Bhahm and prakrati, please forgate geeta. Whatever you talk about Geeta, it is adulterated one. Plz read sankhaya darsan. Iswar is sat, chit and anand. While atma is only sat and chit. Atma wants to get in anand position which is attained by getting to Moksha.

MiBeloved’s Response:

Sankhya is also in Srimad Bhagavatam where it is explained by Kapila Muni to his mother Devahuti. That is consistent with Bhagavad Gita in every way. I cannot forget Gita (your word is forgate).

Now listen to this because it takes into account what you are saying. Ishvara, the Supreme Lord, is fully sat, chit and ananda. I agree wholeheartedly with this.

Your other statement differentiates the atma from Ishvara, or it could be said it differentiates the atma from the Paramatma, like for example the fetus is the mother from one view but then after parturition, we understand that this was a simplistic and very false view. The fetus is a different entity. Duality in that case stands its ground because the evidence is blatant that their unity was conditional, based on the inability of the fetus to manifest its features initially.

When its features developed, we were forced to see that it was a duality anyway. We may not like it, but the evidence is there. Worse is when the infant grows up and violates the will of the mother and even goes against her interest. This happens. Some kids remain under harmony of the mother’s request. We may regard that as unity. That supports what we want. But some other kids are rebellious. Facing that square on, we have to rush back to the drawing board and get our equations for unity in order. Something is just not right about unity without diversity, without dissent, without opposition, without disagreement, without in harmony.

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You said that atma is only sat and chit. Well this statement is a generalization. No objection to general statements. These have their time and place. However various atma have various percentages of sat and chit. It is not a uniform percentage in every one.

In fact when the atma at first come out of the brahman effulgence and find itself existing in the material world, it has no recall and no understanding that it was in the brahman effulgence initially. That exclusive brahmin energy experience, even though it happened before, is not remembered. Therefore the idea that it has chit is a theory which needs to be substantiated. Chit really means that I understand my condition. The English equivalent is cognizance. So if I do not understand, if the prakriti has to wise me up on that by giving me false identifications over and over until by the process of not this (neti), I finally, after billions of years in various species, wake up, then it cannot be said that I was really in chit.

Patanjali listed bhogah as the value of the prakriti to the atma. Bhogah in that usage I translate as experience, that is sensual experience. So if the soul was really into chit and had it in real terms, there would be no need for the bhogah phase which lasts for millions of years, as the entity moves through the various species from amoeba up to the human being status.

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So I am going to say something in the next paragraph and you can take it or leave it. Quote Samkhya darshan if you like, but be sure to substantiate it with your insightful experiences in meditation. I am listening.

Entity who first moves out of brahman effulgence into the prakriti energy, pradhana, does so with sat (spontaneous existence capability) only and with no chit (being cognizant of itself by itself and itself in reference to other reality) reference being actuated. Chit is present but it is not in a realizable format. Therefore for all practical purposes it is not present. Contact with the prakriti pradhana energy neutralizes the entity contact with the chit feature of its existence. The only thing the entity has initially is the “I am” consciousness, with no sense of time or place, with no reference to anything, except what will be shown to it by the material nature, according to the most rudimentary forms which nature provides like the amoeba and paramecium.

After millions of years, gradually over time, the chit features becomes manifested and only in respect to the sophisticated nervous systems which material nature facilities.

The ananda spiritual bliss feature is totally absent but it is replaced by the material nature happiness features which serves as a good substitute and which the atma entity accepts verbatim as its only route to enjoyment.

Later as the chit feature develops more and more, this atma self begins to suspect that the happiness feature of material nature is really a counterfeit, a rip off. It is then that it tries for moksha, liberation from the influence of the material nature, in order to gain access to real happiness or ananda.

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Special Note:

Migration into the prakriti material nature is done by another type of atma, which are the divine beings from the spiritual world who are more than just specs of spiritual light. These come into the material world with sat, chit and ananda and are not subjective to the experiences imposed by the prakriti in the same way which the other atmas endure.