THE SOUL AND THE EGO ( Spirit and Matter )

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( CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST )

The 'shroud' or physical body has certain attributes which we call personality. There are numerous shrouds with varying textures (people with a range of personalities) covering the souls which are themselves beyond personality, being divine, pure and eternal. The physical personality ,which the entrapped soul does not share, is also called Ego. Unlike the soul's purpose, which we shall discuss later, the Ego or physical personality's purpose is defined by self-preservation - the survival, success and well-being of the physical entity by overcoming any obstacles that come in its path. This compulsion to survive produces the qualities of that personality - selfishness, desire to procreate and thereby perpetuate oneself, jealousy arising from comparisons and competition, aggression to enable acquisition of something valuable that another may possess, dominance to subdue others, sorrow pleasure etc. The shroud is made up of these materialistic qualities.

Some shrouds are thick, coarse and rough. Others are of fine texture and some are so refined as to be transparent. The soul is not visible through some shrouds that are thick like blankets. But as the shrouds improve and evolve its light begins to show through and finally when the shroud becomes transparent, the soul shines forth. The personalities of people like Gandhi or the Buddha would have been such refined shrouds and the soul would then shine brightly through their eyes, their actions and their deeds.

The material shroud that covers the soul or the human body that embodies it, basically are quite independent of the soul, neither being governed, dominated or directed by it. The body or person is in fact governed, directed and dominated only by the personality-ego - mind complex, which is entirely physical. The ego goes about urging the physical person to do its bidding in enhancing pride and prestige, acquiring wealth,satisfying desire, rising above others, imposing ones will, exercising power, dominating others, preserving, protecting and enhancing its level of existence by obsessively grasping every opportunity. What role the soul plays we shall see later.

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SOUL'S EMBODIMENT ( Incarnation )

(CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS POST)
The soul is therefore an integral part of the Universal Essence or divine source - a spark of divinity with all the attributes of the original source - indestructable, eternal, unchanging, all knowing - God in miniature. Apparently seperated and thrown up from the oceanic heart of the Universal Essence, it now journeys to the physical plane like a meteor entering earth space, bright and incandescent.

Matter is furiously attracted, as we observed earlier, to this magnificent spark of divinity, much like a mob is attracted to a film star, swarming him, or as iron filings are drawn to a magnet. Different combinations of matter - pure and subtle matter(Satvik), dynamic and passionate matter (Rajsik) and inert and fetid matter (Tamsik) - swarm the numerous falling star souls and envelop them in an irresistable embrace which cannot be deflected or denied. The soul is now entrapped in a material body and becomes what the Gita calls the 'embodied one'. Another analogy is that of a physical shroud covering a spiritual heart.

In the Gita, God speaks of the incarnation of the soul thus:

'' I am the Self, seated in the hearts of all beings...''

'' An eternal portion of Myself becomes the eternal soul in the living world, drawing to itself Nature's five senses and the mind ''

This entrapment does not end with that initial entrapment but continues through reincarnation.

   REINCARNATION AND REBIRTH

Reincarnation - Rebirth
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We now arrive at the theory of reincarnation. Though Hindu, Buddhist and Jain cosmologies are entirely different from one another, the common denominator in all three faiths is the belief in rebirth. Here of course we shall solely be examining the concept of reincarnation in the Hindu context and more particularly as expounded by the Gita.

Let us begin by asking, whose rebirth? When we say 'your' rebirth we do not mean rebirth only of the personality-ego complex which represent you in your subtle body, now modified for the next lifetime at the moment of rebirth. What is also meant is the rebirth of the entrapped soul force within you, the 'indweller', the one who during the lifetime was shrouded by your body, ego and personality. The eternal soul now sheds the deceased body/personality and assumes a new one. Here let us see what the Gita has to say:

''It (the soul) 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.''

''As a man casting off worn out garments puts on new ones, so the embodied one (the soul), casting off worn out bodies, enters others that are new.''

The analogy is aptly one of  shedding an old garment and wearing a new one. But the new garment, to extend the analogy further, is not one which the soul can choose. It cannot demand an exquisite garment from a designer shop. On the contrary it lies before the soul, tailor-made according to Karmic specifications. The traces, effects and 'odours' registered in the Subtle Body ( discussed in an earlier post - The subtle body and the law of Karma) determine the kind of new garment the soul is obliged to 'wear' - the new body/personality which will embody the soul for the next lifetime. Thus rebirth takes place with a new modified entity as the host of the soul.

Reincarnation - Rebirth
Credit: ISKCON

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THE SOURCE OF THE SOUL

Hindu metaphysics is defined by western scholars as Transcendental Monism, a philosophical term which simply means the Oneness of everything, its indivisibility and grand unity. This is not Monotheism or the belief in a one and exclusive God without a second but indeed the oneness of both creator and creation. In other words, God is omnipresent and ubiquitous and the divine essence infiltrates every atom and particle of creation

. This divinity is present not merely at the spiritual plane but equally on the material and physical levels. Matter and Spirit are integrally conjoined and inseperable. The divine is thus universally present both as matter and spirit. Matter and Spirit, two facets of the Universal Essence or God, are not only inseperable and united but also exhibit attraction for one another by being in a state of perpetual interaction. While the material aspect is manifest, finite and perishable and recycled from creation to creation, the spiritual aspect is infinite, imperishable, constant and eternal.

Matter is passionately attracted to the presence of spirit and spirit never leaves matter alone either, probing, infiltrating and combining with it.

The Oneness of the pristine Universal Essence becomes disturbed when an introspective, self consciousness stirs within it, as if it asked ‘who am I’ or again it asserted ’I am’. This ‘I am’ sounds like Aum the Hindu symbol of the sacred, the first primal sound resounding across the universe. This moment of acute self consciousness translates into what one may call the Big Bang of creation. At that moment the ‘Unity’ becomes splintered like our physical identity does in a dream. At that moment a tidal wave arises in the great Spirit’s oceanic Oneness and with the wave, uncountable millions of drops are thrown up in a cosmic splash seperating and rising up as sprays. The drops in the air are still parts of the ocean though apparently seperated by the creative force of the tidal wave of the self conscious assertion of ‘I Am’ and destined to fall back before long, back into the ocean, to resume their unity with it.

The figurative analogy of the ocean and the drops is employed repeatedly in Hindu thought to illustrate the complex metaphysical reality of the Universal Essence and its relationship to the  soul incarnate.. The seperated drops poised in the air momentarily, before they fall back into the ocean of the Universal Essence are the freshly generated souls. Thus we understand the origin of the soul.

The Soul According To The Gita ( Hindu Scripture)

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Let us  embark on our journey to explore the meaning of the soul. There are many paths one can take. I can only begin by choosing one that appears familiar to me. Going along it I arrive at the august portals of Hindu thought and beliefs concerning the soul. For millenia the soul has been the subject of intensive introspection in India, a land immersed in mysticism and the spiritual quest, which produced great thinkers, sages, philosophers and prophets like the Buddha.

India’s quintessential scripture the Gita or Song Celestial, begins its discourse with a definition of the soul. It calls it the ‘indweller’, the one that dwells within. It also calls it the embodied one – one that has acquired a physical body. While the physical shell is destructable, its indweller, it asserts, is indestructable, eternal, not manifest, inconceivable and unchanging. It is neither born nor does it die. It describes it as stable, constant, invulnerable and ancient.

The question arises, where does this soul which gets embodied and becomes the ‘indweller’ come from. What is its source? This takes us back to the very fundamentals of Hindu metaphysics and cosmology. We cannot answer the question of the origin of the soul without first understanding the source or backdrop from which it emerges. That source is obviously the Universal Essence, Universal consciousness, the Supersoul, Cosmic Being or God. (more in next post)