The Ātman in Hinduism: Part 4

Religion & Philosophy: The Hindu Trinity

We have derived the following three underlying unities:

• Ātman <= the underlying impersonal persisting self in the microcosm
• Brahman <= the underlying impersonal persisting divine in the theocosm
• Sat <= the underlying uncategorical persisting being in the macrocosm

But if at the deepest level, we cannot distinguish between categories of various individuals, gods and materials, what makes us think that we can distinguish between even these three categories?! The Upanisads declare that all these three are the same and the equation “ātman = brahman = sat” is as revolutionary to Indian philosophy as much as the  equation “E=mc^2” in modern physics. I call this the Hindu trinity. Equating these three means that “I (the ātman) am God (understood as brahman), God is the Cosmos (understood as sat), I am the cosmos”. The former two would be blasphemous in an Abrahamic theology while the third would contradict the privilege of humanity from the rest of creation. But in philosophical Hinduism, these would be almost obvious.

The ātman exists and it can never be known in the normal sense of the word. Can we move on now? No! In Hindu metaphysics, we are really ātman and after death, we will be reincarnated in a new body. In fact this is why religious conflicts have rarely become lethal and violent in India. Because, even if you are wrong in this birth, you can fix it next time! You will keep on getting chances to fix if you make mistakes. At the outset, this might give us hope - we are born again after death and hence we do not really die. But for Indians, this was actually a bad case since when you are born again, you also die again and rebirth also means redeath. The Indian ideal was not eternal joy in this cycle of birth and death but ironically, to escape this endless cycle of reincarnation, called in Sanskrit as संसार saṃsāra. The ultimate aim was to get liberated from this cycle and technically this was termed as मोक्ष​ mokṣa which literally means liberation in Sanskrit. What leads to this liberation and what happens after liberation?

The method for liberation in Hindu dharma lay in knowledge - realization that we are actually ātman = brahman = sat. But this knowledge is not mere belief after being convinced by either logical reasoning (for e.g, after reading this article) or by faith. If Hinduism were an Abrahamic religion, one could get liberation by just uttering and sincerely believing in a catechism or shahada [profession of faith] like “I am ātman which is the same as the brahman and sat”.

But in Hinduism, this is just a mere beginning in the road to liberation. What is needed is not a matter of sincere outward epistemic realization but a deep down realization that persists and transforms the way we live life. For example, imagine a sincerely believing Christian who thinks that he will be saved by his faith in Jesus and believes that he is guaranteed a ticket to heaven after his death wherein he will be in eternal joy thereafter. He also knows that the joys of heaven are much more gratifying than the ones on earth. But let’s say his doctor one day, suddenly gives him news that he is suffering from a deadly disease and soon is going to die. Will he be happy? Imagine that he is actually happy. That is the beginning to demonstrate the kind of belief that you need to possess to actually achieve liberation in Hinduism. One has to immerse oneself in the realization that atman is same as brahman and sat such that one loses their individuality completely - this state is called enlightenment. In this state, outwardly an individual looks enlightened to others but to himself, this statement becomes meaningless as his individuality is lost in that experience. That experience in which one realizes that one is atman is not like a realization of the correctness of a mathematical theorem (where there is a knower trapping a knowable entity) but is more like an experience when one is in dreamless deep sleep - there is no duality at all but still there is a consciousness that simply is and illuminates itself without creating any sense of duality. The process or technique which leads to this experience is called योग​ yoga which literally means unity or joining in Sanskrit.

The Status of the Phenomenal World

There are two questions that arise now. We have said that beyond the world of flux that includes multiplicities of persons, gods and objects, there lies another persistent unitary world of ātman = brahman = sat (hereafter I will use brahman to engulf the other two as well as anyways they are all equal). One must then ask -

What is the relationship between the phenomenal world of multiplicities and the underlying world of brahman?

In what exact sense, every individual self / object is ultimately equal to every other individual self/object and to the brahman?

Several metaphors are given by the Upanisads to understand these relationships and equalities. In the later era of classical darśanas, Hinduism would split into several schools based on the answers to these and other questions. These schools would justify their proposed answers to the questions by interpreting the Upanisadic metaphors that are given regarding this.

But whatever the answer to these questions one may subscribe to, it is undeniable that there is a superficial everyday reality of diversity and an ultimate deeper reality of unity (talk about unity in diversity!) - whatever the relationship between the two may be. How can both be true simultaneously?

The famous British astronomer Arthur Eddington gives this example: From the perspective of common sense experience, a table is solid and dense and as solid as one can get. Yet from the perspective of atomic physics, a table is mostly empty (remember that all atoms that constitute the table are mostly empty space with a tiny yet heavy nucleus). Both of these are simultaneously true - it would be unwise to deny atomic physics as just a mental structure that just encashes ordinary experience because it provides a stable framework and appeals to all sorts of evidence. It would also be unwise to deny ordinary experience as an incorrect, inferior, pre-science and folk reasoning. But just because atomic physics says it, doesn't mean that it invalidates our common sensical experience of a table being solid and dense. Both are related and true simultaneously. The common sense experience served as the ingredient to scientific theories like that of atomic physics. And atomic physics can explain why we perceive the table to be solid and dense despite it being mostly empty. There is no contradiction as both these statements are made in different नयs (perspectives) and if one understands these. In other words, the philosophical point being made is that it is impossible to sharply separate what is meant by calling a statement "true" from acceptable criteria for judging that it is true.

Authored by Rama Seshan Chandra Sekaran. Published by Brhat.