Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 namaste, There is no word in English for " li.nga-shariira"(other than perhaps 'ghost'), the subtle form in which the unpurified chitta (mind with all the unfulfilled vasanas or impressions) continues its journey towards final identity with Atman. Those with pure minds can develop the yogic intuitive insight to guage the stage at which an individual is. This is the reason for the need of a genuine Teacher, who can be the sure guide for the onward march. Regards, S. ----Original Message Follows---- Gummuluru Murthy <gmurthy advaitin advaitin death: is it the soul leaving the body? Fri, 28 Jan 2000 12:10:12 -0330 (NST) namaste. 1. The common way to look at death is as the end of life and as a calamitous event. The near and dear cry over it and the society has devised ways of treating it. 2. The people who believe in karma theory and re-incarnation treat this as the end of a particular phase of the soul's journey in search of its identity with Atman. They say the soul has left the body, travel through and will attach itself to another body in due course of time. I think we have all evolved out of (1) above. While not denying (2), even in (2), it seems to me that the thinking that the soul has *left the body* is an incorrect way to look at. The soul has not gone anywhere. A more correct way to say this is *the soul has discarded the body*. Just like a snake discards its skin-wrap, just like a jeeva changes its shirt, or a human passes out excretion, the soul has discarded the body. Just like we do not pay attention to a discarded shirt or excretion, similarly we do not pay any undue attention to the discarded body. Just like any discarded item decomposes, the discarded body also looses its light and temperature, and decomposes. If we start thinking that the body is discarded (rather than the soul has left the body), we have shifted the attention from the body to the soul, and climbed many steps in our understanding of what we are. The soul (irrespective of whether it has discarded the body or not) is nothing but the Atman. As the soul sees its identity with the Atman, its (soul's) identity with the body (here, I use the body to include the gross, the subtle and the causal) becomes weaker and the jeeva's individuality becomes weaker. Recognition of the identity of the soul with the Atman will be there if the cit is pure. The purer the cit is, the clearer will be the reflection of the Atman in the cit. I will be most obliged for any comments/clarifications. Regards Gummuluru Murthy - ____ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 namaste. 1. The common way to look at death is as the end of life and as a calamitous event. The near and dear cry over it and the society has devised ways of treating it. 2. The people who believe in karma theory and re-incarnation treat this as the end of a particular phase of the soul's journey in search of its identity with Atman. They say the soul has left the body, travel through and will attach itself to another body in due course of time. I think we have all evolved out of (1) above. While not denying (2), even in (2), it seems to me that the thinking that the soul has *left the body* is an incorrect way to look at. The soul has not gone anywhere. A more correct way to say this is *the soul has discarded the body*. Just like a snake discards its skin-wrap, just like a jeeva changes its shirt, or a human passes out excretion, the soul has discarded the body. Just like we do not pay attention to a discarded shirt or excretion, similarly we do not pay any undue attention to the discarded body. Just like any discarded item decomposes, the discarded body also looses its light and temperature, and decomposes. If we start thinking that the body is discarded (rather than the soul has left the body), we have shifted the attention from the body to the soul, and climbed many steps in our understanding of what we are. The soul (irrespective of whether it has discarded the body or not) is nothing but the Atman. As the soul sees its identity with the Atman, its (soul's) identity with the body (here, I use the body to include the gross, the subtle and the causal) becomes weaker and the jeeva's individuality becomes weaker. Recognition of the identity of the soul with the Atman will be there if the cit is pure. The purer the cit is, the clearer will be the reflection of the Atman in the cit. I will be most obliged for any comments/clarifications. Regards Gummuluru Murthy - Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 this discussion on the gita's eschatology is very interesting.. the difference between the way of looking at death by the orient and the occident is very clearly brought out by the terms by which they refer to death:: he has left the ghost---the occident he has left the body---the orient rgds--devendra ____ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 What a fascinating observation - right on target! Thanks! --Greg At 04:42 PM 1/28/00 GMT, Devendra Vyas wrote: >"Devendra Vyas" <dev_vyas74 > >this discussion on the gita's eschatology is very interesting.. >the difference between the way of looking at death by the orient and the >occident is very clearly brought out by the terms by which they refer to >death:: > >he has left the ghost---the occident >he has left the body---the orient > rgds--devendra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 >"Devendra Vyas" <dev_vyas74 > >this discussion on the gita's eschatology is very interesting.. >the difference between the way of looking at death by the orient and the >occident is very clearly brought out by the terms by which they refer to >death:: > >he has left the ghost---the occident >he has left the body---the orient > rgds--devendra I have never once heard the expression "he has left the ghost." If you meant "he has given up the ghost," it's really more of a facetiously irreverent figure of speech than a symptom of any deeply held attitudes. It's almost analogous to "Biting the dust." Westerners of a religious bent also think of the soul leaving the body at death, even though their notion of the nature of soul is dramatically different than in Vedanta. Robert. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 28, 2000 Report Share Posted January 28, 2000 reply to p&w::i was trying to put across an observation---but i admit my mistake....but the diff. holds even if you take it as "he has given up the ghost"----regarding the validity of this statement as being a symptom of some deeply held belief or some irreverent figure of speech --it is highly debatable both ways.... i am just trying to bring out the diff. in looking at the same thing i diff. systems..rgds-devendra >"Parisi & Watson" <niche >advaitin ><advaitin > >Re: death: is it the soul leaving the body? >Fri, 28 Jan 2000 18:24:11 -0600 > > >"Devendra Vyas" <dev_vyas74 > > > >this discussion on the gita's eschatology is very interesting.. > >the difference between the way of looking at death by the orient and the > >occident is very clearly brought out by the terms by which they refer to > >death:: > > > >he has left the ghost---the occident > >he has left the body---the orient > > rgds--devendra > > >I have never once heard the expression "he has left the ghost." If you >meant >"he has given up the ghost," it's really more of a facetiously irreverent >figure of speech than a symptom of any deeply held attitudes. It's almost >analogous to "Biting the dust." Westerners of a religious bent also think >of >the soul leaving the body at death, even though their notion of the nature >of soul is dramatically different than in Vedanta. > >Robert. > ____ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2000 Report Share Posted January 29, 2000 Hello Devendra: He has left the gost : That is the expression to say: He deaded!! That expression is an western expression! In French: " Il a rendu l'ame". Jesus a rendu son esprit a son Pere. Friendly! Naren ==================================== At 18:24 28/01/00 -0600, you wrote: >"Parisi & Watson" <niche > >>"Devendra Vyas" <dev_vyas74 >> >>this discussion on the gita's eschatology is very interesting.. >>the difference between the way of looking at death by the orient and the >>occident is very clearly brought out by the terms by which they refer to >>death:: >> >>he has left the ghost---the occident >>he has left the body---the orient >> rgds--devendra > > >I have never once heard the expression "he has left the ghost." If you meant >"he has given up the ghost," it's really more of a facetiously irreverent >figure of speech than a symptom of any deeply held attitudes. It's almost >analogous to "Biting the dust." Westerners of a religious bent also think of >the soul leaving the body at death, even though their notion of the nature >of soul is dramatically different than in Vedanta. > >Robert. > > >--------------------------- ONElist Sponsor ---------------------------- > >GET A NEXTCARD VISA, in 30 seconds. Get rates as low as 0.0 percent >Intro or 9.9 percent Fixed APR and no hidden fees. Apply NOW. ><a href=" http://clickme./ad/NextcardCreative5 ">Click Here</a> > >------ > >Discussion of the True Meaning of Sankara's Advaita Vedanta Philosophy focusing on non-duality between mind and matter. Searchable List Archives are available at: http://www.eScribe.com/culture/advaitin/ Contact Email Address: advaitins > > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2000 Report Share Posted January 29, 2000 Gummuluru Murthy wrote: > that the soul has *left the body* is an incorrect way to > look at. The soul has not gone anywhere. A more correct way > to say this is *the soul has discarded the body*. Sri Krishna agrees with you: "Just as a person puts on new garments after discarding the old ones, similarly Atma acquires new bodies after casting away the old bodies." (BG 2.22) Hahaha! It would be funny to say that a person left the old clothes and entered the new clothes. Of course.. if we always intuitively understood that the body is like a garment, things would be different in this world. -- Warmest regards, Ruben rubenn _____________ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2000 Report Share Posted January 29, 2000 Greetings Gummuluruji: The question that you have raised and your explanations are quite fascinating. These are my observations: We as observers of our life and surrounding have different levels of understanding of the living and liberated. We perceive a living person by his/her physical form - height, weight, body shape, color, speech, manners, actions, knowledge, etc. We perceive a dead person by our past acquaintance of that person either through past direct or indirect contact when he/she was a living person. One of the main problem that all our conclusions are subject our limitations in understanding and our failure to recognize those limitations. Consequently our conclusions will not completely answer these fundamental questions. From the scientific point of view, death is recognized by a set of attributes - stop of the heat-beat, no breath, body stiffness, etc. For the philosophical point of view, we don't have an answer for the question: what is life? According to Vedas (also restated in Gita), life has no beginning and no end! regards, Ram Chandran Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2000 Report Share Posted January 29, 2000 When Swami Vivekananda left His body in Calcutta, his monastic brother Sri Ramkrishnananda (Shashi Maharaj) heard His voice in Madras , "Shashi ! Shashi ! I have spat out the body ". -Source . Meditation and spiritual Life - Swami Yatishwarananda. My understanding is the permanent remains as the permanent, the illusion drop away. Regards, Anand A FREE web-based e-mail service brought to you by the PC World Technology Network. Get your FREE account today at http://www.myworldmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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