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deep discussions on Soul/atma(surat), mind...!


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...one question ...

when guruji says that...

man mailai sabh kishh mailaa than dhhothai man hashhaa n hoe

When the mind is filthy, everything is filthy; by washing the body, the mind is not cleaned.

everything is filthy, what about the soul??what happens??

if the mind is in control, then the essence is blocked out??

if the essence is incharge, if you allow it to be, the mind is brought into order.....

Your perception becomes filty...your view of the world becomes what your mind is. If your mind is at peace so are you, if it in a worrying, fearfull state, so you ride along with the state of the mind. If we learn to segregate ourselves from this wave of emotional turmoil, we find ourselves in a state of bliss. When someone hurts us, it is the mind which is hurt (ego). If someone praises us it is the mind which becomes happy. But we have segregated oruselves from this mind ...so who is hurt and who is praised?. We become the observer. The worlld does not become filty because we do not put the mind infront of us, rather we place our divine perception.

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If we want to progress integrally, we must build within our conscious being a strong and pure mental synthesis which can serve us as a protection against temptations from outside, as a landmark to prevent us from going astray, as a beacon to light our way across the moving ocean of life.

Each individual should build up this mental synthesis according to his own tendencies and affinities and aspirations. But if we want it to be truly living and luminous, it must be centred on the idea that is the intellectual representation symbolising That which is at the centre of our being, That which is our life and our light.

This idea, expressed in sublime words, has been taught in various forms by all the great Instructors in all lands and all ages.

The Self of each one and the great universal Self are one.

Since all that is exists from all eternity in its essence and principle, why make a distinction between the being and its origin, between ourselves and what we place at the beginning?

The ancient traditions rightly said:

"Our origin and ourselves, our God and ourselves are one."

And this oneness should not be understood merely as a more or less close and intimate relationship of union, but as a true identity.

Thus, when a man who seeks the Divine attempts to reascend by degrees towards the inaccessible, he forgets that all his knowledge and all his intuition cannot take him one step forward in this infinite; neither does he know that what he wants to attain, what he believes to be so far from him, is within him.

For how could he know anything of the origin until he becomes conscious of this origin in himself?

It is by understanding himself, by learning to know himself, that he can make the supreme discovery and cry out in wonder like the patriarch in the Bible, "The house of God is here and I knew it not."

That is why we must express that sublime thought, creatrix of the material worlds, and make known to all the word that fills the heavens and the earth, "I am in all things and all beings."

When all shall know this, the promised day of great transfigurations will be at hand. When in each atom of Matter men shall recognise the indwelling thought of God, when in each living creature they shall perceive some hint of a gesture of God, when each man can see God in his brother, then dawn will break, dispelling the darkness, the falsehood, the ignorance, the error and suffering that weigh upon all Nature. For, "all Nature suffers and laments as she awaits the revelation of the Sons of God."

This indeed is the central thought epitomising all others, the thought which should be ever present to our remembrance as the sun that illumines all life.

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Pheena, that Gurbani quote can be taken much further in light of Aasaa Di Vaar;

The import of that shabad to me suggests that the state of vismaad itself stems from a serious alteration of percpetion (with Paraatma's nadar of course). If you cleanse the mind, you will experience that vismaad by seeing Paraatma's incredible leela in everything - 'Jale Hari Thale Hari'.

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Vah Ji Vah ... great replies - tsingh, pheena.. ..keep it coming.

tsingh veer ji,

can we shed some light on this..whenever you get time.. no rush.

gets more complex than this when we start looking at different states of consciousness, the different sheaths, issues of cause and effect, the different interpretations of abhed, etc
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Precisely as the Universe has its series of principles or substances from the very spiritual or super-spiritual (Divine) down to the physical, so has Man. It is customary in our Theosophical philosophy to divide these principles and substances of Man into seven conveniently distinct parts. When we say that any one of them is 'distinct', however, we do not mean that it is radically separate from the other six: we mean merely distinct for purposes of enumeration, much as the modern scientific physicists will speak of gravitation and of the phenomena of electromagnetism as distinct, although these scientists now know that electromagnetism and gravity are fundamentally or essentially one.

These seven substance-principles of which man is composed are usually enumerated as follows, beginning with the highest and ending with the lowest:

1. Atman -- Self: Pure Consciousness per se. The essential and radical power or faculty in us which gives to us, and indeed to every other entity or thing, its knowledge of or sentient consciousness of Selfhood. This is not the Ego.

2. Buddhi -- The faculty in Man which manifests as understanding, judgment, discrimination, etc., and which is an inseparable veil or garment of the Atman.

3. Manas -- The center of the ego-consciousness in man and in any other quasi-self-conscious entity.

4. Karma -- The driving force, the seat of the living electric impulses, desires, aspirations, considered in their energic aspect.

5. Prana -- Usually translated 'Life,' but rather the electrical veil or 'electrical field' manifesting in the individual as vitality.

6. Linga-sarira -- The Model-Body, popularly called 'astral body,' because it is but slightly more ethereal than the physical body, and is in fact the model or framework around which the physical body is builded, and from which, in a sense, the physical body flows or from which the physical body develops as growth proceeds.

7. Sthula-sarira -- The physical body.

One point about this classification is of extreme importance. These various principles, excepting Nos. 7 and 6, and also in a degree No. 5, are more truly what should be characterized as cosmical principles. In other words, they are the general substance-principles which are derivatives from the life-forces of the surrounding Universe. Man of course has them all, and they in their totality make Man all he is, and thus in their aggregate and interworkings and interlockings and interblendings, make him the bundle of energies which we have alluded to before.

But there is another method of dividing the human principles, which is perhaps somewhat easier of comprehension.

UPPER DUAD -- Atman Buddhi } Spirit: The Self. Perpetually enduring throughout the Kosmic Period. This is the Monad, unconditionally immortal.

INTERMEDIATE DUAD -- Manas Kama } Soul: Seat of the Ego. Dual: part aspiring upwards, which is the Reincarnating Ego; and part attracted below, which is the ordinary Human Ego. Immortal in Reincarnating Ego; mortal in Human Ego.

LOWER TRIAD -- Prana, Linga-sarira, Sthula-sarira } Body: Mortal throughout. The physical human frame and its invisible forces and substances.

Here we see that the seven principles of man are divisible into two Duads and one Triad. The uppermost Duad is the immortal and perpetually enduring Self, the seat of the selfhood in man and indeed in all beings and things: in other words, the seat of the characteristic individuality of the entity, called in Sanskrit Swabhava. This is unconditionally immortal.

The second Duad, or the intermediate nature, is the ordinary seat of human consciousness, and is composed of two parts: an upper or aspiring part, which is commonly called the Reincarnating Ego, or the Higher Manas; and of a lower part attracted to material things, which is the focus of what expresses itself in the average man as the Human Ego, his everyday ordinary seat of consciousness.

The three principles forming the lower Triad are unconditionally mortal considered as an aggregate, although of course the respective seed-elements of them being drawn from Nature's cosmic reservoirs, are in themselves and considered as cosmic principles, immortal per se. This will be clearly perceptible when the reader recollects that the Sthula-sarira or physical hierarchy of the human body is builded up of cosmic elements, in their turn formed of atomic entities, which although subject individually to bewilderingly rapid changes and reimbodiments, nevertheless are more enduring in themselves as entities than is the physical body which they temporarily compose.

It is the interconnection and interblending and interlocking of all these substance-principles which make Man what he is. All these principles in the last analysis are cosmic principles; and what makes the Man is the particular gathering together of them in human form around the monadic individuality. It is the teaching of Theosophy that every entity and thing is septenary in constitution, even as Man is, for he is no exception at all in the Universe, as regards his inner constitution.

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Composite Nature of Man in Theosophy and Various Religious/Philosophical Systems

THEOSOPHY

ATMAN: Divine essence.

BUDDHI: Compassionate spiritual nature.

MANAS: Mind principle.

KAMA: Desire principle.

PRANA: Vitality.

LINGA-SARIRA: Astral double.

STHULA-SARIRA: Physical body.

JUDAISM (Qabbalah)

NESHAMAH: The highest and most spiritual principle.

RUAHH: Spiritual soul.

NEPHESH: The astral or vital soul.

GUPH: Physical vehicle -- the house in which all these others dwell.

CHRISTIANITY

SPIRIT: The Divine essence within each human being.

SOUL: Embraces the fields of desire, emotion, and mind.

BODY: Equivalent to the lowest three principles in the theosophical configuration.

ANCIENT GREEK

PNEUMA: Spirit -- literally "breath."

NOUS: Intuition, higher mind, or "the Knower within."

PSYCHE: Soul.

SOMA: Physical body.

AFRICAN (Yoruba)

EMIN: Spirit.

OKAN: Heart soul.

IYE: Mind principle.

OJIJI: Shadow (astral double).

ARA: Physical body.

PSYCHOANALYSIS (Freud)

Freud's theories of personality development encompassed several levels of consciousness opening simultaneously with the Unconscious.

SUPER-EGO]: The censor, or judge. Incorporates the value judgments of parents.

EGO: Seeks to control the environment and mediate between the Id and Super-ego.

ID: Primary energy seeking gratification of basic drives and avoidance of anxiety.

This concept of human consciousness, and Freud's theories of developmental stages, have been developed by his successors, e.g., Erickson, Anna Freud, Reichman, and Karl Menninger.

-----------------------------

The essence of all these formulations is that spirit uses vehicles to express itself on the different planes of the universe, and these vehicles are the different principles -- separate but still one. Rather than three, seven, or even ten or twelve, as in some configurations, we may think of the human principles as being like a pillar of light. Up and down this pillar of light or consciousness are foci or "egoic centers" -- some higher and some lower on the scale of evolutionary unfoldment -- manifesting different aspects of the principles at different times. We are not talking about a layer cake of principles, but a fluid whirlpool of forces combining different energies from high to low throughout one's being.

The theosophical explanation of composite human nature focuses on seven principles. Note that the diagram below divides the human constitution into the three main groups of Christian tradition, spirit, soul, and body, with the theosophical principles given in Sanskrit. The monad is a spiritual unit expressing itself through the higher triad, the intermediate duad or personality, and the lower quaternary.

7prin.gif

Let's look very briefly at each principle in turn, starting with the spiritual aspects of our being, the higher triad of atman, buddhi, and the higher aspect of manas:

Atman: means "self" in Sanskrit. Every being, no matter how small, is a self derived from the universal self as a flame is derived from a fire or a droplet from the ocean. It is our sense of existence, the "I am" at the heart of us, which is universal. Unlike the ego or mind from which we derive the sense of "I am I," different in every person, the atmic sense of pure selfhood, of being alive and active, is the same in all beings, human or otherwise. Understanding this basic universal selfhood leads to the realization of true spiritual brotherhood and develops all our highest (because spiritual) powers.

Buddhi: from the Sanskrit root buddh, "to awaken"; hence the word buddha, "the awakened one." It is the first vehicle by which pure spirit "steps down" its energies to the physical plane. It acts to awaken us to our true nature and our responsibilities to a suffering world, manifesting as understanding, judgment, and discrimination. From our human standpoint it is a universal principle, the organ of impersonal love for all creatures, which is divine. This love is expressed by the "awakened ones" who have attained buddhic consciousness and come back to help mankind reach its full potential: Buddha, Christ, Zoroaster, Quetzalcoatl, and the highest teachers of other world religions.

Manas: means "mind." A supremely important fact for us now is that manas is dual, with its higher aspect linked with buddhi and thus forming the higher immortal triad, and the lower attracted to the principle of desire or kama, forming the personality or everyday self. It is our duty and destiny to raise the lower mind to union with the higher. All our highest thoughts and actions -- compassion, self-forgetfulness, and aspiration -- are those which more rapidly aid us in achieving this spiritual goal. The riddle of the Sphinx is answered in the conquest of animal nature (the lion) by the truly human nature (the human head staring stoically across the desert, calling us on to our spiritual destiny).

Much of the foregoing grouping may seem remote from our daily lives and from modern psychology, but the lower quaternary of kama, prana, linga-sarira, and sthula-sarira is more familiar territory:

Kama: means "desire," the driving force in the human constitution, neither good nor bad. It is the seat of living electric impulses, desires, and aspirations considered in their energetic aspect. We are all painfully familiar with the lower aspects of kama that adorn our newspapers and entertainment. Most of humanity centers its consciousness in the lower manas and uses the powers of kama for selfish motives. By turning kama in this direction, we inevitably create disharmonies based on separateness and incur the suffering we see everywhere. Compare what we know of desire with the desires of Christ and Buddha in their compassionate self-dedication to a better world.

Prana: meaning "life principle" or vitality, is the ocean of universal energy in which we exist, keeping our astral and physical bodies alive during life on earth. We all have a certain grant or portion of this life force given us at the beginning of each lifetime to sustain us and, strangely enough, death is caused principally by the prolonged wearing down of the physical organism by the streams of pranic energy flowing through it.

Linga-sarira: the "model-body" upon which the physical body is formed. This astral body, which we hear so much about, is a mold of near-physical matter into which the atoms of the physical body are built and energized throughout life by prana. Though most people have not developed the capacity to see the astral body, some clairvoyants can perceive its luminous, ever-shifting coils. Like all the cosmic planes, the astral light is sevenfold in nature. Therefore, because someone can see auras or hear astral music doesn't necessarily mean they are highly evolved spiritually. In fact, it is a blessing for most of us that the physical body generally shields us from consciousness of the astral world. This condition will continue until we have developed, through lifetimes of testing, our ethical strength and clear inner sight to the point that an awareness of the astral world and its wonders can be properly and safely appreciated. Imagine, for example, what it would be like to read in their auras others' secret thoughts or state of mental and physical health if we did not have sufficient self-control to make compassionate use -- or no use -- of this knowledge.

Sthula-sarira: means "gross body," the word sarira also meaning "foamlike" or "easily dissolved." This is the much maligned physical body, which is like a spacesuit for the higher consciousness, enabling it to act in the lower material worlds. Through it we can function as a complete entity across the entire seven planes of the manifest universe. We have the opportunity during earth-life to learn and progress in a way that is not possible when living solely in our spiritual nature. For this reason highly spiritual beings like Buddha and Christ find enlightenment while in their physical bodies before teaching and guiding others. The physical body is composed of myriads of lesser lives -- cells and atoms -- whose evolution is greatly accelerated by being associated with us, for we are like gods to them. Finally, because the physical body is the offspring of the universe, it gives us the key to the workings of the cosmos. "As above, so below," the old Hermetic sages said. The use of this law of analogy -- in the action of the nervous system, the circulation of the blood, the structure of the cells, and many other facets -- provides a wonderful tool for understanding deeper teachings regarding the structure and operation of invisible causal worlds. To many the body is a gross drag upon spiritual experience, but in fact, when controlled and intelligently used, the body has its own part to play in the drama of evolution.

Considering our composite nature, we can appreciate what the ancient Greeks meant when they carved on their temples "know thyself." As a child of the universe, made up of all its planes of being, we each are a key to the universe itself. We begin to understand that universal brotherhood is not a platitude, but a fact in nature. We can realize the importance of centering our consciousness in the higher aspects of our composite nature in helping ourselves and others develop spiritually, for "as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." We can see the problems that focusing our awareness in the lowest aspects of kama-manas has brought to the world. The wrongful centering of thoughts may also cause disjunctions between the various aspects of our composite nature, leading to some types of mental illnesses. We can begin to appreciate the true mission of religion -- from the Latin word religio, meaning to bring back together that which once was one -- as a real mission in life and not just empty ritual. We can do our bit, each in our own separate ways, to attack the causes of suffering by shifting the center of our consciousness to the far-seeing and compassionate side of human nature, which is the only way to bring enduring peace and harmony to a troubled world.

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I just had a thought, realization, "forna" , whatever you wanna call it, the other day....Now this will sound dumb but here goes...............

I was just thinking what if the soul/atma is also like ur sarir (body) and inside the soul is waheguru or the primal energy source and the 'ang' is contained within that so in essence, EK OANGKAR........one ang of the karni/karn vala parmeshwar (waheguru) .

Now I haven't been to uni (just have seen the outside of it............. :LOL: ) but for those who have you may know the symbol for it........the nucleus in the middle and the atoms circling it........what if we (humans and the atma inside us) are like those atoms circling life/lives (84 million lives) in the sense of going thru life itself and collecting info. when we pass on, all that has been collected thru our mind, actions etc....is passed onto Dharamraj and then given to waheguru so he can redesign the universe again and again.

So basically, each times he destroys and creates is based on the info collected from the last time.

just a thought...................

Bhul Chuk Maaf Karna................

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I have SERIOUS reservations about the foundations of theosophy, and the rather masterful Swami Agehananda Bharati, a accomplished mystic himself and a sociologist who wrote extensively on mysticism, has critiqued what can only be described as peculiar, dubious and massively orientalist trend that has become the basis of the new age philosophies. Blavatsky, Besant and Leadbetter have in much of the literture I've read been portrayed as at the very least being fanciful, at the worst highly dubious frauds (in the latter case particularly). It's worth noting that Krishnamurti whom I have great respect for, rejected the attempts by the theosophists to project him as an avtar and the bringer of the aquarius age.

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The atma refers to "self" "soul" "breath".

There is Atma which is the One Self.It is undivided, there is no Atma and another and another et cetera.This is the advait origin of us.It is said to be us.We are supposed to be that Atma.Most important of all: It is not subject to change and flux.

Then there is the atma.Little atma let's say.This little atma is a little brat.It thinks that it is the Paramatma.It changes, is subject to flux.Time has it in it's snare.Time always has it by the short and curlies, and it is not mindfull of this fact.And most ridiculous of all: This little atma thinks that it is immortal!

There is a Shabad from Gurbani, I think by Shri Ravi Das Ji, which goes something like: "When I am, You are not.When I am not, You are".Something like that.Apologies for not knowing the Shabad properly.

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I was just thinking what if the soul/atma is also like ur sarir (body) and inside the soul is waheguru or the primal energy source and the 'ang' is contained within that so in essence, EK OANGKAR........one ang of the karni/karn vala parmeshwar (waheguru) .

just my silly lil thoughts....................

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  • 3 weeks later...

source: Sabad Guru, Surat Dhun Chela by Dalip Singh

Mind has two parts:

1. Stream of Consciousness or The Concscious Mind- It is a man perceptions of things taking place in the world of his existence. It exercises control over his drives, actions, desires, needs, and so on , keeping in view of the suitations by applying the norms of his moral and social conceptions.

2. The unconscious Mind - While the stream of Consciouseness is like the surface of a river, while deep under the surface something ever remains taking place. In the depth of the Mind is unconscious Mind. It keeps an im print and record of all happenings of the person, including his thoughts, beleifs, deeds, knowledge he attains, the literature he intuitively and repeatedly reads. These are automatically repressed down in the Unconscious Mind and leave their imprint.

The unconscious mind plays an important part in human life to one's advantage. As this part of Mind governs the automatica centers, which cause our automatica activity in the form of our Habits. Habits are out inclinations toward our automatic actions, without exercise of our conscious control and effort. Adapts executed automatically their respective assigned work without any special effort; like surgeons use knife to cut delicate parts of the body to prove releif to patients. Whenever we get time to relax, out unconscious mind wells up our old forgotten memories. Mind ever remains wandering and unsteady, while in sleep also, the old memories appear in our dreams. While in rage, rash, haste, when the conscious control is not there , we utter and do awkard deeds, which we would never do normally, commit sins and crimes, utter ugly words by mere slip of tongue, and land ourselves in deep waters.

Unconscious Mind also inherits the essence of our previous various births; both good and bad effects are reflected in our present life, which also determine our respective aptitudes and trends our Conscious Mind exercises control of our activities, to accord with our moral and socially acceptable norms. But the Unconscious mind, whever the conscious control is relaxed or is wanting, it plays ducks and drakes in our life, in that in a moment's time it makes us look like irresponsible idiots.

Our mind is a stock pile of all possible both, good and flith, having been vitiated by our deeds and thinking, in this life as well as of previous ones;requires cleansing.

Siri Guru Amar Das teaches us in a Salok, Sorath ki var. page- 561

"The flith of countless incarnations sticks to this mind; it has become pitch black. The oily rag cannot be cleaned by merely washing, even if it is washed hundred times. By god's grace, one totally effaces his self, in union with God; his intellect is transformed, and he becomes detached from the world.

" O Nanak, no flith sticks to him and he does not fall into the womb again"

From where do we get his word or Naam so that we may through it meet with the Lord God. His light or soul in reality has the orgin of the word uttered by Him at the time of the creation. We receive god's word or naam from the soul, called Sat Guru (True treacher or Enlightner)...says Guru Amar Das in salok in sorath ki var, p-644.

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  • 2 months later...
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  • 6 years later...

I am bit confused on gurbani tuk which i was thinking about:

Man Tuo Jot Saroop Hai Apna Mool Painchain ||

I was just wondering if guru maharaj is giving updesh to mann(mind) which is full of flith or guru maharaj giving updesh to mann which is in its anand saroop.

Thanks bunch smile.gif

Neo Veer Jee,

in my humble opinion, Guru Maharj is telling the mind, that it is not a "mamulee cheez", it is the essence of the Universal mind, and thus it should stop wandering and jumping around.

In short, it should change its behaiviour, from the lower tendencies, to become the higher mind.

Because this its wandering and running blindly after the mayavee padaharaths, is the cause of its pains and sorrows. it is time, it should rest by returninfg to its origin, Brahm.

Only then the soul is freed from its grip, and only then, this soul once freed from the mind, the cages of the3 bodies, the filth of all karma, can thus return to its origin, Satnam.

So, our freedom starts by placing each part at is natural place. Body left here, as a handful of dust, the astral, the causal bodies, and mind in the Brahm region..... and the pure soul or atma, in Sach Khand, in the Home of its True Father.

It is the reverse process of the soul when it came down into the creation. At each station downwards, it was given something, in order to function in those realms.

In the same way, while going upwards towards Sach Khand, out of the mayavee creation, it disposes off, that which is natural of that place.

Only the naked soul, free from all impurities and coverings, chains, bhandans...etc, can thus merge in Him.

Sat Sree Akal.

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