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world soul

 
Dictionary: world soul
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n.
A spiritual principle having the same relation to the physical world as the human soul does to the body; the animating force of the world.


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Columbia Encyclopedia: world soul
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world soul, Lat. anima mundi, in philosophy, term denoting a universal spirit or soul that functions as an organizing principle. While many early Greek philosophers saw the world as of one principle, Plato was the first to state that this concept held the same relation to the world as the human soul did to the body. Friedrich Wilhelm Josef von Schelling used the term as a unifying principle, coordinating the organic and the inorganic in life. World soul is prominent in Asian philosophy. Hinduism is a religion whose theoretical basis is a world soul, called Brahman (see Upanishads; Vedanta).

Wikipedia: Ātman (Hinduism)
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The Ātman (IAST: Ātman, sanskrit: आत्मन्) is a philosophical term used within Hinduism and Vedanta to identify the soul. It is one's true self (hence generally translated into English as 'Self') beyond identification with the phenomenal reality of worldly existence.

Contents

Etymology

The word ātman is connected with the Indo-European root *ēt-men (breath) and is cognate with Old English "æþm", Greek "asthma", and German "Atem" : "atmen" (to breathe).[1]

Schools of thought

Vedanta

Philosophical schools such as Advaita (monism) see the soul within each living entity as being fully identical with Brahman - the all-pervading soul of the universe, whereas other schools such as Dvaita (dualism) differentiate between the individual atma in living beings, and the Supreme atma (Paramatma) as being at least partially separate beings.[2] Thus atman refers to the individual soul or the observer.[3]

Within Advaita Vedanta philosophy the Atman is the universal life-principle, the animator of all organisms, and the world-soul. This view is of a sort of panentheism (not pantheism) and thus is sometimes not equated with the single creator God of monotheism. Identification of individual living beings/souls, or jiva-atmas, with the 'One Atman' is the monistic Advaita Vedanta position, which is critiqued by dualistic/theistic Dvaita Vedanta. Dvaita Vedanta calls the all-pervading aspect of Brahman Paramatman quantitatively different from individual Atman and claims reality for both a God functioning as the ultimate metaphorical "soul" of the universe, and for actual individual "souls" as such. The Dvaita, dualist schools, therefore, in contrast to Advaita, advocate an exclusive monotheistic position wherein Brahman is made synonymous with Vishnu. Aspects of both philosophies are found within the schools of Vishishtadvaita Vedanta and Achintya Bheda Abheda.

In some instances both Advaita and Dvaita schools may accommodate the others's belief as a lower form of worship or practice towards the same ultimate goal. [4]

Yoga

In the view of the Yoga school, the highest attainment does not reveal the experienced diversity of the world to be illusion. The everyday world is real. Furthermore, the highest attainment is the event of one of many individual selves discovering itself; there is no single universal self shared by all persons.[5]

Development

The pre-Buddhist Upanishads link the Self to the feeling "I am."[6] Others like the post-Buddhist Maitri Upanishad hold that only the defiled individual self, rather than the universal self, thinks "this is I" or "this is mine".[6]

See also: Buddhism and Hinduism#Atman

Miscellaneous

Adherents to Jainism also use the phrase the atman to refer to 'the self'. Often atma is mistaken as being interchangeable with the word jiva with the difference being somewhat subtle. Whereas atman refers to the self, jiva refers to the living being, the exact comprehension of which varies throughout the philosophical schools.

See also

References

  1. ^ atman - definition of atman at YourDictionary
  2. ^ Bhagavata Purana 3.28.41
  3. ^ Bhagavata Purana 7.7.19-20 ""Atma" also refers to the Supreme Lord or the living entities. Both of them are spiritual."
  4. ^ Bhagavad Gita 12.3-4 "But those who fully worship the unmanifested, that which lies beyond the perception of the senses, the all-pervading, inconceivable, unchanging, fixed and immovable -- the impersonal conception of the Absolute Truth -- by controlling the various senses and being equally disposed to everyone, such persons, engaged in the welfare of all, at last achieve Me."
  5. ^ Stephen H. Phillips, Classical Indian Metaphysics: Refutations of Realism and the Emergence of "new Logic". Open Court Publishing, 1995, pages 12-13.
  6. ^ a b Peter Harvey, The Selfless Mind. Curzon Press, 1995, page 34.

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Ātman (Hinduism)".  Read more