/lit/ - Literature

>>16564359
>How could an atman on each rebirth realise the Self again and again before falling into maya? Thoughts

In Vedanta, to completely know the Self is to permanently sever the bonds of ignorance, preventing any further transmigration. The Self does not realise anything, or undergo bondage or liberation but it is the Jiva which undergoes these things and which receives spiritual illumination. I don't think much is to be gained in trying to read the Vedas and Hindu philosophy through the lenses of psychoanalysis. For an explanation of why this runs into issues, read this article.

https://ignotascintilla.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/renc3a9-guc3a9non-the-misdeeds-of-psychoanalysis.pdf

>>16564453
The Jiva is a non-dualist conception afaik,so there may be some misunderstanding in what I'm saying. What I mean is once maya and ahankara has been established the atman will not realise Brahman until he is liberated. Once liberated, why would the atman dissociate with Brahman again? You say the Self is whole and complete I agree but the Jiva is not extinguished either in early childhood. So does the Jiva realise Brahman and then fall into ahankara(implying liberation is not final) or was Jung's conception of the Self inferior to the Vedic conception?

>>16564359
Even though Jung uses the term Self, it means something far removed from what the Upanishads mean when ātmā is referred to (translated usually as "Self" when the context suggests paramātmā and "self" when jīvātmā; note it is the former which we are concerned with here). For Jung, the Self is something wholly psychological, whereas the psychological is only of illusory existence when considered in relation to the Upanishadic Self.

Beyond that clarification, I am not sure I understand what it is that you are asking. Is the question how, if the Self and brahman are ultimately identical, the individual self comes to be through maya?

>>16564359
stop reading Jung and start taking the metaphysics seriously
start with;
>Adi Sankaracharya - Atmabodha
>Adi Sankaracharya - Crest-Jewel of Wisdom

>>16564825
I would be careful about reading Advaita Vedanta interpretations such as Shankara's as a commentary to the Upanishads, they are extremely reliant on Buddhist philosophy (Shankara is called a "cryptobuddhist" by most Hindus, and most scholars agree). If you want to read the Upanishads, work through them with editions and commentaries that aren't sectarian, or at least read an interpretation that is closer to the original meaning of the Upanishads, rather than Shankara's 9th century AD quasi-buddhism.

>>16564359
That's a boob

I agree with the other poster. Imo here Jung means the self as distinct from the totality of existence, as it were, whereas the Brahman is more akin to the unity of existence one experiences at the peak of a DMT trip.

>>16564516
>Once liberated, why would the atman dissociate with Brahman again?
It doesn't, according to Vedanta and according to the Upanishads, Once its liberated it remains that way. And it's not the atman which is being liberated because the atman is already eternally liberated, it is only the false image obscuring the atman which falls away, like clouds dispersing to reveal the illumination of the sun,
>or was Jung's conception of the Self inferior to the Vedic conception?
It would appear to be so, I have to agree this with this >>16564825

>>16564832
Explain to a brainlet the fundamental difference between Buddhism and Hinduism

It's the negation of the negation. At the start the 'individual' 'experiences' the universe from the perspective of a primitive, or basic, universality. Out of this basic universality, the individual is born and forms the 'self' which it uses to understand the world around them on a higher level than it ever could before. Now comes the negation of this negation which is the willing return of the individual to the whole, this time, however, on a higher level.

It's not about returning to the whole before the individual, but about using the unique properties of the individual to reenter the whole from a more advanced perspective.

>>16565527
Hinduism says that you are not just a body but are an eternal soul existing in association with the body, while Buddhism denies the existence of an immortal soul

>>16564516
>Once liberated, why would the atman dissociate with Brahman again?
Because it's morally Just.
Because "Brahaman" is not even that.

>>16565686
>Buddhism denies the existence of an immortal soul
You're gonna make the bald tattooed fatman seethe.

>>16565686
simple
Hinduism is eternalism, much like Platonism
Buddhism holds that nothing is eternal, and so cancels itself out.

If there is no fundamental, immutable, eternal ground of being, if there is nothing that exists by necessity, then creation should not exists.

Buddhism acknowledges this and then says that fundamentally "nothingness" is real and all else is illusion, mania etc.,

But this is absurd - not even illusions should exist if there is no subsistent existence itself - interestingly enough, the most concise argument against Buddhism was actually posited, indirectly, by Aquinas in the Summa Contra Gentiles in his argument for God by necessary being.

>>16565750
>by Aquinas
Athenian
Come then,—if ever we ought to invoke God's aid, now is the time it ought to be done. Let the gods be invoked with all zeal to aid in the demonstration of their own existence. And let us hold fast, so to speak, to a safe cable as we embark on the present discussion. And it is safest, as it seems to me, to adopt the following method of reply when questions such as this are put on these subjects; for instance, when a man asks me—“Do all things stand still, Stranger, and nothing move? Or is the exact opposite the truth? Or do some things move [893c] and some remain at rest?” My answer will be, “Some things move, others remain at rest.”3 “Then do not the standing things stand, and the moving things move, in a certain place?” “Of course.” “And some will do this in one location, and others in several.” “You mean,” we will say, “that those which have the quality of being at rest at the center move in one location, as when the circumference of circles that are said to stand still revolves?” “Yes. And we perceive that motion of this kind, which simultaneously turns in this revolution both the largest circle and the smallest, distributes itself [893d] to small and great proportionally, altering in proportion its own quantity; whereby it functions as the source of all such marvels as result from its supplying great and small circles simultaneously with harmonizing rates of slow and fast speeds—a condition of things that one might suppose to be impossible.” “Quite true.” “And by things moving in several places you seem to me to mean all things that move by locomotion, continually passing from one spot to another, and sometimes resting [893e] on one axis4 and sometimes, by revolving, on several axes. And whenever one such object meets another, if the other is at rest, the moving object is split up; but if they collide with others moving to meet them from an opposite direction, they form a combination which is midway between the two.” “Yes, I affirm that these things are so, just as you describe.”

>>16565878
in everything to bring about generation? Obviously whenever a starting-principle receiving increase comes to the second change, and from this to the next, and on coming to the third admits of perception by percipients.1 Everything comes into being by this process of change and alteration; and a thing is really existent whenever it remains fixed, but when it changes into another constitution it is utterly destroyed.” Have we now, my friends, mentioned all the forms of motion, capable of numerical classification,2 [894b] save only two?
Clinias
What two?

Athenian
Those, my good sir, for the sake of which, one may say, the whole of our present enquiry was undertaken.

Clinias
Explain more clearly.

Athenian
It was undertaken, was it not, for the sake of soul?

Clinias
Certainly.

Athenian
As one of the two let us count that motion which is always able to move other things, but unable to move itself; and that motion which always is able to move both itself and other things,—by way of combination and separation, of increase and decrease, of generation and corruption,—let us count as another separate unit [894c] in the total number of motions.

Clinias
Be it so.

Athenian
Thus we shall reckon as ninth on the list that motion which always moves another object and is moved by another; while that motion which moves both itself and another, and which is harmoniously adapted to all forms of action and passion, and is termed the real change and motion of all that really exists,—it, I presume, we shall call the tenth. [894d]

Clinias
Most certainly.

Athenian
Of our total of ten motions, which shall we most correctly adjudge to be the most powerful of all and excelling in effectiveness?