Sri Ramana Maharshi
A Science lecturer from a university asked whether the intellect survives a man’s death and was told: “Why think of death? Consider what happens in your sleep. What is your experience of that?”
D.: But sleep is transient, whereas death is not.
B.: Sleep is intermediate between two waking states, and in the same way death is intermediate between two births. Both are transient.
D.: I mean when the spirit is disembodied, does it carry the intellect with it?
B.: The spirit is not disembodied; the bodies differ. If not a gross body it will be a subtle one, as in sleep, dream or day-dream.
Bhagavan would never admit that differences in mode of expression or formulation of doctrine between the various religions signified real contradiction, since the Truth to which they point is One and Immutable.
D.: Is the Buddhist view that there is no continuous entity answering to the idea of the individual soul right or not? Is this consistent with the Hindu doctrine of a reincarnating ego? Is the soul a continuous entity which reincarnates again and again, according to the Hindu doctrine, or is it a mere conglomeration of mental tendencies?
A Science lecturer from a university asked whether the intellect survives a man’s death and was told: “Why think of death? Consider what happens in your sleep. What is your experience of that?”
D.: But sleep is transient, whereas death is not.
B.: Sleep is intermediate between two waking states, and in the same way death is intermediate between two births. Both are transient.
D.: I mean when the spirit is disembodied, does it carry the intellect with it?
B.: The spirit is not disembodied; the bodies differ. If not a gross body it will be a subtle one, as in sleep, dream or day-dream.
Bhagavan would never admit that differences in mode of expression or formulation of doctrine between the various religions signified real contradiction, since the Truth to which they point is One and Immutable.
D.: Is the Buddhist view that there is no continuous entity answering to the idea of the individual soul right or not? Is this consistent with the Hindu doctrine of a reincarnating ego? Is the soul a continuous entity which reincarnates again and again, according to the Hindu doctrine, or is it a mere conglomeration of mental tendencies?
B.: The real Self is continuous and unaffected. The reincarnating ego belongs to a lower plane, that of thought. It is transcended by Self-realisation. Reincarnations are due to a spurious offshoot of Being and are therefore denied by the Buddhists. The human state is due to a mingling of the sentient with the insentient.
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