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Art & Science of Meditation
Atman (Soul)
Having already covered the concept of the Atman or soul in Vedic religions in Chapter 5, let us review the concept of the soul in Western Philosophy traditions.
Wikipedia states that the soul, in many religious, philosophical and mythological traditions, is the incorporeal and, in many conceptions, immorta lessence of a living thing. According to the Abrahamic religions in most of their forms, souls—or at least immortal souls - belong only to human beings. For example, the Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas, attributed "soul" (anima) to all organisms but argued that only human souls are immortal. Other religions (most notably Jainism and Hinduism) teach that all biological organisms have souls, and others teach that even non-biological entities (such as rivers and mountains) possess souls. This latter belief is called animism.
Greek philosophers such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle understood the psyche to be crowned with the logical faculty, the exercise of which was the most divine of human actions. At his defense trial, Socrates even
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