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The Soul (Atman) In Samkara-Vedanta
By
prof. K. N. Iyer PATAN (N. G.)
Introductory
There is a mystery in all of us by which we hear, see, move, taste, feel, think, etc. What is this mystery? As the KENA Upanishad, I, 1 puts it By whom willed and directed does the mind light on its objects? By whom directed does PRANA (life), the first, move? By whose will do we utter words? What intelligence directs the eye and the ear?. This mystery is called the 'soul' (ATMAN) in Samkara-Vedanta, a subject to which we shall turn later after a few necessary words on Nature and God.
on Nature and God.
Many even educated men and women may be heard to explode the above stupendous mystery in us all in a jiffy with the magic word 'Nature' (a word which ancient Greek philosophy has bequeathed to us for which we should be profoundly thankful to it), but, then, the
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philosophic questions here to be irrefutably answered are:
(1) 'Why should what we call a dead person not hear, see,
move, etc. when death is no less Nature' than life?';
Nature' be
have, or seem to behave, exactly as she does and not otherwise ?'
(2) Why should
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set
To explain question 2 above briefly. Why should, for instance, the anomalous expansion of water' in only at four degrees Centigrade and not at, say, five or three ? why should KCN (potassium cyanide) dissolve the souls of men and women (unless it be, perhaps, that it dissolves gold which dissolves the souls of men and women) and not, for example, KOH (potassium hydroxide) or Nacl (sodium chloride,' common salt')? why should the laws of light, electricity, liquids, motion, magnetism, etc, be exactly
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