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Philosophy of Sri Aurobindo
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refers the rational soul to the world of ideas and irrational soul to the world of sensations. Former is simple and indivisible. Now, destruction means the abolition of its parts. But the rational soul is partless. Therefore, it is immortal and indestructible. The irrational soul or the soul of sensation is mortal because it is related to the human instinct. This is mere instinct and is not rational. He connects the immortality of the soul with the theory of ideas, which is based on the doctrine of recollection and transmigration. According to the former, rational knowledge is the recollection of what was experienced by the soul in its disembodied state before birth. On the other hand, according to the doctrine of transmigration which we find in the Pythagorean doctrine, the soul is pre-existent as well as immortal. Its natural home is the world of Ideas. If a man has lived a good life, he returns to its natural home after death. Those who do evil, suffer after death and are again reborn in the body of some being lower than himself. “A man may become a woman. Men may, even if their lives have been utterly sensual, pass into the bodies of animals."28
The problem of immortality has engaged the Indian mind from the early Vedic period. To quote Rg Vedā, “Do not Agni, burn up or consume him (the deceased); do not dissolve his skin, or his body."29
In almost all the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy, the soul in its real aspect has been regarded as immortal. But due to ignorance, individual being identifies himself with the jivātman which performs different types of actions. The result is that it has to take birth again and again. But in reality it is free. Sānkhya holds that the real self is only seer. It is beyond sin and suffering. It is regarded as sakshisvarup. That is why the soul is not affected by pleasure or pain. It has been for ever and will be for ever. There is no question of its destruction. So, the soul is immortal. In Advaita Vedānta, the immortality of soul is proved because soul has been identified with the Absolute Brahman. •Tativamasi'-is the maxim of Advaita Vedanta. In the herodox Indian system, the Carvaka do not regard any entity like soul, so
