DUALISM VERSUS MONISM

The dualistic worldview claims that there is me (the self) and then there is the other. It states that at the bases of human existence is the soul and that this soul is immortal and changeless. The body, in this view, is looked upon as the other, similar to the way we see the otherness outside ourselves. In this way, dualism discriminates and claims that you and your body are two different things. On one side, we have matter, and on the other side, we have the self (the me-ness in me claiming to be the soul). There are schools of philosophy that have worked out great treaties on this topic arguing the facts to prove this point very clearly. br / It is said, “Mortality claims the body/matter/mind and immortality claims the soul.” When the body dies, it starts to disintegrate and dissolves into its component parts returning to the soil from where it was made. The spirit, or soul, rises from the death body and merges with the supreme spirit. From here it will return to another body and continue it journey to work out its liberation. Now, dear reader, as comforting as this may sound to your soul, lets stand back a little and consider these claims; are you able to point out its fallacies? br / Let us continue with the process of death. As the physical structure dies, its vital functions retrieve back to the mind and after that, the mind gets dissolved into ‘vital energy’ (prāṇa )and then enters the “soul” of the person who died. The soul with all this content leaves the body and takes residency in the spatial realm (ākāsha). Here it remains suspended in its subtle body (seed [soul]) as a storehouse of all the previous tendencies (saṁskāras) of that person, good or bad, and wait for an opportunity to take a rebirth. The destiny of the soul next incarnation is determined by the merits and demerits of a person’s previous life. And so goes the circle of life and rebirth until final liberation has been achieved.br /The merits or demerits are a result of the action and activities of a person’s life. Selfish action, it is said, leads to increased bondage, whereas selfless action leads to increased freedom. Of course, psychologically there is logic to this point; selfishness, by its very nature, condenses the personality, enhances contraction and densifies desires. Selflessness, if such action is even possible, would by its very nature lead to the opposite, expandedness; however, just for argument sake, wouldn’t selflessness also lead to detachment, which can easily come across as insensitivity? If there is no “self’ to activate an action, then there would be no other self to receive or view such action. “Selfless action” is by definition impossibility. However, if we by selflessness mean that it is natures own activities working itself out through the selfless human, then there is a point to be made, but such action would still be of an indifferent and detached nature. Natures own rules and activities do not personally care about who live and who dies. It just does its things in its own way in accordance to the law of causation. I am challenging you to question the above paragraph and see what you come up with. Read my previous blog/article Soul Searching.br / Most religions and a few Indian schools philosophies embrace dualism as its premise. There are you and then there is (a) God (Monad) or the Supreme Being. If you are a devout Christianity and follow its particular belief systems, it would be blasphemy to claim to be equal or oneness with God. The emphasis is separation and distance, the devotee, and the worshiped. People sometime confuse monotheism to mean the same as monism (that all things are essentially one system). Monotheism is by definition embedded in dualism and not in a singularity concept as with monism. Its fundamentals are ontology and with that come theology. With the birth of theology, it is not in the church’s interest to empower the individual to seek truth in his or her own. A freethinking individual are frond upon and seen as a significant treat to any ecclesiastical system. To have a mystical experience on your own is generally the gateway to further investigation by the individual. This often leads to the shatter of duality causing the individual to questions their own theology. All the three monotheistic religions tend to prosecute their own if its theology is challenge. A scientific minded person, on the other hand, is more incline to accept the idea of monism straight away without going through a religious experience. It is actually the holy grail of science to unite all the forces of nature into one singular concept, although practically, they communicate through the language of dualism, but its inherent quest is to find simplicity. br /There are two schools of religious and philosophical thoughts that stand out (there are many more) in the embrace of monism, i.e., Advaita and Buddhism. Of this two, Buddhism in particular, can easily correlate to modern science and therefore fit into the language of today’s psychological lingo. br / This is just a short treaty on a longer article that I wrote some time back…