Zain's Guide to Overthinking Everything

An Explanation of Reincarnation in Hinduism   “Just as the embodied soul continuously passes from childhood to youth to old age, similarly, at the time of death, the soul passes into another body. The wise are not deluded by this.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:13)            The soul that animates the body will survive while the body does not according to Hinduism. This next body will be destined by the actions in their previous life and this is the concept of karma. Good intent and actions lead to a good future while bad intent and actions lead to a bad future. But what is exactly the soul? Is it the Atman? The Atman is identified with the consciousness of the human being that is all-pervasive amongst all that exists. The Atman is eternal reality, indestructible, and bliss and is identified with Brahman or God who is the true reality of everything. However, since the Atman is everywhere and unchanging and is in all beings, it is not the one that ...

Qualified Non-Dualism       There are many schools of thought in Hinduism regarding the relationship of the Ātman , jiva , and Brahman . These three terms can be loosely translated to the self-existent essence of humanity, the worldly self or soul, and the underlying reality of everything, respectively. In nondualist schools of Hinduism, particularly in Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta or nondualism and Ramanuja’s Vishishtadvaita Vedanta or qualified nondualism, the Ātman is equated with Brahman . They derive this understanding primarily from the Hindu scripture, the Upanishads , which are the last part of a larger corpus of texts known as the Vedas . There are differences between these two schools of thought and the primary focus of this essay will be the school of Ramanuja.  According to both these schools of thought, although more explicit with Shankara, this world is an illusion or māyā and to be under this illusion is the ignorance that keeps the individ...

      Buddhism and Platonism      While Buddhism and Platonism are two philosophies that emerged around the same period, they fundamentally disagree on the concepts of the self, human nature, and the reality of existence. Buddhism posits that everything, including humans, is impermanent and constantly changing. Whilst the Platonic view is the opposite as it asserts that there is an eternal and unchanging self beyond the physical world.       Due to everything being in a state of flux, this would entail that there is no atman or greater permanent soul or self either. In Hinduism, the atman is associated with the Brahman or God and since Buddhism does not affirm the atman, there would be no God either. Included in this belief is that the self is composed of five aggregates: form, sense, perception, consciousness, and mental formations. The form refers to one’s body, sense refers to one’s ability to feel sensations, perception is the abilit...