The Advaita philosophy says that the I of the soul should be transformed into I of God. The process of transformation should be carefully analyzed. If the I of the soul is destroyed there will be no experience for the soul that it has become God. In deep sleep, the I of the soul is disappearing and there is no experience at all for the soul. Moreover, the I of God neither increases nor decreases at any time. It remains constant. Even though God created this entire universe, God does not decrease by quantity because no part of God is transformed into universe. The worldly logic fails in the process of creation. Even if a soul merges in God, God does not increase. Since God is beyond spatial dimensions, the increase and decrease become meaningless since volume is the property of space.
When you have not understood the God, who is the product of transformation, how can you mention the process of transformation? Transformation is only between two imaginable items. If you say that soul merges in God, it should mean that the imaginable soul disappears and the unimaginable God is left over. This is not the process of transformation. When milk is transformed into curd, there is a physical change. When an element is transformed into another element by radioactive reaction, there is change in the configuration of atom by loss or gain of some fundamental particles. When two chemicals react, a third chemical appears after the reaction and this cannot be transformation because there should be one substance only for transformation.
All this analysis pertains to the substances of creation only, which are imaginable items. This logic cannot be applied to the transformation of imaginable soul into unimaginable God. Let us take the deep sleep. The I disappears in that state because the pulse of I is not active. After the deep sleep, again this pulse become active and I appears again. But as long as I is not experienced, it is as good as dead. It is a temporary death of the pulse being inactive and there is no difference between the permanent death and temporary death of the pulse as far as the span of the time of the temporary death is concerned. Now, Rama is in deep sleep and the I is destroyed, since it is not experienced. Here the entire experience of all the feelings disappeared.
In the awakened state, the I may be forgotten, but the experience of other feelings exists. Therefore, the I may be inactive even in the awaken state and this inactiveness can be also considered as the temporary death. Let us take another person called Krishna, who is awake in both these states. Rama did not become Krishna in both these states. The I of Krishna is also an imaginable item like that of Rama. When the transformation is impossible between the two imaginable items i.e., I of Rama and I of Krishna, how can you imagine the transformation of I of the imaginable soul into I of the unimaginable God?
When your individuality is lost, you cannot experience the process of transformation or the final fruit of the transformation. Even though this is impossible, the transformation of I of the soul is advocated by Shankara for good purpose. When the I looses its strength in the effort of its dissolution, the ego and selfishness become almost zero and this state is necessary for the devotion. The I of the soul is like the seed from which the tree with two main branches grows up. The two branches are ego and selfishness. The word ahankara stands for ego as well as the basic seed. The basic seed is responsible to keep the experience of individual soul. The seed is not at all harmful. The ego is harmful and should be dissolved. It is impossible to dissolve the basic seed. Even after death, this seed is necessary for enjoying both good and bad results. But, in the efforts to destroy the seed, the ego and selfishness get destroyed. Therefore, the dissolution of seed is recommended though it is impossible.
The dissolution of the basic seed takes place only if the total complex of feelings called as Jeeva is destroyed. To try for this is foolishness. If the Jeeva is destroyed, the basic inert energy called as Atman alone is leftover like the standstill water after disappearance of waves. This means that you are transformed into inert entity like a stone. Hence, one should not aspire for the dissolution of I, which is the central component of Jeeva. The transformation of I into God is not practically possible. God remains as Himself in the same status before and after your transformation. This means that you are simply destroyed and God remains as Himself. However, Shankara recommended the dissolution of I for the sake of transformation into God so that based on this the destruction of ego and selfishness can be achieved, which is essential for devotion....
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Transforming 'I' of soul into 'I' of God - 1by Dattaswami1,816 views
This idea never really caught on, did it?
AndroidThePoet 9 months ago