"I don't know where my soul is"
There are four errors in this statement, and one axis of
truth upon which all four rotate round
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"Where is my soul" is the most common question in reply by the
ignorant and profane when discussing metaphysics, Buddhism, or other
forms of Monism; being the abbreviated version of "I don't know
where my soul is". Within this simple sentence can be found four
grand errors of egregious presumption and one axis of truth upon which
these four satellites of error go round.
Taking the first error "I", or the empirical person so-and-so
(Bob, Sue etc.) this compounded and material self of which there are
"two selves" within us, the Person (spirit, Purishha) and persona
(psychophysical, tem****al); "two within us" (Plato Republic 604b,
Phaedo 79, Timaeus 89d), or Philo's "Soul of the soul", or the
Buddha's "atta hi attano nathi" (Self is Lord of the self [persona]).
This
"I" of which cannot be in metaphysics the Knower of knowing, but the
conscious (vinnana) living being whose conceptions and ideations are
"dead when he dies", that "I" is not the Person but the "self of
which the Self is Lord". This "I", the objective and compounded self
cannot ever come to know the Knower, which is the posterior and
uncompounded Subject. This objective and tem****al "I" cannot
know as object, the Subject which precedes it. This "I" has
'within' (superficially so) it no means possible by which to have
Knowledge of the soul, since its very principle, this compounded "I"
lacks the
Witness and Knower by which it can or could be known. There is no "I"
whereby which it could be said of anyone that it, "I", could Know
(gnosis as opposed to the empirical knowledge of the mere
material "I", which is persona) the soul.
Taking now the second error "where", or asking of how the soul
is IN TIME, the magnitude and measure of which 'where' is but a
delineation of things compounded and 'taking up space' (where is this
soul? It is no-where). The quest for the uncompounded in spacio-
tem****al existence, and the objective cosmos of becoming, flux and
reflux, could not be more illogical. Anything (quite literally 'thing'
in the
true sense of objectivity) which partakes of a topos (place), a locus
in space and time which is syn. with magnitude and materiality cannot
be the point of any metaphysical search, in this case the soul. Would
we go hunting for fish in the desert? "Where" is syn. with space-time
materiality of which something might be said to have "its place", or a
"where", whereby which it (objectivity) might be found. The soul
cannot have any such correlation whereby we might ask or inquire how
it is "where"; for the soul is no-where, not space, not time.
Further along the line we come to "my soul", of stated
implication this uncompounded principle of ones noetic being as a
possession or slave ("my") to either another subject, or worse still
implication an
objective possession. This inverse and topsy-turvy statement is the
upside-down illogical attempt to gather insight pertaining the soul
thru conception that same is property and possession by something
else,
of which the common fool implies himself, or the existential and
bodily self. This cryptic materialistic line of reasoning is
indicative of the perversity of understanding relevant to the fool in
his "fools quest"-
Plato.
Lastly stands as final error "is", to wit the fool in his
questioning seeks knowledge of the Subject as an object of anatomies
to which the Greeks, Buddhists, and Vedantists declared to be a quest
among
compounded and conceptive antinomies "is it, is it not, is it both,
it is neither", to which the Buddha was apposite to answer such
fallacious lines of questioning which involved the "pairs" of
dualities, the
antinomies of existential reasoning as employed by materialists in
linear and objective thought on or about the soul. The Soul is tat
tvam asi, as = Brahman, the Absolute, is not "is, is not..etc.", but
That, the
uncompounded Absolute as opposite to all antinomies. [SN 2.17] Gotama
Buddha: "This world is carried on by a duality (dvayanissito). Etc."
The tie which binds these four errors together, and which is true
in the statement "I don't know where my soul is", is "don't know". [AN
5.113] "Followers, the beginning of ignorance can never be
discerned (beginningless) such that it cannot be said "Here is the
First where ignorance is not, here is the contingency which generated
it. Such that it should be discerned, followers, 'ignorance is a
condition'. "This avijja (agnosis, avidya, nescience, ignorance) or
'uncaused principle' for the "descent of Being", is the 'black-
hole' (again: privation) around which these four satellites of errors
spin round.
Avijja being in Greek 'tolma'; as meaning Emanationism, or the
extrinsic side of the Absolute, or the attribute (avijja) to the
Principle (atman/Brahman/Hen) between which no distinction can be
drawn in that
both attribute and Principle are one (point and line are in the
mathematical theology of Platonism both together = 1) thing only (will-
willing, light-illumination, between which what the Absolute
'is' [principle]
and what it 'does' [attribute] can have no distinction lest the
premise of Monism itself be obliterated). In the case of our 'black-
hole' analogy this privation was the source and creator of these
'satellites' by
which the fool objectively struggles with objective conceptualization
of the immaterial soul not only in space and time, but also as
possession to another and as regards his (mere) self which the
Upanishads
are apposite in stating "for the mortal, there is no soul".
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