The Universal Self and the Individual self in Vedanta
Philosophy and Cosmology September 1, 2018 Syamala Hari 3 citations
In Vedanta, the mind is considered a sense like sight or hearing, not awareness itself. A state of consciousness called Samadhi exists without any sense of 'I'. Vedanta also describes a Universal Self that identifies with everything in the universe, and claims that moments of love and sympathy are manifestations of this oneness. This article examines that claim using the concept of an ever-widening circle of identification, describes an analogy for how the individual self arises from the Universal Self, and summarizes Vedanta's theory of mind-body interactions, suggesting it offers a solution to the 'hard problem' of consciousness compatible with modern science.