CHAPTER THREE Literature Review
3.5 The Self and Identity: Vedic Theological Perspectives 1 0 3
3.5.1 The Nature of "I"
Questions of identity seem to be central to the deliberations contained in the Vedic literature. Satsvarupa dasa Gosvami (1977) explains that the main purpose of such literature is to disseminate knowledge about self-realization, which when practiced will lead to liberation from suffering (moksha). It emphasizes the view that, notwithstanding its apparent pleasures, material life produces suffering due to birth, old age, disease and death. Three categories of suffering are described, viz. the existence of miseries that our own bodies experience; those caused by other living entities; those produced by forces of nature and the temporary nature of the world. ISKCON philosophy describes that we develop a mistaken identity as we come under the influence of illusion {maya). We then identify with a temporary body as our real identity, or we consider the temporary world to be the sum total of our existence. This of course begs the question, just who is the "we"
or "I" being described here?
Bhaktivedanta Swami (1966: 30-31) expounds:
The first thing is to understand that you are a spirit soul. And because you are a spirit soul, you are changing your body. This is the ABC of spiritual understanding.. .that the body is your covering (your shirt and coat) and that within this body you are living.
Tamal Krishna Gosvami (1998) reiterates this declaration that our real nature is spirit, each entity an infinitesimal part of the Supreme, qualitatively the same but quantitatively different. He explains that the body/soul distinction can be understood when we use the words "I, or my". We are able to comprehend that our true person is separate from our physical being, e.g. when we say "My body", not "I body" or "I mind" or "I
intelligence". Baars (1996) calls this the "subjective sense of self. He explains that every "statement of personal experience in English refers to a personal pronoun, an "/", as in T saw a cat'. In other words "you are the perceiver, the actor and narrator of your experience". Thus we can discriminate between the physical body and what seems to be
a proprietor of that. Although identities become embedded in one's mind, that ascription does not in itself constitute one's true identity.
Related to this is Beck's107 assertion that categories of race, language, culture and religion may be historically, geographically or even politically constructed, and since such contexts can change, one's identity is not fixed or bound by these positions. Harro (2000) describes how we are born into a particular set of social identities and influenced by powerful socializing forces from birth, viz. the already existing structures of history, traditions, beliefs, prejudices, stereotypes - in which parents and other significant caregivers are powerful agents in determining our self concepts and self-perceptions.
Giddens (2002) also theorizes that one's self understanding is obstructed by what he regards as inflexible restrictions posed by tradition and culture. It is only by reflexive self awareness that the individual in post traditional settings can develop
individualization, where the self determines its own identity through exerting conscious choices characterized by increasing autonomy and control. As far as the postulations by Beck, Harro and Giddens above are concerned, there seems to be a confluence with the Vedic conception that one's identification as part of a particular tradition, culture, community, nation, or society is limited, external and can pose a barrier to one's self understanding. The Vedic concept however, does not accept that unlimited self- reflexivity can produce a real understanding of self, and is more inclined towards
Bendle's (2002) viewpoint that such a stance has produced a crisis of identity in society, manifest as greater feelings of alienation and insecurity. Mansfield (2000: 2) also
contends that while the tendency in postmodern society is greater self emphasis as a point of reference, it has simultaneously produced more insecurity, fragility, isolation and vulnerability of the self due to ambivalence produced by conflicting signals from our education and entertainment industries, world events like wars, and greater addiction to narcotics and fads. Thus the identity derived from unlimited self-reflexivity may also be illusory and produced from the tendency of the post modern individual for immediate gratification and greater hedonism, what Satsvarupa Gosvami (1977) referred to as may a, or our mistaken identity.
107 cited in Adams, 2003
Bhaktivedanta Swami (1966)108 in an elaborate discussion on identity and designation mentions:
Liberation means nothing more, the conception of getting free from these designations which we have acquired from the association of material nature... I call myself a man, or animal, or I have got some name, given by my parents. Or because I am born in some particular country I designate myself to belong to that country, and because I accept some particular faith, so I designate myself to that faith. In so many ways we are now designated. This designation should be given up. When designations are given up, then we are free, pure soul...
Tamal Krishna Gosvami (1998) further describes the soul as the true self, the origin of consciousness, and origin of thinking and feeling. Singh (2004: 13) regards
consciousness as life energy and the essential characteristic of the soul which is spiritual.
He states that the "ontological nature of consciousness is non-physical". This concept of the soul or immaterial as a self existent being is not foreign to the realms of philosophy and science. From Plato's dualism, and Aristotle's materialism (Eliasmith, 2004), to Descarte's 1642 postulations on mind and body, and Kant to James on consciousness (Baars, 1996) one realizes that there has been, and still is, much debate and confusion about the nature of the mind and consciousness in philosophy, psychology and in the cognitive and neurosciences (Long, 1969; Velmans, 1996; Baars, 1996; Sutherland, 1998;
Cromby, 2003; Kazlev, 2004). What exactly is consciousness? How is it related to the brain? Is it simply a product of mechanistic or physical laws, or is it associated with a separate entity associated with the brain? These are questions central to the historicity of the mind/body issue.
Bhagavad-gita lectures 4.6-8 in Bhaktivedanta Vedabase (2003)