Atma as the Universal Consciousnes
Each one of us has within himself to be a part of this universal consciousness
By starting with the purpose of life and reasoning backwards the ancient seers derived the nature of the Atma and its relationship to the mortal self.
Any process of enquiry can take one of two routes. The more common route is to enquire what follows from the present given situation. The other route is to enquire what must be true so that the present given situation is true. The enquiry into the nature of the Atma followed the second route.
This route is neither new nor unique to Hinduism. Peano arrived at his five axioms on natural numbers in this manner and today the entire mathematics and science is based on the correctness of these axioms. These axioms cannot be proved, they are simply assumed.
The ancient seers asked the question, “What is the purpose of life?” From this they worked backwards till they found it essential to envisage an entity that is all pervasive, indestructible, unchanging and eternal. They called this the Atma. Further backward enquiry led to the relationship between the mortal individual and the immortal Atma. We now take up the dialogue between Prajapati and Indra from the previous article, “The All-pervasive Atma”.
Prajapati tells Indra that if we restrict the Atma to some aspect of our physical or mental self, we run into the kind of problems that you encountered earlier. The Atma has to be all-inclusive, that is it has to contain within its fold the entire universe. Atma is the active universal consciousness. Only then can it have the qualities that we have ascribed to it. Each one of us has within himself to be a part of this universal consciousness. And this is how the universal consciousness is associated with the self. The Atma cannot be perceived as a sensory experience. But we have to realize that Atma is essential for sensory perception.
In conclusion, the Atma is the universal consciousness that exists in each one of us. This is something like Peano’s axioms, which has to be accepted. Once we do that the entire philosophy of the Upanishads begins to make sense.
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