The Physical Body And The Human Self Live As Two Distinct Stages.

At the Human Stage of creation, man does not live in the body of flesh and blood commonly known as human body. This body in fact belongs to the Animal Stage because its rational values are same as those of the animal organism. For instance, the instincts found in the human body are the same as are in the animal organism. The cells of the animal organism continue to die and rebuild and the organism passes from infancy to youth and  from youth to old age. Similarly the cells of the human body continue to die and rebuild. Once in a decade these are completely replaced by the new ones. As regards rational values, the same senses determine the animal organism as are found in the human body. The basic needs such as shelter, food, living in right environment and immunity from diseases are similar in both the organisms. The animal lives as a sensuous organisation procreates by means of germ and then with the breaking of cells, the organism disintegrates and with that the physical life controlling the organism disappears with its death. Similar is the case with the  physical organism of the man. It procreates by means of germ, develops to a full organism and then with its organic disintegration, its physical activities comes to an end. Thus the rational values which determine the physical organism of man are similar to those of the animal organism. In spite of the fact that man lives at a different and higher plan of consciousness, the similarity found in both kind of organisms gives the impression that, man is just an animal who is born of germ, develops into an organism and then with the disintegration of its physical body, ceases to live just as the other animals do.

No doubt under the creative process, the Animal Stage culminated in the best animal form we call it the human body. The physical body of man is the masterpiece of creation in the whole of the animal world because the Animal Stage accomplished its sense perceptions in best proportions in the physical body of man only. The very fact that human body is the most beautiful of all the animal species supports our view that the sensuous values as accomplished by the human organism in universal proportions were never accomplished by any other species throughout the animal world. But the man is not the physical body. This has been established under one of the fundamental laws of the creative process which lays that simultaneously on completion of the stage, a higher creative stage with different kind of rational values starts on it as an independent stage. The criterion with which we can determine completion of the stage is also laid under the same law. According to this law whenever a stage accomplishes the values of the stage to its affinity, the values so earned in the stage become fixed, that is, no new laws, values and species are created in the stage. Accordingly at the Animal Stage, ever since the Human Self has appeared no higher species has not ever registered nor do we find any change in the sense perceptions as well as in the instincts and form of the human physical body. Whatever development has proceeded since, it is the development of the mental processes of Human Self in the form of higher and higher Self-enlightenment. These facts establish that the values earned by the Animal Stage simultaneously with the appearance of Human Self became fixed. The Human Self, therefore , lives as an independent Self-conscious Entity outside the physical body. In the following pages we shall discuss some other facts to show that physical body and the Human Self live as distinct wholes and that Human Self outlives the physical body as the whole spatial universe.

When we ponder  over the rational values manifested at the Animal Stage and the Self-conscious Stage of Man, we find that the animal remains fully immersed in the material state of life like a fish in the sea. It is not aware of the ultimate reality as it is not aware of itself. As against this, Human Self lives in such a state of conscious enlightenment where the heavy material wall has torn apart and gives him a direct vision of the ultimate reality because of which he has become to know of himself. This can be witnessed by the fact that while an animal is conscious of its own limbs and body and knows its immediate surroundings, man because of his Self-consciousness, not only know his limbs and immediate surroundings but his knowledge encompasses the whole universe. Besides, by virtue of his Self-consciousness, man becomes conscious of himself as a distinct entity from all the rest of the universe. It is certain that no animal can realise itself in that way. Further , by means of Self-consciousness, man becomes capable of treating his own mental states as objects of consciousness. The animal who lives merely at an organisational level remains immersed in its material state of consciousness; it cannot in imagination get out of that state even for a moment. This shows that the rational values of man are not only superior and distinct to those of the animal stage but these are different in kind.

BY the virtue of his Self-consciousness, whatever man builds is distinctively human. Language is the objective of which Self-consciousness is the subjective. Self-consciousness and language are indispensable for human social life, for conduct, for institution, for art. If any animal would have possessed Self-consciousness it would have build on that faculty (as man has done) a super-structure of language, of reasoned-out customs, industries, art. But no animal has done this. Therefore, we infer that no animal is conscious of itself. This shows that the human conscious values are not only different in kind but these supersede the conscious values manifested by life and order throughout the universe.

The animal acts  under the pressure of instincts. It is similar to the physical stages, preceding the animal stage, where life acted in semi-conscious state in series of causes and effects. In other words, the animal remains the prisoner of the instincts because the animal does not possess Self or Personality. Absence of personality means  that the organism is still in the making and , therefore,  being incomplete, it has no direct feeling of the source of its making. It is with reference to the direct feeling of the source of its Maker that life can know itself. In the absence of this direct feeling life exists in its material or embryonic state in which it acts unconsciously through model symbols. As against it, man refuses where necessary, to yield to the instinctual pressure of his physical or animal organism. This shows that man lives in a separate state independent of the physical body.

Animal never resorts to over-satisfying any of its instincts. It satisfies the instincts according to their natural requirement. At the Human Stage, however , the attraction for satisfying the instincts supersedes  normal requirements which reflects upon the independent free will of man.

The human physical brain develops from childhood onwards upto a certain limit beyond which it is not the brain but the individual's knowledge that develops. Similarly in the animal stage, with the appearance of new species the brain continued to develop upto a certain limit- which is the human form of physical life - and beyond this limit it is not the species or the brain that we can expect to develop but it is rather the human Self-consciousness which develops. That man has become Self-conscious is an indication that the physical instrument of consciousness, the perceptual brain, has reached its perfection in him. The future creation of man will, therefore, manifest itself in the development of his Self-knowledge and not in a still greater development of his brain or physical body. It is clear, therefore, that man exists at a separate independent stage of his own, distinct from the creative stage of animal.

Prior to the Self-conscious Stage of Man since life was in "embryonic" state, it was not yet mentally aware of itself. At those stages the activity of organism was triggered through a series of causes and effects. The working of cause and effect may better be understood as if life was sleeping and the cause gave it a stimulus or urge for action. At the Human Stage, however, man can refuse to be led by any cause if he so willed. If any cause stimulates him for action he can either reject it or he may put it off to some other occasion. The choice of man to reject or postpone one cause and become the subject of another cause shows that if man wants to become subject of a certain cause he does according to his own free will. For example, if an animal is hungry, it cannot resist[ii] its feeding instinct and would, therefore, not rest until it has fed it. But in the case of man, if he wants, he can suppress the instinct and put it off to some other occasion. Here again, the choice for some "other occasion" rests with the free will of man. Thus in the first place man refuses to yield to the pressure of the feeding instinct and if at all he wants to yield to the instinct he does it so according to his own free will. Also in this case it is the man himself who selects the time that suits him. It may be said that if the man puts off his feeding to some other occasion, it would imply that here he has been led by another cause which prompted him to postpone the urge in favour of some more benefit which he could derive in future. The answer would be that man has made the selection between the two causes independently on his own. This is a unique phenomenon in the whole universe where life has the free will to select one cause out of two or many causes. Another important point which cannot be ignored is that the choice of the appropriate occasion has been made by man for future, foregoing the present. The choice of time falling in future could be visualised only by an entity that outlives the physical body and is distinctly aware of itself as a Self-conscious Entity. Also the benefit envisaged by man to be derived in future could become a cause only if Human Self is mindful of the benefits hidden in future and here the subject is creating the cause himself. This, as we said, is a unique phenomenon. We do not find any precedence in the whole universe where a subject may have created a cause for action independently on his own free will. In other words, it is the Self-conscious man who, being a subject, selects his own cause and then he accepts the effect of the cause only at his free will. The fact that the Human Self transcends the laws of nature establishes that the self remains untouched by the processes of decay and decomposition, which culminate in the dissolution of the body. The Self, therefore, survives death as it had survived many changes the physical body passes through during its life. The usual objections to survival after death are based on the fact of physical decomposition. The Holy Quran points out that this is not applicable to the Self:

"And they say: What! When we shall have become bones and decayed particles, shall we, forsooth, be raised up as a new creation? Say: Be ye stones or iron. Or some created thing that is yet greater in your thought! Then they say: Who shall bring us back (to life)? Say: He Who created you at the first. Then will they shake their heads at thee, and say: When will it be? Say: It will perhaps be soon."  -----17(49-51)

Will and Action.

Will and action are of paramount importance for the development of the Self. Will and action are really aspects of the same process. Action is "will actualised" and will is latent action. Only a free Self possesses "Will" in this sense, and a Self, which can perform actions independently at its free will, has relevance to survival. Animals act under the compulsion of instincts and without foresight of the results of their actions. They, therefore, cannot be credited with will, as we understand it. In the same way, the activities of the animal are not actions. An action is that which has been deliberately chosen by a free Self and has been voluntarily performed by it.

Pain And Pleasure Versus Joy And Happiness.

Animal organism develops to a certain limit and then on reaching completion, its function is to satisfy the instincts. The purpose of all the instincts is to preserve and continue the life at that stage. Each instinct has a separate function and also a separate pressure for driving the animal to such actions, which relate to the continuity of life of the organism. Each instinct puts its pressure direct on the organism and the organism as a subject yields to the instinct until the instinct has been satisfied. The instincts and the organism live as a balanced organisation. If the organism has been able to satisfy certain instinct, it gets the reward in the form of sensuous pleasure at the material state of life. In case, however, the organism fails to satisfy any of the instincts, the instinct continues to build its pressure and the organism remains under constant agitation. In other words, the "paradise" or "hell" of the organism is limited to the pleasure or pain upto the material level of the organism. The pleasure derived by the organism by feeding or indulging in sex, lasts only during the activity of the organism in satisfying these instincts.

Pain and pleasure are thus closely related to the material state of the body. The kind and level of pleasure is different with each instinct according to its usefulness in the continuation and reservation of life. For example, the instincts of sex and feeding are directly concerned with the preservation and continuation of life and accordingly great pleasure and attraction is attached to these instincts. The rich reward, which the organism derives by way of instinctual pleasure, helps the organism to make greater effort to satisfy these instincts. In case the organisms fails to satisfy any of its instincts because of famine or abnormal living conditions, the organism suffers physical pains and stresses. The organism faces a more serious situation when there is immediate danger to its life such as internal or external injury to its physical body. In such a serious situation the signal of warning is more material and is directly related to the physical body of the organism. It appears in severe pain and agony. Such a signal, which appears in pain and agony, is meant to enable the organism to seek immediate remedial measures for self-preservation. The instinctual pleasure or physical pains and sufferings are material in nature. As against this, the happiness and joy as well as mental pains such as worry and grief etc. are closely related to the Human Self. The feelings of happiness as well as the mental pains are spiritual in nature because the self or personality emerges with the cognition of its source. Since Human Self is in the making, it seeks its source in the form of ideals. If the Self meets with success in realising its ideal, it feels happiness and if it meets with failure, it struck with grief and sorrow.

Now if we compare the joy and happiness of Human Self with the instinctual pleasure and similarly human grief and worry with the physical pains and injuries, we find that the instinctual pleasures are inferior and sort-lived as compared to the happiness and joy of the Human Self. The former is related to the material or physical level of life and the latter is related to spiritual state of life. Similarly the physical pains or injuries are inferior to mental or spiritual agony. In other words, the scale of pain and happiness of animal organism and that of the Human Self is not different in degree but it is different in kind according to the different kind of conscious values. While the level of one is low, short-lived and limited to the activity and function of the body, the level of the other is high, unlimited and lasting. The most important thing is that while Human Self is aware of the pains and pleasures of the organism as it is aware of other phenomena of nature in the external world, the organism is never aware of the "feeling" of joy and happiness of the Human Self nor is it aware of the emotions which have exclusively appeared in man. Feelings and emotions as well as will and reasons are the attributes of the Human Self only. The physical organism cannot experience them even in imagination.

That the Human Self and the Perceptual mind of the organism live as separate wholes could be understood by the fact that as against the physical analytic system of digestion developed by the Perceptual mind of the organism, the Human Self has developed its own independent analytic system we know it as the "faculty of reason" or what Freud called it the "Conscious mind". While the analytic system of digestion is a physical system of analysis, the Conscious mind of the Human Self is a mental system living outside the Perceptual mind of the organism. These facts establish that while the human organism lives and functions as a unit whole under the spatial laws of matter and motion, the Human Self lives as a non-material Self-conscious entity outside the laws of space-time and motion.

The purpose of our whole discussion was to establish that the Self-conscious Stage of human being, although attached to the animal organism, yet because of its unique conscious values and higher tendencies of life, lives in a separate stage in an independent mental body acquired by it. This makes us easy to understand the question of continuation of human life after the death of its physical organism. For this purpose, let us take a look at the creative process of the different stages of the universe. We find that under one of the fundamental laws of creation once a higher life stage simultaneously on completion of the preceding stage starts on it, the preceding stage continues to preserve the values of the stage. For example, at the physical stage of Earth, all the rational values of the stage were closed on it. At the Creative Stage of Vegetables, each species preserved its rational values in kind in the form of a seed. At this stage life preserved its physical form and conscious values to ensure distinctly the continuity of life in all of its rich and vast varieties to serve as a base for the higher creative stage. At the next higher stage, the animal life also preserved its values in kind in the form of the germ. At the higher creative stage of Man, the Human Self preserves its values in the "seed " or " germ" of its Self or Soul. The most important point to be noted is that in all the creative stages preceding the Self-conscious Stage of Man, the conscious values were preserved and passed on by each species in kind and not in "Person" or "Self".

It is because at those stages life was not aware of itself. Hence it could preserve its values only in kind by passing the same through organism to organism. For example, at the Vegetable Stage, the individual distinction of a mango tree is in its kind or species and not in its "Person". The reason is that whether it may be a mango tree or a wheat plant, the life in plants is never aware of itself and hence it can live under the values as preserved in seed by each species in the form of chemical laid in series, we call it "DNA". Similar is the case with the creative stage of animal life. The animal stage is also a material state and it preserved the values of its species in kind. It may be a horse or a lamb; each preserved its values as a kind. As compared to the values preserved in kind at these stages, the values preserved at the human stage are "Personal" as implied in the words "Conscious Self". If we take away the "Conscious Self" no conscious values pertaining to the self or person can exists or survive. It is obligatory, therefore, that the conscious values earned by each Self must remain "Personal" with the individual or "Conscious Self". Our discussion has shown that:

1)     The Human Self lives independently in its mental "body" or mental state because of the non-material values of the Self;

2)     The "Personal" values of the Self cannot be transferred  from Self to Self like the organic life of plants and animals as each Human Self lives as  a unique Self-conscious Entity; and

3)     The Human Self cannot die as nature must protect each Self as its precious gain for onward creation.

Hence at the Human Stage, these are only the physical forms and values, which are transferred from germ to germ and which under the physical laws, remain subject to death and disintegration. But the Human Self, which lives in a separate non-material state, cannot simply die as it is against the fundamental principle of the creative process according to which life can never come down from the level it has achieved nor can it lose its conscious values. Life must protect those hard earned values in its minutest detail, as otherwise the process of creation cannot proceed.

All the spatial stages preceding Self-conscious Stage were in fact the preparatory stages of the Self-conscious Stage of Man. Since the conscious values created prior to the creative stage of Self-consciousness were in elementary stages and were meant to prepare the ground for the appearance of Self-conscious Man, they were living in an unconscious state or the material state of life - the state in which bodies played "consciousness" under the stimulus of attraction and repulsion caused by external processes. In this state life being not aware of itself continued to develop and transfer the values through the process of procreation. On reaching the Human Stage, life became directly aware of its Creator and with the cognition of its source it came to its own. All human activities were now triggered under the inherent urge of seeking and loving its Creator.

Like a single organism each stage lives as a unit and has a particular goal to reach. Since the values to be achieved at a certain stage are unlimited and divergent and cannot be achieved in a single unit body or organism, therefore, uncountable numbers of "Self's" are created. It is natural, therefore, that each Self after having lived its maximum time of physical life must make way for the next Self. At Human Stage, each Self has a natural urge to discover more and more of the ultimate reality and impart whatever knowledge it may have gained to other fellow human beings so that mankind may succeed reaching its common goal in a united way. As a matter of fact each Conscious Self remains incomplete without the other complementary and supplementary " Self's". This attachment is so strong that it always remains the urge of every soul to win the approval and appreciation of the other human beings for such actions or deeds, which are admired by the humanity. It is the dominating urge of each Self to live unitedly with fellow human beings.  This urge is found at all the creative stages of life subject to the conscious level of the stage. The urge behind man's social life is to share the thoughts, ideas and actions of each other. Various Research Centres, Academies, Educational Institutions, Seminars and other exploratory activities of man vis-à-vis dissemination of knowledge through pen and paper help mankind to know each other, of their aims and goals. It should, however, be born in mind that such human activities do not suggest that by disseminating knowledge or providing mental nourishment to other Self's, the man transfers his own Self or personality with the transfer of knowledge. On the contrary Self's develop by giving and helping the other Self's because the goal of all the Self's is common. It should be understood, therefore, that like the plants and animals, the Human Self or Personality does not transfer either through germ or by disseminating knowledge to each other. It is the Conscious Self, which is the real living value at the Human Stage and whose development is the sole purpose of the present creative stage. If we believe that each Self is mortal, in that case the whole creative process will prove useless exercise because nothing would survive at the close of the Self-conscious Stage of Man. This amount negation of one's own Self as well as the negation of the creative process. Therefore, those who think that Self's continue to meet with death and destruction, they cannot contribute to the cause of humanity because in that case those Self's must already be dead. Such Self's remain ignorant of the living process of humanity as well as their eternal spiritual bliss; hence their contribution, if any, can only block the righteous cause of the humanity. If we believe in the creative process we will have to believe that Human Self can never die with the death of its physical organism.

Man does not die from another point of view. With the reflection of reality from within, the Human Self begins to recognise its own Self. Thus once having recognised his Self, Human Self or Soul cannot accept any change. Even death or destruction cannot occur to the Soul. Death of Self would imply the death of the Ultimate Reality or the Source because of which Self is born and comes to know itself as an independent entity. These facts bring us to the conclusion that the Human Self is such a reality which once having recognised its Source, the "Other Reality" can never be destroyed.

Before we close this chapter we would like to leave an important note for our readers. There is a significant difference between the way the physical body develops and the manner the Human Self develops. The body grows by receiving substances from outside and incorporating them, that is, by taking in. The Self grows stronger by sharing its knowledge, wisdom and possessions with others. Its happiness lies in helping others. It is cramped when it keeps its riches to itself. Generosity of any kind enriches it and niggardliness impoverishes it. Therefore, if we want real happiness and spiritual bliss in this world and get out of all kinds of depression, we must give out and refrain from taking in.

[i] The contents of this subject have been taken from my work "God, Universe and Life" published in 1982.

[ii] It is true that at occasions it seems that the animal has been able to violate his instinct but the animal does this under the pressure of a stronger instinct. For example, if an animal is satisfying its feeding instinct and suddenly a person attacks it, the animal run away. In fact, here the cause of violating the feeding instinct was to satisfy the stronger instinct of self-preservation. The purpose of both these instincts was to save life. In this situation the animal came under the influence of a stronger instinct of flight as compared to the weaker instinct of feeding. Had the animal not immediately resorted to flight it would have lost its life. Hence the animal immediately sought protection by satisfying the stronger instinct of self-preservation. In each case the animal was not completely free; it remained the prisoner of the instincts only.