Jiva

MIND, MATTER AND GOD : JIVA, JADA AND ISVARA
M.M.NINAN
MONISM
“slokārdhena pravaksāmi yaduktaṃ granthakotibhih,
brahma satyaṃ jagat mithyā,
jīvo brahmaiva nāparah”
“In half a couplet I state, what has been stated by crores of texts;
that is Brahman alone is real, the world is only an illusion,
and the individual self is Brahman and no other.”
Shankaracharya, Vivekacūḍāmaṇi
Monism is based on the concept of monad. The word itself is derived from the Greek
word "monos" meaning "single.
Monism essentially denies all distinctions such as
matter, spirit, difference in materials etc. Monism denies that the manifoldness is real,
and holds that the apparently many are phases, or phenomena, of a one ultimate reality.
Wherever dualistic philosophy distinguishes between body and soul, matter and spirit,
object and subject,matter and force, the system which denies such a distinction,
reduces one term of the antithesis to the other, or merges both in a higher unity, is
called Monism. All these differences merges in to a unity. How this unity gave rise to
differences will remain a problem within the monad. In reality in metaphysical terms
monad itself cannot or does not exist, since we have to define existence first apart from
monad. In effect then monism is a philosophical position which argues that the variety
of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance. The
common, restricted definition implies also a unity of substance and essence.
The other alternatives are dualism where mind and matter form two ultimate realities.
We can also have pluralities. But the real model of monism as I believe should be the
monism whereby the matter or universe is a subgroup within God Reality itself. This is
found in Jewish Mysticism, Christian Model as proposed by Paul, and also in the Indian
models following the Thomas Christian traditions of Saiva Siddhanta and Vishista
Advaita.
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