What Is the Soul?

Bertrand Russell
1928

One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one
makes us know less than we thought we did. When I was young we all knew, or thought
we knew, that a man consists of a soul and a body; that the body is in time and space, but
the soul is in time only. Whether the soul survives death was a matter as to which
opinions might differ, but that there is a soul was thought to be indubitable. As for the
body, the plain man of course considered its existence self-evident, and so did the man of
science, but the philosopher was apt to analyse it away after one fashion or another,
reducing it usually to ideas in the mind of the man who had the body and anybody else
who happened to notice him. The philosopher, however, was not taken seriously, and
science remained comfortably materialistic, even in the hands of quite orthodox
scientists.

Nowadays these fine old simplicities are lost: physicists assure us that there is no such
thing as matter, and psychologists assure us that there is no such thing as mind. This is an
unprecedented occurrence. Who ever heard of a cobbler saying that there was no such
thing as boots, or a tailor maintaining that all men are really naked? Yet that would have
been no odder than what physicists and certain psychologists have been doing. To begin
with the latter, some of them attempt to reduce everything that seems to be mental
activity to an activity of the body. There are, however, various difficulties in the way of
reducing mental activity to physical activity. I do not think we can yet say with any
assurance whether these difficulties are or are not insuperable. What we can say, on the
basis of physics itself, is that what we have hitherto called our body is really an elaborate
scientific construction not corresponding to any physical reality. The modern would-be
materialist thus finds himself in a curious position, for, while he may with a certain
degree of success reduce the activities of the mind to those of the body, he cannot explain
away the fact that the body itself is merely a convenient concept invented by the mind.
We find ourselves thus going round and round in a circle: mind is an emanation of body,
and body is an invention of mind. Evidently this cannot be quite right, and we have to
look for something that is neither mind nor body, out which both can spring.

Let us begin with the body. The plain man thinks that material objects must certainly
exist, since they are evident to the senses. Whatever else may be doubted, it is certain that
anything you can bump into must be real; this is the plain man's metaphysic. This is all
very well, but the physicist comes along and shows that you never bump into anything:
even when you run your hand along a stone wall, you do not really touch it. When you
think you touch a thing, there are certain electrons and protons, forming part of your
body, which are attracted and repelled by certain electrons and protons in the thing you
think you are touching, but there is no actual contact. The electrons and protons in your
body, becoming agitated by nearness to the other electrons and protons are disturbed, and
transmit a disturbance along your nerves to the brain; the effect in the brain is what is
necessary to your sensation of contact, and by suitable experiments this sensation can be
made quite deceptive. The electrons and protons themselves, however, are only crude
first approximations, a way of collecting into a bundle either trains of waves or the
statistical probabilities of various different kinds of events. Thus matter has become
altogether too ghostly to be used as an adequate stick with which to beat the mind. Matter
in motion, which used to seem so unquestionable, turns out to be a concept quite
inadequate for the needs of physics.

Nevertheless modern science gives no indication whatever of the existence of the soul or
mind as an entity; indeed the reasons for disbelieving in it are very much of the same
kind as the reasons for disbelieving in matter. Mind and matter were something like the
lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown; the end of the battle is not the victory of one
or the other, but the discovery that both are only heraldic inventions. The world consists
of events, not of things that endure for a long time and have changing properties. Events
can be collected into groups by their causal relations. If the causal relations are of one
sort, the resulting group of events may be called a physical object, and if the causal
relations are of another sort, the resulting group may be called a mind. Any event that
occurs inside a man's head will belong to groups of both kinds; considered as belonging
to a group of one kind, it is a constituent of his brain, and considered as belonging to a
group of the other kind, it is a constituent of his mind.

Thus both mind and matter are merely convenient ways of organizing events. There can
be no reason for supposing that either a piece of mind or a piece of matter is immortal.
The sun is supposed to be losing matter at the rate of millions of tons a minute. The most
essential characteristic of mind is memory, and there is no reason whatever to suppose
that the memory associated with a given person survives that person's death. Indeed there
is every reason to think the opposite, for memory is clearly connected with a certain kind
of brain structure, and since this structure decays at death, there is every reason to
suppose that memory also must cease. Although metaphysical materialism cannot be
considered true, yet emotionally the world is pretty much the same as I would be if the
materialists were in the right. I think the opponents of materialism have always been
actuated by two main desires: the first to prove that the mind is immortal, and the second
to prove that the ultimate power in the universe is mental rather than physical. In both
these respects, I think the materialists were in the right. Our desires, it is true, have
considerable power on the earth's surface; the greater part of the land on this planet has a
quite different aspect from that which it would have if men had not utilized it to extract
food and wealth. But our power is very strictly limited. We cannot at present do anything
whatever to the sun or moon or even to the interior of the earth, and there is not the
faintest reason to suppose that what happens in regions to which our power does not
extend has any mental causes. That is to say, to put the matter in a nutshell, there is no
reason to think that except on the earth's surface anything happens because somebody
wishes it to happen. And since our power on the earth's surface is entirely dependent
upon the sun, we could hardly realize any of our wishes if the sun grew could. It is of
course rash to dogmatize as to what science may achieve in the future. We may learn to
prolong human existence longer than now seems possible, but if there is any truth in
modern physics, more particularly in the second law of thermodynamics, we cannot hope
that the human race will continue for ever. Some people may find this conclusion
gloomy, but if we are honest with ourselves, we shall have to admit that what is going to
happen many millions of years hence has no very great emotional interest for us here and
now. And science, while it diminishes our cosmic pretensions, enormously increases our
terrestrial comfort. That is why, in spite of the horror of the theologians, science has on
the whole been tolerated.
 Who dies when you die?
Death and Immortality in the Discourse of Advaita Vedanta

Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death.

L.Wittgenstein1

The Katha Upanisad narrates an encounter between Naciketa, a young Brahmin boy and Yama,
the Lord of Death. Naciketa questions Yama:

“There is this doubt about a man who is dead.

‘He exists,’ say some, others, ‘He exists not.’
I want to know this, so please teach me.
This is the third of my wishes.”2

By a strange turn of events, Naciketa, who is condemned to death, is granted three wishes by
Yama. His third and final wish pertains to the mystery of death and he pleads to Yama to explain
to him the truth of the matter. Yama is hesitant and offers the young boy every gift worthy of
mortal desire from wealth, prosperity, beautiful women, prominence and even longevity, but
declines to expatiate upon the issue of death itself, which, according to him, is hard to understand
and confounds the gods themselves. Such hesitance reflects Yama’s discomfort with revealing the
greatest of all secrets to a young boy. At the same time, the various lures act as a way of testing
Naciketa’s resolve to be content with nothing less than the ultimate truth itself. Naciketa is
steadfast:

“What mortal man with insight,

Who has met those who do not die or grow old,
Himself growing old in this wretched and lowly place,
Looking at its beauties, its pleasures and joys,
Would delight in a long life?

The point on which they have great doubts-

What happens at that great transit-
Tell me that, O Death!
This is my wish, probing the mystery deep,
Naciketa wishes for nothing other than that.”3

The conversation sets the stage for a prolonged analysis of the phenomena of death and the
answer given by Yama, which reveals to Naciketa the insights of the Upanisads into the
phenomena of death. Death is a central motif of the Upanisads which is ultimately concerned with
leading an individual towards self-knowledge. Its treatment of the question of death, like its
treatment of all other questions, is intimately connected with the question of the self, the answer
to which will simultaneously solve man’s problems at all levels- intellectual, moral and

1
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, (trans) DF Pears & BF McGuinness, Routledge, 2004
2
The Katha Upanisad, (trans) Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upanisads, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998
3
Ibid
existential. Once the question, “Who am I?” has been answered, there is nothing more to ask,
nothing more to be done. It is at once the answer to philosophical scepticism and existential
disquiet. For Vedanta, therefore, it is the first as well as the last question. And its solution will
instantly lay to rest all other doubts, whether metaphysical, existential or logical. Knowledge of
the truth, of reality (Sans: brahmajnana) is a direct consequence of self-knowledge (Sans:
atmajnana).

Vedanta’s response to the phenomena of death is definite and singular- death is unreal. It is
impossible. You can never really die because you are immortal by nature. But how is this
possible? After all, isn’t death a fact of experience, if only a second-hand one? I do not
experience my death but I do observe the death of others. Death is a phenomenon universally
present in nature. Let us see what precisely Vedanta means when making such a claim.

According to Vedanta, my sense of self, my personal identity plays a crucial role in determining
the status that death has for me. So what precisely does Vedanta have to say about the self? This
must be first clarified. According to Vedanta, the self is of the nature of consciousness. It is not
even that ‘being conscious’ is a characteristic of the self. Rather, the self is consciousness itself. If
this is so, then how is it that in everyday life I perceive myself to be a psycho-physical organism
in continuous causal interaction with my surroundings? My ordinary experience does not reveal
my true nature as pure consciousness. Vedanta explains this through the process of identification.
Let us understand what is meant by this.

At a very fundamental level we know ourselves to be somewhat different in nature from the
world we find ourselves in. My sense of self separates me from this world. I know myself to be a
part of the physical universe and yet, somehow, I consider myself free from its causal
inexorability and materiality. Each of us possesses a sense of self-identity, differentiating us from
the others. But the very fact of a sense of self sharply demarcates us from our surroundings. It is
this sense of self that determines what is intimate to us and what is alien. It is natural for the self
to identify itself with all kinds of things, with, so to say, the Other. The moment the self identifies
itself with something, it has, by that very act, alienated itself from something else. In this way the
self constantly creates the Other and negotiates with it, sometimes appropriating something from
its domain and sometimes relegating something back to it. However, in this constant negotiation
with the Other, the lines never blur. The domain the self has appropriated for itself is special,
intimate to itself. It is the Me. The Other is always distant. However, though the borders between
the self and the non-self are clearly etched, the passage from one to the other is fairly fluid. I can
choose to identify myself with any object, person, or ideal. And at any moment I can choose to
dissociate myself from them.

Moreover, whatever I identify myself with begins to exert a control over me. My destiny now
coincides with the destiny of the thing, person or idea I have identified with. To take an everyday
example, the death of my neighbour’s cat will not cause me half as much sorrow as the death of
my own cat. In fact it may bring me no sorrow at all. The latter causes me grief because it is ‘my’
cat and for no other reason. In the same way the fate of any idea or ideal I have identified with is
also my own fate. Its failure is often equivalent to my failure. It is for the same reason that when
something causes me immense pain I may be compelled to completely detach myself from it,
relegating it to the Other. Once it has become the Other, it has no power over me.

So far the insights of Vedanta correspond to our common-sensical notions about ourselves.
However, Vedanta takes the further leap by declaring that such a process of identification is at
work not only with respect to things, people and ideas, but also with my own body, mind as well
as the ego. I identify myself with my body in just the same way as I identify myself with
something else. Therefore, the status of my own body is no different from that of any other
physical object. If I may so choose, I can dissociate myself from my own body at will, just like I
can, if I so will, detach myself from any other thing. The same is true for everything else that is a
constituent of any psycho-physical organism. Vedanta accepts the psycho-physiology of Yoga
according to which, apart from the body (sarira), a human being possesses a mind (manas),
intelligence (buddhi), feeling (citta) and ego (ahamkara)4. All these together with the sense-
organs and the body interpenetrate to create a thinking, acting, willing individual. The process of
identification is at work at each one of these levels, the self identifying itself with each of the
faculties in the course of its daily existence. The crucial thing is that, if one strips away all
identifications one by one, then nothing whatsoever remains at the end except consciousness as
pure consciousness.

What is the reasoning behind adopting such an anthropology? The insights of Vedanta are often
phenomenological turning our attention to certain logical points along the way. Logically
speaking, the Vedantin argues, I must be different from what I perceive. The fact that I perceive
something implies that the thing is something separate from me. Perception, in some way or the
other, presupposes distance. Now even my own body and thoughts are something I perceive.
Therefore it follows that they must be something other than me, something apart from me. After
all, isn’t my own body also an experience of mine? The corporality and extension of the body are
a part of the overall experience that I have so long as I am conscious of having a body. It may be
true that my own body has a special status with respect to me as compared to other bodies or
objects. I can ‘feel’ my own body in a manner that I cannot ‘feel’ other objects. I share a special
intimacy with it. However, the point is that even this ‘feel’ or sense of intimacy are also
experiences of mine. The same is true of my mind. I can perceive my thoughts as they arise in the
mind and I also perceive their disappearance. All this only implies that, as their seer, I am
something separate from them.

It is extremely important, according to Vedanta, to distinguish the seer (Sans: drg) from the seen
(Sans: drsya), the experiencer from the experienced. If I experience my own thoughts, my body
and all the numerous sensual perceptions, then who is this ‘I’ that is the subject of all these
experiences? Vedanta, now and again, tries to turn our attention back to this subject which is
conscious of everything and yet itself is not something one can be conscious of. May not the
essential nature of the self be consciousness (Sans: cetanam) itself? According to Vedanta, the
self, by its very nature, is the experiencer (Sans: anubhavarupam) as opposed to being an object
of experience (Sans: anubhavavisayam).

The logic of Vedanta, as we have seen, relies on evidence of a phenomenological nature. The
question of how phenomenology ought to be understood in the context of Vedanta, as distinct
from its understanding in Continental thought, is a question outside the scope of our current
enquiry. For now it will suffice to say that the Vedantin puts a premium on first-person
experiences as they present themselves to consciousness without taking the nature or reality of
anything for granted. In the context of Vedanta, it is illuminating to consider a passage from
Husserl’s Idea of Phenomenology regarding what he calls the ‘Problem of Transcendence’:

“In all of its manifestations, knowledge is a mental experience: knowledge belongs to a knowing
subject. The known objects stand over against it. How, then, can knowledge be sure of its
agreement with the known objects? How can knowledge go beyond itself and reach its objects
reliably? What appears to natural thinking as the matter-of-fact givenness of known objects
4
The English translations of these Sanskrit words differ in meaning from the original words. At best they may act as a guide to the
original words. In fact, in case of the word ‘sarira’, Yoga speaks of each individual possessing, not one body, but various bodily
sheaths, each encased in the other and differing in level of subtlety.
within knowledge becomes a riddle. In perception, the perceived object is supposed to be
immediately given. There stands the thing before my perceiving eyes. I see it; I grasp it. But the
perception is nothing more than an experience that belongs to me, the perceiving subject…How
do I, the knowing subject, know- and how can I know for sure- that not only my experiences,
these acts of knowing, exist, but also what they know exists? Indeed, how do I know that there is
anything at all that can be set over against knowledge as an object?”5

The problem is genuine, in fact irresolvable. Though not the first, Husserl is here casting doubt on
the very possibility of knowledge. Positing real existence of objects, of the world is questionable
insofar as what is immediately given to me at any moment is always only my own experience. No
evidence or proof can attest to the existence of a world as all such evidence can itself only be
presented to us in consciousness. How can we talk of an agreement between thought or
knowledge and reality if we always only have access to the former, never to the latter? It is this
‘natural attitude’ with respect to the world that Husserl is questioning. This is precisely what
Vedanta is driving at. But the similarity ends here. For where Husserl takes this as a challenge to
be overcome, and prepares to redeem the objectivity of the world, Vedanta turns to consciousness
itself as the only reality, the sole ground beneath the changing scenes of the world. Running right
through the entire discourse of the Vedanta is this premise of consciousness as unnegatably
present in all particular states and experiences, as well as in their absence. In fact, consciousness
is presence itself, always immediately given whether or not it possesses any object as its content.

A phenomenological analysis of experience, therefore, establishes the pervading presence of

consciousness underneath all our particular experiences, thoughts and feelings. In fact Vedanta
carries this analysis into the states of dream and deep sleep to conclude that the continuity of
consciousness is not broken even when one leaves the waking experiences behind. Moreover, the
experience of dreams establishes something further. A dream is, so to say, sustained by the
dreamer and its contents have no objective existence outside of us. And, moreover, it collapses as
soon as I awake. By analogy, Vedanta points out that the world present to us in the waking
condition collapses when we enter into a dream or, for that matter, into deep sleep. In deep sleep,
however, there is a complete absence of any objects or content of consciousness. Consciousness
alone is- in itself and by itself. Therefore even intentionality, on this account, is not a necessary
characteristic of consciousness being absent in the state of deep sleep.

The upshot of all this is that one must conclude consciousness alone to be real, regarding
everything else, even one’s own body, mind and everything else one considers as constituting
oneself, as a particular experience or state of consciousness. From this perspective, Vedanta leads
is a movement towards this state of being in which everything that seems to have an independent,
objective existence is seen as existing in ones own consciousness. At any given moment,
consciousness is one with whatever is arising. The trichotomy of the perceiver, perceived and the
act of perception, therefore, dissolves into one unified ‘perceiving’ that alone is. And this
‘perceiving’ or ‘seeing’ is the intrinsic characteristic of consciousness. So everything arises and
falls in consciousness. But consciousness itself never ceases to be.

This is what is meant when Vedanta asserts that the self is of the nature of consciousness.
Consciousness is identified with one’s true self. In our normal waking life we cling to certain
experiences mistaking them for our true self and thereby ascribing to these experiences an
objective reality, an independent individualized existence. The seen is always mistaken for the
seer. It is the seen that constantly arouses our curiosity and wonder. We study it, analyze it, and
try to get into the very depths of it. The seer always escapes the scrutiny of the scalpel.

5
Edmund Husserl, The Idea of Phenomenology, (tran) WP Alston & G Nakhinian, Martinus Nijhoff, 1964
Paradoxically, its existence stands unnoticed to itself. It remains oblivious to its own gaze. And
the whole thrust of Vedanta is to turn our attention back to the seer from the seen, to the perceiver
from the perceived. The self is this seer whose very nature is to be aware. In this seeing, the self
sustains what is seen, so that the object, the world has no independent existence outside ones
consciousness. And our understanding of ourselves as psychophysical beings is only a
consequence of the self as the seer identifying itself with certain experiences. Gaudapada, the
author of the Mandukya Karika, sums it up as follows:

“All the Jivas (individuals) are, by their very nature, free from senility and death. They think, as it
were, that they are subject to these and thus by this very thought they appear to deviate from their
very nature.”6

In identifying with the mortal, therefore, they seem to assume the fate of the mortal, which is
change and death. Sankara, in his commentary to the Karika, explains that “the Jivas are subject
to senility and death on account of their identification, through thinking, with senility and death.”7
And though they may appear to deviate from their true nature, yet they never really renounce
their true nature, which is consciousness (Sans: cetanam)

We have taken the passage into consciousness in order to shed light on the nature of the self. The
latter, in turn, served the purpose of explicating the Vedantin insight into death. Therefore, in as
brief space as possible, the reasons behind the assertion of the impossibility of death have been
explored. If I am not the body, then I am not subject to the fate of the body. Consciousness cannot
die, just like it is never born. In fact, all change, birth and death are phenomena perceived in
consciousness. Consciousness itself is not subject to what it perceives and what forms its object.
Therefore if the self is indeed of the nature of consciousness then it must be immortal. Death only
implies, at most, the cessation of certain kinds of experiences i.e. those which we associate with
the waking life.

__________________________

For I deem that the true disciple of philosophy is likely to be misunderstood by other men; they do not
perceive that he is ever pursuing death and dying.
Socrates8

Death may be approached from another perspective. Wittgenstein’s remark that death is not
another event in life, not another experience because it implies the end of all possible experience
is true only so long as one considers death as an event external to life, as something that comes at
the end of one’s life. However, death has also been viewed, not simply as something that brings
an end to one’s life, but as a constant concomitant to life. Such a view is typical of the Buddhist
understanding of life. Infact in Buddhism impermanence (Sans: anityam) is regarded as the very
essence of life. Birth and death are not events that take place simply at the beginning and the end
of one’s life, but pervade the very fabric of existence. We may highlight certain events in our life

6
Gaudapada, Mandukya Karika, (trans) Swami Nikhilananda, The Mandukyopanisad with Gaudapada
Karika and Sankara’s Commentary, Advaita Ashrama, 2000
7
Sankara, Mandukya Karika Bhasya, (trans) Swami Nikhilananda, The Mandukyopanisad with Gaudapada
Karika and Sankara’s Commentary, Advaita Ashrama, 2000
8
The Phaedo, (trans) Benjamin Jowett, The Internet Classics Archive
as beginnings and ends but in truth, reality is ever in a state of flux, ever being renewed. And
renewal implies death.

Ordinarily we live with the belief that one day we will cease to be. Obviously the belief implies
that I regard death as something that will happen to me in the distant future. Do I not in this
process mentally separate life from death, creating an unbridgeable gap between the two?
Moreover, is not living with such a belief living in continual fear? And continuously attempting
to perpetuate our own existence as a consequence of that fear? Jiddu Krishnamurti, a 20th century
Indian thinker difficult to categorize, offers, in his conversations, a painstaking analysis of death
and this human fear of death. Observing the trend of an ordinary life, he comments:

“When you look at all this- the beliefs, the comforts, the desire for comfort, knowing that there is
an ending, the hope that next life you will continue, and the whole intellectual rationalization of
death- you see that you have separated dying from living…everyday living with all its conflicts,
the miseries, the attachments, the despairs, the anxieties, the violence, the suffering, the tears and
the laughter. Why has the mind separated life from dying? The life that we lead, the everyday life,
the shoddiness of it, the bitterness of it, the emptiness of it, the travail, the routine, the office year
in and year out…all that we call living. The strife, the struggle, the ambition, the corruption, the
fleeting affections and joys and pleasures: that is what we call living. And we say death mustn’t
enter into that field because that is all we know, and death we do not know; therefore keep it
away. So we cling to the known- please watch it in yourself- to the known, to the remembrance of
things past, to memories, to experiences, which are all known and therefore the past. We cling to
the past and that is what we call the known. And the unknown is death. So there is a wide gulf
between the known and the unknown…”9

To understand death, therefore, one must first understand life. And what does one discover when
one contemplates over one’s own everyday existence? Our life consists of a never-ending series
of hopes, desires, efforts, beliefs, projects and experiences. And in their continuation is our own
perpetuation. Death is understood as the end, the culmination of all such hopes, projects and
experiences. For, I cannot imagine myself in their absence. I identify myself with them. I am
them. The passage of my life consists of a continuous accumulation of experience. And my
understanding of myself, my knowledge of myself is born through such experience. Such
knowledge of the self, of the ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘mine’ is perpetuated through one’s life as one gathers
more and more experiences. Therefore, experience is constantly strengthening the self. As
Krishnamurti points out, “consciousness as the ‘me’ is the centre of recognition, and recognition
is merely the process of the accumulation of experience.” Recognition, therefore, as Krishnamurti
observes, is the very basis of experience. This is an all-important point. He explains it thus:

“According to my memories, I react to whatever I see, to whatever I feel. In this process of

reacting to what I see, what I feel, what I know, what I believe, experience is taking place, is it
not? Reaction, response to something seen, is experience. When I see you, I react; the naming of
that reaction is experience. If I do not name that reaction it is not an experience. Watch your own
responses and what is taking place about you. There is no experience unless there is a naming
process going on at the same time. If I do not recognize you, how can I have the experience of
meeting you? It sounds simple and right. Is it not a fact? That is if I do not react according to my
memories, according to my conditioning, my prejudices, how can I know that I have had an
experience?”10

9
Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Living & Dying, KFI, 1992
10
Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First & Last Freedom, KFI, 2006
Therefore, recognition, response and reaction comprise experience. As explained, it is impossible
to have an experience without recognition playing a crucial part in the process. Recognition,
moreover, is rooted in memory. It is possible due to the latter. It is impossible to have an
experience, therefore, without the functioning of memory is some form or the other. This implies,
moreover, that my understanding of myself is mediated through memory, because my self-
identity also arises within experience. In fact it may not be too much to say that the identity of
individual existence is maintained through it. Thought too is a product of memory. Now if my
conception of myself is rooted in memory, then my conception of my own end i.e. my death must
also be understood in its context. Therefore, death, being the end of all experience, implies the
end of memory, the end of the mind and the end of all identification.

If this is so then is it possible to end experience right now? Is it possible to bring the unknown
into the realm of the known, the present and thereby inviting death at our doorstep? Can we cease
thinking of death as an event in the distant future and begin to die right here and right now? If
death implies the end of memory and accumulation of experience, then is it not possible to die at
this very moment? Is it necessary to wait for some day in the future? Is not the division of life as
the known and death as the unknown an artificial one? Can we not become familiar with death
right here and now? Death, as we have come to see, is the end of the ‘I’. Is it not possible to bring
an end to this ‘I’ while still living?

According to Krishnamurti, not only is this possible, but to learn to die is the only true way to
live. Dying, understood in this manner, means dying to one’s identifications, one’s experiences
and one’s thoughts and beliefs by letting go of them all. It means dying to oneself every moment:
“Death means the ending of attachment. Now can I end that attachment immediately- which is
death? So I have brought death into the very moment of living. So there is no fear. When the
mind sees the truth of this- that death is an ending of things you are attached to, whether it is to
the furniture, to your face, to ideals, and so on- you have brought this faraway thing called death
to the immediate action of life, which is the ending of your attachment. So death means a total
renewal- do you understand?- a total renewal of a mind that has been caught in the past…”11

To end all one’s attachments means nothing more than to end one’s identifications with ideals,
with beliefs, objects, habits and with one’s own self-image. And this is what is meant by saying
that one must die to the known, for all of the former is rooted in the past, in memory and therefore
belongs to the field of the known. But how is this possible? How can one die to oneself while one
is still alive? To begin with, one does not really have to do anything because dying is already
built into the very fabric of life. One merely has to recognize the truth of that fact. Moreover, if
one made an effort to die, one would perpetuate the very thing one wants to end i.e. experience.
For to take any course of action, to follow a plan, means to act on the basis of memory,
recognition and accumulation. It means to strengthen the very ‘I’ that we want to end. Instead, the
only possibility that offers itself is what Krishnamurti refers to as “seeing oneself from moment to
moment in the mirror of relationship.”12 This “seeing” could occur in one’s relationships with
anything- objects, people, ideas and feelings. The crucial thing is that one must follow every
thought, feeling and action as it occurs without trying to either alter it or hang on to it:

“To understand that process, there must be the intention to know ‘what is’, to follow every
experience; and to understand ‘what is’ is extremely difficult, because ‘what is’ is never still,
never static, it is always in movement. The ‘what is’ is what you are, not what you would like to

11
Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Living & Dying, KFI, 1992
12
Jiddu Krishnamurti, The First & Last Freedom, KFI, 2006
be; it is not the ideal, because the ideal is fictitious, but it is actually what you are doing, thinking
and feeling from moment to moment.”13

In this passive alertness and watchfulness to every thought and experience, I neither condemn
anything nor identify myself with it. I simply watch myself from moment to moment without the
process of accumulation. Therefore, in continually dying to all accumulation and identification, I
pre-empt the birth of the process that strengthens the ‘I’, a process which is rooted in memory.
Dying, therefore, becomes a continuous activity embedded into the very fabric of living. It
becomes a way of being.

_________________________

Not this, not this…

Brhadaranyaka Upanisad14

We have considered two apparently opposed notions of death- one that considers the self
immortal and the other that prescribes the very opposite- the continuous dying of the self. Infact,
according to the latter, not only is death possible, but something of us is dying every moment.
And to live is to recognize death as the very essence of life. The two notions are representative of
the two age-old philosophical, religious and spiritual traditions of India- Vedanta and Buddhism.
In fact the question of the eternality or impermanence of the self has been the perennial point of
contention between the two. At the same time, such views are not restricted to these two schools
alone but are representative of larger philosophical concerns about the nature of the self. But our
consideration of the problem has made one thing clear- that the two are not as opposed as they
may have been made out to be. And that it may be possible to reconcile the two.

To make it more explicit, according to Vedanta, the self is eternal. According to Buddhism, not
only is the self not eternal but it is non-existent. We may have a sense of self but it is misleading.
In reality there is no such thing. According to their law of dependent origination (Sans: pratitya-
samutpada) nothing whatsoever, including the self, has an independent objective existence.
Everything is born of something and, having been born, will cease to be. Now a resolution of this
conflict is possible if it is discovered that the word ‘self’ has been understood as possessing
entirely different denotations by the holders of the opposing views. Let us see if this is the case.
To kill the self, as Krishnamurti points out, is to kill all identification. It is to end the process of
continuous accumulation through experience, which strengthens the ‘I’ or the ego. This ‘I’ is
nothing but one’s identification with one’s experiences, holding on to that identification and
perpetuating it. At this point it might be worthwhile to consider Hume’s famous denial of a self,
not very different from the Buddhist’s own argument against a self:

“There are some philosophers who imagine we are every moment intimately conscious of what
we call our self; that we feel its existence and its continuance in existence…For my part, when I
enter most intimately into what I call myself I always stumble on some particular perception or
other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at
any time without a perception and never can observe anything but the perception.”15

13
Ibid
14
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, (trans) Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upanisads, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998
15
David Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book I, OUP, 2000
Krishnamurti’s call for a continuous ‘dying to the self’ means precisely the recognition of this
fact- that there is no abiding self. When one actually begins to study oneself moment to moment
in the mirror of relationship, one transcends the process of the creation and perpetuation of the
ego, which is nothing but the centre of accumulation of experience. And one realizes that the self
is only a creation of memory and one’s identification with the experiences rooted in that memory.
And that the creation of self-identity is an artificial process of the mind.

However, the very denial of a self belies the truth of the opposite thesis i.e. its unnegatable
existence. And it hints at the discovery of that other denotation of the word ‘self’ which is spoken
of by Vedanta. How is this possible? Hume’s fundamental error lay in his attempt to search for
the self in the domain of his perceptions, his experiences. However, if the self is the very subject
of experience, then it is absurd to look for it in the domain of the objects, if only objects of
consciousness. Hume’s criticism of the philosopher who claimed that he was conscious of a self
is justified because there really is no such thing. But this is only so because it is impossible to be
“conscious of” a self, since the self is the very subject of consciousness. Even Buddhist criticisms
of the existence of an abiding self center around the failure of finding an abiding substance in any
rigorous self-examination or enquiry. The assumption, in both cases, lies in taking the subject
(Sans: visayi) for a possible object (Sans: visayin) of consciousness. The culminating words of
the dialogue between Yajnavalkya and Maitreyi in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad drive the point
home:

“By what means can one perceive him by means of whom one perceives this whole world? Look-
by what means can one perceive the perceiver?”16

So how is it possible to be “conscious of” that by which one is conscious of everything? How can
it ever be known? Sankara, in his commentary on the above verse, explains that “when one sees
something, through what instrument should know That owing to which all this is known? For that
instrument of knowledge itself falls under the category of objects. The knower may desire to
know, not about itself, but about objects. As fire does not burn itself, so the self does not know
itself, and the knower can have no knowledge of a thing that is not its object. Therefore through
what instrument should one know the knower owing to which this universe is known?”17 The
problem always lies in assuming that the self is some kind of entity, against which we are
continually warned by Vedanta. And since it is not an entity, it is never available for observation
or perception. The tendency to think of the self as an entity, a ‘something’, in fact, to think of
everything in terms of that, may have deeper roots in the substance metaphysics that is so
intrinsic to our habitual modes of thinking. Whatever the reason may be, the Upanisads are
uncompromising in pointing to only one possible method for referring to the ultimate truth about
the self. This is the way of negation (Sans: apavada). “Not this, not this”, says Yajnavalkya in the
Brhadaranyaka Upanisad.

Therefore, it is apparent that when Vedanta speaks of the immortality of the self, it is referring to
that subject which must be presupposed in all experience- the very condition of possibility of any
experience whatsoever. In fact, even the existence of change or impermanence can only be known
on the assumption of something that abides through them. How else is awareness of change even
possible? One needs the changeless to register the change. However, this self must not be
identified with the ego or the ‘I’, which is a product of identification and is itself prone to change.
And here the difference in denotations of the word ‘self’ becomes apparent. The self, spoken of
by Vedanta, does not refer to the identity of individual existence which, as we have seen, is

16
The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, (trans)Patrick Olivelle, The Early Upanisads, Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998
17
Adi Sankaracarya, Brhadaranyaka Bhasya, (trans) Swami Madhavananda, The Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, Advaita Ashrama, 2004
supervenient upon mind and memory. Rather, it attempts to lead the individual away from such
identifications that constitute our ordinary sense of identity towards realizing the self as pure
consciousness alone, as that which is the very ground, the condition of possibility of any
identification or experience. And this is only possible when one learns to die to oneself as well as
to everything else. In the words of Krishnamurti:

“Immortality is not the continuation of the ‘me’. The me and the mine are of time, the result of
action towards an end. So there is no relationship between the me and the mine and that which is
immortal, timeless. We would like to think there is a relationship, but this is an illusion. That
which is immortal cannot be encased in that which is mortal. That which is immeasurable cannot
be caught in the net of time.”18

When one sees the truth of this one not only ends the apparent conflict between death and
immortality, but recognizes that the immortality of the self can only be realized when one has
mastered the art of dying. Wittgenstein may be right after all when he remarked that we never live
to experience death. And to master the art of dying is not to have another experience, but to end
all experience while still living. In the very same remark Wittgenstein continues: “If we take
eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those
who live in the present.”19

18
Jiddu Krishnamurti, On Living & Dying, KFI, 1992
19
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, (trans) DF Pears & BF McGuinness, Routledge, 2004
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