The Human as Two:

The Final Questions of Soul, Salvation, and the End of All Things
Introductory Studies in World Religions: Comparing Across Time and Clime

“The fact of the matter is that the unity of the subject cannot be understood as one in number.
The subject is not one, but two.” –Emmanuel Levinas, French Jewish philosopher

“There’s someone in my head but it’s not me.” –Pink Floyd

Nueroscientist David Eagleman on Colbert

How might a brain be like a radio?

“I’m not asserting that the brain is like a radio, but I am pointing out that it could be
true. There is nothing in our current science that rules this out.” –D. Eagleman
“This is where the historian of religions steps in. There are, after all, numerous clues
in comparative mystical literature that rule the radio theory in, that suggest that the
human brain is indeed a kind of transmitter or receiver of consciousness, that hint at
the ‘Impossibility’ that the Human is Two.” –J. Kripal

Who are we? What are we?

a) A state of pure consciousness surrounding and interpenetrating a headless walking biped,

as Mr. Harding had it?

b) A created soul destined for damnation or eternal bliss depending on what beliefs one
holds and what church one attends, as Mr. Harding’s family had it?

c) An immortal, joyous Self temporarily playing the part of an ignorant ego in a suffering
body for a time, as Prof. Barnard puts it?

d) A surface ego sitting on top of an indescribable, virtually infinite inner cosmos, as Prof.
Eagleman has it?

e) [An evolved biological robot mistaking its own awareness for something other than the
product of purely material processes, as most modern neuroscience wants to insist?
(from earlier draft)]

f) Or, or . . . what?

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I – (M)o/Other(s)

The ultimate secret of religion is the relationship between the conscious and unconscious, the
voluntary and involuntary in one and the same individual. . . . Man with his ego or
consciousness stands at the brink of a bottomless abyss; that abyss is his own unconscious
being, which seems alien to him and inspires him with a feeling which expresses itself in
words of wonderment such as: What am I? Where have I com from? To what end? And this
feeling that I am nothing without a not-I which is at the same time my own being, is the
religious feeling. But what part of me is I and what part is not-I? –Ludwig Feuerbach

“In the end, we must leave the nature and identity of this Other open and undefined as long
as we are functioning as students and scholars instead of as religious believers or
spiritual teachers.” –Kripal earlier draft of CR

Soul in the World Religions

Is the soul created or uncreated?

Does the soul live once or many times?

What of the soul’s relationship to the body and the material world?

Hinduisms
Samkhya Hinduism—interactive dualism, 2 substances: Parusha (Spirit) and Prakriti (Nature)
buddhi or “intellect” as mirror of Spirit, reflecting pure consciousness into world

Theistic Hinduism—devotion (bhakti) to deity—Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, Shiva,Goddess

Nondual Hinduism—(e.g. Advaita Vedanta; Shankara) Everything is Brahman, the cosmic

essence of all subjects and objects

Two Birds Story from Upanishads “Secret Teachings” 4th-2nd century BCE
Two birds, companions and friends,
nestle on the very same tree.
One of them eats a tasty fig;
the other, not eating, looks on.
In various schools of Hinduism, these two birds are understood to symbolize the two
strata of the human being: the ahamkara or “I-maker,” that is, the social ego who
experiences life, suffers, and dies in the cycle of birth and death; and the grand
Witness or Self (atman), who looks on, undisturbed in its transcendent immortality
and freedom. . . . Whether the relationship of these two birds is one of dualist
separation (as we find in Samkhya), devotion, surrender, and loving communion (as
we find in the theistic traditions), or idealist illusion (as we find in the nondual
tradition) depends on the communities, soul-practices, and texts we are examining.
All of these options are open and alive in Hinduism, and many more.
–see Hinduism tradition summary

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Buddhisms
Buddhist anatma—no soul—Attachment leads to suffering. All things are impermanent. All
things come to an end. Suffering arises when we attach ourselves to things that are
impermanent, that come to an end. And the main thing that falls apart that we attach
ourselves to is, of course, ourselves. Let go of this attachment, let go of the very
notion of self or soul, the Buddha taught, and one might come to know nirvana, the
absolute peace and bliss of no-self. (Kripal, earlier draft)
Theravada Buddhism—soul is like a flame, passed from candle to candle

Later Buddhist schools—Mahayana “Great Vehicle” and Vajrayana “Diamond Vehicle”

We get all sorts of meditation practices and doctrinal claims that look very much like
practices of and claims for a kind of super-soul, cosmic Mind, or,
as the Chinese traditions, have it, a universal Buddha-nature (Kripal, earlier)

Jainisms—the religion of the soul—everything from the human body to insects to plants to
invisible organisms in the wind, water, and fire have souls
kevala-jnana “knowledge of isolation”—individualistic, heroic, or super-heroic: the
Jain soul saves itself on a long, dangerous journey, at the end of which it achieves an
infinite identity that is so immense, so cosmic, and so powerful that it makes any
other “hero” in world literature look banal (Kripal, earlier draft)

Christianities—resurrection of the body and the life of the world to come, or spiritual body of
subtle matter and mystical energy?

Islams—limbo barzakh until Day of Judgment

Sunni = soul everlasting creation, corporeal
Sufi and Shi-a = non-physical angelic soul
Nafs “self” and ruh “breath” – Can divinity be transferred into a human?
rudud “refutations”—two doctrines of the soul were precisely what came to separate
the Muslim from the non-Muslim. God cannot incarnate as a human being, and the
soul does not reincarnate

Some Cool Quotes on the complexities of and interconnections among religions, bodies, minds,
and worlds . . .

“As long as there is a hell in the afterlife, there will be tacit justification for torture chambers
here on earth.” –Jürgen Moltmann, German theologian, from Jesus Christ for Today’s World

“Ethics is the experience of an infinite demand at the heart of my subjectivity, a demand that
undoes me and requires me to do more, not in the name of some sovereign authority, but in
the namelessness of a powerless exposure, a vulnerability, a responsive responsibility, a
humorous self-division.” –Simon Critchley, Infinitely Demanding

"Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said: 'one can't believe impossible things.' 'I
daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it
for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before
breakfast.'" –Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

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