HUMAN PERSON AS AN

EMBODIED SPIRIT
A. HINDUISM

• BRAHMAN IS SELFHOOD
At the heart of Hinduism lies the idea of human beings’
quest for absolute truth, so that one’s soul and the
Brahman or Atman (Absolute Soul) might become one.

• For the Indians, God first created sound and the universe
arose form it.

• Human beings have a dual nature: one is the spiritual

(soul) and empirical life (character).
A. HINDUISM

• Humanity’s life is a continuous cycle (samsara).

• Hinduism holds that a person’s soul passes into some

other creature, human or animal.

• Humanity’s basic goal in life is the liberation (moksha) of

spirit (jiva).

• Human beings have a dual nature: one is the spiritual

(soul) and empirical life (character).
A. HINDUISM

• Humanity’s life is a continuous cycle (samsara).

• Hinduism holds that a person’s soul passes into some

other creature, human or animal.

• Humanity’s basic goal in life is the liberation (moksha) of

spirit (jiva).

• Human beings have a dual nature: one is the spiritual

(soul) and empirical life (character).
A. HINDUISM

• Ultimate liberation is achieved the moment the

individual attains the stage of life emancipation.

• Moksha (liberation) is an enlightened state wherein one

attains one’s true selfhood and finds oneself one with
the One, the Ultimate Reality, the All-Comprehensive
Reality: Brahman.

• Ultimate moksha leads the spirit out of the monotonous

cycle of life and death to a state of nothingness.
A. HINDUISM

• The Hindu view of humanity’s reality places a lot of

emphasis on the attainment of self-knowledge.

• True knowledge (vidya) consists an understanding and

realization of the individual’s real self (atman) as
opposed to lower knowledge that is limited to an
interpretation of reality based on the data offered by
sense experience.

• By seriously understanding oneself, karma can be pointed

toward moral progress and perfection.
A. HINDUISM

• One common to all expressions of Hinduism is the

oneness of reality.

• Four Primary Values:

1. Wealth
2. Pleasure
3. Duty
4. Enlightenment
B. BUDDHISM

• Founded by Siddhartha Gautama or the Buddha

• Gautama began searching for answers to the riddle of

life’s sufferings, disease, old age, and death.

• While resting and meditating in a grove of trees, he

came to a clear realization that the solution lays in his
own mind.
B. BUDDHISM

• Gautama devoted his life in sharing his “Dharma” or Law

of Salvation – a simple presentation of the gospel of inner
cultivation of right spiritual attitudes.

• The teaching of Buddha has been set forth traditionally

in the “Four Noble Truths” leading to the “Eightfold
Path” to perfect character or arhatship.
B. BUDDHISM

• Four Noble Truths

1. life is full of suffering;
2. suffering is caused by passionate desires, lusts
and cravings;
3. only as these are obliterated, will suffering cease;
4. such eradication of desire may be accomplished
only by following the Eightfold Path of earnest
endeavor.
B. BUDDHISM

• Eightfold Path
1. right belief in and acceptance of the “Fourfold
Path”;
2. right aspiration for one’s self and for others;
3. right speech harms no one;
4. right conduct, motivated by goodwill toward all
human beings;
B. BUDDHISM

• Eightfold Path
5. right means of livelihood, or earning one’s living
by honorable means;
6. right endeavor, or effort to direct one’s energies
toward wise ends;
7. right mindfulness in choosing topics for thoughts;
8. right meditation, or concentration to the point of
complete absorption in mystic ecstasy
B. BUDDHISM

• For Velasquez, Items 1 & 2 enjoin us to develop wisdom,

items 3-5 urge us to practice virtue and avoid vice, and
items 6-8 tell us to practice meditation.

• We do this to essentially by following three short axioms:

cease to devil, learn to do good and purify your own
mind.

• The way to Nirvana (enlightened wisdom) lies through

rigid discipline of mind and body & love for all creatures.
B. BUDDHISM

• Buddha was succeded by an Order of monks and nuns

called “Songha”.
• Some of the added teachings:
1. Refrain from destroying life;
2. Refrain from taking what is nor given;
3. Refrain from a misuse of the senses;
4. Refrain from wrong speech;
5. Refrain from taking drugs or drinks that tend to
cloud the mind.
Based on the eightfold path,
which is most important for
you to cultivate in your life at
present?