ASHRAMAS AS PERMANENT FORMS OF ASCETICISM

Abstract

The Hindu view of man is that here in the world he is a combination of two principles, the atman and the non-atman, including buddbi, understanding, manas, mind, indriya, sense powers and abamleara, the separative ego-sense. The atman is uncreated arid immortal, cit, which we will render into English as consciousness distinguishing it from the mental intelligence. The supreme Reality in Hinduism is also Atman. A few western writers on Hinduism mistakenly think that according to Hinduism the individual atman and the supremtt Atman are one 'and identical.
It is true that one extreme school in: Hinduism asserts the identity of the individual atman and the absolute Asman, thus rendering the individuality of the unreal in the last analysis. There are
the systems of realistic absolutism, like Kashmir Shaivism or the Shakta branch of Tantra, which believe in the identity of the individual and the universal or supreme Atman without however
pronouncing the former unreal. Individuality is the result of a self-imposed limitation of the Absolute and when the limitation is removed the individual atman realises itself as the Absolute.