Self and Body

Abstract

welcome the invitation of Eugene Freeman to contribute a paper on the subject of self, giving my own views. have been devoted to comparative philosophy all my life, and am naturally greatly influenced by Indian and Western thought. But should warn both the Indian and Western readers against equating my views in their entirety with any of the past philosophies. It is also not possible to given an exhaustive theory of the self in a paper of the present size. What is noi given here may place my view in ? wrong light and the reader may draw wrong conclusions.1 have already written quite a few papers on the problems of the self, which the reader may well consult. Following the Upanisads, explained the concept of spirit (self) in The Concept of the Spiritual in Indian Thought.2 There tried to show the recognition in Indian thought of the self as the I in its identification with the physical body, life, mind, rational consciousness, and the Unconscious, all of which together can be treated also as the body, in which case what is called psychological in the West will also be part of the body. That the true particular is only the I-consciousness (self), which does not come under a universal or class concept was explained in The Nature of the Individual.3 That the self is the I-consciousness and to isolate it for study from its relations to objects, we have to consider it as freeing itself from them in the three states of waking, dream, and deep sleep was discussed in Die Struktur des Ich-Bewusstseins.4 It was shown that self-consciousness and consciousness of objects are two distinct types of consciousness in The Ex istential and Phenomenological Consciousness in the Philosophy of R?m?nuja.5 That the self is not merely what appears as the I but also comprehends the Unconscious, and that the Unconscious is not merely ab normal as in Freud's psychology but also normal in every one of us was dis cussed in Approaches to the I-consciousness: Its Depths, Normal and Abnormal.6 In Man, Logos, and Philosophy,7 attempted to show that the identity of my empirical I with ultimate Being cannot be realized except through the Logos as Reason or Rational Consciousness and that Reason also has its ontological status?a truth missed or overlooked by many con temporary Western thinkers. In Being: How known and How Expressed,8 attempted to show that at the final depths which can be reached by man's