● Absolute state. Originally, all True Egos were merged with the Absolute and existed in this absolute state. The absolute state means that the True Ego could create anything it desired – manifest any body it wished, experience any state it chose. However, the absolute state did not imply that this True Ego was absolutely mature or wise.
● Movement. At the moment when the True Ego actually performed what it could do by virtue of its absolute state and absolute freedom – when it realized its free state – it automatically became a True Ego possessing motion. This movement occurred within the three primordial dimensions (the three gunas). After completing free movement, the True Ego returned to its original absolute state.
● Three gunas. Guna is translated as rope. The three primordial dimensions and the three gunas are one and the same. Matter and the three gunas are one and the same. Without the influence of the True Ego, all primordial dimensions (the three gunas) were in a state of transparent, silent equilibrium. The dimension in which it was easy to move came to be called the causal. The dimension in which movement was moderate came to be called the astral. The dimension in which it was difficult to move came to be called the manifest. The manifest dimension is structured in such a way that the emergence of physical space and time is possible within it, by the will of the True Ego. The Three Gunas are sattva, tamas, and rajas. Light, sound, and heat. The causal is conditioned by sattva. The astral is conditioned by tamas. The manifest is conditioned by rajas. The Three Gunas and the Absolute are parallel to each other and exist eternally.
● Antimystical force. The True Ego engaged in movement to confirm, affirm, and prove to itself its absolutely free state. This doubt in its own absoluteness is an illusion – and thus, the first step on the path of subsequent descent.
● Accumulated experience. Due to this anti-mystical force, the True Ego increasingly sought to confirm that the original state was the best, the most suitable for itself. For this purpose – to compare one state with another – the True Ego ceased discarding the experience of its free movement immediately after its cessation, as it had done before. Instead, it began to accumulate the experience of its movements.
● Motivation. By comparing various experiences to understand what suited it and what did not, the True Ego established criteria for evaluating experience. The criterion of evaluation became habit: that which in past accumulated experience led back to the original state of happiness, joy, and freedom became the standard for assessing new experience.
● Elements of the spirit. To maintain adequacy between experience and space, the True Ego formed the causal body – an external causal object identical to itself – and merged with, identified itself with, this external object. The True Ego began to think: “This is not an external object – this is I myself”. With repeated occurrence of this experience, the True Ego became bound by this obscuration. This moment can be regarded as the emergence of the spirit. The spirit can also be understood as the totality of the True Ego, anti-mystical force, accumulated experience, motivation, and causal body. The spirit, as a causal body, appears as a concentrated cluster of light.
● Elements of the soul. In order to understand more deeply, see more clearly, distinguish more precisely, and firmly retain what was seen and understood, the spirit formed the astral body (in some sources: the “subtle body”, “etheric body”, or a particular variant of “form” or “external appearance”) – an external astral object identical to the spirit – and merged with, identified itself with, this external object. The True Ego began to think: “This is not an external object – this is I myself”. With repeated occurrence of this experience, the True Ego became bound by this obscuration. This moment can be regarded as the emergence of the soul. The soul, as an astral body, appears as a blurred reflection in a mirror – without a physical form.
● Elements of sensations. To perceive all other external objects, the soul formed primary, elementary sense organs: the capacity to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and sense motion.
● Consciousness. To better understand what the sense organs perceive, and to synthesize various sensations into a unified whole, the soul acquired the ability to form images and to think in terms of these images.
● Touch. Contact. The meeting of sense organs with external objects. These external objects were created by the same soul, as well as by other souls. The three gunas serve as the building material for forming external objects.
● Sensation. As a result of contact between sense organs and external objects, the soul receives sensations. Sensations may vary in intensity (strong or weak) and valence (pleasant or unpleasant).
● Perception. The integration of individual sensations into a unified image.
● Feeling. The evaluation of the image formed through perception. The criterion for evaluation is what was established at the stage of motivation. Thus, when details of past and new experience coincide, an illusion arises of approaching the original absolute state of the True Ego – and the new experience, new sensations, and new images are also evaluated as pleasant.
● Thirst. Craving. Pleasant experience inevitably leads to a strong desire to repeat it – to passion.
● Attachment. "Clinging". Strong attachment both to objects of pleasant feelings and to one’s own internal factors associated with them. For example, clinging to memories of a beloved person.
● Appropriation. Possession. Holding onto objects of craving, objects of pleasant feelings and thoughts, close to oneself.
● Formation of existence. Becoming. The creation of a physical body.
● Internalization. An external object (object of attachment) crosses the boundary between outer and inner, becoming part of the physical body and forming internal metabolism – thus becoming part of metabolism. This creates an inner need for the external, the similar. For example, internal alcohol present in the blood creates a need for more external alcohol.
● Birth. If internalization is not interrupted, the further development of the process leads the soul to form increasingly coarser, more inert bodies. Eventually, the soul finds itself in a human body within this phenomenal world. At the moment of birth, the True Ego forgets what occurred before – and due to this, a mistaken view arises: “This body is I”. Repeated cycles of birth reinforce this obscuration. Understanding this stage as a single event is erroneous. It must be understood as the soul’s descent into a state of continuous birth and death, continuous rebirth – an experience of infinite previous births.
● Suffering. If a person is born, death is inevitable. If the soul, through will and correct thinking, interrupts any element of this chain, the process of conditionally forming existence ceases.
The Buddhist teaching on the Twelve Stages (links, conditions) of the arising of samsara (the Twelve Nidana Chain, or the Twelvefold Formula of Existence) and the above described procedure of the soul's arising are one and the same. The assertion that the process of forming the conditions of arising exists permanently and immanently is correct. The claim that the last link in the process of forming the conditions of arising leads back to the first link is a misconception, an error, a confusion. In reality, the last link of arising leads to the first link of liberation: to faith.
The commonly held belief among Buddhologists that Buddhism denies the existence of the soul is mistaken. Buddhism does not deny the existence of the soul itself, but only the Christian approach to understanding its properties and meanings. Buddhism teaches that one should abandon any sense of I. However, this does not mean at all that the sense of I supposedly does not exist, or that the I itself supposedly does not exist. Yes, the Buddha says in one place: If, Ananda, when asked by the wanderer Vacchagotta, Does the I exist?, I were to answer The I exists, would such an answer be consistent with my knowledge that all phenomena are impersonal? Yes, this text indicates that the Buddha has a spiritual level at which all internal phenomena are detached from his personality. However, on the other hand, it is not possible to interpret this text as meaning that the Buddha, inwardly, tacitly, and specifically for his disciple Ananda, gives an outright negative answer about the existence of the I. This was not stated in the text. It is unacceptable to stretch the meaning of this text to such an interpretation by syntagma, one hundred percent.
Nowhere in the Buddhist sutras is it said that the atman does not exist. Yes, in one of the sutras the Buddha gives this admonition: that the affirmation The atman exists eternally is not recommended for monks to practise. But a discussion about affirmation cannot be interpreted as a discussion about ontology.
The Buddha set a vector: Everything that is changeable is not I; liberation lies through the erasing of egocentrism. Based on this, some followers who call themselves supposedly true Buddhists, or supposedly true Theravada Buddhists, have simply logically and practically extended this vector to the absolute: since the atman is nowhere to be found in experience, it is most effective for practice to assume that it does not exist at all.
Buddhism does not recognise the Absolute as a Creator God (Ishvara or Brahman). But Buddhism has its own Absolute – it is Nirvana (the unconditioned state of freedom) and Vajrakaya (the Absolute Body of Truth). This is not a super soul , but the very nature of reality, purified of illusions. The Buddha seed (Tathagatagarbha / Buddha nature) is a crucial concept in Mahayana Buddhism. It is important to understand: this is NOT an individual soul dwelling in the body. Buddha nature is the fundamental potential of every living being to become enlightened. It is not an eternal spark that belongs to you personally. It is a metaphor for the purity of mind. Like gold hidden in mud, or the sun behind the clouds – the clouds (ego, thoughts, passions) are temporary, while the clear sky (Buddha nature) is always present. In later Mahayana texts (for example, in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra), Buddhist masters took an even bolder step. To explain to ordinary people what Buddha nature is, they used the word atman , but in a completely new sense: Buddha nature is the True Atman (Mahatman), because it is unchanging. But this Atman has nothing to do with the selfish I of a person. At the most fundamental level, the I and Buddha nature are one and the same. There is nothing other inside us. There is no separate dirty ego that must be physically destroyed, and no separate holy Buddha that must be brought in from outside. The very living spark that is right now reading this text and recognising itself as I – this is the starting point. The entire fabric of reality is woven from this one thread – pure awareness. Apart from this living presence, there is nothing else for all beings. The difference is not in substance, but in state. Mahayana Buddhism explains this through the metaphor of a golden statue covered in mud: the ordinary I is gold that has become completely entangled in its own mud. It has identified itself with thoughts, fears, name, social status, and body. It has narrowed itself to the size of a small, frightened ego that is forced to defend itself from the outside world. Buddha nature is the same gold, but purified and having realised its true, boundless nature. When the ordinary I says I am Buddha nature! , a dangerous mental substitution often occurs. A person begins to think that their habitual whims, their selfish desires, and their limited personality are the Absolute. But the point is that Buddha nature is not our personality, but our pure, unconditioned Consciousness, which exists BEFORE any thoughts about personality.
Nowhere in the Buddhist sutras is it said that at the moment of physical death the I, or personality, or soul is discarded or disappears. Phrases such as The logic of the sutras is this: for some essence (soul or I) to disappear or be discarded at the moment of death, it must first exist during life are precisely a classic commentarial argument (in the style of Abhidharma or Nagarjuna) that attempts to retroactively provide a logical justification for what the Buddha himself remained silent about in the sutras. In the early sutras themselves (the Pali Canon), there is no text that says: The soul cannot disappear at death because it did not exist during life. If we return to the strict letter of the sutras and remove all later philosophical superstructures, we will discover an astonishing thing: the Buddha fundamentally refused to answer the question of what happens to the I or personality at the moment of death. When you look into your most ordinary I as deeply as possible. If you concentrate on your I and try to see it, then you will indeed, in accordance with the Buddhas thought, discover the following: your I appears as a point in the inner plane that has no dimensionality and no modality. And at the same time, this point is the centre of both the inner and outer universe. And at the same time, it is indeed possible to attach the body to this point, or not to attach it. You can attach consciousness, or not. You can attach emotions, or not. You can attach thoughts, or not. And yet, clearly, liberating this point from any or all possible attachments does not lead to the point supposedly disappearing. And the most important modality of this point is that it catastrophically fears to cease its existence. It fears to die, and does everything to avoid dying. It is ready to go to absolutely any lengths just to not die. For this very reason, the reasoning of Buddhologists that from the absence of modality follows absence is erroneous. From the absence of geometric dimensionality of a point does not follow, as a consequence, its absence.
In fact, the most ordinary I and the Buddha seed are one and the same. Nothing else exists apart from the I that every soul has absolutely, and which is absolutely the same in all souls.
In modern academic science–psychology, sociology, and linguistics–there is a deeply entrenched dogma that the human "Self" is exclusively a product of socialization. Positivist scientists have naively equated the moment a child masters the personal pronoun "I" with the birth of that Self. From a materialistic standpoint, until society provides a human being with language, culture, and the mirror of social relations, no "Self" exists within them.
This is a fundamental misconception. Science commits a gross methodological error by confusing the tool used to perceive an object with the objective existence of the object itself.
The sun does not come into being the moment humanity invents the concept of "the sun." The sun exists as an objective reality prior to any sign or name. In the exact same way, the deep human "Self"–the True Subject, the Witness, the Center of Presence–is inherently predetermined in a human being from the very beginning. It is ontologically primary.
The Substitution of Concepts: The Real "Self" vs. Social Biography
To maintain its materialistic worldview, mainstream science resorts to a trick. It divides the psyche into a "biological proto-Self" (proprioception, body schema, animal instincts) and a "real, higher Self" (the social, narrative self). It then claims that what is given by nature is merely physiology, and that only society makes you a person and a human being.
This is where the ultimate spiritual deception lies. Science applies the word "Self" to the Autobiographical Self (Narrative Self)–that is, a social mask, a story about oneself, a conglomerate of habits, roles, titles, and externally imposed values. But none of this is the "Self." This is the Personality.
The Personality is indeed constructed by society (including the society of a past life). It is fluid, multiple, and conditioned. But the Personality is merely the clothing worn by the True Subject, or the cargo carried by the Ship. Equating the Observer with what it observes–with one's social roles–is a sign of spiritual blindness.
Three Arguments Against the Theories of the Dictate of Socialization
For a spiritual practitioner, it is vital to clearly see the invalidity of scientific dogmas. Our True "Self" does not owe its existence to society for three reasons:
1. Essence Precedes the Sign. Even materialistic science itself acknowledges the presence of a pre-verbal "Self" in infants (the sense of agency, body boundaries). The fact that a hypothetical feral child–a Mowgli raised outside of society–cannot talk about themselves in human language does not mean there is no center of perception inside them. Their "Self" is present as a pure fact of being, a point where sensory signals converge. Society does not create this center out of nothing; it merely provides it with a mirror and a language.
2. Language Is an Instrument of Fixation, Not a Creator of Reality. When a child begins to say "I" instead of "Niko wants to play," what occurs is not the birth of the Subject, but its formatting. Language allows the "Self" to conceptualize itself for the convenience of social interaction. However, the source of consciousness existed in the body long before the first spoken word. A telescope does not create a planet; it merely makes it visible.
3. The Continuity of Consciousness. Social roles (personalities) can collapse, change, or be completely erased by amnesia. A person can forget their name, status, and their entire biography received from society. Yet, through all of this, the deep sense of presence–the pure "I AM"–remains unchanged. This proves that the Subject is autonomous and does not depend on social constructs.
Conclusion for the Practitioner:
Materialistic science attempts to convince a human being that they are merely a consequence of external causes, a product of a factory called "society." This deprives an individual of true grounding. By understanding that your fundamental "Self" precedes any socialization, any word, and any opinion about you, you reclaim your status as the True Subject. Society did not create your "Self"–it merely gave it a name. But He Who bears this name has always remained, and remains, free.
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