The Encyclopedia of World Religions

38 S atonement

Vedanta took different positions. In any case, they agreed that the atman had three basic characteris tics: sat, chit, and ananda —being, consciousness, and bliss. Ideas about the atman profoundly influenced Hindu teachings about life and death. According to the sage Yajnavalkya, the atman is reborn at death. It takes along with it the fruits of the actions done in this life. This process is known as SAMSARA . According to the B HAGAVAD -G ITA , samsara does not alter the atman: “It is never born; it never dies. It does not, nor has it, nor will it become. Unborn, eternal, perpetual, primal—it is not killed when the body is killed” (2.20). Freeing the atman or purusha from continual rebirth came to be the ultimate goal of some influ ential forms of Hindu religious practice. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) one of the most important theologians of the ancient Christian church Aurelius Augustine was born and raised in North Africa. His mother, Monica, was a staunch Christian, but Augustine did not at first practice C HRISTIANITY . He received an education in rhetoric and taught it in Carthage. Later he moved to Rome and then to Milan, where he held a prominent post as an orator. These skills served him well when he eventually became a spokesperson for Catholic Christianity ( see R OMAN C ATHOLICISM ). In matters of religion, Augustine first inclined to M ANICHAEISM . This religion taught that two opposed forces, light and darkness, created the world when they somehow came into contact. In time, Augustine abandoned Manichaeism and toyed with the ideas of ancient philosophers known as Skeptics. They took a cautious attitude toward the ability of human beings to know things for certain. In Milan, Augustine came under the influence of Bishop Ambrose. From Ambrose he learned the ideas of Plato and Plotinus. Plotinus had taught that the many things of the world had all emanated from “the One.” atonement See SALVATION .

other topics, the Upanishads are particularly inter ested in BRAHMAN , the reality that underlies the world that we perceive, and atman, the reality that underlies the human person. The sages of the Upa nishads wanted to know what the “self” was. They did not have a single answer. Indeed, they did not even use a single word for this self. Sometimes they called it purusha. Nevertheless, the discus sions in the Upanishads laid the foundations on which much later Hindu thought arose. One of the most important discussions took place between a father named Aruni and his son, Svetaketu. It is recorded in the Chandogya Upani shad. Aruni asks Svetaketu to open up a seed-pod from a banyan tree, and then to open up a seed. He asks his son what he sees. Svetaketu answers, “Nothing.” That is the point. The atman, like the essence of life at the heart of the seed, is imper ceptible. Yet from both impressive living beings grow. Similarly, Aruni asks Svetaketu to dissolve salt in water. Svetaketu can no longer see the salt, and he can no longer separate it from the water. The atman resembles salt dissolved in water. It is distinct from a person’s body, senses, mind, and desires, but it pervades them all and cannot be separated from them. The sages of the Upanishads had several ideas of what the atman might be. Some said the sun, others air, others ether, others breath ( see PRANA ). Most important for later thought, some sages iden tified the atman as consciousness. There are, how ever, many kinds of consciousness. Not all of them are atman pure and simple. In waking conscious ness the atman interacts with a world of material objects. In dreaming consciousness it interacts with a world of subtle objects. Deeper than either of these is sleep without dreams. But according to the Mandukya Upanishad deeper still is a fourth, nameless state. That is the atman. In some passages the Upanishads seem to equate the atman—the reality underlying the human person—with the brahman—the real ity underlying the world that we perceive: “This atman is brahman”; “I am brahman”; “All this is indeed brahman”; “You are that.” But other passages seem to disagree. Different schools of