Sri Aurobindo
Letters of Sri Aurobindo
Volume I - Part 1
Fragment ID: 9852
The word Jiva has two meanings in the Sanskritic tongues – “living creature”1 and the spirit individualised and upholding the living being in its evolution from birth to birth. In the latter sense the full term is Jivatma – the Atman, spirit or eternal self of the living being. It is spoken of figuratively by the Gita as “an eternal portion of the Divine” – but the word fragmentation (used by you) is too strong, it could be applicable to the forms, but not to the spirit in them. Moreover the multiple Divine is an eternal reality antecedent to the creation here. An elaborate description of the Jivatma would be: “the multiple Divine manifested here as the individualised self or spirit of the created being”. The Jivatma in its essence does not change or evolve, its essence stands above the personal evolution; within the evolution itself it is represented by the evolving psychic being which supports all the rest of the nature.
The Adwaita Vedanta (Monism) declares that the Jiva has no real existence, as the Divine is indivisible. Another school attributes a real but not an independent existence to the Jiva – it is, they say, one in essence, different in manifestation, and as the manifestation is real, eternal and not an illusion, it cannot be called unreal. The dualistic schools affirm the Jiva as an independent category or stand on the triplicity of God, soul and Nature.
1 In Bengal when one is about to kill a small animal, people often protest saying, “Don’t kill – it is Krishna’s Jiva (his living creature).”