[Advaita-l] Cotard Syndrome and Brahman Realisation

[Rajaram Venkataramani]

On Tuesday, June 5, 2012, Vidyasankar Sundaresan wrote:
>
>
> b. our SAstra-s do not teach that the mind is completely different from
> matter. They
>    tend to identify it with the heart, whereas neuroscientists focus on
> the brain, but
>    the fact remains that the SAstra-s actually agree with modern science
> in saying that
>    the mind is material. This is unlike a lot of old Western thinking on
> the mind, which
>    has got supplanted by modern scientific thinking about it; and


On death, does the mind go to the next body as per our sastras?

>
> c. those with neuropathologies, who believe things such as, "THIS is not
> me", usually
>   substitute other beliefs to the effect, "THAT is me". In other words,
> there is some
>   other "this" defining the "me". They rarely, if ever, come to the point
> where they
>   reject all attempts at defining the real "me". This is drastically
> different from what
>   advaita says about the realization ahaM brahmAsmi.
>
> In neuropathologies involving nihilism delusion such as Cotard's syndrome,
> the patient does not report a positive identification with any thing. In
> the interview, the patient says the body is dead. He has no aspiration in
> life as you would expect from one who thinks I am so and so.