Jiva

The individual, embodied self — a working mixture of atman and anatman.

Overview

The jiva is the everyday “I” — the one who eats, sleeps, acts, feels bound, feels free, and goes on from body to body across lives. In Advaita analysis, it is not a third thing alongside atman and anatman; it is the combination of atman (pure consciousness) and anatman (body, mind, subtle body). It is that combination as experienced from the inside, under the conviction that “I am this body-mind.”

When Krishna, in 02-13-15, speaks of the embodied one (dehin) moving from childhood to youth to old age and on to another body, he is describing the jiva. The jivatman that transmigrates is atman plus sukshma-sharira; what is dropped at death is the physical body. Mahavakyas like tat-tvam-asi announce that the jiva, rightly investigated, is none other than brahman.

Related concepts

• atman — the consciousness element in the jiva
• anatman — the not-self element
• sukshma-sharira — what travels with the jiva between lives
• samsara — the jiva’s wandering
• brahman — what the jiva ultimately is

In the Gita

• 02-11-12 — the self that never ceases
• 02-13-15 — the jiva passing through bodies
• 02-16 — the jiva revealed as Brahman

Lecture evidence

• Ep. 3 [~20:00]: Jiva as the mixture of atman and anatma; this is the everyday self that seems to be born and to die.
• Ep. 4 [08:22]: What transmigrates is the jiva — atman plus subtle body; the physical body is discarded.