1. Introduction 2. Characteristics of Man 3

1. Introduction 2. Characteristics of Man 3. Dualism – explaination/problems 4. Category mistake – ‘I can’ action, dynamic concept 5. Origin of the Self 6. Stages of the Self 7. Destiny of the Self

Introduction

Thank you.

My interpretation of Iqbal’s concept of the self. Part of this is a presentation of Iqbal’s view, and part of it is my own critique of Iqbal and my own attempt to place Iqbal’s thought in the context of Islamic history and also modern science.

The project that Iqbal undertakes, by placing the self at the center of his philosophy, is really unusual in the history of Muslim intellectual thought. In doing so he takes the liberty of critiquing some very influential and well respected thinkers in Islamic history. He urges the modern Muslim thinker to reexamine Islamic intellectual history based upon the current state of knowledge. He writes,

P. 78 Iqbal: The task before the modern Muslim is, therefore, immense. He has to rethink the whole system of Islam without completely breaking with the past….

The only course open to us is to approach modern knowledge with a respectful but independent attitude and to appreciate the teachings of Islam in the light of that knowledge, even though we may be led to differ from those who have gone before us.”

He proposes to this with the current topic which Iqbal thinks has not been seriously dealth with in Islamic history. He writes, “It is surprising that the unity of human consciousness which constitutes the centre of human personality never really became a point of interest in the history of Muslim thought.” (p. 77, Reconstruction).

Islamic theology was primarily concerned with Divine and not Human attributes. The only area within Islam which focused on the self was Sufism. But this was largely done outside the academy. He writes,

“Devotional Sufism alone tried to understand the meaning of the unity of inner experience which the Qur’an declares to be one of the three sources of knowledge.” (p. 77). Within Sufism, Iqbal thinks it has been misunderstood due to certain pantheistic and fatalistic tendencies in certain types of Sufism. However, he does draw inspiration from certain forms of what he calls higher Sufism, particularly the thought of Jaluludin Rumi as we shall see later. In so far as Islamic thought has engaged with the self it has done so in a dualistic perspective. Iqbal critiques the way the soul-body problem has been dealt with in Islamic thought, particularly the type of dualistic approach which has been applied to it.

He thinks this approach is not true to the spirit of the Quranic revelation or the Islamic concept of man. Furthermore, although well-intentioned it has had many unintended damaging consequences on Islamic civilization.

I will argue that according to Iqbal, we make a category mistake when a particular dualistic approach is applied to the soul, and that soul-body dualism is not necessary, there are other ways of looking at the issue, and I will present Iqbal’s concept which is much more intuitive and natural. I will outline Iqbal’s concept of man, its origin, its stages and its destiny. Iqbal’s concept which is based upon real human experience and not something that is mysterious. In fact, there is an echo of certain modern thinkers like Daniel Dennett in Iqbal’s thought. As we will see escaping dualism also makes it easier to deal with some of the modern scientific challenges which have been posed to this issue. I think you will also find that Iqbal’s formulation is also much truer to the Islamic spirit as it has come to be understood over the centuries, unfortunately Islamic intellectual thought has lagged behind in this field.

Self/Soul/Ego words used interchangeably by Iqbal.

Iqbal’s Attack

Iqbal will attack a particular dualistic tendency in Islamic thought, which he thinks has essentially had the affect of downgrading/diminishing the status/potential of man. Part of his motivation had to with the sociopolitical situation in which Iqbal found himself, in the last days of colonization, trying to breath some energy into the Muslim world, and the other part is Iqbal having to deal with challenges posed to the Islamic worldview from Western science and philosophy. So there is a real deep philosophical and theological critique of Islamic thought in which Iqbal engages in.

The Islamic theologians spent a lot of time and energy securing the essential charactristics of God. This formed the basis of the Asharite movement, and played a large role in Ghazali’s engagement with philosophy. This school wanted to secure for God the characteristics of Divine Free Will and Divine Omnipotence. This they were able to do. However, Iqbal complains that although they failed to fully account for the Islamic or Quranic conception of man. And therefore, failed to fully develop an authentic Islamic theory of the self which is true to our own experience of ourselves. - -

Characteristics of Man

So lets begins by defining the essential characteristics of man according to Iqbal as found in the Quran. Whereas, Muslim theologians spent a lot of time trying to secure attributes of God such as omnipotence and Divine free will, Iqbal proposes to do the equivalent for man. He identifies three essential characteristics of man.

1. Man is the chosen of God. This is evident in the following Quranic verse: ‘Afterwards his Lord chose him [Adam] for himself and turned towards, him, and guided him, (20:122).

2. Man is meant to be the representative of God on earth, as witnessed in the following verse: ‘When thy Lord said to the angels, "Verily I am about to place one in my stead on Earth", they said, ‘Wilt Thou place there one who will do ill therein and shed blood, when we celebrate Thy praise and extol Thy holiness?’ God said, "Verily I know what you know not", (2:30). ‘And it is He Who hath made you His representatives on the Earth, and hath raised some of you above others by various grades, that He may prove you by His gifts’ (6:165). 3. Man is the trustee of a free personality, which he accepted at his peril. This for Iqbal is the most important point: ‘Verily We proposed to the Heavens, and to the Earth, and to the mountains to receive the "trust", but they refused the burden and they feared to receive it. Man undertook to bear it, but hath proved unjust, senseless!’ (33:72).

And say: The truth is from your Lord: Let him, then, who will, believe: and let him who will, be an unbeliever’ (18:29).

If ye do well to your own behalf will ye do well: and if ye do evil against yourselves will ye do it (17:7).

Man responsible for his own actions, which he chooses at his own free will. Free will is a unique quality of the ego, which no other creation has. The ego thus has characteristics, which only one other being has, namely God. Iqbal writes, “The ego shares in the life and freedom of the Ultimate Ego who, by permitting the emergence of a finite ego, capable of private initiative, has limited this freedom of His own free will.”

Side points: 1. It is also important to note that Iqbal’s view is in no way pantheistic, in fact he criticizes, as we shall see pantheistic tendencies in Sufism, and although he argues against a dualism in man, he insists upon dualism between man and God. 2. Free Will vs. Predestination: wrong way of looking at it: Quran Says, “God created all things and assigned to each its destiny.”(87:2-3,25:2, 54:49) The destiny of a thing then is not an unrelenting fate working from without like a task master; it is the inward reach of a thing, its realizable possibilities which like within the depths of its nature, and serially actualize themselves without any feeling of external compulsion.”

So for Iqbal, our concept of the self must preserve human free will, and it must be a concept which explains the entire human experience. The human experience is a dynamic and develops and changes over time due to human choices. It cannot be a static and inaccessible concept removed from the real world, which is unfortunately the way it has come to be viewed. Here, Iqbal has in mind Ghazali – who because of his enormous influence – comes to define Islamic orthodoxy.

Let us therefore review the concept of the soul and the self in the thought of Ghazali, so we can better understand how this concept evolved in Islam and where it went wrong.

Iqbal, “To the Muslim school of theology of which Ghazali is the chief exponent [presumably Asharites], the ego is a simple, indivisible, and immutable soul-substance, entirely different from the group of our mental states and unaffected by the passage of time…..” (p. 80 Recon)

According to this view, the soul is immaterial, indivisible, immortal and unchanging. Furthermore this soul is in fact the essence of man. The soul defined in this school had to be immaterial so it could be separated from the body. It had to be indivisible so it could not be destroyed, it had to be immortal so it could continue its life after the body died, and it had to be unchanging so that it could act as the anchor for personal identity. All of this was accomplished by creating the concept of the soul as a “substance.” Yet the Muslim thinkers were left with the dilemma of how to connect this metaphysical substance with the physical substance of the body which is an essential concept in Islam.

To emphasis this conception let’s look at the thought of Ghazali in his own words and by those of his school of thought. Dr. Naquib Al-Attas is one of the most well respected Ghazali scholars in the world today he is the founding director of the ISTAC in Malaysia, and I had the honor of meeting and studying with him briefly several years ago. In explaining the concept of the soul he writes,

Man has a dual nature, he is both body and soul, he is at once physical being and spirit. (Attas, 143) An indivisible, identical entity, a spiritual substance which is the reality or very essence of man (Attas 148)

The intellect is essentially a spiritual substance; it is non-material and separate from matter and only its act is connected with matter (Attas, 163)

The soul governs the body; the human soul, through independent of the body, yet requires the body in this physical world in order to acquire prinicpels of ideas and beliefs. (Attas 165).

Ghazali himself says, p. 6: “The second meaning of the ‘heart’ is a subtle tenous substance’ of an ethereal spiritual sort, which is connected with the physical heart. This subtle tenous substance is the real essence of man.

Elsewhere he say, p. 8, “the sutble tenous substance that we have mentioned, which is, in reality, man.”

The corporeal heart, the corporeal spirit,the appetitive soul, and intelligence: fifth meaning subtle tenous substance in man that knows and perceives.

So we find according to this view that the essence of what it is to be a human seems to be essentially separated from the physical world and it largely a static concept related to a soul- substance.

So where does this idea come from?

The best I can tell this concept originates with Ibn Sina and his floating man thought experiment. He asks his readers to imagine themselves suspended in air and isolated from all sensation without even sensory contact with their own bodies. He says the fact that we can imagine ourselves in this situation maintaining self-consiousness independently from the body implies that the idea of the self is not dependent on a physical thing. The soul therefore should be considered a primary given or a substance.

The type of dualism Ibn Sina introduces here is slightly more radical than that of Aristotle who regared the soul as the form of the body, but Ibn Sina goes further and refers to it as a substance. Deborah Black: p. 309-310: writes, “Ibn Sina does not reject the Aristotelian conception of the soul outright, but he upholds a form of soul-body dualism that is foreign to Aristotle. …[she continues] … For Avicenna, the individual human soul is more than a physican entity and organzing principle for the body. It is a subsistent being in its own right, and a complete substance independent of any relation it has to the body.”

Ofcourse, some of you may be familiar with Cartesian Dualism, and Ibn Sina’s experiment can be considered a precursor to that. However, there is an important difference. Ibn Sina’s dualism is not as radical as that of Rene Descartes. Descartes thought experiment, to summarize, was to ask, if I were to doubt everything what is it that I know for sure? He says I can imagine the world not existing, and I can even imagine my body not existing, and I can even imagine my experiences being an illusion because I might be dreaming for example. But what I cannot doubt is the fact that there is such a thing as an “I” which exists which is the subject of these experiences, and this “I” is not a physical concept it is metaphysical.

But Ibn Sina’s floating man is not such a radical thought experiment. He is not doubting the existence of the world or even of the body, these are a given and required concepts which we already know in Islam. Ibn Sina is only using the thought experiment as a way of securing for humanity an existence which is more than mere physical matter. Despite his dualism, however, Ibn Sina recognizes close ties between soul and body. He thinks of the body as an instrument of the Soul. He refers to it as a perfection of the body, or a captain of a ship or ruler of a city. In other words, he is still trying to maintain a link between the body and the soul. A link he ultimately cannot explain.

Now back to Ghazali: Although it seems Ghazali is subscribing to this type of dualism by referring to the soul as a subtle tenous substance, in fact there is more to the story that this. Even though he refers to the soul as a substance, he doesn’t seem convinced that it is completely independent.

Jules Jenssen, one of the foremost authorities on Ibn Sina in the world today writes,

Whereas Ibn Sina justifies a sharp dualism between soul and body, this is far from the case in al- Ghazali. Indeed, he insists on the existence of a very special connection between the “subtle” heart and the “physical” heart. Referring to Sahl al-Tustari (d. 896) and his saying that the heart is the throne and the best the footstool, he points out that the relationship between them can be compared to that between God and His throne and footstool. However, al-ghazali remains rather vague and admits that he consciously avoid offering any deeper explanation. In fact, he neither denies nor affirms a radical dualism between body and soul. His designation of the “subtle intellect” as a particular expression for the seat of knowledge is of no real help in clarifying the issue. As to the sutble notion of “spirit’, al-Ghazali says nothing about it, except that it belongs to the “Lordly things,” offering no clear explanation whatsoever.

In Ghazali’s famous text the Incoherence of the Philosophers, it seems Ghazali himself does not believe that this type of soul-substance makes sense: The title of Discussion 18 is as follows:

On their inability to sustain a rational demonstration [proving] that the human soul is a self-subsistent spiritual substance that does not occupy space; that its neighter body nor imprinted in the body; that it is neither connected nor disconnected with the body, just as God is neither outside nor inside the world, the same being the case with the angels, according to them.

But it turns out that Ghazali still believes in the concept of the soul as a self-subsistent spiritual substance but he claims to gets this knowledge from revelation not from logic. He writes, “There is nothing in what they have mentioned that must be denied in terms of the religious law. For these are observed matters which God has ordained to flow according to habit.

We only want now to object to their claim of their knowing through rational demonstrations that the soul is a self-subsistent substance. We do not offer against [their claim] the objection of one who deems this remote from God’s power or who perceives that the religious law has brought forth what is contrary to it. Indeed, we may well show in detailing the explanation of the resurrection and the afterlife that the law gives credence to it. We deny, however, their claim that reason alone indicates this and that there is no need in it for the religious law.” (discussion 18: 185-186)

-But in so far as I can tell, he gives no definite proof that revelation requires belief in such a self- subsistent substance, although it clearly requires belief in the afterlife and resurrection. In the end Ghazali seems to be simply accepting Ibn Sina’s explanation here, and is only concerned about making room for revelation. We see a similar attitude from Ghazali when it comes to other issues in philosophy such as causation etc.

-In anycase, for our purposes, in the Ihya which is Ghazali’s public record of belief he maintains belief in a “subtle tenuous substance” as being the essence of man. In Iqbal’s words, “To the Muslim school of theology of which Ghazali is the chief exponent [presumably Asharites], the ego is a simple, indivisible, and immutable soul-substance, entirely different from the group of our mental states and unaffected by the passage of time…..” (p. 80 Recon)

A form of this dualistic soul picture becomes part of mainstream Islamic theology. But this happens not because there is an intrinsic Islamic basis for it but rather because it is a convenient tool in scholastic theology to deal with certain problems posed by science and philosophy.

We have talked about some issues with this concept of the soul from a religious perspective, but lets look specifically as some additional philosophical problems which Iqbal identifies and also some scientific problems. According to Iqbal Ghazali’s view of the self “serves neither psychological nor metaphysical interest.”

1. The static view of substance does not serve any psychological interest. (p. 81). We do not think of elements of our conscious experience as qualities of a soul-substance. Iqbal writes, “Our conscious experience can give us no clue to the ego regarded as soul-substance, for by hypothesis the soul-substance does not reveal itself in experience.” In Iqbal’s view our conscious experience is exactly what makes up our self. 2. He points to Immanuel Kant’s critique of the Cartesian dualism: Kant argues that the jump from Descartes “I think” to “I am a substance” is illegitimate and carries no proof. 3. Concept of soul as Indivisible does not prove indestructibility 4. If the soul-substance is considered metaphysical then there a whole host of other problems in trying to explain how it would interact with the physical body and how the connection actually works, two of the major ones are parallelism or interaction and neither is satisfactory.

-Furthermore in contemporary science, there are new challenges being posed to this type of conception of the self in which who we are is a metaphysical soul and are separated from the body. In neuroscience we know that Consciousness is closely connected with central nervous system, we know for example that certain brain damage affects consciousness. Furthermore with advanced brain imaging such as functional MRI we can detect thoughts and decisions in the brain even before we become conscious of them!

Daniel Dennett, one of the most celebrated critics of the soul and proponent of an evolutionary explaination of the self write, Freedom Evolves 1

One widespread tradition has it that we human beings are responsible agents, captians of our fate, because what we really are souls, immaterial and immortal clumps of Godstuff that inhabit and control our material bodies rather like spectral puppeteers. It is our souls, that are the source of al meaning, and the locus of all our suffering, our joy, our glory and shame. But this idea of immaterial souls, capable of defying the laws of physics, has outlived its credibility thanks to the advance of the natural sciences. Many people think that the implications of this are dreadful: We don’t really have “free will” and nothing really matters. The aim of this book is to show why they are wrong.

-So we have a problem, and I think what Iqbal is saying is that we are making a category mistake when it comes to the concept of the soul. Just because the body is a substance does not mean the soul has to be also. This argument has also been put for by the philosopher Gilbert Ryle who gives us an example of a category mistake. He states, suppose an alien comes to visit us and wants to see a University, so we take him to thee Univ. of Mich here in Flint and show him all the buildings the bio dept. the chemistry depart, the student union, and then he asks, I have seen all these buildings but where is the university? He does not realize that buildings and university belong to different categories, the university is an organization, whereas buildings are physical structures.

Similarly, I think Iqbal is saying the self is not a substance it is a directive force. So lets go ahead and finally look at Iqbal’s formulation of the self.

Iqbal’s Concept of the Self

Iqbal’s view of the self is one which is based upon Action. He basis his concept on the Quranic verse. Allah Says,

“And they ask thee of the soul: Say: the soul proceedeth from my Lord’s Amr Command: but of knowledge, only a little to you is given (17:85).

IAmr vs. Khalq Iqbal notes the difference in the word used for creation of objects: khalq with that used for the creation of the self: Amr. Amr is a directive command, it is a dynamic word. He writes, “The verse quoted means, the essential nature of the ego is directive, as it proceeds from the directive energy of God, though we do not know how Divine Amr functions as ego-unities.”

He writes, the ego is present as a directive energy and is formed and disciplined by its own experience (p. 82) He continues, life of the ego is a tension caused by the ego invading the environment and the environment invading the ego.

The personal pronoun Rabbi my lord, used in the verse implies that the soul is individual and specific. He quotes another Quranic verse: “Every man acts after his own manner: but your lord knows who is best guided in his path (17:84). Iqbal writes: “ Thus my real personality is not a thing; it is an act. My experience is only a series of acts, mutually referring to one another, and held together by the unity of directive purpose.”

According to Iqbal the Mind and Body become one in Action. Iqbal writes,

“When I take up a book from my table, my act is single and indivisible. It is impossible to draw a line of cleavage between the share of the body and that of the mind in this act. Somehow they must belong to the same system, and according to the Qur’an they do belong to the same system. “To Him belong Khalq (creation) and Amr (direction)” [7:54], how is such a thing conceivable? We have seen that the body is not a thing situated in an absolute void; it is a system of events or acts. The system of experiences we call soul or ego is also a system of acts. This does not obliterate the distinction of the soul and body, it only brings them closer to each other. (Iqbal, 84).

So according to Iqbal, we can discard thinking of selves as substances and focus on our real complete experience which is best manifest in action. Professor Absar Ahmad explains Iqbal’s view:

The self in its efficient aspect does nto depend upon any obscure or hidden core but depends upon what it does, has done, proposes to do, or is able to do. This self is revealed in its action; it reveals itself and constitutes itself by acting. It is nothing before acting, and nothing remains of it if experiences cease completely. One is not given a ready made self in this sense; one creates one’s self daily by what one does, what one experiences. Our behavior is not an expression of our efficient self but the very stuff which constitutes it. From the side of the efficient self, then, what holds experiences together, what gives us personality is not a substantial bond but a functional one, a coordinated structure of activities. Being never a finished product, the efficient self is always in the making.It is formed through out the course of its life. The efficient self, so to say, has no aboriginal nucleus of its own that exists prior to its action; it arises and takes on existence as it acts, as it undergoes experiences. (p. 17 Concept of Self – Absar Ahmad)

I think at this point Iqbal’s view is not too different from that of Daniel Dennett on this point. Dennett writes, You have to distribute the moral agency around as well. You are not out of the loop; you are the loop. You are that large. You are not an extensionless point. What you do and what you are incorporates all of these things that happen and is not a completely separate thing from them.

In Iqbal’s view there is a distinct emphasis upon action. As God says, Verily God will not change the condition of men, till they change what is in themselves. (Sura 13:12).

Now Iqbal does think that the self has another aspect which is appreciative in nature and this sounds more like the traditional notion of the soul, however, in Iqbal’s view this is influenced by the efficient self and is in fact accessible to man. This is how man synthesizes his experiences into a deeper state of consciousness. He also has an interestion notion of time where he differentiates serial time from pure duration but we don’t’ have time for that discussion.

Iqbal’s dynamic view of the self is in fact in keeping with the spirit of the Quran which identifies various stages and levels of the self:

1. Nafs al Ammara-bis-Su - "Enjoining-unto-Evil" [Quran 12:53

2. Nafs al Lawwama - "the Guilty Ego" [Quran 75:2] 3. Nafs al Mutmainna - "the Ego at-Peace" [Quran 89:27]

Iqbal then gives his own pathway which each person must follow to fully develop their own selves which includes three points:

1. Obedience: Following the commandments of the shariah is paramount. He describes the toil of the camel in this regard. Do not complain of the hardness of the Law. Do not transgress the statutes of Muhammad!

2. Self Control: Next one must discipline oneself to take control of ones ego, and then begin the journey on the path towards its infinite possibilities Thou art impregnable, if thy Islam be strong. Draw might from the litany "O Almighty One!" That thou mayst ride the camel of thy body.72

3. Divine Vicengerence: Finally the ego arrives at this level. The ego or self is now the representative of God on earth. A powerful title embodying the enormous potential of the ego. God's vicegerent is as the soul of the universe, His being is the shadow of the Greatest Name. He knows the mysteries of part and whole, He executes the command of Allah in the world. -

Now to the question of the immortality of the soul, how does Iqbal explain it. The soul- substance explaination was supposed to make this easy. Again not a static concept but a dynamic concept related to the evolution of the self.

For Iqbal man begins from humble beginnings but has enourmous potential. He points to the Quran verse which states that 23:12-14 – man created from clay – then brought forth man of yet another make. He states that this implies that the self develops on the basis of physical organism. (p. 83) But he writes, p. 85: It is not the origin of a thing that matters, it is the capacity, the significance, and the final reach of the emergent that matters.

Iqbal seems to be presenting a modified Evolutionary explaination, for which he draws inspiration obviously from the theory of evolution but also from the Quran and also from Jalluludin Rumi who viewed the body as an objectified self, and also lays out an evolutionary explanation for the creation of man. So what then is the destiny of man?

Iqbal again points to the Quran and lays out three concepts:

1. The ego has a beginning in time. It did not pre-exist its emergence in the spatio- temporal order. 23:12-14 2. There is no possibility of return to this earth ‘When death overtaketh one of them, he saith, "Lord! send me back again, that I may do the good that I have left undone!" By no means These are the very words which he shall speak. But behind them is a barrier (Barzakh), until the day when they shall be raised again’ (23:99-100).

3. That finitude is not a misfortune: Verily there is none in the heavens and in the earth but shall approach the God of Mercy as a servant. He hath taken note of them and numbered them with exact numbering: and each of them shall come to Him on the Day of Resurrection as a single individual’ (19:93-95).

Here Iqbal is critiquing a certain strain in Sufism which considers innihilation of the self as the final stage of the self, Iqbal writes mans individuality is always maintained and this is a blessing. He writes,” it is with the irreplaceable singleness of his individuality that the finite ego will approach the infinite ego to see for himself the consequences of his past action and to judge the possibilities of his future. (17:13-14 everymans fate). Whatever may be the final fate of man it does not mean the loss of individuality. Quran does not contemplate complete liberation from finitude as the highest state of human bliss. The ‘unceasing reward’ of man consists in his gradual growth in self- possession, in uniqueness, and intensity of his activity as an ego. “

Prophets experience (saw) retained full sellf-poessesion. Here he is drawing inspiration from the concepts of Insani-Kamil in Ibn Arabi or Rumi. Immortality is something to be achieved, not a given in Iqbal’s view. The exact physics of metaphysics of travel between the different worlds Iqbal does not define. But perhaps, a quote from John Locke might be useful here, he writes,

All the great ends of Morality and Religion, are well enough secured without the philosophical Proofs of the Soul's Immateriality; since it is evident that he who, at first made us beings to subsist here, sensible intelligent Beings, and for several years continued us in such a state, can and will restore us to a like state of Sensibility in another World, and make us there capable to receive the Retribution he has designed to men, according to the doings in this life. And therefore tis not a mighty necessity to determine one way or t'other, as some overzealous for or against the Immateriality of the Soul, have been foreward to make the World believe.

The Self’s goal then, according to Iqbal, to rise through these various stages of the self to continuously build upon oneself until one truly becomes the representative of God and experiences God while maintaining one’s own self.

Sufism: “not the drop slipping into the sea, but the realization and bold affirmation in an undying phrase of the reality and permanence of the human ego in a profounder personality.” Critiques pantheistic Sufism.

Iqbal: In the higher Sufism of Islam Unitive experience with the divine is not the finite ego effacing its own identity by some sort of absorption into the infinite Ego; it is rather the Infinite passing into the loving embrace of the finite.

In conclusion, Iqbal has present a concept of the self which preserving all of the essential concepts of the self in Islam, but is providing a theory which is true to the Quranic spirit and also compatible with modern science. To summarize in his view, the self is a dynamic concept it is built upon experiences and it evolves by the exercise of free will. The self is given a special status by God, and its ultimate destiny is up to that individual self which never effaces and can reach unlimited heights. I think this concept is done a disservice by limited the self to a “spiritual substance.”