Zero asked:

Compare and contrast the Socratic conception of the soul with that of the atman in the Bhagavad Gita
and the self of the Tao Te Ching.Are these similar or different?

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I've been looking for questions of this kind for a long time, I don't Know about Socrates so I will be
speaking of the atman and the tao only.

Atman in Hinduism is the real self of someone. 'I' In Hinduism is not my body, nor my shape, nor even
my thoughts and personality, there is something in me that is far deeper, this is the true self, that
doesn't change in my reincarnations. This is the atman. The Brahman is the universal self. If the
atman expresses the innermost depth of me, the Brahman does the same for all being.

And in the most mystical of all Hindu traditions, The advaita Vedanta, a golden rule is well known
stating that 'Atman = Brahman'. This means that My true innermost essence is the true innermost
essence of the whole universe, that the universe of opposites, or plurality, of pain and strife, is only an
illusion 'Maya' as a result for the ignorance 'Advida' of reality. The ultimate wisdom in advaita Vedanta
is the Atman/ Brahman realization, experiencing the atman, that is the Brahman.

It is to be noted that this realization is not intellectual. You don't gain the ultimate wisdom if you'd
shout 'I am the Atman and this is the Brahman, my essence is the essence of all that is' you have to
'EXPERIENCE' this. Just like mirage, if you'd say to yourself 'This is an illusion' you will still see water
in the desert. When one practically realizes the atman/Brahman non-duality, all dualities and
pluralities in the world will fall, thus the world itself will fall and the duality between himself and the
world will fall,

Taoism, offers some metaphysical stuff as well, the Tao, roughly translated as the way is the ultimate
origin of all that is. From within the Tao, both yin and yang arise. Yin and yang are pairs of opposites
that interact forming the whole world. This is exactly what Rudolf Otto stated, "Black does not cease
to be black, nor white white. But black is white and white is black. The opposites coincide without
ceasing to be what they are in themselves." This is a logical paradox, but lets bring in mind all this
Taoist metaphysics (and the advaita Vedanta metaphysics as well) was constructed upon mystical
states of consciousness, and mental thoughts and emotions are quite often paradoxical, you may
love and hate a person at the same time, also, a mystic feels all things are one, although still seeing
them in a plural manner.

Hindus expressed their thoughts in the atman/Brahman non-duality. Lao tzu expressed them in the
yin and yang both opposites flowing from within and into the one, the Tao.

Unsurprisingly, there are quite a handful of other words that express the same thing that the Tao and
the atman express. We have Meister Eckhart's desert, the Gnostic Pleroma, the one of Plotinus, The
natura naturans of Spinoza, the Platonic 'good', and maybe also Hegel's Absolute.

Walter T. Stace, A philosopher who I think was unfairly ignored by the philosophical society, spent
quite an effort convincing people that religions are paths to the same goal, his books Religion and the
modern mind, Mysticism and philosophyand The teachings of the mysticsare indeed recommended
if you are looking for a serious study of this stuff.

I'd be quite glad to share opinions with anyone regarding such mystical issues.

Arthur Brown