VLVL2 (12): Weed Atman

[Tim Strzechowski]

Sorry if this was explored already, but here are a few thoughts pertaining to the name "Weed Atman":

"Weed," of course, continues the vegetation and foliage imagery woven throughout Vineland in general (remember that creeping fig?  Prairie?  Lobelia?).  And its obvious drug reference corresponds to the psychedelic framework of the Sixties within the novel.

on "Atman":

"This single, unitary divinity had several aspects and names in the Upanishads, one of the most important of which is Atman, a word that originally meant "breath" or "soul" or "vital principle" (as the word "Atmen" does in German). As a cosmological principle or deity, Atman seems to be something like "universal soul" or "universal spirit." In the Brihad-Aranyaka Upanishad , Atman is explicitly called a Person that created the universe by first splitting himself into male and female halves. In the Chandogya Upanishad, this single god is called Brahman, and is "the One without a second"; this Brahman is not only the principle and creator of all there is, but is also fully present within each individual.

[...]

"Brahman is the totality of the universe as it is present outside of you;, Atman is the totality of the universe as it is present within you; Brahman is the totality of the world known objectively, Atman is the totality of the world known subjectively."

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/GLOSSARY/ATMAN.HTM

Also:

"[T]he Atman project is "the attempt to find Spirit in ways that prevent it and force substitute gratifications. And...the entire structure of the manifest universe is driven by the Atman project, a project that continues until we-until you and I-awaken to the Spirit whose substitutes we seek in the world of space and time and grasping and despair."

http://www.theatmanproject.com/

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