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SIVA AS THE ABSOLUTE PERSON. There is a logical connection between self-conscious and being a person, as the very meaning of personality is self-consciosness. "One is aperson2 does not necessarily mean that one has a physical forn, for one can be a person even without a bodyy. God in many religions- Judaism, Christianity, Islam and some denomitiaions of Hinduism, for example- is conceived of as aperson, formless-God is seensa pure Spirit with no body or matter. The Divine Person can be without form(nirakara) as well as with form(sakara; form is not necessary qualification pf being aperson. What is it, then, that makes one a person? The answer is self-consciousness. A person is a self-consciousness being. This implies that only a sentient being can be aperson; insentient things such as material objects cannot be persons. There are systems of philosophy that conceive of Ultimate Reality or god as a person, but generally they also accept realities other than God – theit position is that of dualism or qualified monism. On the other hand, there are phiosophies that conceive of Reality as the al-pervading non-dual Absolute, and therefore Reality, according to them, is impersonal.
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