Buddhism
The phrase "stream of consciousness" (Pali; viññāna-sota) occurs in early Buddhist scriptures. The Yogachara school of Mahayana Buddhism developed the idea into a thorough theory of mind.
Hammalawa Saddhatissa Mahathera writes: "There is no 'self' that stands at the mentality to which characteristics and events accrue and from which they fall away, leaving it intact at death. The stream of consciousness, flowing through many lives, is as changing as a stream of water. This is the anatta doctrine of Buddhism as concerns the individual being."
Read more about this topic: Stream Of Consciousness (psychology)
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“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)