Discover Your True Self – You are Not a Body but a Soul
You are a Soul Infinite, Immortal and Perfect.
“All spiritual progress is the growth of half-knowledge into clear illumination. In our inspired moments we have the feeling that there is a greater reality within us, though we cannot tell what it is.”-- Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Nearly 2,500 years ago, the great sages of the Upanishads proclaimed “Know thy own soul, for only then can you know God.” In other words, the path to God lies not through the outer world of matter but through our inner world of spirit.
To become aware of our soul as apart from our body is the first step towards realizing God. For God is the infinite ocean of consciousness and our souls are like individual waves on its surface. If we know the wave then we have known the ocean too.
“We are here to awaken to the reality of our true identity – that we are sparks of the Eternal Imperishable Spirit, who is the source of all Creation and the very essence of our being.”
- Shriram Sharma Acharya
And so the sages proclaimed that we must each discover for ourselves that we are essentially the spirit.
It is only when we have realized the true nature of our soul, that despair will vanish and hope will come; fear and ignorance will vanish and joy will come; infinite power, strength and purity will come, and along with it everything that is excellent will come.
What then is the nature of our soul?
The Nature of the Soul
The Sanskrit word for the soul is Atman, which means the “breath of life”. The soul is the differentiating element which separates dead and dull matter from life. The soul is what exists when the body dies.
We place before you some key conclusions that have been reached about the characteristics of the soul. As always it is important to note that these conclusions are not mere idle theories or speculation but they are the greatest of truths, perceived directly by countless teachers and prophets in the highest states of super-consciousness. Presented below are rational arguments in support of what has already been witnessed.
The Soul is Not Bound by the Laws of the Material Universe
“This Universe is a meeting point of that which is eternal and that which is manifested in time.”
- Svetasvatara Upanishad
Often we make the mistake of assuming that the material Universe is all that exists, and nothing else prevails besides it. But it is only part of the picture. The world that we live in is actually a meeting point of two universes: one of matter and the other of consciousness. And while our bodies are a part of the former, our souls belong to the latter.
The material universe which governs our physical bodies originated in a big bang some 14 billion years ago. The big bang gave birth to matter, space and time, and the entire universe works under their laws.
The laws of matter govern our motion. For example: no object can travel faster than the speed of light. The laws of space confine our existence to the 3-dimensions and also localize us i.e. we are only present in one place at a given time (the exception being subatomic particles). The laws of time govern the cycles of birth and death. Each body of matter is born, exists for a finite amount of time and dies. From the sun, to the moon, to the physical bodies of plants, animals and man, in fact the entire Universe itself, is bound by the cycle of time.
“Consciousness is not subject to the strictures of quantum physics because it is neither matter, nor is it restricted by space or time.”
- Glen Kezwer, Scientist
But our souls are not a part of any of this. They belong to the universe of consciousness. God is the primal absolute force, the Supreme Consciousness whose existence precedes the birth of the material Universe itself. Since the godly force of consciousness came before matter, space and time, it is unaffected by their laws.
Our souls being a part of this immense ocean of consciousness therefore remain unbounded by the conditions of matter. Their very essence is freedom.
Om Namah Shivay
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