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Description of Atomic Soul Description of Atomic Soul INTRODUCTION This simple allegory is there to illustrate that In the previous chapter, we studied in detail mere saving of the body will NOT save the soul. how Lord Krishna is the Supreme person. His In the present day world, all are concerned personality transcends our experience of about the body, which is like the shirt for the space and time. His divine personality is technically called saccidananda (sat-chit- ananda). Being non-dual, His name, form, quality, abode and pastimes are all Absolute and hence transcendental (divine). We Figure 2: A body is living because of the presence of the soul soul, while they have no concern about the soul at all. We all know that there is a difference between the living body and the dead body. A body is living because the consciousness pervades the entire body. Lord Krishna teaches us that the soul, a very tiny fragmental portion of Him, is the basis of this consciousness. A learned person must learn how to ascertain the difference between a Figure 1: Lord Krishna as the supersoul in every dead body and a living body. Technically, living being knowledge starts when one introspects the difference between the spirit (soul) and the discussed in brief the nature of the conscious matter. As Lord Krishna affirms in BG 2.17 that space and the material space as well as how it is the consciousness that pervades the whole both spaces have their origin in Krishna. In this body and is the basic principle by which a living chapter, we will discuss in detail the qualities body differs from the dead body. of the individual spirit soul, or the jiva, and how it can transcend from the material space avināśi tu tad viddhi into the conscious space. yena sarvam idaṁ tatam Once on a sea beach, a person named Gopal vināśam avyayasyāsya got swayed into the sea and was drowning. na kaścit kartum arhati When he asked for help, the nearby fisherman Translation: “That which pervades the entire dived in to search for him. Instead of saving the body you should know to be indestructible. No drowning person Gopal, he brought out the one is able to destroy that imperishable soul.” shirt of Gopal. All of us will certainly agree that the effort of the fisherman was in vain. 55 We will learn about the spirit soul as Lord Translation: “The living entities in this Krishna has taught in the second chapter of conditioned world are My eternal fragmental Bhagavad Gita. parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which THE SPIRIT SOUL include the mind.” Krishna and Soul are Co-Eternal: In the battlefield of Mahabharata, Arjuna became crestfallen after realising that he has to fight against Bhishma, Drona and likes who are dearer to him more than his own life. He could not decide whether he should fight or not. As he surrendered to Krishna seeking His instructions, the Lord said (BG 2.12): na tv evāhaṁ jātu nāsaṁ Figure 3: Being forgetful of Krishna, the embodied soul tries na tvaṁ neme janādhipāḥ to lord over the material nature na caiva na bhaviṣyāmaḥ The The soul (jiva) and Krishna are sarve vayam ataḥ param coeternal because jiva is part and parcel of Translation: “Never was there a time when I Krishna. Krishna is the father of each and every did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor living being from a tiny insect to a large in the future shall any of us cease to be.” elephant. He alone is maintaining each and every living being. Krishna’s form is sat-chit- By this particular instruction, Krishna is ananda so also is jiva’s form. But while clearly saying that all of us are eternal, have Krishna’s form is infinite and inconceivable, always existed and will always continue to jiva’s form is minuscule. As jiva is part and exist. Though we die at some point of time, it parcel of Krishna, many divine qualities of is our body which perishes not the soul. In fact Krishna are there in jiva but in a minute both birth and death are only illusion as they quantity. Therefore Krishna is the master and pertain to different material bodies. There are we are all His servants. 8.4 million material bodies in which a soul is forced to dwell based on his past karma. We “I am soul, not the body. I am divine, not should thus recognise that we have already ephemeral.” This important knowledge is not taken birth among plants, aquatics, insects, being taught in present day education reptiles, birds, animals and human beings systems. Hence, our way of life has become many times. antithesis to our actual nature so much so that people are made to behave like robots. This Soul is Part and Parcel of Krishna has serious ramifications in our ecology as Lord Krishna emphatically tells that as spirit well. Lesser mortals such as plants, aquatics, souls we are part and parcel of Him (BG 15.7): hills and rivers are being destroyed. mamaivāṁśo jīva-loke jīva-bhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ In Vedic culture, all 8.4 million species manaḥ-ṣaṣṭhānīndriyāṇi – from plants and aquatics to human beings – prakṛti-sthāni karṣati are called ‘praja’. Since everybody is a soul, a part of Krishna, there is no difference between 56 plants, aquatics, birds and human beings. All transmigrated to a completely new body. So living forms are interconnected. Unless we death is the biggest illusion for those who are understand this, we cannot make our world ignorant. Krishna is telling this in the beginning peaceful. of Bhagavad Gita because Arjun was lamenting Transmigration of the Soul In Veda, the soul is referred to as jiva or atman. But in the impure state, the jiva is encaged in a physical body. This embodied soul is continuously migrating from one body to another including the present body. As Lord Krishna aptly states in Bhagavad Gita 2.13: dehino ’smin yathā dehe kaumāraṁ yauvanaṁ jarā tathā dehāntara-prāptir Figure 5: The transmigration from one body to another dhīras tatra na muhyati Translation: “As the embodied soul that he has to kill his teacher and his continuously passes, in this body, from grandfather whom he loved so much. Krishna boyhood to youth to old age, the soul similarly is assuring Arjuna: “My dear friend there is passes into another body at death. A sober nothing called death, it's simply an illusion.” person is not bewildered by such a change.” Figure 5 depicts the transmigration of the soul from one body to another. Even from a human body one may transmigrate to a lower form of body such as plant, insect or animal. Now, what decides our next body? We are actually forced to take up another body according to our consciousness at the time of death. In this context Srila Prabhupad gives this interesting example. In a prison house, prisoners are forced to wear a certain type of dress while their regular household dress and other belongings are taken away. Similarly in Figure 4: The Transmigration within the body this material world, we are forced to take different bodies/different dresses (8.4 million The soul is continuously transmigrating in this dresses) according to our consciousness. very body from boyhood to youth to old age So when the body perishes, it doesn’t (refer Figure 4). Learned men who understand mean that the person is gone. The person still the nature of the soul do not bereave as they exists. The embodied soul cannot see this, and see death as a process in which the soul has 57 thus, laments. A learned person sees this, and The chemical origin of life has been hence, does not lament. refuted in this statement of Lord Krishna. Life is never created, it is eternal. We were always Further Description of the Soul existing trillion and trillions of years back, and Jiva being part and parcel of Krishna is divine. we will continue to exist trillion and trillions Hence its qualities are inconceivable in terms years in the future as well. Only our garments of our mundane experiences. Here are some of (bodies) are changing. these properties: Bhagavad Gita 2.23: Bhagavad Gita 2.18: nainaṁ chindanti śastrāṇi antavanta ime dehā nainaṁ dahati pāvakaḥ nityasyoktāḥ śarīriṇaḥ na cainaṁ kledayanty āpo anāśino ’prameyasya na śoṣayati mārutaḥ tasmād yudhyasva bhārata Translation: “The soul can never be cut to Translation: “The material body of the pieces by any weapon, nor burned by fire, nor indestructible, immeasurable and eternal living entity is sure to come to an end; moistened by water, nor withered by the therefore, fight, O descendant of Bharata.” wind.” Bhagavad Gita 2.24: Even a super microscope better than an atomic force microscope cannot measure the acchedyo ’yam adāhyo ’yam size of the soul. The soul has a spiritual akledyo ’śoṣya eva ca dimension. nityaḥ sarva-gataḥ sthāṇur Bhagavad-Gita 2.19: acalo ’yaṁ sanātanaḥ ya enaṁ vetti hantāraṁ Translation: “This individual soul is yaś cainaṁ manyate hatam unbreakable and insoluble, and can be neither ubhau tau na vijānīto burned nor dried. He is everlasting; present nāyaṁ hanti na hanyate everywhere, unchangeable, immovable and Translation: “Neither he who thinks the living eternally the same.” entity the slayer nor he who thinks it slain is in Bhagavad Gita 2.25: knowledge, for the self neither slays, nor is avyakto ’yam acintyo ’yam slain.” avikāryo ’yam ucyate Bhagavad-Gita 2.20: tasmād evam viditvainaṁ na jāyate mriyate vā kadācin nānuśocitum arhasi nāyaṁ bhūtvā bhavitā vā na bhūyaḥ Translation: “It is said that the soul is invisible, ajo nityaḥ śāśvato ’yaṁ purāṇo inconceivable and immutable.
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