When we ask the question, “Who am
I,” we begin our quest for spiritual knowledge. This is the
first step. The inscription on the temple of
Apollo at Delphi says Knothi
Seuton, or “Know Thyself”. It is said that once Socrates was
pondering over philosophic truths and walking absent-minded on the street, when
he bumped into someone. Annoyed, the man asked, “Can you not
see where you are walking? Who are you?”
Socrates
replied nonchalantly, “My dear friend, I have been pondering over that question
for the last forty years, and have still not found the answer. If you have any tips to offer, do let
me know.”
The
Bhagavad Gita says in this regard:
“To
understand the difference between the body and the knower of the body is
wisdom.”
The
body is not you; it is like a house in which you reside, or like clothes that
you wear. You are the
eternal soul seated within it. The
body is made from matter, and hence it is perishable, but you, the soul, are
Divine, and hence immortal. Neither
is the soul within us, nor are we in the soul. We are the soul that is seated within
the body.
The
Vedic scriptures state that the atma, or soul, resides in the heart. The Upanishadic sutras state that the soul resides in the
region of the heart. However,
it is not physically bound to the heart. Often people ask that if the soul
resides in the heart, what happens in the case of a heart transplant. Does the soul get extracted from the
body along with the heart? No,
if a heart transplant takes place, the soul continues to reside in the same
location, despite the change of heart.
“Consciousness”
is the symptom of life that is manifested by the soul. It is not the soul itself; rather, it
is a quality of the soul. This
is just like heat and light, which are manifestations of the fire, but are not
the fire themselves. Everything that exists is verily the energy of God. However, it is not all consciousness. Matter is “insentient” or devoid of
consciousness, while the soul is “sentient” or possessing consciousness. This is an important distinction
between the soul and matter.
Apart
from having consciousness itself, the soul also has the ability to impart
consciousness to matter, when it associates with it. Hence, the insentient matter of the
body is made sentient by the presence of the soul. As long as the soul resides in the
body, the senses, organs and limbs, all display signs of life. Upon death, when the soul departs, the
body is dead matter once again.
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