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AiR Atman in RaviWe don’t have a Soul...We are the Soul!
SOUL By
We don’t have a Soul...We are the Soul!
SOUL
We don’t have a Soul...We are the Soul!
By
Copyright © AiR Institute of Realization 2020
AiR asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this book.
ISBN 978-93-5406-800-3
All rights reserved.
No part of the content of this publication (except images) may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the
prior permission of the publisher.
Printed in India by Navya Graphics
th th
No-8, 12 Main,14 Cross, Lakkasandra Extn., Wilson Garden, Bangalore-560030
Publisher: AiR Institute of Realization
Kemp Fort Mall, No-97, Old Airport Road, Bangalore-560017
We all speak of it, we seem to have a Soul,
But, to solve the mystery of what it is,
Is our life’s Ultimate Goal.
Are we the body? Are we the mind?
Or are we the Soul?
It’s sad we don’t know who we are,
Let’s make this our life’s Goal!
Contents
01 THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL 1-16
02 IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL 17-38
03 LET'S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING 39-49
04 THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL 50-59
05 SOUL POWER 60-68
06 THE SOUL AND GOD 69-77
07 OVERCOMING IGNORANCE 78-88
08 REALIZING THE TRUTH 89-100
09 THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL—REVEALED! 101-107
10 OUR ULTIMATE GOAL 108-119
11 THE JOURNEY OF MY SOUL 120-132
POEM 133-140
ABOUT THE AUTHOR 141-155
Preface
On my spiritual journey, there were many questions that I
had no answers to. What happens after death? How are we
born? Is the Law of Karma real? Does rebirth actually
happen? What is the truth about Enlightenment or
Salvation? What is it that some people call Nirvana or
Moksha? Many questions like these, together formed my
Talaash or quest of life. The most important question was
about the Soul. Everybody talks of the Soul, but not many
know the true meaning of it. What is the Soul?
In my quest for answers, I spent months as I contemplated
the Soul. It was a critical piece to complete my jigsaw
puzzle, a puzzle that needed to be solved as it became the
priority of my life.
My quest took me through all the religions of the world. I
read many scriptures and investigated several philosophies
of the saints and the sages around the globe. Ultimately, I
experienced my spiritual 'Aha!' moment about the Soul.
I decided to write a book on the Soul. We are alive because
of our Soul and to realize the truth about our Soul is our
life's ultimate goal. However, we do everything else but
forget to discover this truth.
We human beings are strange. We just believe in whatever
we are taught or told, because of which we only sink further
and deeper into ignorance and become even more distant
from the truth. If we contemplate the Soul, we will nd
answers to the most important questions about life. It will
take us forward in our journey of self-realization and
ultimately to the rare feat of God-realization.
This is not an easy journey. Only sincere seekers who want to
realize the truth about themselves and God are fuelled with a
passion that leads them both to realization and liberation.
Why is it that most of us don't discover the truth about our
Soul during our life journey? We human beings are so lost
in this world that we become slaves to our own desires, our
very own thoughts. We do not discover and realize that our
biggest enemy is 'ME', our own Mind and Ego because it
stops us from realizing the truth. Thus, we live and die in
ignorance and many truths about life continue to remain a
mystery.
The Soul is enigmatic and we must unravel the mystery
that surrounds it. Can we deny that we have a Soul? Don't
we often discuss it? Are we not confused whether the Soul
exists or not? From where does it come and where does it
go? This book will solve the riddle and reveal the truth
about the Soul!
“Why write a book about the Soul?”
I wondered and I thought.
It is our life's Ultimate Goal,
This truth we all forgot.
Introduction
This book Soul, is an effort to know everything about our
most important aspect – our Soul. While we talk about the
Soul so often, how many of us actually stop and ponder
about the reality and existence of the Soul?
What is the Soul? Where does it come from and where does
it go? We cannot see the Soul, but we all believe that we
have one. There are many more questions. If the Soul
actually exists, then why is it that we can't see it? Is it the
same as the Spirit, the Atman, the Life Energy within or is it
something different? How is our Soul connected with our
body? Is our mind a part of our Soul? When does the Soul
actually come alive and what happens to the Soul after
death? All these questions remain unanswered.
All religions talk about the Soul, each in their own unique
way. Are there 'good' Souls and 'bad' Souls? What is the
mystery about the reincarnation of Souls?
And then, there is so much said about the Soul and its
connection with the Divine. Is there any connection
between the two? There are many doubts and we human
beings contemplate the truth of the Soul. It seems to be the
most important aspect of our life, but it gets lost as we zoom
to our tomb, making everything else a priority.
What does science say about the Soul? Is there any proof
that the Soul exists? Or, like some religions advocate, there
is no Soul? And then, what about ghosts? Are they not the
Soul— the spirit of the dead that appear to us?
This book about the Soul will open our eyes and help us
overcome our ignorance about the Soul. As the book
questions every aspect of the Soul, we will evolve in our
spiritual journey and realize the truth. Not everybody can
realize the truth. Some may investigate the Soul and arrive
at several possibilities of what might be the truth. But a few
sincere seekers of the truth, will do some Soul-searching
and realize the Soul. Are you ready to go in search of your
Soul?
What is the Soul, do you know?
Or is it still a mystery?
There are so many beliefs, so many myths
that seem to fill our history.
01
THE MYSTERY
OF THE SOUL
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
For thousands of years, the Soul has continued to remain a
mystery. While most of us are conscious of its existence, we
don't know what the Soul is, where it came from and where
it will eventually go. All this continues to bafe humanity.
Does the Soul really exist? Has anybody seen the Soul?
Does the Soul take birth and does it die? These questions
have many speculations, but till date, they have not been
demystied. Some people believe that the Soul is purely
human – it is exclusive to those who are blessed to be
human beings. There are others who think that even
animals have Souls. What about insects, birds, sh, plants,
and trees? The mystery deepens because we have not
uncovered the truth about the Soul.
What exactly is the Soul? What is the difference between
the Soul and the Spirit? Is the Soul what the Hindus call the
“Atman” and parts of the Orient call “Chi” or “Prana”? The
mystery grows deeper as more and more theories of the
Soul are oated.
The modern world has further complicated the subject with
the growth of technology. Anybody can upload their own
denition of the Soul on the internet and keep the seekers of
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THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
truth shrouded in darkness.
Some people add to the confusion by saying that there is no
Soul. Is it because it is a fact that there is no Soul or is it just
because we have not understood what the Soul actually is?
We human beings are alive but one day we will die. What
happens at death when there is no breath? How is this
phenomenon called death connected with the Soul? What
about the Soul and the human birth? Is the gift of human
life a gift from the Divine or from the Soul? Who knows? It
is anybody's guess!
“Our Soul will go to heaven one day,” say some. Nobody
wishes their Soul to go to hell. But where is heaven and how
will the Soul get there? When we die, does the Soul leave
the body or is it buried or cremated together with the one
who dies? These questions have remained with humanity
for ages but we have not pondered on the answers. We are
busy solving the secrets of the material world. We are more
concerned about the puzzling cosmos, just as we go deep
within the oceans to uncover the mystery of the
underwater world. But what about the Soul?
Some scriptures talk of 'good' Souls and 'bad' Souls and
3
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
how our Souls are so different. Then comes the theory that
since our Souls are independent creatures, we must look for
our Soulmate. The mystery only deepens as we sink deeper
into ignorance without realizing the truth about the Soul.
Today, more people than ever before have started asking
questions about the Soul. They say that the Soul is the
manifestation of the Divine. But what does this mean? With
the Eastern civilization believing that the Soul, Spirit and
the Divine are one, and the Western world believing that
our Soul will go to heaven or hell, the whole concept of the
Soul remains an enigma.
Instead of demystifying the myth of the Soul, we get carried
away by rituals and superstitions and even believe in them.
For instance, some people believe that the Soul is most
active on a full moon night, or that the Soul resides in a
secret receptacle of the body and can be touched through
meditation; that stretching the body in a particular manner
will make us more Soulful, that the mind and the Soul are
deeply connected and by certain breathing techniques, we
can access the depth of our Soul.
Even the most famous concept of Yoga has been mystied
4
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
with the Soul. Yoga is marketed in the world today as the
union of body, mind, and Soul. But in reality, Yoga is Union
of the Soul with the Supreme Soul. But, like any other
theory about the Soul, the theory of Yoga has also become
diluted. True Yoga is very profound. It is the union of a
living human being with the Divine. It is realizing and
being conscious of the Divine and then always being
connected with the Divine. Instead of trying to realize the
truth about the Soul, we get carried away by fantasies.
Recently, some people were discussing what they called
‘Soul-hunting', a contemporary Shamanic integration
ritual. By doing this, they believed that they would create a
new energy in their life. Instructors would help them go on
a Soulful journey, and they would experience a Shamanic
trance making it possible to reunite with the damaged
pieces of the Soul. While there are exercises that can resolve
difculties and illnesses and create wellbeing, how is this
connected to the Soul? By making the Soul another
identiable domain of our life, like the body or mind, we
only add to the confusion of our understanding of the Soul.
While it may not be necessary to read the next few pages
which carry several mythological and philosophical beliefs
5
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
about the Soul, for those who are interested in knowing
what our ancestors thought about the Soul, the following
pages will be interesting to read.
Historically, all around the world, people have believed in
various theories about the Soul. The early Greeks believed
that the Soul was separated from a person's dead body. The
Greeks called the Soul, 'psyche' and the body, 'soma'. After
death and after burying the body, the Soul was freed from
the body and began its journey to the world of the dead. A
barrier, usually a river, separated the worlds of the living
and the dead. The Greeks believed that the Soul was guided
during its journey to the world of the dead by the God
Hermes or his assistant, the ferryman Charon, who would
assist Souls, helping them cross the river.
For the Greeks, the world of the dead was rather bleak – it
was a place of darkness beneath the surface of the earth
ruled by Hades. Here, the dead were judged—a judge
would examine their past deeds and accordingly give
punishments. The punishments varied. Those who had
committed minor wrongs could be sentenced to eternally
wander about the underworld in a mindless state, knowing
neither great suffering nor great joy. But serious sins or
6
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
wickedness was harshly punished with severe beatings,
starvation, and torture. In the earliest Greek thought, all
Souls—both good and bad—lived in Hades. However,
some Greeks believed that good people, like heroes and
other virtuous individuals, would not need to wander
through the darkness of the underworld. Instead, they
would be mysteriously transported to the Isles of the
Blessed, also known as Elysium or the Elysian Fields.
The Epicureans, who followed the teachings of the Greek
philosopher Epicurus, considered the Soul to be made up
of atoms like the rest of the body. Epicurus believed that
both body and Soul ended at death.
Another Greek philosopher, Plato, saw the world as a
spiritual being, and the concept of the World-Soul was
named 'Anima Mundi'. Anima Mundi was a spiritual
essence that enveloped everything in the world and all of
nature. For the followers of Plato, the Soul was an
incorporeal substance having no material existence, similar
to the Gods, yet was a part of the world. Plato and Socrates
accepted the immortality of the Soul.
Aristotle, however, considered only a part of the Soul, the
7
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
Nous, or intellect, to be immortal. He also identied three
hierarchical levels of living beings - plants, animals, and
people, having three different degrees of Soul: Bios or life,
Zoe or animate life, and Psuche or self-conscious life. For
these groups, he identied three corresponding levels of
Soul-growth, sustenance and reproduction which all life
shares called Bios; the self-willed motive activity and
sensory faculties, which only animals and people have in
common called Zoe; and nally ‘reason,’ of which people
alone are capable. It is called Pseuche.
Like the Greeks, the Romans also believed that Souls
travelled to another place after death. They believed that
the Soul would go underground to the river Styx. They also
believed that virtuous Souls returned to a heavenly place
after death to experience eternal joy. Wicked Souls, on the
other hand, suffered great punishments and tortures.
Later, many Romans also believed in the immortality, or
everlasting life, of the Soul. They also believed, to some
extent, in the idea of reincarnation—the rebirth of the Soul
in a new body.
Among ancient people, the Chinese, like the Egyptians,
believed in the idea of a dual Soul. The Chinese distinguished
8
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
between a lower, sensitive Soul which disappears with
death, and a rational principle, the Hun—a spiritual and a
more heavenly aspect of the Soul that survives the grave and
is the object of ancestor worship.
Confucians conceived of the Soul as constituted by anima
'Hun' which animated the body in life, and corporeal Soul, 'Po'
which constituted the physical senses. As a Yang entity, anima
was released from the body upon death and oated upward,
whereas the Yin corporeal Soul decomposed into the earth.
In ancient Egypt, the Soul was not only one's character but a
composite being of different entities. The Egyptian culture
carefully observed mortuary rituals because each aspect of
the Soul had to be addressed for the person to continue on
their way to eternity. We have heard about the process of
mummication in the ancient civilization of Egypt. The
Egyptians believed that the mummied body was the
home for this Soul or Spirit. If the body was destroyed, the
Spirit might be lost. The idea of ‘Spirit’ was complex
involving three spirits: the Ka, Ba, and Akh. The Ka, a
‘Double’ or the ‘Life Force’ of the person, would remain in
the tomb and needed the offerings and objects there. The
Ba, or ‘Soul’, was free to y out of the tomb and return to it.
9
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
And it was the Akh, perhaps translated as ‘Spirit’, which
had to travel through the Underworld to the Final
Judgement and entrance to the afterlife. To the Egyptians,
all three were essential.
Mention of such beliefs is only being made to record how
ancient civilizations thought of the Soul as a very enigmatic
thing. All around the world, innumerable mysteries of the
Soul have emerged from ancient times. Certain tribes used
to do head-hunting as they believed the head contained a
Soul substance. In Indonesia, the head of the enemies was
highly valued, not because they were trophies, but because
the heads were said to contain the Soul. It was believed that
this Soul substance would make villages more fertile and
crops healthier.
People who lived in Turkey centuries ago, believed that
when a man died, the Soul of the man would leave the body
and reside in a stone slab. Thereafter, people worshipped
the stone as it contained the Soul!
Ancient civilizations performed a Viking funeral that
connected the Soul to where the dead went in their afterlife.
In ancient Scandinavia, ancestors were worshipped as
10
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
though after death the Soul had departed on a voyage inside
the mountain on the other side of the sea in the underworld
or in the heavens. Such beliefs, needless to say, have made
the Soul one of the greatest mysteries of all times!
The Celtic festival of Samhain dates back to 2,000 years and
grew into what we now know as Halloween. Music and
dance celebrations called the Witches' Ball featured a
bonre and celebrated the communion with the dead. This
is said to have Christianized as All Saints' Day. It is believed
st
that at this time, some date it as 31 of October, the spirits of
the dead mingle with the living. All these mysteries have
created a culture around the world to declare holidays
based on the theme of the Soul and the dead.
Taoism believes that the human Soul is made up of many
different spirits. The Yang aspect of the Soul is made up of
the three Hun, the intangible parts of a person – the Spirit,
Consciousness, and Intelligence. The Yin aspect of the Soul
is made up of the seven 'Po' and forms a person's physical
Soul. The 'Po' are attached to the body, and remain with the
corpse after death, dissolving with the body.
According to Shintoism, humans are born pure and share in
11
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
the Divine Soul. Shintoism with its system of ancestor-
worship also implies a conviction of the immortality of the
Soul, a belief that was held by the ancient Japanese.
According to Shinto belief, a 'departed' Soul still has its
personality and is stained with death 'pollution'
immediately after death. When the bereaved perform
memorial rites, the Soul is puried, which leads to the
removal of all malice, and consequently, the Soul takes on a
peaceful and benevolent character. In time the ancestral
spirit rises to the position of an ancestral, or guardian, deity.
Practitioners of Shintoism believe that the spirits of the
dead go to the mountains, above the sky, below the earth,
or beyond the horizon. Kami—Divine beings and other
supernatural beings also dwell in these places. Living
beings from this world may visit those from the other
worlds in borderlands, which include cliffs, caves, and
coastlines. The Japanese welcome these Souls back to their
homes in August at the Obon festival.
So many special days have been commemorated, dedicated
to the Soul. Halloween, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls’ Day
are just some of these. People perform rituals and believe in
superstitions that are beyond common understanding.
12
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
They give alms as prayers for the dead, intending to assist
those in purgatory—a state in which the Souls that have
sinned, are believed to pass through so that they can be
puried before going to heaven.
As if all this myth is not enough, to add fuel to the re,
people even today believe in ghosts or apparitions. What
are ghosts supposed to be? They are considered to be the
Souls of the dead that appear before those who are alive. The
obsession with ghosts has continued past so many civilizations
and modern man, though it seems strange, accepts their
existence to such an extent that many global lms take up the
theme of ghosts and Tantric practices, exorcism, fairy
mythology, haunted places, and spooky and sinister
wandering Spirits. It plays on the fantasy of our mind and we
tend to believe in the existence of ghosts. Even the slightest
rustle of leaves in the breeze is considered to be ghosts moving
somewhere. The uttering of a ag somewhere in the middle
of the night makes people think that a ghost is oating in the air.
Time has passed and the world has modernized and
progressed but man continues to live with the myth that
surrounds the Soul. It is only because we are ignorant that
we don't know what the Soul really is, that we are carried
away by these weird fantasies.
13
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
The body can be touched and felt. Nobody can deny the
existence of our body. But the mind can only be
experienced. We cannot nd the location of the mind.
While we can see our eyes and nose, and the presence of our
heart and brain can be conrmed through an X-ray—the
mind is a subtle, invisible part of the body. Along with the
memory, the intellect and the ego, we experience the
presence of the mind and together consider it to be our
subtle body. But what about the Soul? While we know and
not just believe or seem to guess that we have a Soul, what
the Soul truly is, remains a mystery!
14
Mysteries of the Soul,
Are beyond what the mind can think.
They existed in ancient civilizations,
Before there was paper and ink.
Some believed that man was immortal,
And mummified the dead,
Others thought the Soul was so important
That they hunted for the head.
15
TAKEAWAYS
THE MYSTERY OF THE SOUL
Ÿ For thousands of years, the Soul has continued to remain
a mystery.
Ÿ Does the Soul actually exist? Has anybody seen the Soul?
Ÿ What exactly is the Soul? Is it the same as the Spirit?
Ÿ Some people even believe that there is no Soul, it doesn't
exist.
Ÿ Will our Soul go to heaven one day, and are there 'good'
Souls and 'bad' Souls?
Ÿ There are so many myths about the Soul like 'Soul
hunting', dual nature of Soul, three parts of the Spirit,
tangible and intangible Soul, hierarchical levels of
natural beings having three different degrees of Soul.
Ÿ Celebration of festivals related to Soul like Samhain and
Halloween have also diluted the truth about the Soul.
Ÿ To the world, what the Soul truly is, still remains a
mystery!
16
02
IN SEARCH
OF
THE SOUL
17
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
What is the Soul? Despite all the mystery and confusion, is
the Soul actually something so mysterious, so unknown? Is
there a conict around the world about the Soul or are
people just saying things differently about the same thing?
Let us see what the various religions of the world, famous
philosophers of the past and of the present have to say
about the Soul.
Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest religions.
Zoroastrians believe that the main constituents of a human
being are body and Soul. The body lives only for a limited
time in the world. The Soul is immortal. At the time of
death, the body perishes and the Soul goes on to live its
second existence. Zarathushtra, the Persian prophet and
founder of Zoroastrianism is said to be the rst to introduce
the idea of an afterlife that was based on morality, with
rewards for the good and suffering for the evil.
According to Zoroastrian beliefs when a person dies, his or
her Soul leaves the body, though it remains close to the
body for three days and three nights, suffering from
anxiety and distress caused by the sudden separation.
During this period, the archangels prepare an account of
the good deeds and the sins of the Soul, to be used later to
decide its fate in the spiritual world. On the third night, the
Soul leaves the material world and enters into the spiritual
18
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
world, led by an angel. There it stands on the Bridge of
Judgement where the deeds of the Soul are reviewed. Good
Souls are led to paradise and evil Souls are led to the world
of punishment. The Souls will remain in their respective
abodes until the end of the current cycle of time. At the end
of it, there will be a Judgement Day, when God will revive
all the Souls and review their actions once again to reward
with an eternal heavenly life or sentence them to a world of
torment permanently.
Christians believe that each Soul created by God will
ultimately be judged by their Lord in heaven. When people
die, as per their scripture, they would be judged and
accordingly will go to heaven or hell. Some believe the
unrighteous Souls will cease to exist, while true believers
will inherit eternal life in heaven or the kingdom of God.
The blessed ones will enjoy eternal fellowship with God.
Today, there are different branches of Christianity and
there is diversity in their beliefs. Some believe that if one
has not repented for one's sins and not trusted in Jesus as
the Lord and Saviour, their Souls will go to hell and suffer
eternal separation from God. Some Christians also believe
that the Soul in human beings is not the same as animals.
Some of the common Christian beliefs about the Soul are
that human beings are immortal living Souls. There are two
19
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
primary realities in the universe—the unseen, immaterial,
spiritual realm and the visible, physical, material world.
Even when our bodies die, we live. It is the Soul that
animates the body. While the Soul does live without the
body, the body cannot live without the Soul. When a Soul
returns to a lifeless body, the body is said to “rise from the
dead” or to be “revived”. We are living Souls, and our Souls
are “seen” in this physical world when they are united
with, and animating, our physical bodies. All Souls return
to God. The spiritual world is the realm of God and
therefore, the moment we cease to live in the physical
world, we will be living in the spiritual world with God.
Also, Souls have experiences and they can communicate
with each other in the spiritual realm. However, heaven
and hell are two separate spiritual realms.
In Judaism, it is believed that God gave the Soul to Adam,
as mentioned in Genesis. Followers of Judaism relate one's
following of the commandments to the quality of one's
Soul. Many Jews who believe in life after death advocate
that the Soul will return to God. Some suggest that there
will be a future judgement where some will be rewarded,
and others punished. The religion teaches that the body
and Soul are separate, but still indivisible in human life.
In Islam, there are diverse interpretations of the Quran
20
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
amongst various sects. Among Muslims there is a school of
thought called Susm. It is famous due to its saint, Rumi.
The Sus talk of the immortal 'Ruh' that drives the mortal
'Nafs'. Ruh is considered to be an entity that differs from the
physical body. It is a subtle, ecclesiastical, enlightened
living and moving essence in every cell of the body. As long
as these organs remain able to accept the impressions of this
subtle body, the 'Ruh' remains attached to these organs and
provides them with feeling and movement. But when these
organs perish because of the dominance of diseased
elements upon it, and they are no longer able to accept the
impressions of the Soul, it leaves the body and heads
towards the world of the Soul.
In contrast, Hinduism, the original ancient Hindu Faith or
Sanatana Dharma, believes that all living beings from the
smallest bacterium to the largest of mammals are nothing
but the Soul or the Atman. We are the Jivatman who appear
as physical beings but in reality, we are the Soul. The
external body is only an appearance for the sake of
experiencing past Karma or actions. Atman refers to the
inner Spirit or the life energy within a living being. Upon
death of the 'physical gross body', the Soul merges with the
Cosmic Consciousness or the Soul that is everywhere. The
'subtle body' comprising the Mind, Ego, Memory, Intellect -
MIME, takes re-birth based on its Karmic balance. The
21
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
ultimate purpose of Jivatman is to attain Moksha and unite
with the Divine or Parmatman by transcending the cycle of
death and re-birth. However, modern-day Hinduism is
quite different from its ancient origin. The original faith
believed that everything is a manifestation of the Divine.
Slowly, Hinduism developed Gods with name and form
and while both versions believe that the ultimate goal is
Moksha or Liberation, modern-day Hinduism talks of
Swarg or heaven and mixes a large amount of mythology
with the original belief of the Soul. Swarg is seen as a
transitory place for righteous Souls who have performed
good deeds in their lives but are not yet ready to attain
Moksha, or elevation to Vaikuntha, the abode of Lord
Vishnu, considered to be the Supreme Abode. Naraka is the
Hindu equivalent of hell, where sinners are punished and
tormented after death. It is also the abode of Yama, the God
of Death. It is described as located beneath the earth.
In Buddhism, there is a concept of Anatta, or 'no Soul'. This
doctrine states that there is no substance inside a human that
can be called a Soul. This is the fundamental difference
between Hinduism and Buddhism. However, Buddhism
believes in Karma and rebirth. Therefore, some philosophers
believe that Buddha neither afrmed, nor denied the
existence of the Soul. What they imply is that the Buddha
focused on other more relevant and tangible subjects like the
22
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
4 noble truths and the 8-fold path which would liberate
humanity from suffering. Since the Soul is universal life
energy, the Buddha did not identify it as a part of an
individual's existence.
Another popular Eastern religion—Jainism, on the
contrary, believes that the Soul is the principal substance
forming the universe. They call the Soul Jiva, meaning, the
living being. They differentiate the body from the Soul and
believe the body to be just an inanimate container and the
Soul or Jiva to be the life force that creates consciousness in
it. The Jains believe the Soul to be either pure or impure,
and the pure ones get liberation. The Jains also go on to
state that the Soul or the Atman is identical as God or
Paramatman. The Jains believe that the Soul exists forever
and that each Soul is always independent, responsible for
what it does and experiences the consequences of its
actions. The Soul can be liberated from the cycle of death
and rebirth but not all Souls can be liberated as they are
incapable of achieving this. The Soul can evolve towards
that liberation only by following specic principles of
behaviour.
In Sikhism, the 'Atma' or Soul is an entity or 'Spiritual spark'
or 'light' in our body because of which the body can sustain
life. Following the departure of this entity from the body,
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
the body becomes lifeless and no amount of manipulations
to the body can make the person make any physical actions.
The Soul is the power in the body which makes the physical
body alive. Sikhism considers Soul to be part of God.
Various hymns are cited from the holy book Sri Guru Granth
Sahib that suggests this belief—"God is in the Soul and the
Soul is in God." The same concept is repeated at various
pages of the holy book. For example: “The Soul is Divine;
Divine is the Soul. Worship Him with love” and “The Soul
is the Lord, and the Lord is the Soul; contemplating the
Shabad, the Lord is found."
There is also another belief called Animism, a belief that
even plants, rocks and rivers have a Soul. While all the
religions of the world talk of a Soul or the essence of life,
how is it that there is so much variation in their beliefs?
What is the truth about the Soul?
Over the centuries, there have been saints and sages in the
East and the West who have their own interpretation of the
Soul. Just as the Eastern and Western religions differ in
their theology and philosophy, the concept of the Soul has
different interpretations from the most respected wise men
of the world.
Sri Ramana Maharshi, in his book Naan Yar? translated as
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
Who Am I? has talked about the mind being the Sukhsham
Sharir or the subtle body. What is the mind? Actually, there
is nothing like the mind. It is just thoughts. Thoughts arise
because of the consciousness of the Divine Soul. When the
mind is in deep sleep, there are no thoughts but we are still
conscious that we experienced sound sleep. Due to
ignorance, we don't realize that we are not the mind but the
Divine Soul. But when we enquire, “Who am I?” it will
destroy all thoughts of the waker in our conscious life and
as the dreamer in our subconscious life. And then comes
the ultimate realization of the Self—that we are none other
than the Divine Soul which is a part of the Divine
Consciousness that we refer to as God.
Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa, an Indian Hindu mystic,
philosopher, and saint has mentioned that though all Souls
are the same in their ultimate nature, they appear to be
different. Just as puppets dance on the stage when pulled
by a wire but they can't move when the wire snaps, so also,
we human beings are alive as long as we are gifted with
consciousness from the Soul. Man is powerful because of
the power of God—the Soul. When it leaves, man becomes
lifeless and dies. He, who rmly believes that God alone is
the doer and he himself is a mere instrument of the Divine,
is a Jivanmukta - a free Soul that is alive in a body.
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
Swami Vivekananda was an Indian Hindu monk, a chief
th
disciple of the 19 century Indian mystic Ramakrishna
Paramahansa. He believed the Soul is the real self of man; it
is the real manifester, the real seer. That Soul which is
behind each mind and each body is the individual Atman,
and that Soul which is behind the universe as its guide,
ruler, and governor, is Parmatman or God. “Each Soul is
potentially Divine. The goal is to manifest this Divinity
within, by controlling nature, external and internal,” and
we can do this “either by work, or worship, or psychic
control, or philosophy — by one or more or all of these
methods and be free.” He stated that the Soul is beyond life
and death. The Soul is never born, and will never die. Birth
and death belong to the body only. "The Soul," Swami
Vivekananda said, "is a circle whose circumference is
nowhere, but whose centre is in some body. The so-called
death is only a shift in this centre to another body." God,
similarly, is a circle whose circumference is nowhere, but
whose centre is in every body. It is only when we can get
out of this narrow centre of the body that we shall realize
God, that is our true self.
Srila Prabhupada, a great Vaishnava saint of the modern
time and an Indian spiritual teacher further explains, "The
Atman does not take birth and the Atman does not die...and
because the Atman has no birth, therefore, it has no past,
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
present or future. It is ever-existing and eternal. There is no
trace in history of its coming into being.”
Acharya Rajneesh, popularly known as Osho, was an
Indian mystic who became a global philosopher. When
asked about the relationship of the body and the Soul, Osho
said that in reality, they are one and the same. They are
different forms of the same reality just like we have two
hands and we consider them to be two separate entities. But
when we look closer, we understand that they are two parts
of the same body. He further explained that the body and
the Soul are not different. The body is a manifestation of the
Soul. The body appears only when the consciousness of the
Soul gives it life that makes it move, walk and talk. Without
the Soul the body is nothing. It cannot exist.
He contradicted the spiritualists who said that there is only
the Soul and no body, and he also contradicted the
materialists who declared that there is only the body and
there is no Soul. He said that both are mistaken and
contradictory concepts. The truth is that the body and the
Soul are not separate. The Soul is invisible. It becomes
visible when it manifests through the body. Therefore, the
body is nothing but the Soul appearing in physical form.
Swami Chinmayananda, a Hindu spiritual leader and a
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
teacher, believed in the immortality of the Soul and our
oneness with the supreme reality, “Only in the silence of a
quiet mind can you realize your oneness with the supreme
reality—Brahman. The Soul is unborn; only the body is
born. The body equipment must perish, but not the Soul.”
th
Adi Shankaracharya, an early 8 century Indian
philosopher and theologian who consolidated the doctrine
of Advaita Vedanta believed in the unity of the Soul, the
Atman and the Nirguna Brahman “Brahman without
attributes". In his text Upadesasahasri, he discourages
ritual worship to God because that assumes the Self within
is different from the Brahman. The "doctrine of difference"
is wrong, asserts Shankara, because, "he who knows that
Brahman is one and he is another, does not know
Brahman." However, Shankara also asserts that Self-
knowledge is realized when one's mind is puried by an
ethical life that observes disciplines such as Ahimsa or non-
violence to others in body, mind, and thoughts and rites
such as Yajna, a re ritual. All these, asserts Shankara, can
help draw and prepare the mind for the journey to Self-
knowledge.
‘Atma Shatakam’ or The Song of the Self is a composition by
Adi Shankara. It is said that when he was an eight-year-old
boy and was wandering near River Narmada seeking to
28
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
nd his guru, he encountered the seer Govinda
Bhagavatpada who asked him, "Who are you?." The boy
answered with these stanzas, which are known as Nirvana
Shatkam or Atma Shatkam. Swami Govindapada accepted
Adi Shankara as his disciple. The verses are said to be
valued to progress in contemplation practices that lead to
Self-Realization.
“I am neither the mind, nor intellect, nor ego
Nor the reections of the inner self.
I am not the ve elements - Earth, Air, Water, Fire, and Space
I am That! The Life Energy, the Soul. God is inside me.
I am without any attributes and form.
I am present everywhere as Consciousness, beyond all the sense
organs.
Neither do I have an attachment with the world, nor am I freed.
I have no wishes for anything because I am everything,
everywhere, every time.
I am indeed that pure, eternal, blissful Consciousness;
I am the Divine Soul!”
Rumi, the 13th century Persian poet, Islamic scholar,
theologian, and a Su mystic considered the Soul as a
person's guide in and after life through specic stages of
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
development, ending in Divine union. He spoke of our
inherent Divinity. He believed that the body is not our
identity, “Know then that the body is only a garment. Go
seek the wearer, not the cloak. Everything in the universe is
within you. Ask all from yourself. There is a force within
that gives you life—seek that.”
In Masnavi, he says, “Just as an arrow forgets the Archer,
the heart forgets the Giver of conscience. In such a state we
are like a rider who thinks he has lost his horse while he is
speeding down the road. We go mindlessly from place to
place searching for our horse, unaware that the horse is
under our thighs. Spirit is so obvious and immediate that
we do not see It. We see colors, but those colors become
veils and we do not recognize the Light. Light itself makes
perception possible, yet we are unaware or even in denial
of the Light. Light allows us to perceive both the outer
forms, as well as inner thoughts and states.”
St. Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and
preacher. He carried out the work of Jesus Christ when he
said, "Your God is of your esh, He lives in your nearest
neighbor, in every man." He believed that nature itself was
the mirror of God. He called all creatures his "brothers" and
"sisters," and even preached to the birds and supposedly,
according to a legend persuaded a wolf to stop attacking
30
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
some locals if they agreed to feed the wolf. "All things of
creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of
man. God wants us to help animals, if they need help. Every
creature in distress has the same right to be protected." He
believed that not only man, but all living beings have Souls
and that physical death does not end our life - as living
Souls, we will be judged by God after we die. "Remember
that when you leave this earth, you can take with you
nothing that you have received - only what you have given:
a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrice, and
courage."
In Christian theology St. Augustine spoke of the Soul as a
“rider” on the body, making clear the split between the
material and the immaterial, with the Soul representing the
“true” person. However, although the body and the Soul
are separate, it is not possible to conceive of a Soul without
its body. In the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas went
back to the Greek philosophers' concept of the soul as a
motivating principle of the body, independent but
requiring the substance of the body to make an individual.
From the pre-historic period of mythological religion to
modern-day Spirituality, post the era of Enlightenment,
there has been a sea-change and the difference of opinion
on the Soul has narrowed down to just a few concepts. As
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
the world has become more practical and realism has
overtaken rituals and superstitions, the mystery of the Soul
has largely been demystied. However, the world still
considers the Soul to be a mystery.
What do modern-day philosophers, authors and true
seekers of the Soul believe? An interesting session of Oprah
Winfrey with many popular spiritualists reveals an
interesting synergy of what the Soul is.
Gary Zukav, an American spiritual teacher and the author
of four consecutive New York Times Best Sellers, says,
“The Soul is that part of you that existed before you were
born and that will exist after you die. It's the highest, most
noble part of yourself that you can reach for.”
Iyanla Vanzant, an American inspirational speaker, lawyer,
'New Thought' spiritual teacher, author, and television
personality states, “The Soul I believe is the ngerprint of
God that becomes the physical body. It's the ngerprint-like
you put on a piece of paper and it is unique to everybody -
unique in its own development and expression but lled
with the Divinity that is the essence of all that is.”
Deepak Chopra, the Indian-American author and
alternative-medicine advocate says, “The Soul is the core of
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
your being. It is eternal; it doesn't exist in space-time. It's a
feel of innite possibilities, innite creativity. It is your
internal reference point with which you should always be
in touch.”
DeVon Franklin is an American Hollywood producer, best-
selling author, renowned preacher and motivational
speaker. He is best known for the lms - Miracles from
Heaven, Heaven Is for Real, and the New York Times best-
seller book The Wait. According to him, “The Soul is the
Spirit. It is the connecting line to God. I believe the Soul is
where the Holy Spirit resides. I believe literally, when you
pick up the phone and you have the 4G network, the Soul is
the 4G network - right to heaven.”
Daniel Pink, an American author says, “The Soul is, I think,
our capacity to see that our lives are about something more
than simply day to day and that we are here for a purpose.
It can be connected to religion or not, but that there is a
purpose of your being here.”
Debbie Ford was an American self-help author, coach,
lecturer and teacher, most known for the New York Times
best-selling book The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, which
aimed to help readers overcome their shadow side with the
help of modern psychology and spiritual practices. Debbie
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
said, “To me, the Soul is a part of us that never dies. It is who
we are at our core and carries all the messages and the
lessons that we have learnt in the past and will carry all the
lessons and the messages that we will carry into the
future.”
Eckhart Tolle is a spiritual teacher, best known as the
author of The Power of Now and A New Earth: Awakening to
Your Life's Purpose. Eckhart says, “The Soul is your
innermost being, the consciousness that you are beyond
form, that is the Soul, that is who you are in essence.”
Michael Singer is a bestselling author, a meditation center
founder, and a former software programmer. He says,
“The in-dwelling Consciousness that watches the mind
come and go, that watches the heart come and go…the
emotions of the heart and watches the world pass before
you. You, the consciousness, the centre of being is the
Soul.”
Wayne Dyer, a well renowned American self-help author
and a motivational speaker, says, “The Soul is the birthless,
deathless, changeless part of us, the part of us that looks out
from behind our eyes and has no form. The Soul is innite
so there is no IN or OUT of it. It is everywhere, there is no
place that it is not.”
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
Marianne Williamson is an American author, spiritual
leader, politician, and activist. According to Marianne, “It's
the truth of who we are, the light, the love which is within
us…goes by different names, but the truth of us. Inside is
the being that God has already created. Some call it the
Christ, the Buddha mind, the Shekinah, the light, the Soul.
Our job is to get rid of this excess, useless fear, thought
forms of the world that actually hide the light of the Soul.”
Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee is a Su mystic and lineage
successor in the Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya Su Order.
He is an extensive lecturer and author of several books
about Susm, mysticism, dreamwork, and spirituality. He
says, “Soul is the Divine part of ourselves, it is our Divine
nature. It is part of us, it is one with God. Everybody has a
Soul. It is the immortal, eternal part of ourselves. Soul never
dies, it's immortal, it belongs to God.”
Jean Houston is an American author involved in the
"human potential movement." Jean says, “I believe that the
Soul is the essence of who and what we are. I personally
believe that it transcends our leaving this mortal coil and I
think it comes with codes and possibilities and the next
layers of who and what we may yet be. It is often a pain in
the neck because it says 'wake up, it's time to wake up!
Don't go to sleep.”
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
While ancient civilizations and religions, sages and the
saints that humanity has seen and the most intelligent of
modern-day philosophers have shared their thoughts
about the Soul, the Soul is something that can't be dened
in words. It needs to be experienced intuitively. We can
continue our quest to understand the Soul, but the ultimate
challenge is to experience it and then to realize the truth
about it.
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IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
What is the Soul? It is but one thing.
It can't be different for a different being.
Some religions believe that it will go to heaven or hell,
It will unite with God, some others tell.
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TAKEAWAYS
IN SEARCH OF THE SOUL
Ÿ What is the Soul? Is it actually something mysterious?
Ÿ Different religions advocate different interpretations of
the Soul.
Ÿ Many religions talk of the Soul going to heaven or hell as
per the judgement of God.
Ÿ The Eastern religions believe that our goal is to be
liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Ÿ Over the centuries, saints and sages believed the Soul to
be a part of God—God itself.
Ÿ Modern-day philosophers too have evolved in their
beliefs to realize the truth about the Soul.
Ÿ Whatever be the Soul, they believe that it can't be dened
in words.
Ÿ We must realize the truth about the Soul.
38
03
LET’S DO
SOME SOUL
SEARCHING
39
LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
After acquiring an understanding of the mysteries
associated with the Soul, and then demystifying the myth
considering intelligent interpretations by religions,
philosophers and authors, let us move on to do some 'Soul-
searching'.
It seems to be quite clear that the Soul exists. It is an energy
that is Divine and seems to have some connection with the
Creator. While it probably arrives at birth and departs at
death, during our existence as a human being on earth, we
need to ratify this in our search for the Soul. Let's start.
Do you think you have a Soul? Most of humanity thinks that
the Soul exists, but what is the guarantee of it? We human
beings are essentially a body-mind complex. Have you seen
a human being without a body? Ridiculous! Everybody has
a body. It is the body that denes our existence. We are born
as a baby and then we grow into an adult and nally, we die.
This is in short, the journey of the body.
What else are we? Are we just skin, esh, muscle, blood and
bones or is there something else inside us? If we break the
bones, there will be bone marrow. We can virtually take
apart every cell of the human being and keep all its
constituents on a table. We can dene each organ – the
heart, the brain, and several other organs that make our
40
LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
body function. Science has gone forward to understand
how the body functions. The heart pumps blood to the
millions of blood vessels as it supplies fresh oxygen needed
by the body to live. We breathe in air through our lungs that
provides oxygen to the heart. We eat food that is digested
within us and gives our body energy to act. There is also a
digestive system that not only breaks down food to provide
energy but also ejects all waste matter. The human body
itself is a marvel, but are we connected to some kind of a
machine that makes all this happen? Our eyes see, our nose
smells, the ears hear, the tongue can taste the most delicious
food and the skin can touch, feel and even love. What
makes all this happen?
We often think that the physical body is driven by the mind.
What is the mind? Have you ever seen your mind? Sure,
you may have seen an X-ray of the brain or a picture of it,
but the mind? The mind is an invisible part of our existence.
While we have a gross physical body, we seem to have a
subtle body, one that can't be touched but we can
experience it.
The subtle body seems to have 4 aspects of existence – the
mind, the memory, the intellect, and the ego. The mind is a
thought factory, it produces thoughts. Every human being
thinks, unless one is like a vegetable in a state of coma, in
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
which case we are not sure about the presence of thoughts.
Some philosophers believe that thinking is the cause of our
existence. René Descartes said – I think, therefore I am. But
is it only thinking? No! We have the power of the intellect.
While it is not identiable in our gross body, we all know
that we are blessed with the power to choose. We can
discriminate right from wrong, black from white and the
truth from the myth.
Some people confuse the brain to be the receptacle of the
mind and intellect. But scientists have not been able to
discover this. Our thoughts, in fact, appear from all parts of
the body as our senses trigger thoughts in the mind. While
the brain is a central processing unit, scientists have agreed
that it is different from the mind. That is why we are unable
to connect our brain through wires and transfer its memory
on to a hard drive. This is because the third aspect of our
subtle body, the memory is not physical.
Along with these three, there is the ego – one which appears
to say, “I am Smith. This is my house, this is my wife and that
car is mine.” It is the ego that denes our existence, our
relationship with people and claims possession of things.
But where is the ego in the body? It doesn't have a physical
existence. The world has accepted the presence of the subtle
body-mind, memory, intellect, and ego to be part of the
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
body-mind complex that creates a human being.
It seems like we are like a computer that needs both
hardware and software to function. If your laptop had no
software, it wouldn't work and without the hardware, the
software has no meaning. Both hardware and software are
needed for the gadget to function. But what about the
power supply? If there was no battery or electrical power,
would your laptop work? While we have discovered the
body's hardware and software, we have not paid attention
to its power supply. What is the power supply that creates
life in the human body? Some would do away with this
question by saying it is food that gives energy to the body.
But then, one day why does the body stop working
suddenly? It dies. They would argue that it is just like a
machine, but their argument fails because a machine can be
restarted. But a dead body can't!
There is a power inside us human beings that seems to
depart at death. It is the same power that is said to arrive at
birth. What is this power? This power is the Soul.
Therefore, we are not just a body and mind that moves
around from birth to death. We are body, mind, and Soul!
While we can differentiate the gross body from the subtle
body, the body from the mind, why is it so difcult to dene
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
the Soul? Some things in life are known by proof, but others
are known by inference. You know that you have a nose on
your face. You can touch it and feel it! You breathe through
it, just as you smell with it. You can see it in the mirror. But
can you see gravity? How do you know that the Law of
Gravity exists? When we throw an apple up in the sky, why
does it not y away into the clouds? It is drawn back to the
earth and we infer that this is due to the Law of Gravity. We
can't prove gravity exists, unlike our nose, but we believe in
its existence through inference.
So also, the Soul exists. It is that life that makes us live from
birth to death. When the Soul departs, there is no breath.
That is death! It is very different from sleeping. We sleep
every night, but we wake up. However, when our Soul
leaves us, we never wake up.
The world, by and large, understands this and talks of the
'departed Soul'. We say, “May his Soul rest in peace.” We
believe that the Soul has 'moved on' leaving the body to be
cremated or buried. Without the life inside us that we refer
to as the Soul, we are nothing. The Soul thus seems to be the
essence of our existence. If the Soul was still within a
person, would we cremate or bury that person?
How true is this belief that we are body, mind, and Soul?
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
There will be those who argue that there is no mind and
Soul, we are just the body. They even question the existence
of the mind as they say, “Where is the mind, I cannot nd!”
We know we have a mind, don't we? It worries and it
wanders. So also, while some may deny the existence of the
Soul, how can we argue about the very life that is inside us,
the life that makes our eyes blink and makes our mind
think? It is that power, that life, that we call the Soul.
When does the Soul come and when does it go? We seem to
know the answer to the latter, and even science endorses
that at death, in a ash the life leaves our 30 trillion cells that
make up the human body. However, when does this life
enter our body? We celebrate our birthday when we are
delivered on earth. But were we not alive one day before
when we were in our mother's womb? Were we not
kicking, and did we not have the energy months before we
were actually born? When were we actually born? We were
conceived about 9 months before when two cells from our
parents were destined in a fusion and went on to become a
zygote. Later, came the embryo and nally, the magic of a
human being. But when did the Soul actually come into the
picture? Did the energy appear in us the moment we were
out of the womb or did the energy appear when the two
cells fused to become one? One theory states that when
research was carried out by doctors on the subject of the
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
Soul, a foetus was scanned somewhere around the fourth
month of conception and a spark in the brain was observed.
It was presumed that this indicated the presence of the
Soul. But this is just a theory. Though there is no doubt that
the energy or the Soul did come into our being, either at
conception or somewhere in between, scientists are unable
to nd concrete answers. Mother Teresa, for instance, was
against abortion as she believed that life enters at the time
of conception. We don't know for sure, but probably, when
two cells of human beings merge and life is created, the
Soul has already entered. The real answer is known only by
the Divine. However, scientists do not deny the existence of
a power that they call 'life' which is nothing but the Soul.
Thus, we are not sure of the timing of the Soul's arrival, and
further, we are shrouded in darkness when we ponder over
where the Soul comes from and where it goes at death.
Those who do not want to believe or decipher the truth can
continue arguing till their life is over. But the true seekers
understand as they compare it with air. Air is everywhere,
isn't it? But you can't touch and feel it. However, if you take
a dead rubber balloon and blow into it, you have taken
some air from the universe and lled it into a balloon. The
balloon now comes to life because of the air inside. If we
deate the balloon, can we retrieve the air that was inside
it? Impossible! The air inside the balloon merges with the
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
air that is everywhere. So does our Soul!
The Soul seems to be the energy that gives life to human
beings from birth to death. It has a universal presence and is
beyond human comprehension. It appears from the
cosmos and goes back into the cosmos. Although we cannot
see it, touch it or feel it, we know of its existence through
inference and realization.
While a seeker who wants to realize the truth about the Soul
may do such Soul searching and come to know of the
existence of the Soul, there are others who will refuse to
accept such a simple denition of the Soul. They will raise a
thousand questions and complicate the understanding of
the Soul. Unfortunately, they do not realize that we human
beings have only been given the power of certain
perceptions. We can see, smell, hear, taste and touch, but
we have not been given the power to comprehend the Soul.
This is a long journey and only a few are blessed to realize
the truth. It starts when we go in search of the Soul, and our
quest leads us to understand the body and mind. To realize
the presence of a life that is the Soul, we must ponder
further to realize the truth.
The truth can't be known. The mind cannot think about the
Soul, nor can the intellect discriminate and dene it. It is for
that very reason that the mystery of the Soul has remained
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LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
undiscovered for thousands of years. It is only those, the
fortunate few who surrender themselves to this journey
and to the presence of the Divine, who get to realize the
ultimate truth of the Soul, which is also the ultimate goal of
human life.
Of course, the Soul exists! There's no doubt!
It is the energy that makes us walk and shout.
It is that life energy that gives us breath,
Without the Soul, we would be dead.
48
TAKEAWAYS
LET’S DO SOME SOUL SEARCHING
Ÿ A quest for the Soul reveals that it exists. It is Divine life
energy.
Ÿ It arrives at birth and departs at death.
Ÿ We human beings have a body, mind, and Soul— just
like a computer has hardware, software, and a power
supply.
Ÿ The Soul is a life power within each one of us. That is
why at death we talk of the departed Soul.
Ÿ The Soul is beyond human comprehension. While it
exists, it cannot be proved. We have to realize its
existence.
49
04
THE JOURNEY
OF
THE SOUL
50
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
While we are now quite sure about the existence of the Soul,
that it is the very life that is inside us, it would be interesting
to study the journey of the Soul. Where does the Soul come
from and where does it go?
We human beings are conscious of our birth and death, but
we have paid little attention to the Soul. What happens to
the Soul when a human being experiences death? The body
dies, but we are quite sure that the body is only the corpse
–the dead body of the one who was alive. Thus, we say that
the deceased has 'departed' or 'has passed away'.
What do we understand about the phenomenon of death?
There is one major confusion still that makes the Soul's
journey even more mystical. Who has departed at death?
Suppose Roger died. We say, “Roger has moved on,” when
in reality, Roger is right here in front of us. We deny that the
body before us is Roger and we believe this is only the
mortal remains of Roger. Where did Roger go? Will Roger
come back again? Because we fail to track the journey of the
Soul effectively, we remain in a state of confusion.
Who was Roger? Was he just the body? If Roger was just the
body we would not say at his death that he passed away. In
our search for the Soul, we realize that there were two
aspects other than the gross physical body – the rst was his
51
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
Antahkarna - inner instrument or 4 aspects of his subtle
body comprising the Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego - let’s
refer to this as MIME and the second is the Soul, or the life
power that kept Roger alive. Both of these aspects seem to
be missing at death.
We human beings confuse the mind and Soul to be one. We
often believe the Soul to be a part of these 4 subtle aspects.
The mind and Soul are different and unless we understand
this difference, we will never understand the journey of the
Soul. One who is trying to understand the MIME - Mind,
Intellect, Memory, Ego may sometimes be confused with
the ME - Mind and Ego as both are used interchangeably.
We should not be confused with ME and MIME as both are
part of the same inner instrument or the subtle body.
When Roger died, is it game over for Roger? Yes and no!
For the one who the world knew as Roger, it is game over!
That Roger will never come back again. To his friends, his
family, Roger is dead and gone forever, never to return. But
what about the one who was alive in Roger? What about the
mind and the Soul of Roger?
The Soul that gave Roger life was a power – a power that
gave life to each and every cell in Roger's body. A human
being is said to have over 30 trillion cells. Each cell is alive
with the power of the Soul. At death, the Soul departs,
52
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
making every cell of the human body lifeless. The Soul
leaves and moves on.
What happens to the mind? The mind and ego, along with
the memory and the intellect does not die. Roger died.
When the Soul departed, the life energy inside him escaped
and the world pronounced him dead. While the Soul moved
on, even the MIME left Roger. All along, Roger was just the
gross body that was following orders of the MIME that was
driving him to live and to act. Every action of Roger got
recorded as per the universal law as his Karma. There is a
law referred to as the Law of Karma. It is the Law of Action
and Reaction, the Law of Cause and Effect. It works like a
boomerang. The law states—What we give is what we get!
What goes around, comes around. If Roger did good deeds, he
would be blessed with the fruits of his actions. As you sow so
shall you reap—based on this Roger kept on experiencing the
result of his previous actions or past Karma just as his
present Karma would be responsible for his future, his
destiny.
Roger has so many deeds and actions that have not been
redeemed or settled. These may be good or bad. These
actions, also known as Karma, are recorded and must come
back to Roger. However, the physical body of Roger has
nished its journey. It will not return. The Karma belongs to
53
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
the MIME or the subtle body of Roger. At death, not only
does the Soul depart but also the mind and ego of Roger
laden with his Karma, leaves the body. The MIME has
unsettled Karma that needs to be redeemed. How does this
get settled?
Every MIME has a carried forward Karma, not just of the
life that just ended, but often, of several previous lives. The
MIME might have been Roger who just died, but earlier to
Roger, the MIME might have been Simon. The Karma of
Simon along with any previous Karma created by that
MIME together is the cause for it to be born as Roger. Now
the MIME is liberated from the body of Roger, carrying a
fresh account of Karma of all previous lives including that
of Simon and Roger.
The Soul has nothing to do with the Mind, Intellect,
Memory, Ego - MIME. Its function is just to give power or
life, just like it gives power to you and me. It is the same
power that gives life to us all. Just as in our home, there may
be lights, air conditioners, microwaves and heaters; the
appliances and gadgets are different, but the power that is
supplied to all of them is the same. Somehow, because we
misunderstand the true meaning of the Soul, we tend to
confuse the Soul with the mind. We even divide Soul as
'good Souls' and 'bad Souls' without realizing that the Soul
54
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
is one and ultimately belongs to the one Divine Universal
Power or Universal Soul.
It is important to understand the journey of MIME of a
person, before we can understand the journey of the Soul.
Both the MIME and the Soul are invisible and intangible,
but they are specically different entities. The Soul is
Divine Life that powers a human beings' journey from birth
to death. The MIME is the subtle part of the human being
that drives the body to act. It doesn't die! When the body it
occupies dies, it carries the Karma of its past actions and is
reborn in a new body. This happens when the Universal
Soul gives life to the new body once again.
What do we understand about the Soul's journey from this
revelation about the cycle of death and rebirth of a human
being? It reveals many facts. First of all, that a human body
is nothing. It is just skin and bone that starts as a single
fusion called a zygote that becomes a new-born baby, that
nally grows old and dies. The life energy is already
present in the sperm and in the ovum. When the zygote is
formed with the fusion of the life energy of the male and the
female and when a life is created the Soul is already
manifested. It is the Soul that creates the life in the fertilized
cell to become a zygote. If at any stage during the
development of the zygote, the Soul leaves, life ends. But
55
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
the MIME doesn't die. It only changes bodies, just like we
change our clothes. It is the ME—Mind and Ego that
experiences triple suffering—suffering of the body which it
drives, misery of the mind and the agony of the ego. The
Soul is free from this suffering. The Soul is an observer, the
source of power, that is the real cause of our existence. But
because of our ignorance, we do not realize this truth.
Where does the Soul come from? The Soul is Divinity. It
appears from the Divine and creates life. At death, it leaves
the body-mind complex and merges with the Divine. It once
again gives life when the MIME is reborn.
Because of our ignorance about the Soul, we think that the
Soul is inside us when in reality, the Soul is everywhere. It is
not only inside us but also outside us. We think that the
Soul is in us, but we don't realize that in reality, we are in
the Soul. To explain this seemingly complicated statement,
let us understand what happens when we take a rubber
balloon in our hand. We have the balloon, but there is no
air. Now we blow air into the balloon. Suddenly we feel
that there is air inside the balloon. While we are absolutely
right, we don't realize that there is air everywhere. Not just
inside the balloon, but even outside the balloon just as there
is air above and below the balloon. Just like the air is present
everywhere, the Soul too is omnipresent but we are unable
56
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
to realize this. Birds in the sky may not realize, but air is
everywhere. Fish in the water may not realize, but there is
water everywhere. So too, we human beings do not realize
that the Soul is everywhere.
We will never understand this, the journey of the Soul, till
we go deeper and realize the truth about the Soul. What
exactly is the Soul? Does the Soul even have a journey? It is
our limited understanding that confuses our journey of our
life with the journey of the Soul.
57
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
Where does the Soul come from and where does it go?
We know it's a power that makes us walk out of the door.
While Karma creates rebirth for the ego and the mind,
The journey of the Soul is of a different kind.
58
TAKEAWAYS
THE JOURNEY OF THE SOUL
Ÿ By now we are sure that the Soul exists. We are also
aware of its journey.
Ÿ The Soul appears at birth and departs at death. But
where does it go?
Ÿ While our Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego - MIME is
reborn based on our Karma, the Soul is not reborn.
Ÿ The Soul's function is to give life. It is a Divine Power.
Ÿ The Soul appears from the Divine and goes back to the
Divine.
Ÿ In reality, just like air is everywhere, the Soul too is
omnipresent.
59
05
SOUL
POWER
60
SOUL POWER
It takes a lot to realize the truth about the Soul. But if we
contemplate the Soul Power within, we may be blessed to
realize the truth about the Soul. Each human being has over
30 trillion cells and each cell, from head to toe, is alive and
has the power of the Soul in it. The human body is a
machine beyond comparison. If we discover how each part
of our body works, we will be surprised at the true power of
the Soul. Let's take our eyes for instance. It is with the
power of the Soul that we can see. The moment there is no
life in the eye, we become blind. If we take out our eyes and
keep them on the table, can they see? They become
disconnected from the Soul Power that is in us.
Each of our senses is powered by the Soul. We hear and we
smell. We taste and we touch because we are blessed to be
alive. If the power that gave us life left, all our senses would
become 'sense-less'. Even our organs function so meticulously
because of the power of the Soul.
Just imagine the power of the heart. It is said to provide so
much energy in our body that it can drive a truck for 30
kilometres every day. We breathe over 20,000 breaths each
day. This needs a very powerful energy to make it possible.
One gets abbergasted when they get to know that we have
several billion skin cells just as we have billions of neurons
in the brain. All these are powered by the Soul. Each human
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SOUL POWER
body is said to have over about 40 billion blood vessels.
How can such an amazing body remain alive and live? It is
all because of the Soul Power. Without the Soul Power, our
brain that is said to hold information of about one
quadrillion or one million billion bits, would stop
functioning and make us a vegetable! Think about it! It is
the Soul Power that makes us think, not just a few thoughts,
but up to 50,000 thoughts a day. This is no mean task. Food
for thought! If there was no Soul, could the mind think?
Could the body move and work if there was no Life Energy
inside?
Without the power of the Soul, our muscles, our joints, our
bones would be lifeless and incapable of any movement.
We walk and talk, we sing and play, all because of the
power within. But we don't stop and ask that if we take out
our heart and keep it on the table, would it still function the
way it does inside our body? No! It is the Soul Power that
makes the heart beat and if the heart fails, large
sophisticated machines need to be connected to our body to
keep it pumping blood to all the parts. Some human beings
take pride in science and consider it to be a great
achievement when they x an articial heart, or other
organs to make the body function. But can we give back life
to a dead person, once the Soul departs? We human beings
are far from realizing the true power of the Soul!
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SOUL POWER
By now, at least we know what the Soul is not. It is not the
physical body, not even the mind and ego. It is the life
power, the energy that is within us. It is the Soul that gives
energy to the 8 billion people alive in the world. It is not 8
billion different Souls, as some of us may think. It is one
power that enlivens all of humanity. Not just humanity, it is
the very life in animals, birds, sh, and even plants. The
Soul exists in every living being. That is what makes us
mortal. We live and we die! But the Soul is immortal. It is a
power that gives life.
While it is not so difcult to comprehend this Soul Power, it
becomes difcult to equate this Soul Power to everything in
nature that has energy. The Sun glows, the water ows and
the breeze blows. What causes this power? We may argue
that this power of nature is different from the Soul Power in
human beings. We may also argue, only more vehemently,
that the Soul in a human being cannot be the same Soul in a
buttery, a bird or a tree. How can the human Soul be
compared to these ordinary living beings?
Humanity is slowly coming to terms to realize that the Soul
is a Universal Power. There is no difference in the Soul that
is in me or in you. The Soul in you and the Soul in me is
capable of giving us the same power to live. We do not
realize that the same power is present in all other living
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SOUL POWER
beings too. In every animal, insect, bird, tree and plant there
is the same power. The mystery of the Soul continues to
bafe us and until we ponder on this power, we will not
overcome our ignorance and realize the truth about the
Soul Power. Chinese or Japanese, Indians or Americans, we
all have the same Soul. However, we are like that little child
who went to the park and asked the man who was blowing
gas into the balloons. The child was fascinated as the man
lled helium gas into a red balloon, then tied it to the tank,
making it sway in the wind. He then tied a yellow balloon, a
blue balloon and went on till he had all colours including
white to attract the children in the carnival. The intelligent
child walked up and innocently asked him, “I don't see a
black balloon up in the sky. If you ll a black balloon, will it
also y and blow in the wind?” The gas balloon man
laughed and replied, “Of course, it will. It is not the colour
of the balloon that matters. It is what is inside it that
matters.” We, like that innocent child, remain ignorant of
the truth that the Soul Power in all of us is the same
Universal Power.
When will man realize the truth about the Soul Power? The
rst modern solar power cell was patented by Russell Ohl
as recently as 1946. Till then, man knew of the power of the
sun but was unable to tap it. Man could see water owing
and experienced the power in it. But the rst modern water
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SOUL POWER
turbine began in 1882 when the British American Engineer,
James Francis developed it. Today, we use coal to create
power, but it was said to be rst used only in 1880. It is not
that man is ignorant about the different types of power, but
man has slowly and steadily started tapping into every
possible power available. It was as early as 1698 when the
rst steam engine was invented.
Today, man has become an expert and powers not only jet
planes into the sky and submarines under the ocean, but he
also propels space crafts into outer space. But man has to go
within and discover the power that makes him live. Man
gives power to the train and the plane, but he has not
discovered the power that comes to his brain.
The difference between all the other types of power
discovered by man and the power of the Soul is that the
Soul Power is ‘Life’. It is the only power that gives us
energy to live. There is something special about the power
of the Soul, but somehow this has escaped man's attention
and he is so busy discovering everything else that he has
forgotten to realize the power of his Soul.
We human beings are blessed with a Divine Power, a
power that not only makes us breathe and live, but it also
makes us think and give. The Soul Power creates emotions
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SOUL POWER
and feelings that man is unsuccessfully trying to create in a
robot. Man has been blessed with a power that makes him
believe that he can make the impossible possible, but man
doesn't realize that without the Soul Power he is nothing.
We human beings experience different states of
consciousness. When we are awake, the body and mind are
conscious. When we sleep, the body is not conscious, but if
the mind dreams, our subconscious is alive. When the mind
also sleeps, neither body nor the mind is conscious and we
experience a feeling of peace in deep sleep which makes us
say, “I slept like a log” when we wake up. If we notice we
experience the waking state, the dream state, and the deep
sleep state. We are neither the waker nor the dreamer nor the
sleeper, but the superconscious power that experiences these
three states.
It is the power of the Soul that makes man conscious of who
he is. It lets man remain awake with body and mind and it is
this very Soul that lets the body sleep as it continues to
power the mind as it dreams subconsciously. The moment
the Soul departs, man loses all his power. He loses his
power to be conscious, awake and aware. Without the Soul,
man becomes nothing. Man has been unable to discover the
power of the Soul.
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SOUL POWER
The Soul is a power, not the ego, body or mind,
Not just the heartbeat, it's in every cell we find.
Even when asleep our dreams
are powered by the Soul.
Without the Soul Power,
the body wouldn't be whole.
67
TAKEAWAYS
SOUL POWER
Ÿ We know what the Soul is not. It is not the ego, body or
mind.
Ÿ The Soul exists in each of our 30 trillion cells. It gives life
to all our senses.
Ÿ Without the Soul Power, we would be lifeless.
Ÿ We realize there is no difference between my Soul and
your Soul.
Ÿ The moment the Soul departs, man loses all his power,
he becomes nothing.
Ÿ The Soul is the Power that gives life to all 8 billion people
on earth. It is also the power that gives life to all the other
species, including plants, animals and birds.
68
06
THE SOUL
AND
GOD
69
THE SOUL AND GOD
As we move forward in the search for the Soul, we should by
now realize that the Soul is a power, an intelligent power. It
gives us life, just as it gives life to everything else on earth. If
the Soul Power leaves us, there would be nothing. Imagine
the world without human beings, without animals, birds,
sh, and insects. Now take away the plants and the trees.
What would be left? Those who contemplate realize that the
entire earth comes alive with the power of the Soul. Where
did the Soul come from?
We human beings nd it very difcult to put together the
mystery of the Soul. It is because it is too vast a subject to t
into our tiny human mind. It is like emptying the ocean into
a bucket. However, the wise men of the past, saints and
sages of our ancient civilizations had revealed the truth
centuries ago.
The Soul that creates everything alive on earth is nothing
but a manifestation of the Divine. The Soul is God. It is the
Divine that appears as everything alive on earth.
It becomes necessary to immediately clarify that the God
we are talking of is not a statue or a saint – the God, the
Creator is a Power. It is the Creator that is beyond our
comprehension, a power that no human brain can paint.
Somehow, our tiny human brain denes God as a person
70
THE SOUL AND GOD
with name and form. This is a myth, an illusion. It is only
those who go on a quest and who achieve a state of self-
realization, they are blessed to reach the blissful state of
God-realization. They experience God, the Divine in
everything alive on earth. Realized Souls do not see human
beings as 'you' and 'I'. They see each person as a Divine
Soul, appearing in a human form. They see the beautiful
birds and butteries, exotic sh and dolphins; they see
everything beautiful as a manifestation of God. This is the
truth. But how do we realize this?
While we will go into a detailed understanding of our
ignorance and realization of the truth, let us not lose the
grasp on understanding how the Soul is the essential cause
of a human being. We human beings look like we are 8
billion different entities. But in reality, we are one Soul. We
may appear as Indians and Americans, French and
Chinese, but that is just the outer appearance. In reality, we
are the Soul. The Soul is the cause, we are just effects, just
like a ring, a bracelet and a chain look like 3 different pieces
of jewellery, but they are made of gold. Gold is the cause,
the ornaments are just the effects. Without gold, they are
nothing! The jewellery appears to be various forms and
pieces of jewels, but it is not. If you take out the gold, there
will be no jewellery. So also, we human beings appear to be
male and female, black and white, Hindu, Muslim, and
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THE SOUL AND GOD
Christian, but in reality, we are all the Soul. If the Soul
departs, we die. At death, we become nothing. We return to
dust. Therefore, what are we essentially? Just like the ring,
the bracelet and the chain are nothing but gold, we too are
nothing but the Soul. Just like gold is the cause, the Soul is
our cause. Just like ornaments are effects, we too are mere
effects. If we remove the cause, there is nothing left.
For thousands of years, spirituality and science were at
loggerheads. The spiritual saints always believed that
human beings are a manifestation of the Divine. We are not
human beings having a spiritual experience on earth, but
rather Souls having a human experience. Science would
accept none of that. Science is all about proof. Science
prides itself on the intellectual and practical study of the
physical world through observation and experiment. It
does not accept the presence of a subtle body or something
that the saints call the Soul.
Over the centuries, science is coming to terms with the
reality of our existence. It was only in the early part of the
th 2
20 century when Einstein proposed the formula E = MC
and science coined a new principle on energy and mass
equivalence. The principle stated that anything that has
mass, has an equal amount of energy and vice versa. This
principle was known to the world in the 19th-century itself.
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THE SOUL AND GOD
The scientists then coined the laws of thermodynamics. A
famous scientic principle known to us is – energy can
neither be created nor destroyed. It can only be
transformed from one form to another. What does this
mean? It means that the energy in a human being cannot be
destroyed. It is not mortal. The immortal energy in us is the
Divine Soul that comes at birth and departs at death. For the
rst time, science and spirituality are saying the same
thing, but still, scientists around the world do not want to
accept their recent discoveries to be interpreted as the
Divine Soul in human beings.
Although the work of famous scientists Max Planck, Albert
Einstein, and others started centuries ago, it was only Louis
de Broglie, a French physicist who in 1923 proposed a
hypothesis explaining the theory of the 'Wave-Particle
Duality'. This went on to become a scientic principle. This
concept in quantum mechanics states that every particle
may be described as either a particle or a wave. What is said
to have brought about this discovery?
It was when scientists were trying to study the smallest part
of a cell, not just molecules or atoms, but even smaller
particles than electrons, protons, and neutrons—the
properties of a quark under sophisticated microscopes, that
they noticed that the particle of matter suddenly
73
THE SOUL AND GOD
disappeared. Based on the scientists' knowledge, they
described it as a particle of mass getting converted into an
energy wave. As they were recording their observations,
they were abbergasted to see that the energy returned as
the particle. This made them coin a new theory called the
Wave-Particle Duality.
In 2012, scientists at CERN, the European centre for
Nuclear Research, Geneva, announced that they almost
nabbed the Higgs boson, and dubbed it as the 'God
Particle'. This was theorized 48 years ago by Peter Higgs
and now, practically validated at the Large Hadron
Collider. The discovery of this particle explains why
everything in this universe has mass. To explain it in
common terms, atoms are not just made up of neutrons,
electrons, and protons, and the tiniest of them, quark, but
rather, all of these are energy. You and me, may look like
mass of molecules, but in reality, we are essentially energy.
This is what Higgs boson or God particle does. It is a eld
where energy takes the form of mass. The Higgs boson is
the new elementary particle discovered by the scientists at
CERN. Their theory was that all of space, everywhere in the
universe, everything is lled with the Quantum eld of
energy and this eld came to be known as the 'Higgs eld'.
Photons or light particles pass through this eld, without
resistance. But other particles, end up appearing as mass
74
THE SOUL AND GOD
when they pass through the energy eld or the Higgs boson
eld. Since 1964, this was just a theory, but in 2012,
scientists proved the theory in the laboratory in CERN. It
took thousands of scientists and engineers from around the
world to build this machine–the Large Hadron Collider or
LHC. The LHC is one of the most sophisticated machines
that humans have ever built. In the LHC, scientists
discovered that the tiniest of particles was a collection of
these tiniest quarks that were held together by gluons and
they actually appeared as they do because of the 'God
particle'. This dates back to 1907 or earlier when Einstein
and Max Planck spoke of the equation E=MC2. This
principle states that anything having mass has an equal
amount of energy. It also states that energy can neither be
created nor destroyed, but can only be transformed from
one form to another.
What does this mean? It means that even as per scientists,
you and I are not the trillions of cells that we appear to be. In
reality, we are energy!
Keeping all the above in mind, the truth that appears out of
it all is that the Soul or Life Energy manifests as everything
in this world. The Soul is nothing but energy – Divine
Energy. How will we human beings ever realize this truth?
It is only possible if we overcome our ignorance.
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THE SOUL AND GOD
The Soul is God, we must realize the truth,
It is Divine energy, we must get to the root.
While we try to find the connection
between the Soul and our Lord,
We will realize that everything
is a manifestation of God.
76
TAKEAWAYS
THE SOUL AND GOD
Ÿ The Soul is a power. It is a power that gives life.
Ÿ Our mind is too small to comprehend the power of the
Soul.
Ÿ The Soul is a manifestation of God.
Ÿ The Soul is God-energy.
Ÿ God is the Universal Power, the Creator, manifesting as
the Soul.
Ÿ Quantum physics, through the Wave-Particle Duality,
endorses that everything is energy.
Ÿ Today science and spirituality, both agree that we are
nothing but energy. This energy is Divine energy!
77
07
OVERCOMING
IGNORANCE
78
OVERCOMING IGNO NCE
“The Soul will go to heaven,” so we think! “There are 'good'
Souls and 'bad' Souls. After death the Soul will suffer. Souls
are reborn.” All these beliefs continue to keep us in
ignorance about the Divine Soul. Somehow, humanity is
enveloped in ignorance when it comes to the Soul. We say,
“May his Soul rest in peace” without even realizing what
we are saying! “Let's pray for the departed Soul,” we say
this not realizing that the Soul itself is Divine. Do we pray
for the Divine? The mystery of the Soul, the myths that we
have believed in for thousands of years envelop us in
darkness. When will we realize the truth?
Since time immemorial, the world thought that the Sun
revolved around the Earth. However, this was a myth. But
it took several centuries for the world to realize that it was
the other way around. So is it with the Soul! We think that
the Soul is a distinct individual entity just like the body-
yours different from mine. We believe the Soul is in some
way associated or connected to the mind. Somehow, we
have come to believe that the three entities, the body, mind
and Soul together form our life and the Soul is within us.
While some of our beliefs are true, our misunderstanding
of the truth makes us go on to believe that it is the Soul that
is reborn to face the actions of the person who was alive.
What is the cause of this ignorance? It is because we do not
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OVERCOMING IGNO NCE
go on a quest to nd the reality about our Soul. We don't
even know who we are and who God is. Our ego makes us
believe that it is 'me', the one I can see in the mirror. What we
don't realize is that this appearance is ctitious. Every day,
our body has cells that are dying and are being reborn. Every
8 to 10 years, we have a completely new body. And one day,
this body will eventually die. We are quite ignorant about
where we come from and where we will go. We call the day
we were born on earth as our birthday, but in reality, we
were born much before that. Our existence started in our
mother's womb, but we choose to be blissfully ignorant
about the truth of our existence. We think we will die, but we
are ignorant that death is not the end, it is only a bend and
we transcend from one life to another. Who is it that dies and
who is it that is reborn? Is it the body, the mind or the Soul?
Our ignorance takes us further into acts of irrelevance. We
pray for our ancestors. We put up their photographs and
make fervent prayers for their well-being. Who are we
praying for? The body that has been cremated or buried, or
the Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego - MIME, that has taken
rebirth? Or are we praying for the Soul which we believe is
somewhere in heaven or in the skies? As long as we continue
to live with ignorance, our actions will be motivated by
irrelevance. All this is because of our ignorance about the
Soul.
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OVERCOMING IGNO NCE
As long as we don't realize that we are not this body and we
are not even this mind, we will never realize we are the
Divine Soul. Even if we read and believe we are the Soul, this
knowledge will never sink into our life due to the deep
ignorance that surrounds us. Unless our knowledge evolves
to realization, unless we go beyond knowing, we will never
realize the truth. To realize the truth, we have to open our
'real eyes'—eyes that look within.
Guru Nanak, the famous Sikh Guru, said something very
profound. We human beings are given 9 doors in the
human body—two doors of the eyes to see, two of the ears,
two nostrils, one mouth, an organ of excretion and an organ
of procreation. All these nine doors are looking outside.
The Guru says that unless we open the 10th door, the door
that looks within, we will continue to live in ignorance.
What causes this ignorance? Our ignorance is caused due to
the cosmic illusion, called Maya. What does this illusion
do? It has two powers. It conceals the truth and projects the
myth. We human beings sink in this cosmic illusion. We
often go for a movie and we get carried away by what we
see on the screen. We even feel sad and shed tears when our
favourite actor dies in the movie. Why? We know this is not
real. It is just a projection. But because of the illusion that is
projected, we get carried away and become emotional
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believing the projection to be real. By doing so, the truth
that it is not real gets concealed by the myth that is
projected. Maya does the same for the Soul. Maya projects
us to be the body and mind, and as it projects this myth, it
conceals the truth that we are the Soul.
This world is a cosmic drama, a drama of the Divine. But we
tend to believe that it is real. Thus, we get attached to all our
possessions and think that our relationships are eternal.
Nothing is eternal. Everything in this movie called Life is
transitory. We are just actors, we come, we have to do our
part and go. Instead of observing the cosmic drama as a
drama, we think it to be real and we do not overcome our
ignorance to realize the truth.
A human being has been created in a manner that he
believes what he sees when he is awake as real and what he
dreams in a dream is an illusion. He doesn't realize that
even what he experiences when he is awake is nothing
better than a dream. If we human beings borrow some
money from somebody, we feel morally obliged that we
must return it. However, if we dream that our neighbour
has borrowed a large sum of money from us in our dream,
when we wake up, will we go to our neighbour and
demand the money? Of course not! It was just a dream.
How can we demand money borrowed in the dream? We
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human beings think that the dream is false and what
happens when we are awake is real. This is because we
think we are the body, mind, and Soul. We don't realize that
the body and mind are a myth, an illusion, a projection of
the cosmic drama. When we overcome our ignorance, we
will realize the truth that we are the Divine Soul.
What stops us from realizing the truth? What creates this
ignorance? Our biggest enemy is ME – the Mind and Ego. It
is the mind and ego that makes us believe that we are the
body, mind, and ego. It conceals the truth that we are the
Soul. Why is this so? It is because the moment we realize
that we are the Divine Soul and not the body, mind, and ego
that we believe ourselves to be, it destroys the very
existence of the ME, the Mind and Ego. Therefore, the Mind
and Ego resist the overcoming of ignorance and continue to
imprison us in the illusion.
How does the Mind and Ego do it? The mind is producing
thoughts. It constantly produces thoughts at a rate of about
one thought per second. These thoughts that are popping
like popcorn in a machine do not let us contemplate the
truth. They make us swing into the past to nurse, curse and
to rehearse our past regrets. Then they make us jump into
the future and create fear, worry, and stress. Because of this
constant shuttling of the mind, from a past that is gone to a
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OVERCOMING IGNO NCE
future not yet born, we are unable to remain in the present
moment and be conscious that we are the Divine Soul. The
ego joins the mind in its efforts by making us believe that
we are ME - the Mind and the Ego when in reality we are the
Soul.
When we look at our photograph, we tend to identify
ourselves as our body which we are not. Then the ego goes
on to say, “These are my parents and my wife and children.”
It doesn't stop at that. The ego says, “The house is mine, the
car is mine and the money is mine.” All this is a part of the
universal ignorance. As intelligent beings, we know that
nothing is ours. Life is a journey. We come and we go.
Everything that we possess is like a trust that we have to
return at death. Even the relationships are transitory.
Because of our ignorance, we suffer pain, misery, and
anguish, apart from losing an opportunity of living a life of
peace and bliss as the Divine Soul.
When will we realize that our life on earth is just a drama?
In the drama, we may be a king or a beggar. We may fall in
love and have children, but once the drama is over, we
realize that all that was happening was just a part of the
drama. It was not real! Although life is like a drama, we do
not realize the truth. Whatever happens in this drama is
momentary. It is not eternal.
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Why is it that we continue to live in ignorance? This is
because we do not use our intellect. We human beings are
blessed with a subtle body, invisible and intangible, that
has four known entities - Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego -
MIME. Most of the time, our ignorance considers all the
four to be the mind. But we know, don't we, that we have an
intellect? The intellect discriminates right from wrong and
the truth from the myth. Unless we become conscious of the
intellect, we will never go on a quest to realize the truth. The
intellect doesn't just believe in every thought of the mind. It
asks questions, it investigates till it realizes the truth. If we
don't activate the intellect, we remain slaves to our mind
and continue to live a life of ignorance till we die.
What does most of humanity experience due to ignorance? A
vast majority is not bothered. They just live, enjoy pleasures
of the world and they die. Some of us are intelligent and
believe that we are a body-mind complex. The body dies and
returns to dust. But our Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego -
MIME, is reborn based on our past actions. This cycle
continues life after life and it is said that we human beings are
imprisoned in Samsara, the cycle of birth and death. This
imprisonment in the constant cycle of death and rebirth is
because of our ignorance.
Centuries ago, a Hindu prince Siddhartha Gautama stated
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OVERCOMING IGNO NCE
that this world is full of suffering. Anybody who is born
must ultimately die and before we die, we suffer. We
experience triple suffering - physical suffering that arises
due to the pain of the body, mental worry due to the
wandering and worrying of the mind and we experience
the agony of the ego that insists on and continues to live in
ignorance of the "I," the "my," and the "mine." The prince
renounced his kingdom, his wife and young child and went
in quest for the truth, to nd a way to escape from this
suffering. He is said to have been enlightened and became
known as the Buddha, or the Awakened One. He called this
Enlightenment, 'Nirvana', a state of bliss, peace, and joy. It
is not just a state of eternal happiness in this life but an
escape from the constant suffering that is experienced
because of the cycle of death and rebirth. The Buddha
advocated that we must go within to nd the truth, the way
to our own salvation. He also said that the only way is to
overcome ignorance and realize the truth.
Human suffering is due to ignorance and unless we
overcome ignorance, we will continue to believe in the
myth. We will not realize that we are the Divine Soul. How
can we overcome ignorance? How can we realize the truth?
There is only one way. To go on a quest in search of the
truth. If we have the help of a Spiritual Master and the grace
of the Divine, we may be fortunate to realize the truth.
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Ignorance makes us believe
many things about the Soul,
Because of the myth,
we don’t understand its role.
Good Soul and bad Soul,
heaven and hell we say,
Unless we overcome ignorance,
we will not find the right way.
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TAKEAWAYS
OVERCOMING IGNORANCE
Ÿ We are ignorant. We don't know many things about the
Soul.
Ÿ Different religions and philosophers advocate different
things.
Ÿ Our ignorance makes us get further confused.
Ÿ We must open our 'real eyes' to realize the truth.
Ÿ The ignorance is caused by 'Maya', the cosmic illusion.
Ÿ Our biggest enemy is ME – the Mind and Ego. It causes
our ignorance.
Ÿ Because of our ignorance, we suffer.
Ÿ Unless we go on a quest, we will not realize the truth.
Ÿ When we overcome ignorance, we are free from the
cycle of death and rebirth.
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REALIZING
THE
TRUTH
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
What is the truth? The truth is that we are the Divine Soul,
not the body that we seem to wear. We are the ones who
wear the body. Just like we are not the shirt or dress that we
are wearing, but we are inside it, so also, we are the Divine
Soul that pervades every cell of the body. But we have to
realize the truth. Merely reading this is not enough for us to
realize that we are the Soul. Although we know it, we still
don't realize it. Such is the mystery of Soul-realization.
How does one overcome ignorance and realize the truth?
One needs to go on a quest. One needs to go in search of
answers. One must ask questions about life and existence –
Who am I? Where did I come from? Where will I go? What
is my purpose? What is reincarnation? What is the Soul?
Where is God? Where are heaven and hell? Unless we ask
such questions, we will never realize the truth.
These questions may have many answers but what is the
right answer? We will get to the truth only when we get to
the bottom of the root and it is very difcult to do this
because of our own Mind and Ego, the ME. Our ME is our
biggest enemy. It bombards us with all kinds of thoughts
and distracts us from our contemplation of the truth.
While a seeker of the truth may be able to realize it on his
own, it is most advisable to seek the help of a spiritual
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master, a mentor or guide, also known as a Guru. The word
'Gu' means darkness, and 'Ru' means light, and a true Guru
is one who takes us from darkness to light. He helps us
overcome ignorance. He has already been on a quest and
realized the truth himself. Only such a master deserves to
be called a Guru. One doesn't nd a real Guru so easily. It is
said that we need the grace of the Divine to nd the right
Guru and to realize the truth.
From where does realization start? It starts with self-
realization and the ultimate goal is God-realization.
Somewhere in between, we realize the truth about the Soul.
To realize the self, the rst thing to investigate is “Who am
I?” One cannot realize this directly. It needs to start with
another question – “Who am I not?” or even “What am I
not?” This will start our journey to the Soul.
In a quest to know 'who I am,' a seeker nds the answers
when he rst eliminates what he is not. Am I the body? No!
The body was formed around me in the womb of my
mother. I was alive before my body was formed and even
after the death of my body, I will still be alive. I am not
mortal like the body. I am not the body. Then, am I the
mind? Yes, it seems so. I am the one who drives the body. I
am the MIME - Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego. But when I go
in quest of the mind, where it is I cannot nd.
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
There was once a king who went to his Spiritual Master and said
that he was very stressed out. He wanted help. He told the saint
that his mind was full of worry, stress, and anxiety. The saint
calmly listened, and then he said, “I have many tasks to nish.
Please come tomorrow morning and don't forget to bring your
mind with you. Then I will remove all your worry, stress, and
anxiety.” The King was pleased and went back to his palace. He
was looking forward to meeting the Master the next morning. He
just remembered what the Master had said. The whole night he
tried to locate his mind but to his surprise, he couldn't nd his
mind. Thoughts seemed to come to him from all parts of his body
and he was confused. He kept probing for answers but could not
nd any. He became worried but still, the next morning he
reached the home of his Master.
In a short while, the saint entered the room and asked the king,
“So you say that your mind is full of stress, worry, and anxiety.
Where is your mind?” The king replied, “I could not nd the
mind!” The saint smiled and replied, “But you just told me that
your mind is full of fear, worry, stress, and anxiety. If there is no
mind, then there would be no stress or worry. If they are just
thoughts, then stop that thinking.” The king understood that the
mind itself is an illusion, an imposter. While it appears to 'be', in
reality, it is not. It is just a bundle of thoughts that together
appear to be the mind and create negative thoughts and make us
anxious.
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The king was relaxed and relieved. He realized the truth that there
was no mind. Until we human beings realize that we are not
the body, we are not the mind or even the ego, we will never
realize that we are the Divine Soul. We exist, don't we? But
the question is, “Who are we in reality?”
When does our existence start and when does it end? We
believe that we were born on the day we were delivered.
But the truth is that we were alive even before that. We
were in our mother's womb for nine months. Did we exist
before that? No! That was the earliest possible start of our
life journey. When two cells of our parents became one,
then that energized ball of human cells grew to develop
hands, feet, a face and all the organs. Then it was delivered
on Earth. And one day, we will die. Will we live forever?
Our body will lie on the oor and people will say that we
passed away. But our body is very much here. Then who
passed away? Where did we go and how? We started our
journey as a Soul that developed a body around it. And
when we leave the body, the body nishes its journey but
the journey of the subtle body, the Mind, Intellect, Memory,
Ego - MIME and of the Soul, never ends until one attains
Liberation. Unless we realize this, that we are not the body,
nor the mind, we will never realize that we are the Soul.
While it is not so difcult to realize that we are not the body,
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how do we realize that we are neither the mind nor the ego
but rather we are the Divine Soul? A seeker doesn't realize
the truth so easily. There are several methods and any, or
sometimes, many of them lead to the realization of the truth.
Out of all of humanity, less than 1% goes in quest of the
truth. Of this 1% not more than 1% actually, realizes the
truth. Therefore, a very tiny fraction of humanity gets to the
truth.
When we are awake, the Soul gives power to both body and
mind. When the body sleeps, we are not conscious, but the
Soul powers the subconscious to dream. Are we the waker
or the dreamer? What are we in reality?
There was once a king named Raja Janak. One day Janak woke up
and started screaming, “Save me, save me! I am going to die!”
The queen realized that the king had just woken from a horrible
nightmare. “What happened?” she asked the king and he replied,
“They tied me, and they did not give me food and water after I lost
the war! Now I am a beggar and I am going to die. Save me!” The
queen waited for the king to come out of his trance, but he seemed
to be lost. She told him, “Your majesty, you are the king, not a
beggar! That was just a dream.” The king was spiritually
inclined, and he asked her the question, “Am I a king who was
dreaming that I was a beggar or am I a beggar who is dreaming
that I am the king? What is the truth, this or that?” The king
seemed to have got caught in this dilemma and wasn't able to
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come out of it. Everything in the kingdom came to a standstill.
Whoever met the king for anything, the king had only one
question, “Who am I – Am I the king or a beggar?” People were
confused and while they told him that he was the king, he did not
agree and questioned how he could be sure. One day, a learned
sage called Ashtavakra met the king and the king told him about
his dilemma. He asked the same question, “Am I the king who had
a dream that I was a beggar or am I a beggar having a dream that I
am the king?” The wise man gave him a profound answer, “You
are neither of the two. Neither are you the king who is awake, nor
the beggar of your dreams. You are in reality a Divine Soul.” The
king realized the truth and got out of his trance.
Very few people realize that we are not the waker or the
body. We are not even the dreamer or the mind. We are not
even the sleeper who sometimes experiences sound,
dreamless sleep. We are the consciousness that experiences
all these 3 states of consciousness. The consciousness that is
the Divine Soul. Somehow, like the king we live in a trance
all our life without realizing the truth.
Ordinary people don't know about the Law of Karma. They
just live and die, and they suffer because of their actions.
Intelligent people know of Karma, the Universal Law of
Action and Reaction. This law states that apples can't grow
on mango trees and as we sow, so shall we reap. They
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
control themselves from sinning because they know that
today's actions will become tomorrow's destiny, just as
today's life and circumstances are the results of our past
actions. The realized ones, however, are far more
intelligent. They know they are not the body, nor are they
the mind and ego. They get liberated from Karma. They
escape from the cycle of death and rebirth because they
realize that they are the Divine Soul. As long as they are
alive, they live in the body-mind complex and act as
directed by the Soul. But once the body dies, they are freed
from the illusion that they are mind and ego and they are
liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Suppose our eye is seeing an apple. The apple is the object,
the eye is the subject. The eye sees the apple. Who knows
whether the eye is seeing the apple? It is the mind. If the
eyes were removed and kept on the table, they would not
see the apple. But because of the mind, they see. The eyes
become the object and the mind, the subject. The mind is
seeing the eye seeing the apple. Sometimes, although the
eye is seeing the apple, if somebody plucks the apple, the
eye does not capture it, because the mind is wandering.
Who observes the mind is wandering? It is the Soul. The
Soul becomes the subject, the mind becomes the object. This
is another method of realizing we are the Soul.
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
We have already spoken about cause and effect. We human
beings are just an effect. The Soul is the cause. The moment
the Soul departs, our existence comes to an end. Just like
mud is the cause, the pot, the plate and the statue are effects.
If we remove the mud, there will be no pot, no plate or statue.
So also, if the Soul escapes, there will be no human existence.
The Law of Causation has 3 tenets that must be understood
to realize the truth.
1. Every effect has a cause.
2. The effect is nothing else but the cause in another form.
3. If you remove the cause, there is no effect.
Gold is the cause. The ring, the bracelet, and the chain are
effects. If you remove the gold, nothing is left. We human
beings are effects. The Soul is the cause. When the Soul
departs, nothing is left.
Another way of realizing that we are not the body but the
Soul is to do a virtual experiment. If we lock a human being
in an air-tight room with no chance to escape and then
virtually peel the human being like an onion, what
happens? We can remove the eyes and keep them on the
table. The person is blind but still alive. Now we remove the
ears, the nose, the teeth, the hair, the hands, and the legs.
The person may not be able to move but is still breathing.
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
We continue the virtual experiment. Now, we peel the skin
and empty the blood into beakers, while the esh and
muscles are removed. What is left after removing all the
organs of the body? Just the skeleton. Every cell of the
human being is inside this room, but where is the one who
was alive? Somewhere during the nal stage of the virtual
experiment, the energy within left the body. If it was so
simple to understand that we are that energy, the Soul, then
we could put it back in the body as we reverse the
experiment. Can we put back the Soul into a dead body?
We can't! This must make us realize that we are that Divine
Soul which is beyond human comprehension. We are that
life energy that comes into our being when we are
conceived and leaves our body at death. We are not the
body that is born or dies, nor are we the illusory mind and
ego – ME that is born again and again as per its Karma. We
are the Divine Soul.
Realization is not a gift for the ordinary. Only genuine
seekers of the Divine and those who have a passion for a
spiritual journey may attain this state. But it is possible for
those who go in search of answers to understand that we
are the Soul. Maybe we will not realize everything that will
take us to the ultimate step, our ultimate goal of Liberation
and Unication. A quest for the Soul will change our
paradigm about the Soul and create a new perspective of
life.
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REALIZING THE TRUTH
Not everybody is blessed with
the gift of Realization.
Realizing the Soul will give us Liberation.
And if there is Illumination after Purification,
we will experience Divine Unification.
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TAKEAWAYS
REALIZING THE TRUTH
Ÿ The truth is that we are the Divine Soul, not the body that
we wear.
Ÿ Due to ignorance, we don't realize this truth.
Ÿ We must go on a quest and we need the help of a
Spiritual Master, a Guru.
Ÿ Realization starts with self-realization and goes on to
God-realization.
Ÿ Upon overcoming ignorance we realize that we are not
the body, neither are we the ME—the Mind and Ego. We
are the Divine Soul.
Ÿ There are many methods to realize the truth including
the Law of Causation or the virtual experiment.
Ÿ Realization is not a gift for the ordinary. Very few people
are blessed to attain Liberation and Divine Unication.
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THE TRUTH
OF THE SOUL -
REVEALED!
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THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL - REVEALED!
So, what is the Soul? If the Soul is not the body, and not the
mind, does it exist? After overcoming all the myths about
ghosts, heaven and hell and ‘Soul hunting’, what have we
eventually realized is the truth about the Soul?
Soul is a Power. It exists in each one of us. In fact, it exists
even without us. But our existence brings about what the
Soul in us is. Our journey of life starts with the Soul and
ends with the Soul. Our physical journey from birth to
death is empowered by the Soul. Without the Soul, the
body is nothing. It cannot grow from a zygote to an embryo
and be delivered on earth. The Soul is the power that makes
the body live, breathe, eat, grow and reproduce. It is the
Soul that is driving the entire life cycle. When the Soul
leaves, the body dies.
Is that all? No! When the Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego -
MIME is reborn to settle its past action or Karma, it is once
again the Soul that makes it happen. The Soul is the power
involved in our life process but is not a part of our life that
we experience on earth. It is only a source of power.
The Soul that powers you, me, and the entire universe is the
same source of power. It is one Divine Universal Power. It is
omnipresent—present everywhere. It is not different for
different people. Your Soul is not different from my Soul,
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THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL - REVEALED!
just like the power in the bulb, the air conditioner, and the
television is the same power, although the gadgets are
different.
Going one step further, if we are blessed, we realize the
truth that everything is a manifestation of the Soul. Because
of the Soul, we appear and when the Soul leaves, we
disappear. The Soul is the cause, we are just effects. The
Soul is the one Universal Power that manifests as
everything.
Where does the Soul come from and where does it go? The
Soul doesn't come and go. It is there everywhere like air in
the atmosphere. We inhale and exhale air and it seems that
the air comes inside us and goes outside. But air is
everywhere. So is the Soul!
Due to our ignorance, we don't realize we are the Soul. This
makes us live and suffer as the body. It makes us suffer as
MIME - Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego that is reborn again
and again. The moment we overcome our ignorance and
realize the truth that we are the Divine Soul, we are
liberated from the cycle of death and rebirth and we are
united with the Divine.
We must be absolutely clear what the Soul is not. Just like
we have an individual body and our own Mind, Intellect,
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Memory, Ego - MIME, we don't have an individual or
separate Soul. The Soul is one. And when we say that we
have a Soul, we need to rethink because we don't have a
Soul—in fact, WE ARE THE SOUL. Because we are
embodied creatures, we start believing that we are the
body, mind, and ego which in reality is just a manifestation
of the Soul. Just like a gold ring is nothing, it is just a
manifestation of gold - if you remove the gold, there is
nothing. So it is with us. We exist because of the Soul.
Without the Soul, there can be no existence.
Once we are clear about the truth of the Soul, we will stop
believing the myth, “My Soul is different from your Soul.”
We will also overcome the fantasy that there are 'good'
Souls and 'bad' Souls, that our Soul will experience either
bliss or suffering by going to either heaven or hell. These
are fairy tales, and if one realizes the truth, these beliefs will
disappear like mist in the morning sun.
Because of our mind, the rascal, which is our biggest
enemy, we fantasize about the Soul appearing as a ghost.
Although, we may have just cremated or buried our elderly
parents or grandparents, the mind forces us to believe that
they still exist, either somewhere hidden on earth or
somewhere up in heaven. The moment we become clear
that the Soul is everything and is everywhere, and we are
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THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL - REVEALED!
just like waves that appear from the ocean and go back into
the ocean, we will overcome these fancy myths. Once the
wave merges with the ocean, we cannot go back and
capture it. So it is with the Soul.
The Soul causes our journey on earth based on our past
actions and along with our present actions, it will decide
the next birth on this humongous stage called the earth. We
are like puppets that come and go, but once we realize the
truth about the Soul, we will be liberated and will become
one with the Divine.
The Ultimate Truth is this—we are the Soul! It may seem
like we have a Soul, and there is no doubt that the Soul gives
power to each of the over 30 trillion cells of the human body.
But the truth is that we are that very power that we think we
have. We think we have a Soul, but we forget that we are the
Soul. We think we are the body and mind, but in reality, we
are neither of the two. We are the Soul that manifests as the
body and mind.
What is this power that we call the Soul? We now know that
the Soul is everywhere, but what exactly is this power?
Those who realize the truth infer that the power that is the
Soul is nothing but the Divine that appears as the Soul to us
human beings. We human beings have a limited
comprehension. We cannot comprehend beyond this. We
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THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL - REVEALED!
are not gifted with that sense. But, if we are fortunate and are
blessed with the grace of the Divine, we will realize the
profound truth that we are the Soul. The Soul is nothing but
the Divine. Ultimately, we are all manifestations of the
Divine.
The moment we overcome the myth about the Soul and
realize the truth, we will start our journey which will lead
us to living as the Divine Soul, our Ultimate Goal!
Because we live in Ignorance,
we think we have a Soul,
But when we realize we are the Soul,
the Divine takes control!
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TAKEAWAYS
THE TRUTH OF THE SOUL - REVEALED!
Ÿ The Soul is a Power that creates life in everything on
earth.
Ÿ ’Your’ Soul is no different from ‘my’ Soul.
Ÿ It appears like the Soul comes and goes, but the Soul is
everywhere.
Ÿ We come and go as we manifest in our human existence.
Ÿ The Soul is the Divine that appears as a Power to us. We
cannot comprehend beyond this.
Ÿ The truth is that we don't have a soul, we are the Soul.
Without the Soul, we are nothing.
Ÿ To realize the truth about the Soul, we must overcome all
the myths that we believe in.
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OUR
ULTIMATE
GOAL
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OUR ULTIMATE GOAL
Having come this far, trying to understand the truth about
the Soul, going through traditional beliefs, mythological
tales, and practically understanding what the Soul is, we
should go one step further to understand our goal as the Soul.
If we think of the Soul to be some mysterious unknown
entity, then our journey to realize the truth about the Soul
comes to an end. The Soul is that Divine Power that is in you
and me. In essence, we are not the body, we are not the
mind, we are the Divine Soul. All along, we live in
ignorance, thinking we have a Soul, rather than realizing we
are the Soul. The ego identies itself to be the form that has a
name and is socially connected to people and things. But this
is a myth as we have understood now, a myth that we have
left behind. Once we become aware that we are the Divine
Soul, whether it is just having the knowledge or realizing the
truth, it opens the door for us to achieve the ultimate goal of
Liberation.
Our quest for the truth helps us overcome the ignorance
about the Soul and makes us realize that we are the Life
Energy, the Divine Power that causes life. Our purpose on
this earth is not just to live and to die. Most people think that
the goal of life is to be happy. That is the goal of the body
and mind, which we are not. The goal of who we truly are,
the Divine Soul is to be liberated. Liberation comes in two
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steps. First, liberation from the triple suffering—the
physical suffering of the body, the misery of the mind and
the agony of the ego. Thereafter, liberation leads to the
second step— liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.
Once we are liberated from this triple suffering of the body,
mind, and ego while alive, we live as a liberated Soul or a
Jivanmukta. What is it to live like a Jivanmukta? A liberated
Soul lives a life of peace, joy, and bliss. Such a person is
conscious of his true existence and doesn't get attached to
people and things. Such a person transcends suffering that
comes from desires and disappointments, from cravings
that lead to heartbreak. A Jivanmukta lives a life of
detachment and dispassion. He is not a slave to his body
senses, but rather becomes a master, not just of the body
and its cravings, but of the mind and its constant
wandering. A liberated one overcomes misery that is born
out of fear, worry, stress, anxiety, hate, revenge, and the
like. Such a person realizes that this world is a cosmic
drama, and nothing is real. We come without anything and
we leave empty-handed. Thus, a Jivanmukta lives
peacefully and blissfully.
The Jivanmukta lives like a Sthitpragya as mentioned by
Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita. Sthitpragya is one who
has a steady intellect. The liberated one or Jivanmukta
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becomes a Sthitpragya when his intellect is the master of his
mind. The mind will continue to think, to wander and to
disturb the liberated one. But a true Jivanmukta, a real
Sthitpragya lives unaffected by the wandering mind. He
realizes that the ego is an illusion. It appears every now and
then, but it is a myth. In reality, he is the Divine Soul. When
one realizes the truth about the Soul, then one is liberated
from suffering and this is just the living benet of the same.
It is achieving the rst part of the goal, living as a liberated
Soul. However, such a liberated one has a larger goal.
Most Eastern religions warn us about getting caught in
Samsara, the constant cycle of death and rebirth. The
Buddha explained it very well when he said that
ultimately, anybody who is born on this earth suffers. We
cannot escape physical pain, just as it is impossible to stop
the mind from wandering. Even a liberated one can fall
prey to the onslaught of the senses and the mind. Every
living being suffers. Therefore, the ultimate goal is to be
liberated from this cycle of death and rebirth.
Normally, we human beings die, and we are then reborn
based on our Karma. Our Karma is not just of the life that
we just nished but is a cumulative account of all our
previous lives that have unsettled Karma. Our next life
depends on our carried forward Karma. Some believe that
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we can be born only as human beings, but there are others
who believe we can be born as an animal or tree. However,
one point is very clear that animals and plants do not create
Karma. Karma is only created by a conscious intelligent
being. It is a result of our thoughts and actions. The 'doer' of
action, Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego - MIME, experiences
Karma through the body when alive. If the 'doer' is reborn
as an animal or plant, provided this theory is true, then that
animal or plant does not create any further Karma in that
life. It only redeems its past Karma. Imagine this is true,
then we can understand the suffering we would experience
if we were born as another living organism that was not a
human.
While there are many theories and beliefs about Karma, the
world, by and large, accepts the existence of this universal
law, which states – As you sow, so shall you reap. It is the Law
of Action and Reaction. If we have performed certain
actions, we cannot escape from the reaction. Death is
sudden. It doesn't wait for us to redeem all actions, good
and bad. Therefore, since we have actions that are
unsettled, we all have a carried forward account which
results in rebirth.
Rebirth itself makes us infer the truth that there is a carry
forward account. Why else would some child be born blind
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and another healthy? Why would some children be born in
wealth and luxury, while others are born in poverty? Our
birth, parents, gender and many other things are beyond
our control—why? It is because of our old carried forward
Karma. If we have good Karma, then we are born in
fortunate circumstances, but if we have bad Karma, then
our birth makes us suffer. Having said so, no human being
who is born and is alive can escape from suffering in this
world. Therefore, the ultimate goal is Nirvana or Moksha. It
means liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth. This is
the ultimate goal of a Jivatma—a human being—that is
body, mind, and Soul.
How does a Jivatma achieve the ultimate goal? As long as
we live with the ignorance that we are the MIME - Mind,
Intellect, Memory, Ego alive in a body, then our actions
create Karma that need to be settled. It may be good or bad.
But the moment we create Karma, we become eligible for
rebirth. Every human being has to act, and thus, there can
be no freedom from action. However, to achieve the
ultimate goal, one has to achieve 'freedom in action'. What
does this mean? Although we act, the actions do not create
Karma because we are not the 'doer' of the action. The
moment we realize we are the Divine Soul, not the body,
mind, and ego, then, the actions are not our actions. The
Soul through the intellect takes command of the body-
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mind complex and makes it act as an instrument of the
Divine. The ego is transcended. There is no 'I'. Such a
realized Soul, living as a Jivanmukta and a Sthitpragya, lives
in the ocean of Samsara. Such a person experiences desires
of the body and cravings of the mind. But he lives like a boat
above the waters of the world. He uses the water to sail
towards his ultimate destination but does not sink in the
water. A truly liberated Soul is said to live like a lotus in a
dirty pond. He is engulfed in the res of duty, lust, and
shame, but he doesn't allow them to drown him in the
allurements of the world. It is not easy. All this needs
tremendous self-discipline and beyond that, the grace of
the Divine. If one has a Spiritual Master who can guide, one
gets the additional strength needed to overcome the desires
of the world and to transcend ignorance. But this is not an
achievement of the ordinary. The one who has realized the
truth and is living as a liberated Soul, free from suffering
and enjoying Divine bliss, achieves his ultimate goal when
he is nally liberated at death.
Though death is certain, the time of death is uncertain. A
Jivanmukta may live for one day or 50 years. That is the
Divine will. But as long as he is alive, he will experience the
onslaught of the world. If he is a truly realized one, he will
experience the rst stage of liberation when alive. But, to
achieve the ultimate goal, he must live like a Jivanmukta till
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his last breath, without losing the battle to the ego, mind,
and body.
What, therefore, is our ultimate goal? At death, when the
Soul is liberated from the body, there are two possibilities.
The MIME—Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego may come alive
in another body. This happens to most of us because we live
and die in ignorance. If we have a carried forward Karma,
there is no way to escape rebirth. The Soul is not as we
imagine. It is not 'my' Soul or 'your' Soul. The Soul is a
Universal Soul. It is Divine consciousness that is everywhere.
But the MIME is the unit of our existence, that will be reborn
as per its cumulative Karma, powered by the Soul.
However, if we have transcended ignorance and realized
the truth that we are not the MIME but the Divine Soul, then
at death of the physical body, there is no MIME, there is no
Karma! The realization of the truth makes us drop all our
carried forward Karma into our grave. The body returns to
dust as the Soul is not only liberated but is also united with
the Divine. This is the ultimate goal of an embodied human
being – to be united with the Cosmic Soul, the Universal
Soul or the Divine.
We human beings are slaves of our mind. Although we
read this truth, the mind refuses to believe it. The mind will
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trick us and ask us for proof and although through
inference, we intuitively realize the Divine truth, the mind
stops us from such realization. It makes us live as MIME -
Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego and makes us create Karma,
therefore continuing the constant journey of life and
afterlife. It makes us suffer. Who suffers? It is not the Soul
that suffers. The Soul is the Divine. It is the conscious
energy that observes everything. It is the power that gives
us life. The Mind and Ego - ME suffers. How can the ME
suffer? Only when it is born in a body. Then it experiences
the suffering of the body, mind and ego and this cycle
continues. Our ultimate goal is to be liberated from this
cycle, to realize we are the Divine Soul and thus, to escape
from Karma and rebirth, and the suffering that we would
otherwise experience life after life.
This entire truth is explained beautifully in the
Kathopanishad, written thousands of years ago. Without any
author claiming the right to the story, the Divine truth in
this Upanishad explains the two possibilities at death. It is
the story of a young boy named Nachiketa. Nachiketa
arrived at the palace of the Lord of death, Yama. Since
Yama was not there, Nachiketa waited for him for three
days. When Yama returned, he asked Nachiketa for a boon.
Nachiketa said, "I want to know the secret of death.” Lord
Yama tried to distract the boy in many ways. He offered
him wealth, women, pleasures of the world but Nachiketa
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refused everything. Even after so much dissuasion, he
insisted that he wanted to know the secret of death. Finally,
Yama explained to him that at death, one of the two things
happens. If we live as the body and the mind, the body will
die and the mind and the ego will be reborn based on our
actions, our Karma. But if we realize the Truth that we are
neither the body nor the mind, then we will be liberated
and we will be unied with the Divine. This is the boon of
realizing who we truly are—the Divine Soul. This is the
secret to escape from the cycle of death and rebirth. This is
the only way and it is called 'self-realization' that leads to
'God-realization'. But there are very few people who are
fortunate like Nachiketa to realize this Truth.
Each of us human beings is blessed with an intellect which
can be used as an instrument of the Soul to slay the ME, Mind
and Ego, and to achieve our ultimate goal, to realize the
truth, to be liberated and ultimately unite with the Divine.
This is the ultimate goal of life, to realize we are not the body,
mind, and ego. We are the Divine Soul. Our ultimate goal is
very simple – to distance ourselves from Karma and to live
as the instrument of the Divine, to live as a Jivanmukta, free
from all misery. Ultimately, at death, not to be reborn, but
for our Soul to be liberated and to unite with the Divine. If
we don't, we the Mind, Intellect, Memory, Ego - MIME will
be reborn and we will suffer as per our Karma. Even though
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we may do good Karma, we will eventually suffer whether
we carry positive or negative Karma.
May the grace of the Divine be upon you so that you realize
you are the Divine Soul and if it be the Lord's will, at the
appropriate time, may you be liberated from the cycle of
death and rebirth and be united with the Divine.
When we go on a quest, we realize the truth.
We are the Divine Soul, we get to the root.
What must we do, what is our role?
To unite with the Divine is our life's ultimate goal.
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TAKEAWAYS
OUR ULTIMATE GOAL
Ÿ There is really no mystery about the Soul. It is the Divine
Power.
Ÿ Our quest makes us overcome ignorance and realize this
truth.
Ÿ We must live as a Jivanmukta and Sthitpragya.
Ÿ Normally, human beings are reborn, but rebirth creates
suffering.
Ÿ The ultimate goal of a human being is Liberation and
Unication with the Divine.
Ÿ Once we realize that we are the Soul and achieve our
goal, we are liberated from suffering and enjoy eternal
peace and everlasting joy.
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THE JOURNEY
OF
MY SOUL
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THE JOURNEY OF MY SOUL
Whatever I have shared in this book is not something
theoretical. It is my own personal experience, my quest, my
discovery, and my realization. The rst 15 years of my life
made me live as a child who was very religious and who
devoutly believed in God. From the time I was 16 years till I
turned 40, my life was full of achievement, success, wealth
and there was no time to even think about the Soul. When I
was 40, I shut down my business to do what I
love—humanitarian, inspirational, and spiritual work. For
6 years, I lived a life of fullment—enjoying peace beyond
th
the pleasure I experienced till then. In my 46 year, my
Spiritual Master and mentor, my Guru—J.P. Vaswani,
whom we fondly called Dada, provoked me to go on a
quest, a search for the truth. Personally, I was seeking
happiness and I believed that I had transformed my life
from achievement to fulllment that came from
contentment. My mentor's provocation made me go
further to seek the ultimate peak of happiness which was
devoid of suffering, a peak I called Enlightenment.
I left everything and set out on my quest, my Talaash. My
quest essentially focused on these nine questions:
1. We all know how a child is conceived and born, but how
is life created in the womb?
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2. What happens after death? The body dies but what
happens to the one who was alive?
3. We all believe in God. What is the reality? Who is God?
Where is God? What is God?
4. Most people believe in heaven or hell but where are they
located? Can we actually go there?
5. Does the Law of Karma actually exist? A law that states
that the actions of this life will be the cause of our rebirth.
6. Is rebirth or reincarnation real? Are we really reborn after
we die?
7. We talk of a Soul. But what exactly is the Soul?
8. What is the purpose of life for us human beings who live
on earth?
9. What is Enlightenment, Salvation, Liberation, Mukti,
Moksha or Nirvana? All religions talk of this being our
ultimate goal, but what exactly is this?
In quest for answers to these questions, I left the world and
went into a retreat alone into the mountains. I was
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determined to nd the truth and the answers to the
questions that I set out in quest for, since I wanted to
understand birth, death, God, heaven, Karma, rebirth,
purpose, Enlightenment and the Soul. I knew nothing
about this, apart from what the world mumbles. I carried
with me not just all the scriptures of all the possible
religions that I could lay my hands on, I also carried books
of philosophers and authors of theology and spirituality
that opened my mind to all possibilities. My quest lasted for
2 years. It started in 2012 when I was 46. On the 31st of
August, 2014, I experienced my spiritual moment of 'Aha!'
By then, I had many perspectives on the questions I was
trying to decode. But on this day, it seemed that I had solved
the spiritual jigsaw puzzle of my life. All the pieces of my
search came together. I realized the truth about the Soul.
My realization made me transcend my body, my mind, and
ego. Till then, I believed that I was Ravi Melwani, a
successful businessman who had achieved many things in
life. My realization impelled me to change my name. I was
not Ravi— Ravi was just my name. I was AiR, Atman in
Ravi. I realized that I was not the body that I wore. I was the
Soul who was empowering the body. I instantly gave up
whatever I was doing after realizing the truth about life.
st
From 1 September 2014, there was a metamorphosis in my
life and I started living as the Divine Soul.
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My realization came after 48 years of ignorance and I am
grateful both to my Guru, Dada and the Divine, without
whose grace I would have continued to wander in
ignorance. We are all Divine Souls embodied in this body-
mind complex and we suffer due to our ignorance.
The realization of the truth liberated me from the triple
suffering of the body, mind, and ego. For over 5 years now,
I have lived blissfully as an embodied Soul, conscious of the
truth that I am not the one I thought I was for 48 years. As
st
far as my Soul is concerned, it seemed like it was born on 1
September 2014, although all along, it was the very cause of
my existence. Since then, I have had only one goal – to live
as the Soul and to be ultimately liberated and unite with the
Divine. I have been blessed with a mission to do nothing
else in life, other than to help people realize the truth. My
Soul's journey has been a blissful one. Living as a
Jivanmukta doesn't excuse me from the onslaught of the
craving of the senses of the body. Like anybody else, my
eyes see; I hear, smell, taste, and touch. All these create
thoughts and feelings, but I have realized that as the Soul,
the instrument of liberation is my intellect. I use my
intellect to control my mind from producing distracting
thoughts, just as I use it to discriminate and choose to do
what is right.
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Till I was 48 years old, I was a slave to my body senses. I was
very passionate, and my life was full of obsessions. When I
realized I was the Divine Soul, I used my power of
discrimination to live a life of detachment and dispassion,
renouncing all those things that would take me back to live
as Ravi, not AiR. The reason I changed my name was to
become conscious of who I truly was. I was AiR, Atman in
Ravi – the Soul. I was not what I appeared to be or the one
my Identity card identied me as. Though my passport and
bank accounts continue to have my birth name, that is not
the truth of who I actually am as per my spiritual
realization.
My Soul's journey continues to enjoy bliss and peace. It is
very different to live as a Soul, not a body-mind that we
normally think ourselves to be. Living with detachment
and renunciation doesn't reduce our bliss. Rather we enjoy
peace and happiness, unknown to the common man. We
become free from disappointments and defeats, from petty
annoyances like hurts and heartbreaks. A realized Soul
lives without fear, worry, stress, and anxiety. I started
enjoying a blissful existence as the Soul, like I never did
before. How did I live as the Soul? After crossing the 4
doors of discrimination, dispassion, discipline, and desire
for liberation, my life as a Divine Soul led me on to live in a
state of Yoga.
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What is the true meaning of Yoga? Yoga means Union. To
live in Yoga means to live as the Divine Soul that is united
with the Universal Supreme Soul. Every moment of my life,
I try to be in Yoga. It may be Dhyana Yoga – a union through
meditation, Bhakti Yoga, union through devotion, Gyana
Yoga, union through education and wisdom or Karma Yoga,
union through action. Whatever I do, whether I remain still
in silence, I pray, or I do anything, I try not to lose my
Divine connection. This is easiest to understand when we
compare it to a good SIM card, that never loses connection
with the satellite. The moment it loses connection, we lose
the network. It continues to be my earnest effort to always
be in the network of the Divine. It is not uncommon for the
body-mind to disconnect the Soul from Yoga. But our
challenge is to regain the connection as soon as we can.
Every liberated Soul who is alive will experience desires of
the body and the wandering of the mind. I do not deny this
truth. I will be lying if I say that I have no desire or craving.
But my Soul makes me realize that these are not my desires.
I realize that I live in a body-mind complex and I try to
transcend my ego, as I live as the Divine Soul. This helps me
overcome all the desires and expectations of a normal
human being.
My Soul has travelled forward in these past 5 years and
every day is a new learning, a step towards the ultimate
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THE JOURNEY OF MY SOUL
goal. The moment one realizes the truth that we are the
Divine Soul, this realization can never be reversed.
Suppose, while living in a small rented house, you realize
that the house opposite yours, a large villa which has been
locked for 3 years and is the most luxurious home one could
dream of, actually belonged to you, what would you do? If
a lawyer friend brought you a document that showed that
the elderly man who owned the villa was actually your
grandfather and had willed it to you after his death, would
you still live in that small rented house after realizing that
the large bungalow opposite your house actually belonged
to you? Most likely you would move into your own house
once you realize the truth.
So also, once I realized the truth and enjoyed the
blissfulness of being the Soul, it made no sense for me to go
back and live as the body and mind. However, in this case,
it is not out of choice, but because I am embodied, I am
dragged into the world that tries to make me miserable. It
takes a lot of conviction after true realization to live as the
Divine Soul. My mind often plays tricks on me. It confuses
me with its thoughts, just as it drags me into losing the bliss
of the Soul by pulling me into the world, whether it is
through reminding me of my duties, or dragging me into
the desires of lust. Even further, it threatens me with
shame! The mind is an expert in stopping the realized one
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THE JOURNEY OF MY SOUL
from achieving the ultimate goal of liberation.
So, I live a life with a constant war within. My realized self,
battles with the mind and ego and senses of the body. This
war is constant and ongoing. It never stops. Unless I live
being conscious of who I truly am, I can easily lose the
battle. What helps me is my constant Yoga, my Divine
connection and what helped me for many years was the
grace and guidance of my Guru, who left the earthly abode
a year ago, after traversing it for a hundred years. He lived
like a Divine Soul and his life was a testimony.
I face a challenge because of my worldly blessings. I am
blessed with a lot of wealth, property, name and fame and it
is very easy for me to fall in this well of worldly
possessions. I am grateful that I do not sink into them. I
know I am only a trustee, a custodian of all this. Nothing
belongs to me, the Soul that I truly am. All this seems to be
owned by the body that I live in and so, I try to be a good
caretaker of these possessions. I try to effectively use the
wealth that I am blessed with, doing humanitarian and
spiritual work—as much as I can. My Guru taught me that I
was not one who could run away from all this into the
forest. I was born to live like Raja Janak, a king who was a
liberated Soul. My challenge is to live as the Soul, despite all
the attractions and distractions that surround me.
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The journey of my Soul continues. I have just one goal – to
continue living as a liberated being, free from the yearnings
of the body, mind and ego and to be ultimately liberated at
death. That is my ultimate goal. I seek nothing else. Since
there can be no freedom from action, I surrender myself to
be an instrument of the Divine and I follow Divine
instructions that lead to all my bodily actions. If my mind
and body are going astray, I immediately try to bring them
back. Such is the journey of my Soul. I do everything
possible to help people realize the truth and I surrender all
the results of my actions to the Divine, knowing that I do
nothing. I am just an instrument. Everything is done by the
Divine.
Even as I write this book, I know that it is not I who is writing
this book. I realize that it is my Soul that is receiving the
manuscript as a Divine receptor and then, transcribing it into
a book that may be published and that will help people
realize the truth. I have written over 1070 Bhajans—spiritual
songs. I realize that all this comes to me as a message from the
Divine. I do nothing. I only receive it and transcribe it. I even
sing, but it is the Divine energy that makes me sing. I was
never formally coached or trained as others are, in Indian
classical singing. Because I live in Divine surrender and
accept everything that comes to me as Divine Prasad, I
continue to live a life of peace and bliss, knowing that I am
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nothing, just a dot of Divine energy encapsulated in this
body.
Finally, I am nothing but a wave, a wave that comes from
the Divine ocean and goes back into the Divine ocean.
Every breath of mine is a gift from the Divine. Every act of
mine is controlled by the Lord. I am nothing, I do nothing. I
just try to live as a Divine Soul, every moment that I am
blessed with, till ultimately, the breath will stop. Then if it
be the Will Divine, and if the grace of the Divine be upon
this Soul that is embodied in me, I will be liberated to unite
with the Divine.
||Neti Neti || Tat Tvam Asi ||
||SHIVOHAM||
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Let me share with you the journey of my Soul.
For 48 years, I was ignorant,
I blindly played my role.
Then, I went on a quest to find,
I was the Divine Soul,
not the body and mind.
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TAKEAWAYS
THE JOURNEY OF MY SOUL
Ÿ For 46 years, I was ignorant about the truth.
Ÿ My spiritual master, my Guru, provoked me to go on a quest.
Ÿ I took 9 questions and went in Talaash, in search of the truth.
Ÿ My realization made me transcend ego, body and mind.
Ÿ I realized that I was the Soul and changed my name to
AiR – Atman in Ravi.
Ÿ The realization of the truth liberated me from the triple
suffering of the ego, body, and mind.
Ÿ For the last 5 years, I have been living as the Soul in Yoga,
in Divine Union.
Ÿ I face a constant challenge, a war within. But my
realization helps me live as the Soul.
Ÿ My ultimate goal is to be liberated and to unite with the
Divine at death.
Ÿ Till then, I have only one mission – to help people realize
the truth that they are the Divine Soul.
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SOUL
POEM
133
SOUL POEM
What is the Soul, have you ever thought?
Or is it a mystery in which you are caught?
We all have a Soul, we seem to know
Let's realize the truth before it is time to go
It is the Soul that makes me live
But, is it the one that makes me forgive?
What is the function of the Soul?
What does it do to make me whole?
Body, mind, heart and Soul
Each has a specic role
The body moves and the mind does think
The heart beats, and the Soul? I blink
I have been taught that the Soul's in me
It makes me who I am meant to be
It is with me when I live, till I die
And then, I am told, it ies in the sky
Where does the Soul go and how? I wonder
It goes to heaven, how? I ponder
Everybody says, “We have a Soul”
To search for it is now my goal
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SOUL POEM
My eyes and nose I can touch and feel
My mind, it wanders, my peace it does steal
Aha! Now I know what my Soul does do
It gives me life, I have got the clue
The Soul is a power that gives me breath
Without the Soul, there would be death
It comes to me just as I am born
And it leaves me when life is gone
Without the Soul, I would be dead
I wouldn't talk, wouldn't eat bread
My Soul is alive in every cell
It makes me pray and ring the bell
The Soul is energy, it gives me power
It makes me grow tall like a tower
But once it leaves, I can't even bend
And my life story comes to an end
What is the Soul? I stopped to think
So many tales that make me blink
The truth by now I am sure I know
It is Divine Life that makes me glow
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SOUL POEM
What is our life's ultimate goal?
To nd the truth about the Soul
Before life is over, and it is time to die
We must nd the truth, not in ignorance lie
Is my Soul different from yours? I think
I question and try to nd the link
Just like there is one power source in my house, I know
That makes both gadgets work and the lights glow
And so, there is just one life source
It appears different, but it is one, of course!
It is energy that creates all life
In me, my parents, my kids, my wife
Not just in human beings it is
In animals and plants, it's also this
It is this Power that makes birds y
And everything alive on earth and sky
What is this Power, the Soul that we call?
What is this Power that is alive in us all?
To discover the truth about the Soul
Is our life's Ultimate Goal
136
SOUL POEM
The Soul is not mortal, it is Divine
It is not yours, it is not mine
It is the Lord that lives in us
To realize this truth, we have missed the bus
We never realize that God's in our heart
He never leaves us, never goes apart
It's strange through life for Him we search
In temple and mosque and in every church
God comes to us just as we are born
He creates life and life goes on
Until the moment that He decides to leave
We are alive, we must believe
He has blessed us with body and mind
But that He's within, we never nd
We live in this world, we suffer and cry
Until one day, we nally die
The body of ours returns to dust
But our actions, of course, redeem we must
Therefore, while the body remains on earth
Our mind and ego takes rebirth
137
SOUL POEM
As per our Karma we are reborn
The universal law makes the circle go on
Happy or unhappy, it's not by luck
Our life’s circumstances does Karma pluck
And we, like fools, think it is the Soul
That is reborn and pays the toll
Know the Soul is only the power
That gives us life every hour
As long as we live in ignorance, we return
To suffer on earth, turn by turn
Because we think we are the ego and mind
We have to go through the rebirth grind
But once we realize we are the Soul
Not the body and mind as we were told
It is then from this cycle we are free
And with our Lord forever we can be
Then there is no Karma, it is not ME
I am the Soul, now I am free
There is no rebirth, once I know the truth
If only I get to the bottom of the root
138
SOUL POEM
At death, I will not return to earth
My mind and ego won't take rebirth
My Soul with God will then unite
And I will become one with the light
But how should I get Liberation?
It is only possible with Realization
I must overcome ignorance of the ego and mind
Then I will be liberated, I will nd
It all starts by going on a quest
And putting all my beliefs to test
When I ask and investigate, I then realize
It's when I open my 'real-eyes'
I am the Soul, I can never know
This truth I must realize before I go
After realizing the truth, as a Soul I must live
Not as an ego, that will give and forgive
I am not 'I', this is how we must start
Everything is God, in body, mind and heart
When I live as Divine Energy
It is then from the world I will be free
139
SOUL POEM
We think that the Soul is in us
Of course, this is true
But what we don’t know is that it’s all around us
This news is new
We have a Soul, that’s what we’re told
It gives us life and we live
But the truth is we are the Soul
Old lies we must forget and forgive
It is not easy to live as the Soul
For in the body, there is many a hole
These senses are seeking, they desire, they crave
And they take us to our mortal grave
But if we have the Divine grace
That pours its blessings on our earthly face
Then we will live on earth but be free
And when we die, merge with eternity
This is the purpose of man on earth
To escape from death and rebirth
To realize the truth, we are the Soul
And to unite with God, is our Ultimate Goal By
140
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR -
AiR
141
ABOUT THE AUTHOR - AiR
AiR – Atman in Ravi, is an embodied Soul whose only
mission in life is to help people realize the Truth. He was
born in Bangalore on October 15, 1966. At a very young age,
Ravi V. Melwani mastered the craft of business and became
a very successful businessman who revolutionized
retailing in India with the stores KidsKemp, Big KidsKemp,
and Kemp Fort.
After making millions, he realized that life is not just about
making money. He shut down his business at the age of 40,
transformed his life from Ravi V. Melwani to RVM, living
by the RVM philosophy – Rejoice, Value Life, and Make a
Difference. He started doing H.I.S. work – Humanitarian,
Inspirational and Spiritual work. His mission was to 'Make
a Difference' in this world before his journey was over.
As a part of the humanitarian initiative, a charitable
hospital and charitable homes were set up with an aim to
provide free medical treatment and care to the poor,
destitute, and needy. Today, over 600 homeless and
suffering people are served and cared for in destitute
homes and provided with free shelter, food, clothing, and
medical care.
142
ABOUT THE AUTHOR - AiR
A School of Inspiration was set up that inspired the lives of
many people through motivating talks, inspirational books
and videos, and thought-provoking quotes.
A Shiva Temple was built in the year 1995 in Bangalore,
which is now known as the Shivoham Shiva Temple. AiR
now believes that religion is just a kindergarten of
Spirituality, and we all have to go beyond religion to truly
realize God.
One day, his Guru provoked him to introspect: What is the
purpose of life? Is life just meant to seek pleasures and to
live and die without any purpose? What happens after
death? Will we be reborn? Where is God? Several questions
like these took him on a quest, a search for the Truth. He
gave up his life of Achievement and Fullment in search of
the nal peak of life: Enlightenment.
After a few years of intense search in retreat, deep in the
mountains, he realized that we are not this Body. We are the
Soul, the Atman. He changed his name to AiR –Atman in
Ravi. He metamorphosed to AiR and gave up his entire life
as RVM and started living as an instrument of God doing
His Divine Will. This led to several Realizations that formed
143
ABOUT THE AUTHOR - AiR
his new mission of life – to help people Realize the Truth.
Since then, AiR's life has been dedicated to reaching out
and helping people to eradicate the ignorance that we live
in. While the Truth is the Truth, our mind still resists from
accepting it. Based on his realizations, AiR has published
several books, written bhajans, blogs, quotes and poems
and has taken up several other initiatives that can direct
people towards the Truth like conducting AiR Spiritual
Retreats and giving talks that help people evolve in their
spiritual journey to realize the Truth. He is a TEDx speaker
and is also invited to speak at several organizations like
YPO (Young Presidents' Organization), Rotary Club, Lions
Club, and at many corporates, schools, and colleges.
Started with nothing
Became something…
Achieved everything
Only to realize we are nothing!
144
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
1. Talaash
Talaash means ‘search’ or a ‘quest’. This book
by AiR recounts his own spiritual quest for the
Ultimate Truth that led him to the realization
that we are neither the body nor the mind, but
the Divine Soul.
2. 3 Peaks of Happiness
This book talks about the universal quest of
humanity—Happiness. It explains the ways
through which people can reach the third peak of
happiness—Enlightenment which lies beyond
the two peaks of happiness—Achievement and
Fullment. The third peak liberates us from the
prisons of misery and sorrow and gives us eternal
Joy and Bliss.
3. My Guru, My Mentor, My God on Earth
This book is AiR’s tribute to his Guru, Dada J.P.
Vaswani. AiR shares his experiences with
Dada and how Dada’s philosophy and
teachings were instrumental in guiding him to
145
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
begin his spiritual quest and bringing about the
transformation in him.
4. I will Never Die, Death is Not “The End”
In the journey of his life, AiR realized many
truths. One of the truths is a revelation—we
never die; Death is not the end but a bend to
transcend. The body will die, but the one who
lives in the body never dies.
5. Death is Not “The End.” Death is
“Liberation”
The second book by AiR in the series of books on
‘Death’ touches upon the secret of Kathopanishad
which talks about what happens after death.
One of the two things can happen: if we think we
are the Body and Mind as a doer, we are reborn,
but if we realize that we are the Soul and not the
body and mind, we are liberated to eternal joy
and peace.
6. I Am Not I. Who am I?
This is an insightful book by AiR which talks of his quest
and realization that we are not who we think we are. We
146
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
have a house but we are not the house. We have
a car but we are not the car. Similarly, we have a
body but we are not the body. Then, who are
we?
7. The Mind is a Rascal
Can you believe that the mind is a rascal? You
always thought that the mind is king—it is
everything. But just try this. Sit quietly for an
hour, and try to nd the mind. Where is it? You
will realize that the mind doesn't exist. This
amazing book by AiR will teach us that the
mind is our enemy. It is the one that makes us
suffer. It is time to nd the rascal and kill it.
How do we do this—is revealed in the book.
8. A Cosmic Drama
This book challenges the reader to explore the
illusory nature of this world—whatever is
happening in life is not real; it is nothing but a
Cosmic Drama. If we understand this simple
truth, we can enjoy the show called life.
147
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
9. Who is God? Where is God? What is God?
Well, this might seem to be a simple set of
questions but nobody really knows the
answers. We all know that God exists. We pray
to a God as per our Religion but what is the
Truth about God? Has anybody seen God?
Where is God? This simple book will change
your perception and belief about God and
bring you closer to the Power called God. It will
help you realize God.
10. The A to Z of Karma
Most people are aware of the concept of Karma
– the Universal Law that states, “What you give
is what you get.” But not everybody knows the
A to Z of Karma that we can actually transcend
Karma, escape from it and achieve Liberation
or Moksha. This book reveals the secret of
eternal Joy and Peace—a life without any
misery or suffering.
11. Who Are You and Why are You Here?
This is a simple book that prompts us to ask the
right questions to discover the secret of our
148
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
life—who we are in reality and what the purpose of our life
is. The answers to these questions hold the key to a
purposeful, meaningful and blissful life.
12. The 4th Factor
Man thinks that his Karma controls everything
and he can achieve anything through his
efforts, equipment, and the method of his
actions. But he is ignorant about something
which is more powerful than Karma—the 4th
factor. This is an informative book that makes
the readers understand why things happen the
way they happen and even if ten people use the
same equipment and perform the same action,
still, they never produce the same results,
because apart from their own action, each person seems to
th
be graced with another factor—the 4 factor that is beyond
human comprehension and without its consent
even the possible becomes impossible.
13. Be Happy in the NOW!
Every human being on earth wants to be
happy. There is nobody who enjoys pain.
People want to achieve Happiness but they fail
149
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
to realize that Happiness is the journey itself, not the
destination. Then, what is the secret of eternal Joy, Bliss,
and Peace? It is being Happy in the NOW. With this book,
AiR hopes to inspire people to live life moment by moment,
if they really want to be Happy.
14. Questions You Must Answer before you Die!
Most of us live and die but we don't ask the
question—Why? We just exist! This book
presents a series of important questions with
answers that can guide us to the realization of
the Truth and help us live with meaning,
purpose, and joy.
15. Suffer No More
‘Suffer No More’ is a personal experience of
overcoming anguish, anxiety, distress, and
grief. It is an analysis of suffering, what causes it
and how we can overcome it. While there is
pain, we can do away with suffering. This book
will tell us how!
150
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
16.SuccessisnotHappiness,HappinessisSuccess
People want to win because this makes them
Happy, just as failure makes them miserable.
This book explains how success does not
bring happiness and how this belief is only an
illusion. In fact, instead of chasing success, we
should try to be happy! That is true success.
17. God = Happiness
In his quest to discover Truth and the purpose
of life, the author realized that people didn't
know where exactly to search for Happiness.
This is a book that takes us far beyond religion
to Realize the Truth about God and how God is
Happiness.
18. Life! Realized!!
This book is a personal reection of the author
on his several realizations about everything
that matters in the journey of life— the
realizations that he attained while on his
quest for the Truth.
151
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
19. True Love is Bliss…Not Just a Kiss
It is sad that love which is the source of joy and
happiness is not understood by the world. This
book is an attempt to explore True Love that is
beyond passion, romance, and kisses. True
Love is White Divine Love from the Soul that
manifests as the 7 colours of human love from
the day we are born till the day we die.
20. True Meaning of Yoga
Yoga, today, is primarily taught as a set of
body postures and breathing exercises. But
this is not true Yoga! Yoga, in reality, is a
Union with the Divine. This book attempts
to explain everything about Yoga, its
meaning and signicance, how it must be
practised and how through Yoga, one can
be liberated and experience Ultimate Divine
Peace and Bliss.
21. The Ultimate Goal of Life, MEN —
Moksha, Enlightenment, Nirvana
The three most tenable concepts—Moksha,
Enlightenment, Nirvana are discussed in this
152
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
book that can help us reach our Ultimate Goal of Liberation
and then Unication with the Divine.
22. Religion! A Kindergarten to Spirituality!!
This book discusses how Religion is only the
rst step towards God-Realization. We do
not realize that Religion is only a
Kindergarten, of which Spirituality is the
University, and together they can lead us to
God-realization.
23. Why Bad Things Can’t Happen to Good
People!
This book helps us understand that this
world has been created by the Divine and it
operates through certain Universal Laws that
need no intervention by the Creator. Bad
things can never happen to good people, just
as apples can’t grow on mango trees!
24. LIFE is...Liberation from Ignorance and
Finding true Enlightenment
What is Life all about? Most people exist but they don't
truly live. They just zoom from womb to tomb, and then life
153
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
is over. They don't stop to think about their
life’s true purpose. In the pursuit of happiness,
success, and achievement, people don't realize
that though they may gain a lot of these, they
lose their most precious gift—life itself.
25. The Ladder to Heaven
While we pray to God calling God by different names, the
vast majority of humanity believes in God and aspires to go
to their God in heaven one day. It doesn't
matter what our religion is, there is a way to
reach God. There is a Ladder that can take us to
heaven but we need to ascend the rungs of
belief, prayer, faith, hope, trust and so on. This
book is an effort to help genuine seekers of God
to climb the Ladder to Heaven. It shows a step
by step way to God-realization as we pass
through self-realization, overcoming the
ignorance that we live in.
26. FEAR- False Expectations Appearing Real
Through this book, the author wishes to help people
change their paradigm and live with courage—that they
should take appropriate precautions and not panic. The
154
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR
world has changed because of Coronavirus!
But it's up to us to live with FEAR or to live
with FAITH. There is a difference between
Fear and Danger but most of humanity lives
with the constant fear of disease and death.
For the rst time ever, all the countries of the
world have closed their borders and shut
down their economies. Facts conrm that
when compared to the Spanish u, it is not as fatal a
pandemic as the world thinks it to be. This book F E A R,
will help readers overcome these tough times of the global
pandemic.
And Now …
27. Soul
Coming soon …
28. But we Pray!
155
If you have any questions on happiness, suffering, success,
life, rebirth, liberation or anything related to spirituality,
you can visit Ask AiR, ask your questions and AiR will
answer them.
Please visit the following link
www.air.ind.in/ask_air/
Subscribe & follow
for Spiritual Videos & Quotes
AiR-Atman in Ravi
||Om Namah Shivaya|| ||Shivoham||
Visit or Scan the QR Code
to download the AiR - Atman in Ravi App.
A.i.R.
AiR Institute of Realization
www.air.ind.in | [email protected] Ask Investigat e Realize
156
We don’t have a Soul...We are the Soul!
What is the Soul? Do you have a Soul? Will your Soul go to heaven after you
die? Haven’t you heard such questions about the Soul? But what is the truth
that remains unknown to humanity?
Like any other myth, the myth of the Soul is one of the greatest mysteries in
the world and one that most people have not been able to unravel. We live
and die thinking that we have a Soul. Most of us believe that our Soul will be
reborn. We also think that there are ‘good’ Souls and ‘bad’ Souls, but we have
not realized the truth about the Soul.
When a person dies, we say, “May his Soul rest in peace” or “Let us pray for
the departed Soul.” Little do we realize that we are completely ignorant
about the truth of the Soul! This book will help us overcome the mystery of
the Soul and realize that we don’t have a Soul, we are the Soul! This realization
will liberate us from all the misery and suffering of the world!
157
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