·       Sakthi Vikatan - 21 Jan, 2014

TreeInTheSeed06

Soul is Imperishable

Author: Sēvaratṉā Dr. T.S. Narayanaswamy. Images: Aras

We can control the sense organs. When the sensual experiences affect the mind, it (mind) breaks through vairākkiyam (freedom from worldly desires) and wants to immerse back in those sense experiences. Then, we can control them, helped by intellect.

Bhagavan Krishna says in Bhagavadgita, having controlled the sense organs, it is stupidity to entertain in the mind those experiences.

Therefore, mind needs to be controlled. How do we do it?

When we see an object, we react with like or dislike depending on our intellectual power or our real state of mind.

A woman in the shop desires to buy a sari. How many saris does she see? How many likes and dislikes the saris provoke in her mind? What is rejected by one woman is liked and bought by another woman. These acts are not intellect-dependent, but on taste and preference.

      Without the participation of the sense organs, mind can experience happiness or agony. Mind does not easily come within the ambit of wisdom or intellect. Mind is the principal cause of distress in life. Mind is intimately connected to the heart. That is why love, bond, friendship, anger, and grief affect the heart a great deal. There is concurrent affliction of the mind and heart.

Not just that. Mental distress afflicts digestive and evacuative functions.

State of mind or personality is changeable from person to person. Birth history, family circumstances, knowledge, childhood experiences… affect the mind and personality. Brain disorders afflict the state of mind. That is why we call them mental patients.

Body is important; intellect and mind are more important. Ātmā, the inimitable power, orchestrates all these entities, standing apart from them and their acts.

Āṉmā is a powerhouse. It is a hypostatic power. It gives sustenance to the body. Once it goes, the life goes.  That is death.

Āṉmā is the dynamic power capable of energizing and activizing the bodily organs and functions. Āṉmā does not take responsibility, credit or blame for its induction of successes and failures, desires and bondages, and joys and agonies.

As an example, let us take electricity, which passes along two wires from one end to the other end. What is connected on the other end determines the power and function of the electricity.

If electricity is connected to a refrigerator, its contents become cold. If it is the hot iron, it helps remove the wrinkles in the clothes.  The light bulb emits light. When connected to a tape recorder, sound is produced. When connected to TV, sound and picture appear. The connected appliances bring out the functions of electricity, variable from appliance to appliance.

Likewise, in the body made of five organs, Āṉma, the unique power, expresses the disparate functions of various organs. They differ from man to man, depending on time, circumstances, mental state, personality…

When the electricity is cut, the appliances do not work (go dead). Likewise, when Āṉma separates from the body, it becomes useless, lifeless and dead.

There are many explanations for birth and death in the scientific sense. Spirituality, the true knowledge explains birth and death in a different dimension.

Man’s body is made of five great elements: Earth, water, fire, air, and ether. They come together in a sequence and in particular proportions. The body is a conglomeration of disparate elements. When Āṉmā enters and stays in the physical body, a universe of human faculties appears and becomes active. That is birth.

When Āṉmā (soul) leaves the body, the dead body is incinerated or buried, breaks up with the release of the great elements, which unite with the respective Great Elements. The bones and muscles unite with the earth, blood and lymph with water, body heat with Agni or fire, the breath with the air, and the empty spaces of the body with ether.  The five elements come together to make the body and go back to them upon death. The scientists accept the explanation.

This conglomeration and dissipation back into the great elements are special to the body. With the death of the body, the mind, intellect… disappear. But Āṉmā does not disappear.

Indestructible Āṉmā appears with birth (in a corporeal body). It does not disappear with death. It enters another body and takes birth in an embodied form. Or it attains or merges with God. Therefore, Āṉmā is the highest. It has no bonds. It has no Malams or impurities.  Bhagavan says in Gita, ‘Body dies, Āṉmā is indestructible (lives forever).’ 

Ātmā is Braḥmam;

This Braḥmam is Ambrosia;

Eternal; indestructible.

Ātmā is Satyam (Truth);

It is eternal in existence;

It is a form of truth.

He who knows Ātmā lives without fear.

--Prajāpati Vidya