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to be a sensory organ]. Yet we are immortal and eternal and the repository of joy.21
Gosvami Tulsidas says:
The individual soul is part of the eternal God and is the storehouse of consciousness and joy. But, it has been under the control of maya and is tied and bound to it as domesticated parrots and monkeys.
Now listen to Sant Kabir:
Oh brothers, I cannot understand this mystery. The tiger cub has been taken by the cat.
Who would believe that a tiger cub has been stolen by a cat and that cat is running with it? The individual soul (jivatman) like the tiger cub is inseparable from God and is beyond old age and death. It has come into the grip of maya, just like the cat.
Oh mind, you dance in all directions owing to the effects of maya. As the magician makes his monkey dance with the noose of his rope, so the noose of desires rules the mind. The monkey bows to everyone and forgets about his own nature. O humans! You do the same when you dance night and day for the desires of the flesh rather than for the divine name. Why do you dance perpetually, deluded by this maya (illusion which deludes the mind to run after desires)?
We must remember this: We are conscious and the mind is unconscious. The battle between consciousness and
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