________________
Immortality
Soul but to the Deed done.
is the manifestation of the forms of this
bye-product of matter and material forces long to the revealing as these do in the phenomenon of
consciousness which is otherwise called by the name of soul or åtman. Just as lightning flashes across the horizon from the action and interaction of the stored-up energies and powers in the etherial space of the sky, so the consciousness flashes across the so-called mental horizon wherein matter and material energies are stored up in their most subtle character. Such being the attitude of mind of the followers of the system of Chårvåka philosophy towards the soul, they say it is not the soul that is immortal ; but the deeds done by the mighty minds that are imperishable and immortal. In the moral as well as in physical world, the great ones only immortalise themselves by their great achievements, but their souls die and cease to be with them at the death and dissolution of the organisms wherein they appear to be encased as it were.
This denial by the Chårvåkas of the different entity and immortality of the soul
268