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Chapter 6: Guru's Explanation about the Existence of the Soul
Thus, this illusory concept leads to identifying the bodily activities with those of the soul. If one thinks properly, it can be easily seen that the soul and the body are distinct and different; they have different characteristics. The soul is pure consciousness, which is intangible, shapeless, and formless. It is inherently imbibed with awareness. That property enables it to comprehend and to know. That knowing property is the exclusive characteristic of the soul. No other substance possesses that property.
On the other hand, the body is the aggregation of lifeless matter called Pudgal. It does not have knowing capability. Touch, taste, sight and smell are its principal attributes. Heavy or light, rough or smooth, hot or cold, and sticky or dry are the eight types of touch, of which every Pudgal particle has four types. Sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and acrid are the five types of taste, and every particle can have one or more of those tastes. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red are the seven colors (scriptures lay down white, black, yellow, red, and green as the main colors). Every particle has one of those or a color derived therefrom. Good odor and bad odor are two types of smell and every particle has one of them.
But soul does not have any of those attributes. Thus body and soul are totally different substances. They have distinctly different characteristics. During the embodied state, however, the soul has to stay within some body and occupies the same space that the body occupies. They thus stay together during the life span. That concurrent occupation creates the illusion of identification. That illusory approach is termed as Adhyäs. Under the influence of that Adhyäs, one thinks itself as the body and treats the comforts and discomforts of the body as its own. If there is some injury to the body, the soul feels as if it is experiencing the pain. If the body needs food for recouping its energy, the soul feels as if it is hungry. Such Adhyös leads to desire, and any desire is the root cause of wandering from birth to birth. During that wandering, it migrates from one body to another. But its Adhyas continues to stay and it tends to identify
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